Tag: McConnell

Week 131 in Trump

Posted on July 31, 2019 in Politics, Trump

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

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

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

So much winning.

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

Russia:

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

Legal Fallout:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Week 104 in Trump

Posted on January 22, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Tijuana, Mexico--where the border wall meets the Pacific Ocean and people sit on the fence and dream. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

I’m so not ready for this… the 2020 campaign season is already starting, with a bunch of Democrats declaring a presidential run. And that means that the disinformation campaigns are already out in force. So please remember to check your facts and don’t believe everything you hear. Here’s some advice for trolls that’s circulating on 4Chan to make Democrats sound conflicted or negative about Elizabeth Warren:

“Pose as a concerned Democrat and criticize her for being white,” one wrote. “Criticize her for being a woman. Do whatever it takes to further divide the left and prevent them from unifying behind a candidate for 2020. If we can manufacture another Bernie/Hillary split, they’ll get crushed in the general election.”

Here’s what really happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. In late December, Trump signed an executive order that expands logging on public lands. The EO also orders the clearing of underbrush on 4 million acres and treating pests on another 1.5 million acres. Trump says this will help prevent forest fires, but experts say this is only useful when done near homes. The EO could mean a 30% increase for the logging industry.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

  1. Here’s some fallout from the shutdown this week:
    • The Federal Aviation Administration calls back furloughed safety inspectors to work without pay. The IRS does the same with its employees, and the FDA brings back food safety inspectors (without pay). U.S. Fish and Wildlife bring back some workers so people can hunt on wildlife refuges.
    • The Coast Guard becomes the first branch of the armed services to not get paid.
    • FBI agents are now working without pay.
    • The SEC stops processing initial public offerings.
    • The NTSB suspends investigations of fatal accidents.
    • The State Department is calling furloughed diplomats to come back to work without pay.
    • Trump’s economists double their estimation of how much economic growth is being lost each week of the shutdown.
    • Some states begin allowing federal workers who are working but not being paid to receive unemployment benefits. The Trump administration has said these workers don’t qualify for benefits.
    • Over 40,000 immigration hearings have been cancelled due to the shutdown. Immigrants who miss their hearings are being given new dates years from now.
    • Businesses are doing their part to help furloughed workers by helping them to delay payments and reorganize loans, and by providing free services and free food.
    • The NY Met gives free tickets to furloughed workers to see their performances.
  1. A federal judge denies requests from federal employees and unions 1) to require that air traffic controllers be paid, and 2) that employees who are essential shouldn’t be forced to work without pay.
  2. The House passes a package to reopen the government, and, for the third time this year, Mitch McConnell block bills to reopen the government in the Senate.
  3. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says it’s Democrats fault that Trump had to feed the Clemson Tigers champion football team fast food.
  4. Nancy Pelosi sends Trump a letter saying they need to postpone the State of the Union address until after the shutdown ends due to security concerns. The White House asks Mitch McConnell if he can invite them to do it in the Senate instead.
  5. In apparent retaliation, Trump postpones Pelosi’s congressional delegation (codel) trip where Pelosi planned to visit NATO officials in Brussels and then troops in Afghanistan. The codel was already on a bus on the way to the plane and Capitol Police already had their people on the ground in Europe awaiting their arrival.
  6. Trump orders that government officials can’t use military planes until the shutdown is over. Then he sends Melania to Mar-a-Lago on a military plane.
  7. Trump says Pelosi and her group can take a commercial flight if she wants. Recent history note: Trump took an official plane to Iraq during the shutdown.
  8. Pelosi says she’s now postponing even their commercial flight abroad because Trump took divulged the codel’s travel plans to the public.
  9. Nearly 400 immigrants tunneled under a border wall in Arizona and present themselves to border patrol agents for asylum.
  10. While border crossings are down, family units now makes up 80% of apprehensions. And they’re mostly seeking asylum.
  11. Trump starts telling stories about women trafficked over the border who’s mouths are taped with electrical tape. He morphs the story to include multiple kinds of tape and body parts. People who work with anti-trafficking NGOs at the border say it’s possible, but they haven’t seen it.
  12. Trump offers Democrats a three-year reprieve for people currently protected by DACA and TPS, saying he won’t try to deport them during that time if they fund his wall. Soooo he tried to take away DACA and TPS, and now he says he’ll give them back if Democrats give him the wall. Again, the courts have struck down his actions on DACA and TPS, so they’re currently protected by the courts.
    • Conservative pundits call this amnesty. To be clear, this is not what amnesty looks like.
  1. Here’s where Pelosi says Democrats want border funding to go toward:
    • Increased infrastructure investments at our ports of entry including additional ports and roads;
    • Advanced technology to scan for drugs, weapons and contraband and to detect unauthorized crossings;
    • More customs personnel including filling the more than 3,000 customs and border patrol vacancies; and
    • More immigration judges.
  1. The House cancels January recess in order to deal with the shutdown.
  2. The DOJ hires two lawyers likely to deal with issues of eminent domain at the border.

Russia:

  1. Mueller’s team subpoenas three new Jerome Corsi associates to testify before the grand jury. The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas Corsi himself.
  2. Both Mueller and Manhattan prosecutors are investigating a breakfast event held at the Trump International Hotel in DC two days before Trump’s inauguration. In attendance were Michael Flynn, Devin Nunes, and several foreign diplomats.
  3. The House votes to overturn the Treasury Department’s decision to lift sanctions on a company that Oleg Deripaska has a stake in. 57 Senators, including 11 Republicans, also vote to keep sanctions, but it falls short of the 60 votes required to overturn the decision.
    • Under the Treasury decision, Deripaska must reduce his stake in two companies and the other sanctions against him remain. But a binding and signed document shows that it allows Deripaska to get rid of $100s of millions in debt and for him and his associates to retain a large share of ownership.
    • The primary company involved is a major aluminum producer, and the sanctions are hurting American companies.
    • With an overwhelming majority, the House passes a resolution of disapproval for rolling back the sanctions.
  1. Last year, I refrained from reporting on Anastasia Vashukevich, who says she was Deripaska’s mistress and that she has tapes of him bragging about how Russia stole our 2016 elections. She was subsequently arrested in Thailand on charges of prostitution. So I was waiting to see what would come of this, if anything. This week, Thailand releases her and deports her to Belarus… with a layover in Moscow where officials there arrest her at the airport in dramatic fashion.
  2. BuzzFeed releases a report that starts out with a bang but quickly fizzles. (Note that I don’t typically use BuzzFeed as a source, but the story generated a lot of buzz, so I figured it was newsworthy.)
    • BuzzFeed reports that Trump personally directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations to hide Trump’s involvement.
    • Trump’s legal team reaches out to Mueller’s office about this.
    • Mueller’s office disputes parts of the reporting, but not the substance. This is important because his office rarely jumps in with statements on news stories. They issue this statement:
      “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”
    • BuzzFeed stands by their story, but they’re also working to learn what specific parts Mueller’s team is disputing.
    • If the reporting turns out to be right, it would mean Donald Jr. perjured himself during his testimony to Congress.
  1. Rudy Giuliani says Trump and Cohen were discussing building a Trump Tower in Moscow throughout 2016, possibly into November.
  2. Giuliani also admits that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but he maintains that Trump did not. He later says he doesn’t know if there was any collusion.
  3. Cohen’s testimony before Congress next month will be limited so as not to interfere with Mueller’s investigation. So if you were expecting the full scoop, you’re not going to get it.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A new report from the Inspector General for the General Services Administration says that GSA officials chose to ignore the constitution’s anti-corruption clauses when they continued leasing the Old Post Office Building to the Trump International Hotel after Trump took office.
    • An example of why this is an issue: Last year when T-Mobile needed approval from the Trump administration for a merger, nine T-Mobile executives booked rooms at the hotel with one of them staying there at least 10 times.
  1. Michael Cohen confirms that he paid a tech firm to rig online polls in Trump’s favor during the 2016 elections. He also says this was “at the direction of and the sole benefit of” Trump. I don’t think this is illegal, but it is ironic given that Trump kept complaining about how rigged the polls are.
    • Fun fact: Cohen also used this company to promote himself as a sex symbol on Twitter.
  1. Court filings show that Paul Manafort attempted to fill Trump’s administration with his allies, but it’s not clear how successful he was.

