Tag: lindsey graham

Week 119 in Trump

Posted on May 8, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Of all people, Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napolitano penned an op-ed supporting Mueller and objecting to Barr’s handling of the report. It strikes me here that the Mueller report lists 127 interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, and not one person involved didn’t lie about them. Anyway, Napolitano says what anyone who read the Mueller report knows—Bill Barr was wrong to try to absolve Trump of obstruction of justice. Napolitano also says what Trump did was “unlawful, defenseless and condemnable” and it’s up to House Democrats to decide whether to impeach.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. Someone leaks a letter that Robert Mueller sent to Attorney General William Barr at the end of March objecting to the letter Barr released outlining his own summary of the Mueller report. The letter said:
    • Barr misrepresented Mueller’s findings.
    • Mueller wanted more of the report to come out.
    • Mueller had already provided Barr with redacted summaries of each of the report’s volumes, which were ready in March to be released to the public.
    • Barr’s summary didn’t capture the context, nature, and substance of Mueller’s findings.
    • Barr’s summary caused public confusion.
  1. As for Barr himself, he dismisses the letter in his congressional testimony by saying, “The letter’s a bit snitty and I think it was probably written by one of his staff people.”
  2. The letter also shows that Barr lied to Congress when he previously told them that he didn’t know whether Mueller had taken issue with his summary and subsequent public comments on the report.
  3. Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the start, Lindsey Graham has to be reminded to swear him in, and then right off the bat, Barr contradicts what was in Mueller’s letter to him.
    • Committee Chair Lindsey Graham admits he hasn’t read the full report.
    • When pressed on Mueller accusing Barr of failing to capture context and substance in his summary, Barr tries to focus blame on the media.
    • Barr says (despite Mueller’s letter) that he didn’t know Mueller or his staff disagreed with his summary.
    • Barr defends Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice, despite the evidence laid out by Mueller.
    • Republicans on the committee weren’t really concerned about the nearly dozen instances of attempted obstruction detailed in the Mueller report. They mostly asked questions about investigating the investigators and about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
    • That’s OK, though, because Barr’s with them. He confirms he’s already started a review of how the FBI handled the Russia and Clinton email investigations.
    • Barr says he didn’t review Mueller’s underlying evidence before making a decision on obstruction charged. He didn’t look at the underlying evidence of possible coordination either.
    • And that totally explains why he doesn’t understand why Mueller would investigate obstruction of justice if he knew he couldn’t charge Trump under DOJ rules.
    • Barr says he hasn’t seen the report that launched the FBI investigation (the one provided by an Australian diplomat about George Papadopoulos). Despite calling for an investigation into the FISA warrant, Barr has not yet looked at the underlying evidence here. Earlier in his testimony, Barr told Lindsey Graham that he had concerns about how the investigation started (though apparently not enough concern to review the existing evidence).
    • Barr doesn’t even know what data Paul Manafort shared with a Russian operative nor who the Russian is, so as it turns out, Barr hasn’t read the full Mueller report either.
      • Hint: It was campaign polling data, and Manafort shared it with Konstantin Kilimnik. This is a large section in the Mueller report, and I’m not sure how it’s possible Barr didn’t know this.
    • Barr defends Trump’s attempts to fire Mueller, saying that a president can fire Special Counsel for conflict of interest. But he couldn’t come up with any specific conflicts of interest that might’ve existed.
    • Barr defends his use of the word “spying” for the FBI obtaining a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
    • Barr continues to say Trump fully cooperated, though Trump said he didn’t recall over 30 times in his written answers to Mueller.
    • Barr disputes Trump’s claim of being totally exonerated. Barr says he didn’t exonerate him either.
    • Barr says he “can’t fathom” why the FBI didn’t give the Trump campaign a defense briefing to let them know that Russia was targeting them in 2016. Both the Trump and Clinton campaigns received a security briefing in August of 2016. A security briefing is a step down from a defense briefing, but it’s not like both campaigns weren’t very aware of what was going on.
      • During those briefings, both campaigns were told to let the FBI know of any “suspicious overtures” from Russia to their campaigns.
    • Barr says that Mueller left the decision of whether to pursue obstruction up to Barr, and that the decision not to indict wasn’t influenced by DOJ guidelines. In the report, Mueller talks extensively about Congress’s duty here (so the decision of whether to pursue was left up to them), and talks about DOJ guidelines being one reason he didn’t indict.
  1. After his first hearing, Barr refuses to appear before the House Judiciary Committee due to the format of the questioning (the committee wants a lawyer to handle the questions). The committee threatens to hold him in contempt.
  2. DOJ prosecutors want to prevent Roger Stone from reviewing any parts of the Mueller report that are redacted due to his ongoing court case. They also subpoena Randy Credico to testify against Stone.
  3. A federal appeals court refuses to re-examine a case that claimed Mueller’s appointment was unconstitutional.
  4. Rod Rosenstein tenders his resignation. He’ll leave on May 11.
  5. White House lawyer Emmet Flood sends Barr a letter accusing Mueller of politicizing his report because the report explicitly says it doesn’t exonerate Trump. He also criticizes Mueller for not making a decision on prosecution, though Mueller says he couldn’t make that decision because DOJ guidelines say a sitting president can’t be indicted and therefore Trump would be denied due process because he wouldn’t get a chance to defend himself in a court of law. He’s pretty specific about leaving the next steps to Congress, as specified in the rules of impeachment.
  6. Nancy Pelosi says Barr did not tell the truth to Congress, and that’s a crime.
  7. Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms that Trump and Putin spoke this week and that they agreed there was no collusion. Well, I guess we can put this whole thing to bed now, right?
  8. Lindsey Graham sends Bob Mueller a letter asking if he wants to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee over his dissatisfaction with Barr misrepresenting his report.
  9. Trump doesn’t want Mueller to testify before Congress, but says he’ll leave that up to Barr.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump and Trump Organization, along with Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, sue Deutsche Bank and Capital One over those companies complying with subpoenas for their financial records.They want to prevent the banks from releasing any private materials.
  2. The White House won’t release the documents requested by the House Oversight Committee related to security clearance overrides.
  3. A federal judge allows an emoluments case against Trump to move forward, refusing Trump’s lawyers’ request to dismiss the case. The suit was brought by congressional Democrats.
  4. After being convicted of jumping bail, Julian Assange receives a 50-week prison sentence in the UK. The judge says Assange has cost the UK $21 million, and that he could’ve left the embassy at any time (Assange was claiming he was like a prisoner).
  5. The House Intelligence Committee plans to make a criminal referral to the DOJ for Erik Prince. They say he might have given false testimony to Congress based on information contained in the Mueller report.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Wisconsin Supreme Court restores the 82 people appointed by outgoing Governor Scott Walker whose appointments were previously invalidated based on a lower court ruling. This only affects the 15 people who weren’t reappointed by the new governor. The lower court ruling is still going through appeals.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration submits a court filing claiming that the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) should be struck down.
    • If the court agrees, an estimated 21 million Americans will lose healthcare coverage.
    • Many millions more will be affected if we lose requirements for covering pre-existing conditions, pregnancy, prescription drugs, and mental health services.
    • Just a reminder, Republicans might want to strike this down, but they have no plan to replace it with.
  1. Trump announces a new rule that allows healthcare providers to refuse to provide services based on their religious beliefs. This includes abortions, sterilization, assisted suicide, and advance directives. The rule also lets parents refuse certain types of care for their children.
    • In the past, issues for some medical providers have included AIDS treatments, gender reassignment, and birth control.
  1. The Alabama House passes a bill that would criminalize abortions at any stage of pregnancy unless the mother’s life is threatened or if the fetus has a lethal anomaly. The woman wouldn’t be held criminally liable, but doctors would face a felony charge and up to 99 years in prison.
  2. Just a note here: Whether or not the mother’s life is threatened can be argued in court, so doctors are caught in a catch-22. They can save the fetus and let the mother die and NOT be criminally charged, or they can save the mother and abort the fetus and go to jail for the rest of their lives.
    • Several state legislatures are pushing this issue, hoping to get a case in front of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
  1. A U.S. District Court jury finds the founder and four executives of Insys Therapeutics guilty of federal racketeering conspiracy. They bribed doctors to prescribe powerful opioids to patients who shouldn’t be using them and tricked providers into paying for them.

International:

  1. In Venezuela, self-declared president Juan Guaidó calls for an uprising against President Nicolás Maduro. Guaidó doesn’t have enough military defectors, the clashes turn violent, and five people are killed.
  2. More than 50 countries support Guaidó, including the U.S., UK, and most Latin American countries. Maduro is backed by Russia and China, among others.
  3. The Senate can’t muster enough votes to overturn Trump’s veto of a bill withdrawing U.S. support for the war in Yemen. So we’re still fighting there.
  4. Under the personal supervision of Kim Jong Un, North Korea tests rocket launchers and guided weapons off its east coast. (It’s OK, though, because they can’t reach the U.S. Forget about all the troops we have deployed in the area.)
  5. Trump deploys a carrier and bombers to the Middle East as a warning to Iran, claiming there have been troubling “indications and warnings” from Iran.
  6. Trump wants to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Florida House passes a bill to let teachers carry weapons (with training, of course). Frankly, just from my limited and sometimes exasperating experience with teenagers, it’s rarely a good idea for adults to have weapons around them. But seriously, the group that will bear the brunt of this is young males of color.

Family Separation:

  1. The Trump administration promises to reunite thousands of migrant families they separated at the border, but at the same time they send each other private internal emails acknowledging that they only have information for about 60 parents and their kids. This highlights the fact that they were never planning on allowing the children to see their parents again (known in most circles as kidnapping).

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Two men found guilty of rape will do no jail time (and yes, they’re both white).
    • The first is a 25-year-old school bus driver who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl. He has to register as a level 1 offender, so he won’t be on offender databases. Ya know, because there was only one victim and he’d never done it before. So yay justice.
    • The second guy kidnapped a 16-year-old girl, forced her to have sex, and kept her in a dog cage. He received a 10-year sentence, but got time served for the eight months he was in custody and nine years and four months of probation. He also has to register as a sex offender.
  1. A New York man who threatened to hang Barack Obama and kill Maxine Waters gets a four-year prison sentence. He called various offices making the threats and using racist slurs.
  2. Brunei says they won’t impose the death penalty for gay sex after all. They only reversed their initial decision after severe international backlash.
  3. The White House makes an emergency request to Congress for $4.5 billion for the southern border. $3.3 billion is for humanitarian assistance and $1.1 billion is to shore up the border. This is on top of the $8 billion they’re requesting for the border in Trump’s 2020 budget.
  4. Trump restricts asylum seekers by banning them from getting work permits if they cross outside a port of entry, imposing application fees, and limiting their access to relief. Trump also orders that all current asylum claims be settled within 180 days; the current time to settle is around two years.
    • This isn’t something we should rush. A team that followed several asylum seekers who were denied found 60 who had been killed upon their return home.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The White House lobbied to remove the words “climate change” from the Arctic Council’s declaration, refusing to sign on with the wording included. Other members refused to sign on without it. In the end, the declaration is watered down.
  2. South Dakota’s Oglala Sioux Tribal Council votes to ban Governor Kristi Noem from tribal land unless she rescinds her support for two state bills aimed at curbing and punishing protestors (specifically around the Keystone pipelines).
  3. In April, renewable energy sources provided more megawatt hours in the U.S. than coal for the first time ever.
  4. A court in Ecuador rules that the government must consult with an indigenous tribe, the Waorani, before opening up their land to oil exploration.
  5. Trump rolls back the safety rules that the Obama administration added after the 2010 BP oil spill. The rollback eases restrictions on offshore drilling and reduces testing of safety equipment like blowout preventers.
  6. The House passes a bill that requires Trump to create a plan for the U.S. to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, even though he’s withdrawing from it. Mitch McConnell says the Senate won’t take the bill up.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump’s nominee Stephen Moore withdraws his name from consideration for the Federal Reserve Board. He was a horrible choice partly because he’s so frequently wrong about economic happenings and partly because he’s a raging misogynist.
  2. In the middle of all the contention, Trump and Democratic leaders agree to pursue a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that will include improvements to highways, railroads, bridges, and broadband.
  3. On top of good GDP news, we also added 263,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.6%.
  4. Trump says he’ll raise tariffs on Chinese goods from 10% to 25% because talks between the U.S. and China aren’t moving fast enough. Just a reminder, a recent study showed that the existing tariffs raised the costs of both domestic and imported goods.
    • Soon after, stock futures fall sharply.