Courts/Justice:

  1. William Barr, who’s currently being evaluated for confirmation as Attorney General, once said that the DOJ might need some “political supervision.” He thinks that we went too far in pushing the DOJ to be independent following Watergate.
    • Barr doesn’t say he wouldn’t jail journalists if they report on things that “might hurt the country.”
    • Barr says it’s vitally important that Mueller be able to complete his investigation, but he refuses to recuse himself even though he has expressed opinions on the case previously without full knowledge of the evidence obtained so far.
    • It takes Trump by surprise to learn during Barr’s testimony that Barr has been friends and colleagues with Mueller for 30 years. I would’ve thought that would come out in the vetting process. Was there a vetting process?
    • Unlike Jeff Sessions, Barr says he won’t go after marijuana sales in states where it’s legal.
  1. A district judge says Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes must answer questions for a court case in writing, but denies a request to make them sit for depositions. The conservative group Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the State Department last year over the handling of missing emails. Rice and Rhodes will answer questions about the talking points used after the Benghazi attacks. Because that hasn’t been investigated enough yet.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge issues a nationwide injunction against Trump’s attempted rollback of the ACA’s birth-control mandate. Just previous to that, a different judge blocked the rule for several states just hours before it was to take effect.
    • If successful, Trump’s rollback would let employers avoid providing contraceptive coverage as part of the insurance policies they offer to their employees. Under the ACA, they must provide this at no cost.
  1. WHO issues a list of the top 10 most significant health issues facing us today (in no particular order):
    • Air pollution and climate change
    • Noncommunicable diseases (like heart disease, cancer, diabetes)
    • A global flu pandemic
    • Fragile and vulnerable settings (caused by things like drought, famine, and war)
    • Antimicrobial resistance to existing treatments
    • Weak primary healthcare
    • Anti-vaccination movements
    • High-threat pathogens (like Zika, Ebola, and SARS)
    • Dengue fever
    • HIV
  1. An appeals court vacates a previous ruling that stopped Texas from defunding Planned Parenthood. In the original case, Texas tried to oust Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid program based on the videos that purported to show Planned Parenthood workers discussing illegal sales of fetal material. This doesn’t reverse the ruling, but instead throws the ball back into the original judge’s court and forces him to use a different standard to review the case.
  2. The Senate fails to get the 60 votes needed to pass a bill that would permanently ban federal funding for abortions and place new restrictions on abortions.

International:

  1. Trump has privately and repeatedly pushed withdrawing from NATO. At the NATO summit last summer, he told his national security officials that he didn’t see the point of the coalition. Both Jim Mattis and John Bolton spent the summit scrambling to make sure there was no mention of a withdrawal.
  2. Turkish President Erdogan says Trump called him up and said that he’s still going to withdraw troops from Syria.
  3. The UK Parliament fails to pass Theresa May’s Brexit deal with a vote of 432 to 202, a huge defeat for her government.
    • As a result, May faces a vote of no confidence, which she wins.
    • The official Brexit due date is March 29. May can try to ask the EU for more concessions, but they’ve drawn a firm line.
    • It’s possible this will lead to another vote on Brexit, but it’s not clear that if voters decide to NOT Brexit that it wouldn’t happen anyway.
    • Parliament could amend the EU Withdrawal Act to force May to request an Article 50 extension on the Brexit deadline if there is no agreement on an exit plan.
  1. An explosion in Syria kills two U.S. troops and two civilians, with the Islamic State claiming responsibility. Just a few weeks ago, Trump said ISIS was defeated and we’re pulling troops out of Syria.
    • On the day of the explosion, Mike Pence states that “the caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated.”
    • Brett McGurk, former special envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, says that Trump’s choice to withdraw troops is giving IS fighters new life.
  1. Trump plans another North Korea summit with Kim Jong Un in February. A new report claims there are at least 20 previously undisclosed ballistic missile sites in North Korea.
  2. The Trump administration rejects a deal with Russia to keep the Nuclear Forces Treaty, which is intended to contain nuclear arms proliferation. They say there’s no way to verify Russia is keeping their end of the deal. This sets the stage for a six-month withdrawal from the treaty starting next month.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Three GOP Members of Congress have either had their committee assignments stripped or won’t get any assignments due to misconduct:
    • Steve King: Stripped of assignments due to racist comments.
    • Duncan Hunter: Indicted (when elected)
    • Chris Collins: Indicted (when elected)

Family Separation:

  1. An audit finds that the Trump administration has separated thousands more children than was publicly known. They started separating families over six months before they announced it, and they didn’t track those families. So we don’t know exactly how many, where the parents or children are, or whether they’ve been reunited.
    • The first separations started no later than October of 2017; Jeff Sessions didn’t announce the policy until May of 2018.
    • The separations continued after Trump ended the policy in June of 2018 (largely due to a court order).
    • Amnesty International estimates 8,000 “family units” were separated. I’m not sure what they mean by family unit.
  1. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) asks the FBI to open an investigation into whether Kirstjen Nielsen lied under oath to Congress when she said that the administration never had a policy for family separation.
  2. Merkley gave NBC News a draft of a 2017 memo from the DHS and DOJ that describes plans to separate families, to deport minors and deny them asylum hearings, and to force asylum seekers to wait for their hearings in Mexico instead of the U.S.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A judge blocks the Commerce Department from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, and rakes Secretary Wilbur Ross over the coals in his ruling. He says Ross and his aides broke a “smorgasbord” of federal rules, cherry-picked facts, twisted evidence, hid their deliberations, and lied under oath.
  2. The Pentagon extends the mission of the troops assisting DHS along the border through September. There are about 2,300 troops still at the border, down from 5,900.
  3. The Virginia Senate ratifies the ERA (yes, this is still a thing). If the GOP-led House of Delegates follows suit, we’ll have enough state ratifications to finally ratify it. Interesting history note: The original draft of the amendment was created almost 100 years ago, in 1921. Can we get this done already? We shouldn’t need to!
  4. The House passes a resolution nearly unanimously condemning white supremacy and white nationalism. Even Steve King, at whom the resolution is directed, voted for it. The lone nay vote, Democrat Bobby Rush, doesn’t think the wording is strong enough.
  5. While Representative Tony Cárdenas was speaking on the House floor, a Republican representative yelled “Go back to Puerto Rico!” The congressman later called Cárdenas to apologize and said he wasn’t addressing him, he was referring to the Democratic contingent that had a retreat in Puerto Rico earlier this year. At the time, the House was trying to pass a continuing resolution to reopen nine departments.
  6. Hundreds of thousands show up across the country for the third annual Women’s March. The marches have gotten smaller each year, and this year the National March in DC was marred by accusations of anti-Semitism.
  7. New York bans gay conversation therapy, and adds gender identity and gender expression to their anti-discrimination laws.
  8. The new Democratic governor of Kansas reinstates protections for LGBTQ state employees.
  9. The Trump Organization received at least 192 visas for foreign workers last year. That’s the highest number since 2008.

Climate/EPA:

  1. On top of learning earlier this month that the oceans are warming waaaay faster than we thought, now we learn that the Antarctic is now losing six times as much ice each year as it was in the 80s. It’s gone from 40 billion tons a year to 252 billion tons.
  2. The U.S. is increasing oil and gas drilling faster than any other nation, even though scientists say we have just 11 years to sort out this whole climate change thing.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) becomes the first woman and the first African American to chart the Financial Services Committee in the House.
  2. Los Angeles County teachers strike for higher wages and an increase in staffing levels. They’re trying to bring attention to the needs of public schools.
  3. Our six biggest banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs) made $100 billion in profit last year. That’s a first, it’s expected to grow when 4th quarter numbers come in, and it’s due to the tax cuts.
  4. The Trump administration refuses to extend emergency food assistance to Puerto Rico, calling it “excessive and unnecessary.”
  5. Economists worry that the extended shutdown could push us into a contraction. A contraction starts when there are two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.
  6. Economic growth was already slowing in the last quarter of 2018, with downward pressures including the trade war with China, the fading effects of the $1.5 trillion tax cut, and slower global growth in general. The government shutdown is expected to slow it further.