Elections:

  1. Jack Burman and Jacob Wohl (right-wing lobbyist and internet troll, respectively) try to enact a social media scheme to smear presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg with fake sexual assault charges. They tried recruited young Republican men to make the accusations, and far-right news sources ran with the story. Just a reminder to not believe what you hear about any of the candidates. Check them out yourselves.
  2. The California Senate passes a bill requiring presidential candidates to release their taxes in order to be on the ballot. Several states have already proposed such bills.
  3. A three-judge panel in Ohio rules that the state’s congressional maps are partisan and unconstitutional. The judges say this partisan gerrymander was drawn with intent and that it can’t be justified. The lines were drawn to favor the GOP.
  4. After Joe Biden receives the endorsement of the largest firefighter union for his presidential run, Trump retweets 60 other Twitter users in under an hour to show he, too, has support from firefighters.
  5. The Trump campaign is resurrecting their “Lock her up!” slogan but with a new target. Trump wants Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, to be investigated for their actions around Ukraine. Biden’s son worked for a company called Burisma that was being investigated by a prosecutor that Biden was pressuring the Ukraine to remove from office as part of an anti-corruption campaign.
    • That prosecutor has been criticized around the globe for his corruption.
    • Rudy Giuliani says he wants Ukraine investigated because that’ll give us the origins of the Steele Dossier. Don’t we already know the origin?
    • Off topic, Hunter Biden seems to be a hot mess.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump says the Johnson Amendment (which prevents religious leaders and organizations from endorsing candidates) is effectively eliminated. Actually, it would take an act of Congress for that to happen.
  2. There’s another mass shooting, this time at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Two people are dead and four more are injured.
  3. Facebook announces a major purge, banning extremist figures like Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer, Paul Nehlen, and Louis Farrakhan. Their reasoning is that these people violate Facebook’s rules about promoting or engaging in violence and hate.
  4. When Democrats start walking out of Tennessee’s House chambers after Republican leadership appointed only Republican members to a committee, the Republican Speaker of the House, Glen Casada, orders the doors locked so they can’t leave. Their departure would’ve left the House without enough members to proceed.
  5. Trump retweets Jerry Falwell’s suggestion that he should get two extra years added to his term since his first two were stolen by a “failed coup.”

Week 109 in Trump

Posted on February 25, 2019 in Politics, Trump

NC Board of Elections video

Last week, rumors about winding down the Mueller investigation proved to be unfounded. I think we’re all ready and maybe a little anxious for it to be done. The Associated Press wrote up a good summary about what we’ve learned so far. It’s a longish read, but pretty interesting. A few things to brace for if you’re looking for impeachment here:

    • It’s not likely to happen.
    • It could be that Trump didn’t do anything knowingly wrong.
    • It could be that he did, but there’s no evidence of it.
    • It could be that he did, but there is evidence of it. And that case, we might find out about it and we might not.
    • All that is to say, don’t get your hopes up too high.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. At least sixteen states issue a legal challenge to Trump’s use of a national emergency to redirect billions in government funding to build his wall. The lawsuit claims that Trump doesn’t have the authority to override the funding decisions of Congress.
  2. Demonstrators at over 250 rallies across the country join to protest the national emergency declaration and the wall.
  3. Democrats in the House introduce a resolution to put an end to Trump’s national emergency for the wall. They’ll vote on it on Tuesday. If it passes, the Senate must take it up within 18 days.

Russia:

  1. The New York Times learns from documents and interviews that:
    • The Trump administration lied about the circumstances around Michael Flynn leaving.
    • Trump had private discussions with GOP Members of Congress about how to attack the Mueller investigation.
    • Trump called Matthew Whitaker last year when he was acting Attorney General and asked him to put Geoffrey Berman (or as Trump called him, “my guy”) in charge of the investigation into hush money payments to women. Berman is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and had already recused himself over conflicts of interest.
      • This puts Whitaker at odds with the testimony he gave to a Congressional committee. The chair of the committee gives Whitaker a chance to fix his testimony.
  1. Former FBI director Andrew McCabe says he briefed the bipartisan Gang of Eight congressional leaders on two FBI investigations they were opening into Trump in May of 2017 (one about Comey’s firing and one about campaign ties with Russia). He says none of them objected to it at the time.
  2. After James Comey was fired, the FBI developed a plan to protect evidence in the Russia investigation under concerns that more top-level officials would be fired.
  3. Roger Stone gets called back into court after he posts a picture of the judge in his case next to an image of a crosshairs. The judge places a strict gag order on Stone’s social media, radio, press release, blog, and media activities and says if he violates that order, “I will find it necessary to adjust your environment.”
    • The judge also extends the order to Stone’s spokespersons, family, and volunteers.
    • Stone says he’s having trouble putting food on the table and making rent. His previous income was $47,000 month. That’s $564,000 a year, in case you were wondering. How much does that guy eat?
  1. Rod Rosenstein plans to leave the DOJ in March.
  2. New York state prosecutors are preparing a case against Manafort in the event that Trump issues him a pardon. There is no double jeopardy because these are state charges as opposed to the federal charges he’s already pleaded guilty to or been convicted of. New charges would include state tax evasion and corporate accounting violations, among others.
  3. Mueller files a sentencing memo for Manafort on two charges of conspiracy to which Manafort pled guilty. You can read the memo here and the attachments here.
  4. Mueller is expected to deliver his final report next week and Barr is preparing to announce an end to the investigation… and then whoops! That was premature. It turns out that he’s not; it was just random speculation.
  5. Russia has already launched a coordinated disinformation campaign against 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Most action so far is against Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Beto O’Rourke.
  6. So far, every 2020 presidential candidate except for Trump has promised not to knowingly use any hacked or illegally obtained materials in the election cycle.

Legal Fallout:

  1. As recently as last week, the Trump administration was considering a proposal to sell nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Several Trump appointees had been pushing for the plan, which would have American companies build the plants. The administration has ignored legal and ethical warnings about the possibilities of spreading nuclear weapons technology in the Mideast.
    • Michael Flynn was one of the appointees pushing for this. He had been working on this for the company promoting it (IP3 International) before he was appointed, and kept at it after he was appointed.
    • Flynn’s successor, H.R. McMaster, tried to put an end to it.
    • One proposal included naming Trump’s friend Tom Barrack as a “special representative” to carry out the plan.
    • Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings brought this to the to the attention of the House Oversight Committee in 2018, but the Republican chair of the committee, Trey Gowdy, refused to follow up.
  1. A judge rules against Trump’s Labor Secretary, Alexander Acosta, saying he violated federal law by not notifying Jeff Epstein’s victims about a plea agreement with Epstein. Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from underage girls.
  2. Trump’s pick to be ambassador to the UN withdraws her name from consideration because of her family after it comes out that she had failed to pay taxes on time and had hired an undocumented nanny.
  3. The Office of Government Ethics finds that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross violated his ethics agreement and submitted false information on his financial disclosure.
  4. Emails show coordination between Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao’s office and the office of her husband, Mitch McConnell. She held meetings with politicians and business leaders at the request of McConnell, and in some cases, the people she met with received grants and assistance with state funding.
  5. A grand jury has been convened in an investigation into whether Ryan Zinke lied to federal investigators who were looking into whether Zinke did not approve a casino application because of political pressure. Two tribes in Connecticut say that MGM lobbied to oppose the casino.
  6. Democratic lawmakers say they have correspondence that indicates the Education Department tried to influence an investigation into the recognition of ACICS as an accreditor. ACICS accredited two for-profit colleges that were shut down by lawsuits. Under Obama, ACICS was no longer recognized as an accreditor. Documents show that the department wanted to replace their inspector general who was investigating the certification.
  7. A former Trump campaign staffer files a class action lawsuit against Trump’s practice of forcing staffers to sign non-disclosure agreements. The aim is to invalidate all the NDAs. Under the NDAs, staffers can’t criticize Trump or talk about their work with him.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court rules that lower courts in Texas interpreted precedent incorrectly when they ruled that a death row inmate was mentally capable and could thus be executed.
  2. Trump picks Jeff Rosen to be the new deputy attorney general, replacing Rod Rosenstein in March. Rosen is new to the DOJ and has no prosecutorial experience (most deputy AGs work their way up through the department).
  3. Justice Clarence Thomas calls on the Supreme Court to take another look at the New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which he says makes it hard for public officials to win libel suits against news media.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration issues a new rule that blocks any taxpayer-funded family planning clinic from providing abortion referrals. Clinics that provide abortions can’t receive funds from the federal family planning program. Trump will redirect some of that money to religious anti-abortion groups.
    • Just a reminder, these facilities provide general healthcare, STD testing and treatment, preventative treatments, and prenatal care mostly to poor women who don’t otherwise have access to healthcare.
  1. Students in Colorado take the lead in supporting a new bill that would ban abstinence-only sex ed, and would require teaching about safe sex, consent, and sexual orientation. Currently:
    • Eight states require teaching about consent.
    • 37 states require covering or stressing abstinence.
    • Only 13 states require teaching to be medically accurate.
    • Seven states prohibit teachers from showing same-sex relationships in a positive light.
    • Less than half of schools still require sex ed.

International:

  1. Three Conservative Party MPs in the U.K. quit the party over the handling of Brexit. This is on top of two defections from the Labour Party earlier in the week. They join forces and the group grows to 11. They want to see a public vote on a new referendum.
  2. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan (who has said he’ll carry out Trump’s wishes rather than perform the actual duty of his position, which is to advise the president), briefs members of the Senate on Trump’s Syria policy. It gets very contentious when Lindsey Graham presses him for details.
  3. Putin says that Russia will target the U.S. with their new missiles if new missiles are placed in Europe. I’m not sure what spurred that comment.
  4. Though Trump promised a full troop withdrawal from Syria, now he says they’ll leave around 200 troops there to coordinate a safe zone. And then he moves the target again and says they’ll leave 400 troops.
  5. Despite Trump urging European countries to accept back their citizens who left to join ISIS, the U.S. refuses to accept back Hoda Muthana, a woman from the U.S. who joined ISIS. They say her citizenship is in question because her parents were here on a diplomatic mission from Yemen, though she was born in the U.S. after her father was discharged from service and she has a U.S. passport.
  6. Venezuelan soldiers open fire on civilians who were trying to keep part of the border open to receive humanitarian assistance. Two are dead and several injured.
  7. Venezuela cuts diplomatic ties with neighboring Colombia.
  8. Mike Pompeo says that Trump and Kim Jong Un might need to have another summit after their upcoming one because they might not be able to accomplish all they want to at this one. Pompeo also contradicts Trump, saying that North Korea remains a nuclear threat.
  9. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cuts a deal with a racist anti-Arab party, bringing an extremist fringe group into the mainstream. The move draws criticism from liberal Jewish groups like J Street and more conservative ones like AIPAC.