Elections:

  1. A federal judge blocks parts of the lame duck bills passed in Wisconsin aimed at disenfranchising typically Democratic voters. The judge blocks attempts to curb early voting, to limit the use of student IDs, and to limit the use of receipts for people with exceptional barriers to getting IDs.
  2. McConnell accuses Democrats of encouraging voter fraud and trying to swing elections toward one party with their sweeping election reform bill. His exact words are “power grab” and “naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party.”
    • There’s a general summary of the bill here (under Legislation): http://cjrules.com/week-102-in-trump/
    • The point of the bill is to make sure every citizen can vote and none are disenfranchised from their right to vote. So I guess if more people voting swings elections toward one party…
  1. New York passes election reform bills to allow early voting, preregistration of minors (so they’re able to vote upon turning 18), and voting by mail.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump officials reverse an Obama-era safety rule (this is so commonplace that it isn’t even news). This rule required trains that carry flammable material (like oil) to install special brakes to reduce the risk of derailment and explosion. The move was proposed just over a year ago, right around the time the Amtrak train derailed in Washington.
  2. A federal judge finds four women guilty after they enter a national park and leave food and water for immigrants crossing the border. The charges include entering a national refuge without a permit, driving a vehicle in a national refuge, and leaving things behind in a national refuge.
  3. Ouch. Betsy DeVos breaks her pelvis and hip socket in a biking accident.

Polls:

  1. 57% of American voters say they’ll definitely vote against Trump in 2020.
    • 30% say they’ll vote for Trump in 2020.
    • 13% say they have no idea who they’ll vote for.
  1. 72% of federal workers oppose the shutdown, with 64% strongly opposed.
    • 21% support the shutdown, with 14% strongly supporting.
  1. 56% of federal workers oppose building the wall, with 45% strongly opposed.
    • 34% support building the wall, with 25% strongly supporting.

Week 100 in Trump

Posted on December 26, 2018 in Politics, Trump

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

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

Here’s what else happened in week 100…

Missed from Last Week:

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

Russia:

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

Legal Fallout:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Week 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.

Week 84 in Trump

Posted on September 10, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This week was all about saying goodbye to Senator John McCain. I don’t remember politics without him being in the thick of it. In planning his services, he gave Trump some parting shots, excluding him from the memorials and final funeral and enlisting politicians from all sides in a final show of working both sides of the aisle.

Here’s what else happened this week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. 16 states filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to rule that the 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn’t cover rights for the LGBTQ community and therefore you can fire someone based on their sexual orientation or their gender identity. Or deny them housing. Or refuse to serve them. Or…

Russia:

  1. The judge grants a brief delay in Paul Manafort’s second trial because his lawyers haven’t had time to recover from his first trial. Remember, they could have done this all in one trial, but Manafort chose to have two trials instead.
  2. Manafort’s legal team was in negotiations with Mueller to avoid a second trial, but those negotiations fell apart.
  3. Earlier this month, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes travelled to the UK to dig up dirt on Christopher Steele. Nunes tried to meet with leaders of British intelligence agencies, but they were wary of Nunes’ intentions; so he ended up meeting with the deputy national security advisor, Madeline Alessandri.
  4. Trump tweets that China hacked Clinton’s emails and that they got classified info. That was just little false info he picked up from the Daily Caller.
  5. Trump accuses NBC of editing interviews with him. He’s specifically pointing at his interview with Lester Holt when he admitted that he had the Russia investigation in mind when he fired Comey. If there were any merit to the accusation, you’d think he would’ve brought it up when the interview aired.
  6. Now we know why Trump is working so hard to discredit DOJ lawyer Bruce Ohr. Ohr told lawmakers that two years ago, he met with Christopher Steele who told him that he thought Russia had leverage over Trump (or in his words, Russia had him over a barrel).
  7. Michael Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, is backing down from his claim that Cohen knows that Trump Sr. knew ahead of time about Trump Jr.’s meeting with Russian lawyers in 2016.
  8. George Papadopoulos accepts his plea deal and pleads guilty to lying to the FBI. He had previously been considering backing out of the deal.
  9. Sam Patten, a former associate of Paul Manafort and a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, agrees to a plea deal and to cooperating with Mueller’s investigation. He pleads guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent and lying to a Senate committee.
  10. Trump says that the Supreme Court Chief Justice should tell the FISA court to investigate the DOJ and FBI over their FISA requests during the 2016 campaign.
  11. Trump says he should get personally involved if the FBI and DOJ don’t do their job, accusing them of being biased against Republicans. Even though many of them are themselves Republicans.
  12. We’re coming up to 60 days before the election, so Rudy Giuliani says Mueller has to stop investigating. Which isn’t true since this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Even if it were a hard rule, Mueller could continue his investigation behind closed doors right up through the election as long as he doesn’t publicize information.
  13. Mueller says he’ll accept some answers from Trump in writing. Giuliani says they won’t be providing any answers to questions about obstruction of justice.

Legal Fallout:

  1. GOP Members of Congress circulate a spreadsheet itemizing the things they think Democrats might investigate if they win the House in November. Those things include:
    • Trump’s tax returns
    • Trump Organization, specifically around the emoluments clause.
    • Trump’s dealings with Russia and his preparation for the meeting with Putin
    • The Stormy Daniels payment
    • Trump’s firings of James Comey and of U.S. attorneys
    • The transgender ban in the military
    • Steven Mnuchin’s business dealings
    • The use of personal email by White House staff
    • Abused perks, mostly by cabinet members like Scott Pruitt, Ben Carson, and Ryan Zinke
    • That time he discussed classified information at a public dinner at Mar-a-Lago
    • Whether Jared Kushner is in compliance with ethics laws
    • Firing the EPA board of scientific counselors
    • The Muslim ban
    • The family separation policy and the failure to reunite separated families
    • The response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico
    • Election security and hacking attempts
    • Security clearances
  1. New York City fines Jared Kushner’s family business once again. This time, the fine is $210,000 for falsifying building permits. This brings the total the company’s been fined over the past few years to over $500,000.
  2. The above leads to the DCCC issuing warnings to other Democratic candidates about being doxxed.
  3. Lawyers for GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter accuse federal prosecutors of rushing to indict his client. Interesting tact, since they’ve been accusing prosecutors of dragging out this investigation over two years.
  4. Trump blames the DOJ for allowing the indictment of both Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, two “very popular Republican Congressman” (according to Trump). He complained that these would’ve been two easy GOP wins. I guess it doesn’t matter if they might be criminals.
  5. An inspector general reports that Trump participated in a decision to cancel a 10-year effort to develop a new FBI headquarters in the suburbs of Maryland or Virginia. The plan now is to develop the headquarters right across the street from Trump’s hotel in DC, which turns out to be more expensive. Government employees were told not to talk about anything Trump said about this.
  6. According to a recorded conversation, Michael Cohen and Trump tried to buy up all the damaging information the National Enquirer had on him and was storing in their vaults.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Chuck Schumer makes a deal with Mitch McConnell to fast-track 15 of Trump’s lower court judicial nominees. We don’t know yet what he got in return, if anything. Unless he did it just so his Senators could have some time to campaign.
  2. A judge in Texas allows a defamation lawsuit against Infowars’ Alex Jones to move forward. The suit was brought by parents of Sandy Hook victims who’ve been harassed and further victimized by Jones’ supporters.
  3. Trump refuses to release over 100,000 pages of Brett Kavanaugh’s records during the time he worked in the White House under George W. Bush. Trump cites executive privilege as a reason.
  4. Marches and protests against Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court continue this week. 7 in 10 Americans are pro-choice, and don’t want him confirmed.
  5. Trump reconsiders firing Jeff Sessions. Again.

Healthcare:

  1. An appeals court rules that Alabama can’t ban “dilation & evacuation” abortions after 15 weeks. Note that over 90% of abortions do occur before 15 weeks so don’t use that method.
  2. Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) introduces legislation with 13 other Democrats aimed at reducing the racial disparities in maternity care and deaths in the U.S. Currently there are about 40 deaths out of 100,000 live births for black women versus 12 for white women.

International:

  1. The Trump administration announces plans to cut all U.S. funding for the UN program that provides aid to Palestinian refugees. It’s pretty amazing that there have been Palestinian refugees for over 50 years now.
  2. We learn that Trump’s last meeting with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe turned sour when Trump said he remembers Pearl Harbor and then criticized Japan’s economy and our trade deficit with them. Up to now, the two seemed to have a good working relationship.
  3. Trump blames China for the lack of progress in the negotiations with North Korea. He says China is applying pressure on North Korea.
  4. Trump announces that joint U.S. – South Korea military exercises will be temporarily suspended as a gesture of goodwill toward North Korea.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. California’s legislature passes a bill raising the age for buying assault weapons from 18 to 21. The bill also limits gun purchases to one per month per person.
  2. California passes net neutrality laws. The bill brings back the FCC guidelines put in place under Obama, but only for California.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Will the ways in which we can push Hispanics out of the country never end? Now the U.S. is denying passports to people with U.S. birth certificates, or even revoking them for people who already have them. The problem arises from cases in the 1990’s where some midwives admitted to falsifying birth documents, and now anyone born to a midwife is suspect. Some have been detained and some are in deportation proceedings. Even though there is no proof that they were NOT born here.
  2. Some passports were denied under Bush and Obama for the same reason, but a lawsuit ended the practice in Obama’s first year as president.
  3. California signs a bill into law overhauling its money bail system. The bill mostly gets rid of money bail and instead would use a system of probation departments to analyze flight risk and risks to the community. Opponents of money bail say this still won’t fix the problem.
  4. We’re on day 14 of the 19-day prison strike. Prisoners have stopped eating and working to protest unsafe and unjust conditions. Some immigrant detainees have joined in on the strike.
  5. The mother of a toddler who died after being separated and then reunited files a lawsuit against the city where her daughter was detained. Allegedly, the child became ill at the detention center, wasn’t given adequate medial care, and was released with a clean bill of health by a nurse who didn’t have the authority. Once reunited, the mother tried to see a doctor but was turned away several times.
  6. And finally some justice. A jury convicts a police officer in Texas of killing Jordan Edwards, an unarmed, 15-year-old black teen. The officer gets a 15-year sentence.
  7. A judge rules against Texas and other states trying to end DACA, saying they waited too long to file suit. The ruling doesn’t protect DACA long term, though, and the judge leaves an opening for the states to file again, saying that DACA is likely illegal.
  8. The backlog is growing for immigrants who have applied for citizenship and are still being processed. Part of the slowdown is a longer questionnaire created under Obama, and part is longer delays for getting interview appointments. Part of it could also be an increase in the number people trying to get their citizenship.
  9. The family of Mollie Tibbetts, who was allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant, asks people to stop politicizing her death. Specifically, they say Mollie would be against using this as an excuse to hate undocumented immigrants.
  10. Ron DeSantis, who is the Republican nominee for governor of Florida, was an administrator of a Facebook page that features conspiracy theories as well as racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric. The page also attacks Parkland shooting survivors. Remember, this is the guy who said “we don’t want to monkey this up” by electing a black governor.
  11. 16 states have introduced legislation to restrict the use of non-disclosure agreements in sexual harassment cases.

Climate/EPA

  1. The California legislature passes a bill that would require the state to get its energy from 100% carbon-free sources by 2045. Several other states are considering the same, and Hawaii has already passed it into law. Orlando, FL, has the same goal for 2050.
  2. The BLM publishes a notice of intent to open 1.6 million acres of publicly held land in California to fracking and oil drilling. There’s been a moratorium on leasing federal land in California to oil companies.
  3. Despite the governor of Puerto Rico recently raising the official Hurricane Maria death toll to 2,975 (up from the previous 64), Trump says the administration’s response to the disaster was fantastic.
  4. The EPA considers reversing Obama-era limits on mercury emissions from coal power plants. The health effects of mercury exposure can include tremors, neurological damage, emotional changes, headaches, impaired mental performance, and muscle weakness, among others.
  5. According to a new study, hotter temperatures caused by climate change will make insects hungrier, causing diseases to spread faster and ruining crops.
  6. Over 100 schools in Detroit don’t have drinking water after tests find elevated levels of lead.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The U.S. and Mexico reach a preliminary agreement to update NAFTA, possibly without Canada. Trump wants to drop the name NAFTA because he calls it the worst trade deal in history and says it has a bad connotation.
  2. The TPP, the Obama trade pact that Trump disbanded, was basically a renegotiation of NAFTA but with nine additional countries. TPP and Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA are very similar with the exception of the North American auto industry. The updated NAFTA has tighter restrictions and better worker protections than TPP.
  3. Trump says the deal will be good for farmers and for manufacturers. (Note: I haven’t found a good analysis to verify this yet.)
  4. Stocks jump on Trump’s announcement that we’ve reached a trade deal with Mexico, calming down some of the uncertainty over trade. The NASDAQ hits an all-time high on the news.
  5. Mexico is a little more subdued about the agreement, saying that we’re continuing to make progress.
  6. Canada misses Trump’s Friday deadline to agree to the new terms of NAFTA. Both sides say negotiations are ongoing, though. Trump says he won’t give in to any of Canada’s requests and that this will all be on our terms.
  7. Seth Frotman, the student loan ombudsman at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, resigns in protest. He says that the bureau has lost sight of its mission to protect consumers, and specifically that they no longer protect students’ financial futures and are openly hostile to protecting student borrowers.
  8. The USDA announces it’s ready to accept applications from farmers who’ve been hurt by the tariffs. They play to make payments totaling $4.7 billion, their first installment of the $12 billion bailout.
  9. Trump cancels a planned cost-of-living pay raise for federal employees citing budget constraints. This is not something you do during a booming economy. Unless, of course, you already created a $1 trillion deficit by giving out big tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy.
  10. Trump also wants to get rid of locality adjustments for federal worker wages. These are cost-of-living adjustments based on the standard of living in the city in which a worker resides. Most large companies adjust wages this way.
  11. The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) blocks the Trump administration’s tariff on newsprint. They say there’s no sign of any unfair competition from Canadian imports.
  12. Trump wants to impose the additional $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods next week.
  13. Trump also threatens to pull out of the World Trade Organization, saying they’ve treated the U.S. very badly and that it’s all very unfair. How did the biggest economy in the world get such a persecution complex?
  14. Did you know that many restaurant chains have policies where they don’t allow employees to try for higher-paying jobs at other locations of the same chain? Now 15 chains have ended that policy. But that businesses continue to do things like this is why we still need unions.

Elections:

  1. The DNC voted to limit the powers of their superdelegates for the 2020 primaries.
  2. For a second time, a North Carolina court rules that the state’s congressional districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered. The first time, the lines were deemed to be racially motivated; this time they were seen as politically motivated to benefit Republicans. They might have to redraw the lines, just 9 weeks before the midterm elections.
  3. The lawmaker responsible for the congressional districts lines said they were designed to maintain Republican dominance because “electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats.”
  4. The USPS accidentally releases security clearance paperwork for an ex-CIA operative who is now running as a Democratic candidate for Congress (Abigail Spanberger). The Congressional Leadership Fund, a GOP PAC closely linked to Paul Ryan, then uses some of the sensitive information in those papers against Spanberger’s campaign.
  5. I’m not sure whether this should go under elections or discrimination, but Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pardoned by Trump last year, lost bigly in the Republican primary for Senate in Arizona. Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt of court for refusing to stop racially profiling Arizona residents.
  6. Trump meets with evangelical leaders and urges them to campaign for Republicans from the pulpit. He also says that if Democrats take over, there will be violence. Though he seems to be saying the Democrats will be violent. I’m not sure why the winner would be violent.
    • Just for the record, Trump did not overturn the Johnson Amendment as he’s claimed, and religious organizations still can’t endorse a political candidate.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Last week, Trump refused to sign off on the full White House statement commemorating John McCain. This week, he raises the flags back up to full mast. After blowback from that, Trump places the flag back at half mast and issues a full statement on McCain.
  2. Even the American Legion felt they had to write a letter to Trump urging him to follow protocol and to honor McCain.
  3. As the Senate reconvenes, Senators each take some time to honor McCain on the Senate floor. McCain will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until his interment.
  4. There are a number of memorials for McCain, including one in Arizona, one in the Capitol Rotunda, and the final one at the Washington National Cathedral.
    • Joe Biden is among the speakers at the service in Arizona.
    • Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Mike Pence speak in the Capitol Rotunda.
    • McCain had requested former presidents Bush (Jr.) and Obama to deliver eulogies, as well as Joe Lieberman. A Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent. A quaint throwback to bipartisanship.
    • McCain’s daughter Meghan gives an emotional eulogy, crediting her father for making her tough and criticizing the divisive politics of today.
    • Many of the speakers at the events take the opportunity to support reaching across the aisle and to take jabs at the current administration.
  1. McCain is buried at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.
  2. Republicans bury Chuck Schumer’s proposal to rename the Russell Senate Building after John McCain.
  3. Senator James Inhofe says McCain is partly to blame for Trump bungling how McCain was honored because McCain was too outspoken and criticized Trump. That’s not how this works.
  4. Trump was not invited to McCain’s funeral, but Ivanka and Jared Kushner did attend at Lindsey Graham’s invitation.
  5. Trump claims that Google’s search results are rigged against him to only show bad news about him. Looks like he got this from a PJ Media article that was covered by Lou Dobbs on Fox.
  6. Larry Kudlow says the administration is looking at whether the government should regulate Google search results (can you say ‘state run media’?). This largely came about because of social media’s efforts to stop the spread of fake stories and lies, which often come from sources Trump relies on.
  7. Don’t mess with Google. After Trump’s accusations, Google adds his picture next to the definition of imbecile.
  8. Trump announces that White House Counsel Don McGahn will leave in the fall. It’s not clear if it’s by choice or if he was fired.
  9. Robert Chain calls the Boston Globe to tell them they are the enemy of the people and says “we’re going to kill every fucking one of you.” The FBI arrests Chain, who owns several guns and a recently purchased rifle.
  10. A judge sentences two Reuters journalists in Myanmar to seven years each for possessing confidential documents. The two were investigating the killings of Rohingya Muslims in the country.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating dips back down below 40%.