Family Separation:

  1. The practice of separating families, deporting the parents, and keeping the children here has brought the welfare system into the process. Foster parents aren’t supposed to be allowed to adopt these children, but it has happened before and could happen now, separating these families forever.
  2. A judge is deliberating over whether to force the U.S. government to pour over all their records in order to find the thousands of families they’ve separated. Look for a ruling on this soon.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Texts between a police lieutenant and right-wing organizers indicate bias in the handling of an alt-right clash with Antifa. However, the officer says he has similar texts with members of both sides. The mayor calls for an independent investigation.
  2. I can’t even keep up with the developments in the Jussie Smollett hate crime story. It seems right now like he faked the whole thing. Smollett maintains his innocence, but his character was cut from the last few episodes of Empire. We’ll see what happens in trial, if it goes that far.
  3. Trump continues to warn about migrant caravans heading our way. He’s an alarmist, plain and simple. It’s his job to handle things like this without creating pointless fear.
  4. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the U.S. is at an all-time high.
  5. An editorial in an Alabama newspaper calls for a resurgence of the KKK.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Several government reports produced under the Trump administration have found that climate change is for sure one of our biggest national security threats. Our top brass has testified repeatedly that climate change is one of our biggest security threats. Despite this, the White House plans to create a Presidential Committee on Climate Security to assess whether climate change is indeed a threat. It’ll be headed by William Happer, who says carbon emissions are an asset, not a pollutant.
    • Interestingly, the administration says the previous reports weren’t subject to rigorous and independent peer review. In fact, they have been reviewed. The reports that are unable to be replicated under peer review are those that try to disprove climate change.
  1. The EPA announces an effort to restrict perfluoroalkyl and related compounds (PFAS), which have been contaminating water systems across the country, particularly those by military bases.
  2. The EPA has reached out to a scientist who claims that low levels of pollution, toxic chemicals, and radiation are good for us. His suggestions for how the EPA should assess these issues has been added to the Federal Register nearly word for word.
  3. In Tasmania, brush fires that have been burning out of control for a month could wipe out ancient species.
  4. The Trump administration ends talks with California over fuel economy rules for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The administration wants to end Obama’s mileage standards and they’ve threatened to end California’s ability to set its own mileage standards.
  5. Patagonia made an additional $10 million in profits due to the business tax cuts implemented by the GOP. The founder is putting all that money toward fighting climate change.
  6. When asked about climate change, the new U.S. ambassador to Canada says that she believes in both sides of the science. There aren’t two sides. There’s the proven side, and then multiple sides trying to explain away the proven side with a multitude of unprovable hypotheses.
  7. Last week, we learned that Trump pressured the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep open two aging coal plants. This week, the TVA votes to close those plants.

Budget/Economy:

  1. In 2018, retail jobs were cut by their highest number since 2009, largely because of online shopping.
  2. Teachers strike in Oakland, demanding smaller classes, more counselors and full-time nurses, and a 12% raise over three years.
  3. China agrees to buy 10 million additional tons of soybeans from the United States. Since they canceled all orders in December, but did buy around 8 million tons in 2018, I’m not sure if that means they’re buying 10 million tons or 18 million tons in total, but either way it’s much less than what they bought in 2017.
  4. The Trump administration has paid $7.7 billion of the promised $12 billion in relief to farmers affected by the trade war with China.
  5. Trump says they made great progress in trade talks with China, so he delays raising tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.
  6. Most economists expect a recession by 2021 with about half of them expecting one this year or next.
  7. Illinois signs a bill to raise its minimum wage to $15 by 2025.

Elections:

  1. The elections board hearing into election fraud in North Carolina’s 9th district takes a dramatic turn this week:
    • Lisa Britt testifies that McCrae Dowless paid her to illegally collect and complete mail-in ballots and applications for mail-in ballots. Dowless was hired by a consulting group hired by the campaign for Republican candidate Mark Harris. Britt is Dowless’s step-daughter.
    • Harris sobs in court when his son testifies that he warned his dad about the questionable practices employed by Dowless, contradicting Mark Harris’s earlier testimony.
    • The next day, Harris says that North Carolina needs to hold another election to settle this race. It seems his attorneys are eager to put an end to the proceedings as their client is already guilty of perjuring himself on the stand.
    • North Carolina elections officials order a new election, putting an end to the investigation. I’m not clear if any criminal charge will arise from this, but states attorneys and the State Bureau of Investigation are looking into it.
    • Dowless has done work for both Republicans and Democrats in the past, and is also a convicted felon (on unrelated charges of fraud).
  1. Trump says he condemns all election fraud whether it’s Democrat or Republican (good) and then follows that with his unsupported accusations of voter fraud in California, Texas, and Florida (bad). He says they found millions of fraudulent votes in California and offers the late counts that leaned Democrat as proof. Likewise, he says the late counts in Florida prove fraud. He says votes in Texas weren’t properly done, referencing the Secretary of State’s efforts to clean out the voter rolls.
    • There’s never been any kind of indication or proof that people voted illegally in CA.
    • After 2016, I think they found 2 or 3 cases in Texas, at least two of whom voted Republican. This is a separate issue from the 95,000 or so voters the state was looking into for being illegally registered to vote. That number has been drastically reduced because most of the people on the list are actually citizens.
    • And in Florida, they were just counting all the votes; no fraud was found.
    • I think North Carolina has shown that fraud raises red flags and can be proven. Instead, Trump focuses on things he made up to justify his popular vote loss.
  1. New Jersey’s State Senate passes a bill requiring all presidential candidates to release their taxes in order to be included on the ballot. The bill has to get through the Assembly and then the governor.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Transportation Department cancels nearly $1 billion in funding for California’s troubled high-speed train project. They’re also trying to find ways to make California pay back the $2.5 billion they’ve already received.
    • California Governor Gavin Newsom had previously reduced the scope of the project.
  1. New York City’s transportation department defrauded FEMA out of $5.3 million in claims after Superstorm Sandy. They city agrees to pay it all back.
  2. The latest rumor is that Trump wants to replace his director of National Intelligence Dan Coates because of his testimony before Congress in January. I usually don’t report on rumors, but last fall all the staff turnover rumors came true. So we’ll see.
  3. Police arrest a Coast Guard lieutenant who plotted to kill a laundry list of Democratic politicians and what he considered “leftist” professors, judges, and journalists. He describes himself as a white nationalist and skinhead, and he calls the people on his list traitors.
  4. The NRA posts a picture of Nancy Pelosi and shooting victim Gabby Giffords with the headline “Target Practice.” Oops.