Week 66 in Trump

Posted on April 30, 2018 in Politics, Trump

If you’re unsure of why we need to put an end to Citizen’s United, here’s my quote of the week; a confession from Mick Mulvaney, former Congressman and current head of the Office of Management and Budget and the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.


“If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”

He was speaking to bankers and lobbyists about how they can help weaken the CFPB—the very agency he runs and the very agency that is supposed to be a watchdog over bankers. This guy is not looking out for the best interests of the people. And we need to get money out of politics.

Here’s what else happened this week in politics…

Fox & Friends

I don’t usually report much on Trump’s rallies or speeches, but this stream of consciousness earned its own category this week.

  1. Trump phones in to Fox & Friends and talks for nearly half an hour non-stop devolving into a rant by the end. The anchors could barely get a word in, even though they tried to ask him questions, steer him away from legal danger, and stop the conversation. I’m not even sure I can summarize it all, but here goes:
    • He criticizes the Iran deal and says we gave them $1.8 billion dollars. (Background: Hardly any of this money was controlled by the U.S. or U.S. banks—it was mostly held overseas and much of the payment was in Euros. Some of it was frozen assets, and some of it was from a military hardware agreement that they paid for but that we never delivered on because of the revolution.)
    • He says he’s having a hard time getting things done because of the obstructionist Democrats. Except that the Republicans hold the House, the Senate, and the presidency. Democrats don’t have much power to obstruct.
    • He defends Dr. Ronny Jackson and says Montana Senator Jon Tester will pay in the midterms for publicizing criticism against Jackson. (Tip: If you vet your candidates before presenting them to Congress, you can also stop their dirty laundry from being aired in public.)
    • He (again) says James Comey is a leaker and a liar, and accuses him of crimes. He then threatens to intervene with the DOJ.
    • He (again) says the FBI was unfair to search Manafort’s and Cohen’s offices and homes.
    • He says Michael Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels affair, something he previously denied knowledge of.
    • He says Michael Cohen barely represented him (just a “tiny, little fraction”), opening the door to getting client/attorney privilege thrown out.
    • They talk Kanye West. I’m not sure how this is news. Even Kanye felt compelled to tweet he doesn’t agree with Trump 100%.
    • He says that Democrats outspent Republicans on a recent special election in Arizona that the Republican won by 5 points.
      Reality check: Republicans outspent Democrats 8.4 to 1, and they should’ve won that seat easily by 20-25 points.
    • He talks about the upcoming North Korea summit, saying he’s not giving up much in the negotiations.
    • He says he got more done in one year than any president. Historians have already debunked that one.
    • He (again) brings up his electoral win.
    • He criticizes Mueller’s team of attorney’s for being all Democrats (they are, but Mueller isn’t, and we don’t know the party affiliation or identities of DOJ and FBI staff doing the actual investigation).
    • He also says Mueller’s attorneys are all “Hillary people.”
    • He confirms that he spent a night in Moscow during the Miss America pageant, despite previous denials.
    • He ends with an almost unintelligible rant about Andy McCabe, Hillary money, Comey crimes, and Terry McAuliffe.
  1. Within an hour of the above, DOJ prosecutors file a statement with the courts saying that Trump said Cohen represented him just a “tiny, little fraction.” This, along with Sean Hannity claiming Cohen didn’t represent him, blows up the argument by Trump’s legal team that the documents seized from Michael Cohen are covered under client/attorney privilege.
  2. Also, Kellyanne Conway says Trump would like to appear regularly on Fox & Friends, but I’m guessing his legal team will work very hard to not let that happen.

Russia:

  1. The Senate Judiciary Committee advances a vote on legislation to protect Robert Mueller.
  2. House Intelligence Committee Republicans and Democrats each release very different reports on their conclusions in their Russia investigation. This whole thing seems like an enormous waste of time and energy, and only proves that Trey Gowdy was absolutely correct when he said:

“Congressional investigations unfortunately are usually overtly political investigations, where it is to one side’s advantage to drag things out. The notion that one side is playing the part of defense attorney and that the other side is just these white-hat defenders of the truth is laughable … This is politics.”

  1. One main difference between the two reports is that Republicans say it was out of their scope of investigation to look into whether Trump colluded with Russia (though they concluded he didn’t). The Democrat’s report says the committee refused to follow up on leads about possible collusion.
  2. Another main difference is that the Republican report accuses our federal law enforcement agencies of doing shoddy work.

  3. Likely the differences between the two reports are things that Mueller’s investigation is already looking into.
  4. Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who met with key Trump campaign members in 2016, turns out to have closer ties to the Russian government than she’s previously admitted to. She was an informant for the prosecutor general.
  5. The contact to whom James Comey leaked his memos used to be a special government employee for the FBI.
  6. A federal judge throws out Paul Manafort’s lawsuit accusing Robert Mueller of going outside the scope of his investigation.
  7. A new court filing indicates that the purpose of the search warrant on Paul Manafort’s properties last year was to obtain information about the Trump Tower meeting between members of Trump’s campaign and Russian lobbyists.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court hears arguments about the third iteration of Trump’s Muslim ban. Early signs point to them not overturning it.
  2. Federal district judges vote unanimously to appoint Geoffrey Berman as U.S. attorney for New York’s southern district. Jeff Sessions appointed Berman as interim attorney, and the judges have taken the decision out of Trump’s hands for the time being by making the appointment.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge blocks Trump’s attempts to cut funding to a Planned Parenthood program to prevent teen pregnancy across the nation. This is on top of last week’s ruling that he couldn’t cut funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program.
  2. Step away from the romaine! E-coli outbreaks related to romaine lettuce are reported in 22 states.

International:

  1. Mike Pompeo gets through his first round of confirmation votes, even though Rand Paul swore he would block Pompeo. That is, until Paul received several calls from Trump on the day of the vote.
  2. Senator Tom Cotton says that Democrats are involved in shameful political behavior for opposing Mike Pompeo’s nomination.
    Reality check: Cotton held back the confirmation of three of Obama’s appointees, including one, Cassandra Butts, who’s nomination he dragged out for two years. We’ll never know how much longer he would’ve dragged it out because she died of leukemia before he had a chance.
  3. Pompeo ends up getting confirmed by the end of the week, and flies right off to Brussels to meet with NATO allies.
  4. In Kabul, a suicide bomber bombs the gate of a voter registration center, injuring over 100 and killing at least 57. ISIS claims responsibility.
  5. Melania and Donald Trump host their first state dinner in honor of French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte. Breaking from the bipartisan tradition, they didn’t invite any Democrats or members of the press.
  6. Of note, the main purpose of Macron’s visit is to convince Trump to stay in the Iran deal, despite likely pressure from John Bolton to pull out.
  7. If we pull out of the Iran denuclearization deal so close to the North Korea denuclearization meetings, North Korea might not think we’re negotiating in good faith.
  8. In his speech to the joint Congress, French President Macron addresses #MeToo, climate change, the U.S. rejoining the Paris climate accord, fake news, democracy and the post-WWII democratic order, white nationalism, terrorist propaganda, North Korean denuclearization, stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons (while also calling for respect for Iran), and Mideast peace. He pushed for support of the JCPA (Iran agreement), saying France won’t leave it and Trump needs to take responsibility for his own actions around that.
  9. After Trump threatens economic sanctions against Iran unless our EU allies fix the JCPA, Iran says maybe they’ll just withdraw, freeing them to start up their nuclear program again.
  10. Ahead of Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in meet and agree to work to remove nuclear weapons from their respective countries. They also agree to officially end the Korean war.
  11. Police arrest the Waffle House shooter. He has a history of mental illness, at one time saying Taylor Swift was stalking him and at another showing up at the White House to set up a meeting with Trump.
  12. Trump threatens countries who might oppose the U.S.’s bid to hold the FIFA World Cup in 2026, saying we won’t support them if they don’t support us.
  13. Thousands of protestors come out in Germany to protest anti-Semitism. There’s been a rise in anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents across Europe, with Germany averaging about four a day right now.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Tennessee’s state Senate passes a bill to erect a monument to the victims of abortion. The state House already passed a similar bill, so it looks like it’ll be up to the governor to pass or veto it.
  2. The chaplain of the House of Representatives resigns, indicating in his resignation letter that it was at Paul Ryan’s request. Ryan later said that the House members’ pastoral needs weren’t being met.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. We find out that National Security Advisor John Bolton chaired the non-profit Gatestone Institute, which promotes false and misleading anti-Muslim stories (some of which were picked up and spread by Russian trolls in 2016). The group also warns of the coming jihad, warns against mixing Europeans with Muslims, and blames several national problems on immigrants.
  2. A federal judge orders the Trump administration to continue with the DACA program, this time forcing the administration to start processing new applications. Trump has 90 days to provide stronger legal justification for ending the program.
  3. Mississippi and Alabama state governments took a holiday on Monday to observe Confederate Memorial Day.
  4. The Department of Homeland Security prepares to end temporary protected status for over 9,000 immigrants from Nepal who came here after their country had a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. I’m losing count… we’re getting rid of Haitians, Sudanese, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, Syrians, Hondurans, Somalis, Yemenis, and now Nepalis. That’s over a half million displaced people.
  5. Montgomery, Alabama opens the nation’s first memorial for victims of lynching, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It features 800 steel columns hanging from a roof, each with the name of a county and the people who were lynched there.
  6. The Oklahoma state House passes a bill that would allow adoption agencies to discriminate against adoptive couples based on religious beliefs. This, of course, lets agencies halt adoptions to a variety of couples who offend their morals, but is most likely to affect gay and lesbian couples.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A federal judge rules against Trump’s attempt to delay a rule that would increase fines for automakers whose cars violate fuel efficient standards.
  2. Trump’s latest plans for EPA fuel economy standards is to freeze them at 2020 levels through 2026. California has long been able to create their own rules on auto emissions, and the latest plan would revoke that.
  3. Scott Pruitt signs the proposal mentioned last week that would force the raw data behind any EPA scientific studies to be released to the public. As a reminder, much of this data is personal medical data covered by privacy standards, so not all studies can legally follow Pruitt’s rule.
  4. Also, it turns out that internal EPA staff has been working on the above proposal in collaboration with Representative Lamar Smith, who authored a similar piece of legislation that passed the House. They want the proposal to be as close as possible to Smith’s bill.
  5. On top of forcing anchors to read propaganda pieces, Sinclair Broadcast Group fires a local reporter who refused to present global warming denier views in a piece on global warming.
  6. Scott Pruitt appears before two congressional committees to answer questions about his questionable expenses and his conflicts of interest.
  7. Ryan Zinke’s Department of Interior proposes cutting parts of the Well Control Rule. The Obama administration created this rule after the BP oil spill to provide safety standards to prevent blowouts and enact emergency response to offshore drilling disasters. Two things rankle me about this:
    • Zinke continues to protect his own state of Montana while disregarding the safety and health of other states.
    • Regulations don’t come out of a vacuum. They are largely in response to health and environmental disasters to prevent them from happening again.

Budget/Economy:

  1. A CBO report says that because of the GOP tax reform, owners of pass-through businesses will receive over $40 billion in tax breaks this year.
    • $17.4 billion will go to around 200,000 owners who make over $1 million a year (averaging to an $87,000 tax break per owner).
    • $3.6 billion will go to around 200,000 owners who make $500,000 to $1 million (averaging to an $18,000 tax break per owner).
    • $15.7 billion will go to around 9.2 million owners who make $100,000 to $500,000 (averaging to an $1,700 tax break per owner).

So yes, this is definitely a tax break for the rich.

  1. Ben Carson proposes a rent increase for people living in subsidized housing. Right now they pay 30% of their income; he wants to increase it to 35%.
  2. In the first quarter under the new tax plan, the economy grew at 2.3%, just above the yearly average since the recession ended nine years ago. It falls below the 2.9% from the previous quarter and below Trump’s expectation of 3%.
  3. Economists think we can’t extend this growth for more than a year or two because of our national debt (over $21 trillion now), which is expected to grow by around $1 trillion per year. If the Fed continues to raise interest rates, the cost of that debt will also increase.
  4. Both the Fed and the CBO expect growth to fall to 1.8%.
  5. Sprint and T-Mobile agree to a $27 billion merger. Verizon will be the only larger mobile provider.

Elections:

  1. Democrats in Arizona block a Republican effort to change how vacant Senate seats are filled. The GOP was trying to make sure that should John McCain have to give up his seat because of his health issues, his seat wouldn’t be up for election this year. If the bill passed, the governor would appoint a replacement who would hold that seat for two full years if a seat becomes vacation within 150 days of a primary election.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The day after Barbara Bush’s funeral, George Bush Sr. ends up in the ICU with an infection.
  2. A van drives down a Toronto sidewalk, killing 10 and injuring 15 more. The driver turns out to be kind of a social outcast belonging to a group called Incel (involuntary celibates). He tries to commit suicide by cop, but the officer involved refuses to shoot him and takes him in to custody.
  3. Accusations of impropriety mount against Dr. Ronny Jackson, Trump’s pick to run the Department of Veterans affairs. Allegations include over-prescribing drugs (uppers and downers), being drunk on the job, and creating a hostile work environment.
  4. An inspector general report from 2012 recommended terminating him for bad leadership of his department.
  5. And what the heck? The White House releases the inspector general report expecting it to exonerate Jackson, but it mostly backs up the accusations. Maybe they didn’t read it?
  6. Jackson denies all allegations, but the White House ends up withdrawing his nomination.
  7. The Presidential Personnel Staff, which is responsible for vetting candidates for government positions, has only 30 employees—less than a third of previous administrations. Most employees are young campaign workers, family members of staff, or more senior officials transitioning to other posts. Most also have no vetting experience.
  8. The Department of Education under Betsy DeVos has closed dozens of investigations into school disciplinary actions, most of which are civil rights issues. Blacks are 4 times as likely to receive suspensions as whites, and they are twice as likely to be arrested. And this starts at the freaking preschool level.
  9. In a joint press conference with French President Macron, Trump again accuses Democrats of being obstructionists. So I’ll remind everyone again that Democrats barely have enough power to obstruct. Republicans hold all branches of power.
  10. Michael Cohen says he’ll plead the fifth in court in order to avoid being deposed.
  11. A former federal judge will review the materials seized from Cohen’s home and offices to determine what falls under attorney/client privilege.
  12. Irony alert. Eric Greitens is the keynote speaker at a law enforcement prayer breakfast. He’s accused of two felonies, one around sexual blackmail and the other around computer tampering to gain a charity’s donor information.
  13. A jury finds Bill Cosby guilty on three charges of sexual misconduct.
  14. Reporters Without Borders drops the U.S. to 45th out of 180 countries in its ranking of press freedom. It was 41 in 2016 and 43 in 2017. I’m not clear how much credence to give this ranking.
  15. The FBI says they told the Trump administration about the spousal abuse allegations against Rob Porter in March of 2017, contradicting what the White House has been saying.
  16. Michelle Wolf doesn’t hold back at the White House Press Correspondence dinner, and gets raked over the coals by some and lauded by others. She called people out on their political BS without apology.

Polls:

  1. 74% of voters don’t want Trump to fire Mueller, but 71% think he will before this is over.
  2. 56% of voters think that Mueller will find that Trump did something criminal or impeachable.

Week 65 in Trump

Posted on April 24, 2018 in Politics, Trump

DRAKETOWN, GA - APRIL 21: Members of the National Socialist Party burn a Swastika (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

To me, the biggest news this week is that after decades of rule – longer than my entire lifetime – the Castro family is ceding leadership of Cuba. However, the new president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, is Raúl Castro’s handpicked successor and Castro will remain party leader until 2021. I wouldn’t expect much to change, at least not any time soon. At any rate, it will be interesting to watch.