Polls:

  1. 61% of American disapprove of Trump using a national emergency to build his wall. About the same number don’t think there’s a national emergency there.

Week 88 in Trump

Posted on October 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This has been an ugly and uncomfortable couple of weeks. With Ford’s triggering testimony, Kavanaugh and Lindsey Graham screaming and crying, and additional accusers trying to come forward, it’s been exhausting. I’m not even taking sides about who is telling the truth here, but the way this was handled was atrocious.

Here’s why every accusation needs to be taken seriously. Every 98 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted in America. That’s 881 times a day. 321,795 times a year. How many of those are reported? How many aren’t reported for years or decades?

For every 1,000 sexual assaults:

  • 310 are reported to the police
  • 57 of those lead to an arrest
  • 11 of those are referred to prosecutors
  • 7 of those lead to a felony conviction
  • Which leads to just 6 out of 1,000 rapists going to jail.
  • So for all those 321,795 assaults, just under 2,000 of the perpetrators pay for their crime.

 

Is it any wonder victims don’t come forward? How does a real man handle a situation like Kavanaugh’s? He mans up, admits his mistake, and learns from it. Cue Cory Booker.

And here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. Sam Patten takes a plea deal in Mueller’s investigation, pleading guilty to funneling Russian money into Trump’s inaugural fund. He also pleads guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent for his lobbying work for a pro-Russia Ukrainian oligarch.
  2. Before the Kavanaugh vote got delayed, Trump and Rod Rosenstein were supposed to meet on Thursday to discuss Rosenstein’s employment situation. Once it becomes clear the vote won’t happen, that meeting is postponed.
  3. Emails show that Roger Stone tried to contact Julian Assange of Wikileaks during the 2016 campaign.
  4. The House Intelligence Committee votes to release transcripts of over 50 interviews done during their investigation into Russian meddling into our elections. Intelligence agencies will redact these documents before releasing them.
  5. House Democrats plan to force a vote on whether to protect Mueller’s investigation by adding an amendment to a tax-related bill.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A court rules to advance a case filed by 200 Democrats against Trump for alleged violations of the emoluments clause.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Kavanaugh and his wife appear on a Fox News interview to defend his integrity. He claims that he wasn’t a drinker in high school and that he was a virgin all through school and many years after. He says he didn’t even come close to having sex. These things are refuted by his classmates and his calendar.
  2. Four of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmate sign a statement disputing the account of Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh’s second accuser. However, two of those former students subsequently asked to have their names removed from that statement.
  3. Trump defends Kavanaugh, saying that Ramirez was drunk and “all messed up” so her allegations can’t be trusted.
  4. Michael Avenatti’s client, Julie Swetnick, signs an affidavit saying she witnessed Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge spiking punch at parties to get women drunk and take advantage of them. She says they also drugged women, and that Kavanaugh was overly aggressive with and verbally abusive to women.
  5. Swetnick also recalls an incident where she was taken advantage of by several drunken high school boys at a party where she says Kavanaugh was in attendance. She doesn’t say Kavanaugh participated.
  6. Kavanaugh says (under oath) that he doesn’t know who Swetnick is, and that she’s lying.
  7. There are additional anonymous accusations, but they’re impossible to corroborate.
  8. Amidst the additional accusations, Mitch McConnell says the votes will happen by the end of the week.
  9. Over 100 Yale law students walk out of classes and have a sit-in in support of Blasey Ford.
  10. Protests at the hearings in D.C. have been a daily thing, with hundreds of protestors being arrested. Even female members of the House stand in silent protest in the back of the committee room.
  11. Attorneys for Blasey Ford send affidavits to the Senate from four people who say that Ford talked to them about her accusations against Kavanaugh before Trump nominated him to SCOTUS. Some say she told them about it long before.
  12. Blasey Ford agrees to testify to the Judiciary Committee on Thursday, with Kavanaugh testifying afterward.
  13. Two men come forward individually to claim that they, not Kavanaugh, are guilty of the assault. GOP Senators dismiss their claims.
  14. Susan Collins questions why the Judiciary Committee hasn’t subpoenaed Mark Judge.
  15. Republicans on the committee hire a female lawyer who prosecutes sex crimes to question Blasey Ford. The original plan was to have her question Kavanaugh as well, but after Kavanaugh’s passionate and emotional opening, Republican Senators start asking their own questions.
  16. Lindsey Graham and Kavanaugh both scream at Democrats on the committee, accusing them of being behind Blasey Ford’s allegations and saying this is a coordinated smear campaign.
  17. Kavanaugh references the calendars he kept in 1982 as proof that he wasn’t at the party. In his Fox News interview, he said he didn’t drink in school, but his calendar was marked with dates with his buddies to drink beer.
  18. In their testimony, Blasey Ford says she’s 100% sure that Kavanaugh attacked her and Kavanaugh says he’s 100% sure he didn’t. So there we are.
  19. Blasey Ford did answer all questions she could and was fairly respectful to the committee; Kavanaugh didn’t answer all the questions directly and was fairly combative and angry.
  20. The committee plans to vote on Brett Kavanaugh the day after Blasey Ford and he both testify.
  21. Here’s what the oldest of the white men on the committee think about victims of assault:
    • When a women tells Lindsey Graham that she was raped, he walks by and says “I’m sorry, tell the cops.”
    • Orrin Hatch says Ford is an attractive witness, pleasing. Like that’s got anything to do with this.
    • I looked for anything similar from Patrick Leahy, the Democrat’s old white man, but all I could find is that he calls her testimony compelling.
  1. Add Jeff Flake to the list of people getting death threats. In talking about it, he says “The toxic political culture that we have created has infected everything, and we’ve done little to stop. Winning at all costs is too high a cost.” Too right.
    • And speaking of Flake, hours before the vote to move Kavanaugh out of committee, Flake is confronted in an elevator by two victims of sexual assault. The confrontation is intense, as these women opened up about their stories, and Flake is visibly shaken. 
Later in the committee room, Flake taps Democratic Senator Chris Coons on the shoulder and the two go outside for a long talk.
    • That’s when Flake agrees to vote Kavanaugh out of committee under the condition that Mitch McConnell must promise to delay the floor vote for a week so the FBI can investigate. Lisa Murkowski also calls for a full investigation. Four Republican governors join the call for a delay in order to investigate: John Kasich (OH), Larry Hogan (MD), Phil Scott (VT), and Charlie Baker (MA).
  1. Some of the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee walk out in protest before the vote.
  2. The committee votes along party lines to move Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote to the Senate floor. While at the same time…
    • The ABA, which originally gave Kavanaugh the highest ratings, calls for a delay in the Senate confirmation vote until the FBI can complete their investigation.
    • The Yale Law School Dean who endorsed Kavanaugh this summer calls for a full investigation.
    • The ACLU, which typically stays neutral on Supreme Court nominees, comes out against Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
    • The Jesuit Review pulls their endorsement of Kavanaugh (Kavanaugh had a Jesuit education at Georgetown Prep).
  1. Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge says he’ll cooperate fully with the FBI investigation. Judge’s ex-girlfriend also wants to talk to the FBI about her claim that Judge told her that he once joined a group of guys in taking turn having sex with a drunk woman.
  2. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley seeks an injunction to stop a full vote on Kavanaugh due to the “unprecedented obstruction of the Senate’s advice and consent obligation.”
  3. Jeff Flake says that if Kavanaugh lied to the Senate, his confirmation is over. But we already know he lied about mostly little things and about some big things, for starters:
    • I got into Yale on my own (he didn’t).
    • I didn’t drink in high school (he did).
    • OK I did drink but it was legal (it wasn’t).
    • Holton-Arms girls didn’t hang out with us (they did).
    • Ford’s witnesses refuted her testimony (they didn’t)
    • I didn’t know about Ramirez’s allegations before the story came out (texts show he did).
    • I didn’t work on certain judge nominations (emails show he did).
    • I was unaware of any spying on Democrats under Bush (emails show he was).
  1. A Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s writes an op-ed in the New York Times saying that Kavanaugh mischaracterized his behavior in school and that he drank, drank a lot, and was a mean drunk. The classmate also says that Kavanaugh started a bar fight that landed one of their friends in jail.
  2. Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say they have had a hard time getting responses from Kavanaugh’s accusers, but recent emails show that a Republican aide refused calls from Deborah Ramirez and her lawyers.
  3. President George W. Bush starts calling up GOP Senators to urge them to confirm Kavanaugh.
  4. Texts show that Kavanaugh was working behind the scenes to convince his college friends defend him and not corroborate Ramirez’ accusations before she even brought them up, possibly as early as July. Kavanaugh has accused Ramirez of talking to classmates before the story broke, when it seems to have actually been him doing the talking.
  5. One of those friends gave the information to “Brett’s team” and to the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. Another friend has been trying to get the texts to the FBI. One friend says that Kavanaugh reached out to her, worried that Deborah’s accusations would come out.
  6. The texts also show that Kavanaugh lied when he said the first he’d heard of this was when the story broke on September 30.
  7. In other SCOTUS news, a case coming before the Supreme Court could decide whether someone can be tried for the same thing at both the state and federal level. The precedent case, Gamble v. United States, says that they can; but the new case could change that. The outcome of this case could change Mueller’s strategy, since he might not have the promise of a state case against witnesses in the Russia investigation if Trump pardons them.
  8. After Blasey Ford’s testimony, calls to the National Sexual Assault Hotline were up over 200%.

Healthcare:

  1. Arkansas has a test program running to analyze the effects of work requirements on Medicaid. The Trump administration says those requirements will lift people out of poverty, but in the first month alone, 4,300 people were kicked off the program.
  2. The House and Senate both pass a bill that lets pharmacists tell customers whether it would be cheaper for them to pay out of pocket for medications instead of using insurance. How is it that they couldn’t before?
  3. It turns out insurance companies overshot their mark in 2017, raising their premiums too high. Premiums will likely go down some for the next enrollment period.

International:

  1. Trump discovers that his rally talking points don’t work on an international audience. His claim that no administration has done as much as his has done in two years plays well to his base here in America, but when he uses it in his opening speech at the UN, the world laughs at him. Trump always said the world laughed at Obama; now the world has laughed at Trump IRL.
  2. Trump later claims that they were laughing with him, not at him.
  3. When he repeats his claim that Germany will be totally dependent on Russian energy, the German delegation laughs at him. Of note, Germany has an ambitious program to transition to renewable energy sources.
  4. He says that he’s wiped out ISIS in Syria, but the Pentagon says there are still many threats and still much to do there.
  5. At the UN meeting, French President Macron slams Trump’s protectionist policies, criticizing Trump’s policies on Iran, climate change, the UN, migration, Mideast peace, and more. He lauds the continuation of the Paris accord, and suggests that we shouldn’t do business with countries that don’t comply.
  6. Even though Trump vilifies Iran, all other signatories to the Iran deal reaffirm their commitment to the agreement.
  7. Trump praises North Korea and Kim Jong Un, a complete about-face from what he said about him one year ago in this very venue. He says when he and Kim met, they fell in love.
  8. Trump says he declined a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada says they never asked for.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. California follows Florida’s lead and signs into law new age restrictions on buying guns. The law also bans gun ownership for domestic abusers and for some people with a history of certain mental illnesses. The law increases training requirements for concealed carry permits and also includes red-flag restraining orders, which allow police officers to remove somebody’s weapons if they are deemed a danger.
  2. California signs net neutrality into law, reinstating the FEC’s previous rules under Obama. The Justice Department immediately threatens to sue.

Family Separation:

  1. DHS moves hundreds of detained immigrant children to a tent city in Texas due to overcrowding. Changes to immigration rules under Sessions have resulted in exponentially higher rates of detention, and they didn’t anticipate it well enough to be prepared for this. These are mostly children that they think will be released shortly.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. An appeals court vacates a previous ruling that would have denied immigrant children the right to a court-appointed attorney regardless of whether they are seeking asylum.
  2. PayPal ends it’s dealings with InfoWars, Alex Jones‘ platform for conspiracy theories and hate speech.
  3. Trump announces a new policy that prevents non-citizen immigrants who use public benefits from obtaining green cards. These people must now choose between assistance they need right now and trying for a green card that will let them work legally at some point in the future. While this isn’t supposed to affect people with green cards who want to become citizens, many are afraid that using public benefits will count against them in their citizenship requests.
  4. A black female state legislator in Vermont resigns over ongoing racial harassment.
  5. Mike Pence legitimizes hate against the LGBTQ community by speaking at the Values Voter Summit.
  6. Trump backs down from his promise to shut the government down if he doesn’t get funding for his border wall, now promising to keep the government open.
  7. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) asks the House Ethics Committee to investigate claims by his ex, Karen Monahan, that he abused her.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A federal judge blocks the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from removing endangered species protections for grizzly bears around Yellowstone National Park.
  2. The Trump administration predicts a rise in global temperatures of 7 degrees F (or 4 degrees C) by the end of the century. Instead of seeing this as a call to take action, they say the planet’s fate is sealed and there’s nothing we can do about it. Even though scientists know what we can do about it…
  3. A recent study shows that warming waters in the Antarctic are caused by human activity.
  4. The Northern Indiana Public Service Company announces a plan to close down all of their coal power plants and replace them with wind and solar within a decade.
  5. The EPA plans to eliminate the Office of the Science Advisor. This is a senior post that advises the agency about the scientific research on which health and environmental regulations are based. Their mission is to ensure that the agency’s policies are based on the highest quality research.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump finalizes his first bilateral trade deal. The deal with South Korea is not much changed from the agreement negotiated under Obama. It does open the South Korean market to more U.S. automobiles and excludes South Korea from steel tariffs. No U.S. automaker has come close to the existing caps, so this isn’t likely to give much of a bump to the auto industry.
  2. Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, says businesses are increasingly concerned about the trade wars. They say there have been supply chain disruptions and increased costs as a result.
  3. Trump has said he’s turned the economy of West Virginia around, even though the state is one of two whose poverty rate has risen in the past year
  4. Canada and the U.S. agree to new terms for NAFTA. Mexico and the U.S. agreed on terms about a month ago. The new deal leaves much of the old deal in place.
  5. The Canada compromise includes giving the U.S. a slightly bigger dairy market, a slightly higher threshold below which goods can come from Canada duty-free, and protections from certain automotive tariffs for Canada. The biggest changes in the deal favors automakers in North America over Mexico.
  6. The updated deal will be called USMCA (United States, Mexico and Canada Agreement), because, you know, NAFTA was “one of the worst deals” in history (as was the Paris agreement, the Iran deal, TPP, and so on and so on).
  7. The House passes a tax bill that will make the previous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy permanent. The bill would increase the deficit over 10 years by $631 billion, on top of the $1.5 trillion of the previous tax cut.
  8. The SEC orders Elon Musk to step down as the chairman of the board at Tesla, and forbids him from serving on the board for 3 years. They also fine him $20 million. He’s still the CEO though.
  9. Farmers say that Trump’s aide package won’t make up for the losses they’re seeing because of tariffs.

Elections:

  1. Trump holds a campaign rally in Las Vegas, where he again brings up his electoral college win, Hillary Clinton, and Obama. He paints Democrats as evil and laughs at their reaction to his election. But this could be any of his rally speeches.
  2. Candidates for Senate must file their financial reports electronically, which will make donor information publicly available more quickly.
  3. Ted Cruz got heckled out of a restaurant in D.C. by people protesting Kavanaugh. In response, Cruz’s opponent in the race for his Senate seat tweets that this is not cool and there needs to be some respect.
  4. Trump tells the UN that China is interfering in our 2018 midterm elections because they don’t want him to win (because he’s the first president to shake up trade). They’re interfering by targeting their tariffs strategically apparently.

Miscellaneous:

  1. A 7.5 earthquake and resulting tsunami hits Indonesia, killing more than 800 people.
  2. Raj Shah, the White House deputy press secretary, will leave his position after Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote.
  3. Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) pawns himself off as a California farmer, and while his family did farm in the Central Valley for decades, they’ve since moved their farm operations to Iowa. AND sources say they employ undocumented workers (as does nearly every large farm in the area).

Polls:

  1. 52% of voters want Democrats to control Congress and 40% want Republicans to. With gerrymandering, though, it could still fall in the Republicans favor.