Here’s what else happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. April 10th was Equal Pay Day. That’s how far into this year white women had to work to make as much as their male counterparts did last year. For African-American women, this day doesn’t come until August 7th; for Native American women, it comes on September 7th; and for Latina women, it comes on November 1st. It’s a good time to remember that the administration stopped forcing companies to provide data on wages by race and gender, making it harder to close this wage gap.

Russia:

  1. So far this year, Trump’s reelection campaign has spent over $1 out of every $5 on legal fees.
  2. A judge rejects Trump’s request to review material seized from Michael Cohen before it can be allowed as evidence.
  3. We learn that Trump was surprised when he found out that the U.S. had expelled far more diplomats than our ally countries, and he was pretty pissed off about that.
  4. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley says new sanctions will be coming down on Russia. Trump says nope, not happening. And then, instead of the White House taking responsibility, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow says Haley must’ve been confused. And Haley says “I don’t get confused.” Kudlow says maybe he was the one who got confused. Haley, who was was repeating official White House talking points, wins the round but Trump still overrides her.
  5. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, is recused from the Michael Cohen case due to potential conflicts. He’s a temporary appointee and Trump could nominate him to a permanent position or not.
  6. Trump contradicts himself again on why he fired Comey, saying it wasn’t because of Russia. Last year, he said he was thinking about the Russia thing when he decided to fire Comey.
  7. Rudy Giuliani joins Trump’s legal team, saying he’ll get this Mueller thing wrapped up in two weeks.
  8. The DNC files a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Russian government, the GRU, several members of the Trump campaign, Russian nationals, and Wikileaks. The suit alleges a conspiracy to disrupt our presidential elections, and to favor Trump and harm Clinton in the election.
    • Defendants in the suit also include Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, Julian Assange, George Papadopoulos, Josef Mifsud (who leaked the email information to Papadopoulos), Aras and Emin Agalarov (Russian oligarchs who hosted the Miss Universe Pageant), the GRU, Russian hackers, and the Russian known as Guccifer 2.0.
    • The suit says that due to the nature of the crimes, Russia isn’t entitled to sovereign immunity.
    • The suit gives us some previously unknown dates. Russians first breached the DNC computer system on July 27, 2015. They breached it again on April 18, 2016, and began downloading documents on April 22. Four days later, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that Russians had emails that could harm Hillary’s campaign.
    • Analysts say the primary purpose of this suit is for the evidentiary discovery it will prompt.
  1. The DOJ finally releases Comey’s redacted memos to the House Republicans who then immediately turn around and release them to the public. House GOP had been threatening to hold DOJ officials in contempt if they didn’t turn the memos over, though it isn’t typical for the DOJ to release evidence relevant to an ongoing investigation.
  2. I haven’t read a lot that’s news in the memos, except maybe that:
    • Trump lied about whether he stayed overnight in Moscow, which his bodyguard already said he did. (Also, new news is that flight records confirm he stayed there.)
    • The administration (including Trump) had their doubts about Michael Flynn, which seem for Trump to stem from Flynn not telling him about a call from Vladimir Putin.
    • Trump wondered if Andrew McCabe had it in for him from the start.
    • Trump refused to criticize Putin even in private.
  1. We learn that House Republicans threatened Rosenstein with impeachment if he didn’t release information about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Russia meddling. Sources say they’re trying to build a case against Rosenstein.
  2. We also learn that Trump pushed Jeff Sessions and Christopher Wray to investigate Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two investigators removed from the Russia case. He doesn’t understand why they still have jobs at the FBI, and wants Sessions and Wray to find information to discredit them.
  3. Rod Rosenstein tells Trump he’s not the target of an investigation, which seems to give Mueller a little breathing room and lifts the threat of being fired.
  4. We learn that Sessions told White House Counsel that if Trump fires Rod Rosenstein, Sessions might quit in protest. Not that there seems to be much love lost between Trump and Sessions, but an attorney general resigning could lead to a string of resignations.

Courts/Justice:

  1. While Trump’s been suggesting he might fire Mueller, the Supreme Court is set to hear a case on how SEC judges are appointed. Trump’s Solicitor General is urging the courts to make this case about the president’s power to fire all “officers of the United States” who “exercise significant authority” instead of limiting the scope to firing SEC judges.
  2. With Neil Gorsuch siding with the liberal judges, the Supreme Court invalidates part of a federal law that mandates deportation of immigrants convicted of certain “crimes of violence.” They say the law is too vague.
  3. Parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims finally bring Alex Jones to court for his repeated lies and conspiracy theories intended to convince the public that the parents are crisis actors and it was a “false flag” operation.
    • At least three lawsuits have been filed against him recently for defamation.
    • The parents have been receiving death threats from people who believe Alex Jones’ dangerous lies.
  1. A court holds Kris Kobach in contempt. Kobach led Trump’s voter fraud commission, and has been tied up in courts over his voter suppression efforts as Secretary of State in Kansas. The judge says Kobach disobeyed orders to let thousands of disenfranchised voters in Kansas know that they actually were registered to vote in 2016.
  2. Three federal judges rule that the Trump administration cannot withhold funds from so-called sanctuary cities, a decision roundly criticized by the DOJ. In case you think the judges are activist judges, they were appointed by Reagan, Bush Sr., and Ford.
  3. In response, Trump tweets that sanctuary cities released 142 gang members back into the streets in 2017. In reality, 142 detainer requests for suspected gang members failed for various reasons and not all in sanctuary areas. Reasons include administrative errors, ICE issuing the detainer request too late, ICE being unable to arrange custody transfer, and, yes, non-cooperation by local officials. (You can see the report here). 


Healthcare:

  1. Attorneys general in sixteen states file a motion to intervene in a lawsuit filed by several red states to overturn the ACA.
  2. Anti-abortion laws are on the rise. In 2017, 19 states passed 63 laws restricting abortions, some even trying to ban all abortions without regard for the mother’s life. Thirty-three states have placed restrictions on abortions since 2011.
  3. The ACLU and Education Law Center win a lawsuit requiring that kids in Flint, MI, get health checks to make sure they haven’t been harmed by the lead in their water supply. They’ll also get special health or education services if needed.
  4. A federal judge rules that the Trump administration can’t cut funding to the successful Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. The administration was trying to cut the program’s five-year grants down to three years.

International:

  1. Trump gives North and South Korea his blessing to talk about formally ending the Korean War. North Korea also drops it’s decades-long requirement that U.S. troops leave South Korea in order for North Korea to denuclearize.
  2. Ahead of the planned meeting with Trump, North Korea says it will suspend their nuclear tests and shut down a test site. Likely, the test site is degraded—nuclear test sites can only be used for so long. Kim Jong Un says there’s no more need for the sites, but it’s not clear if that’s because the country has advanced their weaponry as far as they need to or because they’re focused on peace.
  3. Trump meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe again at Mar-a-Lago, nearly a year from their first visit there. Both leaders are under investigation this time around.
  4. The White House says that Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jung Un over Easter weekend. We only learn about it now because Trump thinks it will help Pompeo get confirmed as Secretary of State.
  5. We learn that Jim Mattis pushed Trump to obtain congressional support before launching an attack on Syria. He was overruled, obviously.
  6. Anti-government protests break out across Nicaragua, spurred by changes to their social security system (but discontent against the Ortega government has been simmering for a while). After days of violence and at least 10 deaths, Ortega agrees to reverse the changes.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Senate Judiciary Committee finally considers bipartisan legislation to prevent Trump from firing Mueller. Mitch McConnell says that even if the committee passes the legislation, he won’t bring it to a floor vote in the Senate. The committee says they’ll vote on it anyway
  2. A group of House Republicans ask the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Dana Boente, Loretta Lynch, and other perceived enemies, largely for activities surrounding the Steele dossier.
  3. Trump recently signed a law to protect victims of online sex trafficking, but it could have some unintended consequences. The way the new law is written, entities that host a website could now be held responsible for content that other people put on the site. Some sites are already doing damage control by closing down sections like personal ads and by rewriting the terms of service.
  4. Chuck Schumer introduces a bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. This comes not long after we learn that John Boehner will be lobbying for the marijuana industry.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A Starbucks manager calls the police on two black men who ask to use the facilities while waiting for someone to join them and before they order coffee. The men decide to wait for their friend instead of ordering, and the police arrest them and detain them for 8 hours.
  2. The manager no longer works for the company, and Starbucks will close all stores on May 29 in order to train staff on racial bias.
  3. Trump says sanctuary cities are places where undocumented immigrants “breed.” I’m not sure what he means by that, but it’s dog-whistle language that plays on people’s fears of immigrants while at the same time dehumanizing them.
  4. Trump tweets that he won’t fund California’s national guard at the border after Governor Brown says they can only be used to fight drug smuggling and other illegal activities (and that they can’t be used for immigration enforcement).
  5. A jury convicts three men in Kansas of plotting to bomb an apartment complex largely populated by Somali immigrants. The men, part of a militia group called the Kansas Security Force, said their attack would wake people up. This is a good example of why anti-Muslim sentiment is so dangerous.
  6. GOP members of the Senate whip out their new favorite weapon, the Congressional Review Act, to overturn rules laid out by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that mandate fairness in auto loans. Studies find that lenders charges minorities more for auto loans than whites, so the CFPB was trying to level the playing field.
  7. Instead of dealing with actual problems facing Tennesseans, the Tennessee House of Representatives has been working on bills to punish Memphis for removing confederate statues. Nothing has passed, but now they voted to strip $250,000 from the city in next year’s budget. The money was for the city’s bicentennial event.
  8. Six children in California’s central valley are orphans after an ICE chase results in a car crash that leaves their parents dead. The people in the car weren’t even ICE targets. People in the area blame ICE and Trump’s immigration policies; ICE blames California’s sanctuary policies.
  9. The city councils in several Orange County cities have voted to fight California’s sanctuary policies against the wishes of many of their constituents. Now they’re starting to get sued over those decisions.
  10. While women and Democratic men in the Senate have signed on to a letter pushing an overhaul of their harassment rules, not one Republican man has signed on to it yet.
  11. Dozens of demonstrators surround a school in Michigan with pickups flying the confederate flag, which eventually forces the school to cancel classes. Despite racial bullying that accompanies the demonstration, the mayor says “people in this country have to start realizing we have to tolerate all peoples’ views.” Um no, sorry. #NoH8
  12. ICE has reportedly been targeting immigration activists, and this week a judge rules that activist Alejandra Pablos be released.
  13. Neo-nazis take to the streets in Newnan, Georgia, to commemorate Hitler’s birthday. Counter-protestors wrote messages of peace and love in chalk on the sidewalks, while Antifa protestors were a little less touchy-feely.
    • Speeches were largely about white power and taking our country back from “illegal immigrants.”
    • Here’s a telling quote: “We need to round them up and put them in camps if need be, like we did the Italians, Germans and Japanese. We are at war with the illegals.”
    • It was mostly non-violent, and the only arrests were for counter-protestors wearing masks.
    • Supporters later gather further away from Newnan to burn a swastika and othala rune.

Climate/EPA:

  1. New information about Scott Pruitt’s paranoia and overspending keeps popping up. It turns out he upgraded his official car to a larger SUV with bullet-resistant seat covers.
  2. 170 Members of Congress sign on to a resolution requesting Pruitt’s immediate resignation from the EPA. They say they have no confidence in his ability to run the agency.
  3. GOP Representative Jim Bridenstein is just barely confirmed as administrator of NASA in a vote along party lines. Jeff Flake was a holdout until he got concessions on an unrelated issue. Bridenstein is not a scientist, lacks aeronautical expertise, and denies climate change.
  4. Just a note on Earth Day. The environmental movement started nearly 50 years ago because of real disasters like burning rivers, thick smog, oil spills, toxic waste leaching into neighborhoods, and poisoned lakes. The movement led to Earth Day and these disasters led to the creation of the EPA and the regulations that helped us clean up the mess we made. And now Scott Pruitt’s EPA, along with the Republican-led Congress, is working to remove the protections that gave us clean air and water and that stopped businesses from dumping toxic wastes. Fortunately, the courts are ruling against most of these changes.
  5. Trump marks Earth Day by promising to reverse even more regulations. He says that a market-driven economy is what will protect the environment and give us clean air, land, and water. (See above explanation of Earth Day.)
  6. Just like the previous few years, this year is predicted to be the worst so far for allergies. Why? Blame climate change for higher concentrations of pollen for longer periods of time.

Budget/Economy:

  1. On tax day, the IRS’s online system for filing taxes failed. They gave everyone an extra day to file their taxes.
  2. Crude oil prices are on the rise again, with our stockpile shrinking and OPEC keeping their supply tight.
  3. Trump criticizes OPEC for rising gas prices. So I see how this works. Now high oil prices AREN’T the president’s fault? (For the record, they aren’t, and they weren’t under Obama either.)
  4. Trump tweets that Japan and South Korea want us to get back in to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but South Korea was never part of it.
  5. Marijuana is a big money-maker in states where it’s now legal, but sellers generally deal in cash because banks can’t get around federal law. California legislators are pushing a bill to let the state license banks especially to handle money generated by marijuana sales.
  6. Paul Ryan wants to pass another major tax cut this year. Republicans hope it will generate some enthusiasm with their GOP base and help out in the midterms.
  7. While some are benefiting from the new tariffs, they’re pushing up the cost of newsprint. The Tampa Bay Times announces dozens of job cuts.
  8. Arizona’s teachers vote to strike, even though their governor promised a phased in 20% raise by 2020. Teachers say the money to fund the raises will come out of necessary programs, and the raises don’t apply to support staff.
  9. It’s spreading like a virus. Teachers in Colorado march on the statehouse for higher salaries and retirement fund guarantees, causing school closures in the state.
  10. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to fine Wells Fargo $1 billion over lending abuses. The bank is still struggling to recover from last year’s scandal where account reps signed up customers for fake accounts.
  11. Trump’s tax cuts pay big dividends for our six largest banks (JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and so on). They made $3.6 billion off the tax cuts in just three months this year.

Elections:

  1. Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA) announces he’ll resign in the coming weeks, opening another GOP seat in Congress.
  2. The White House legislative director says that Mitch McConnell plans to make the Senate workweek longer to hurt vulnerable Democrats. By making them work longer hours, they have less time to campaign.
  3. Oh man… this is just wrong. Luke Messer is a Republican candidate for the Indiana state legislature where he’s running to fill a seat previously filled by someone who was killed by a drunk driver. Messer chose not to tell party leaders that he had two DUI convictions.

Miscellaneous:

  1. It turns out that Cohen’s mystery third client is none other than Sean Hannity. Hannity’s been reporting on Trump and Cohen, even interviewing Cohen, without giving us any disclosure. He also fought to have the courts keep his name out of it.
  2. Hannity shares the services of other Trump lawyers too, including Jay Sekulow and Victoria Toensing.
  3. Hannity owns several real estate properties under shell companies, some of which he purchased with the assistance of HUD. He also purchased some of those properties through Jeff Brock, who plead guilty to rigging foreclosure auctions from 2007 to 2012.
  4. Cohen requests a 90-day delay in the Stormy Daniels lawsuit, but the judge says he would have to plead the 5th to get that.
  5. Now that Michael Cohen is under criminal investigation, the White House says Cohen is just one of the several lawyers Trump has on retainer.
  6. Amid his fight to keep seized documents secret, Cohen drops his libel suits against BuzzFeed and Fusion GPS. He was suing over allegations in the Steele dossier, and likely wants to avoid being questioned by Fusion GPS lawyers or being forced to present evidence.
  7. Karen McDougall reaches a settlement with the parent company of the National Enquirer, freeing her to talk about her alleged affair with Trump.
  8. Students across the country stage another walkout, this time to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, to protest gun violence, and to push for gun law reform.
  9. Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (R) faces a new scandal and is charged with a felony for misusing a charity donor list. He’s the same guy facing felony charges from taking a nonconsensual sexual picture of his mistress and then blackmailing her with it.
  10. Barbara Bush passes away at 92. While members of both parties praise her, Roger Stone calls her a “vindictive drunk” and we find out where the GOP draws the line at supporting Trump’s friends.
  11. The Washington post wins a Pulitzer for reporting on the Alabama Senate race (specifically the Roy Moore scandal). The New York Times in conjunction with the New Yorker, wins a Pulitzer, for work on breaking the Harvey Weinstein sex-abuse story. Both the Washington Post and New York Times win Pulitzers for their work on Russian interference in our elections.
  12. Electricity goes out across Puerto Rico, which still hadn’t restored electricity to all residents.
  13. A Southwest jet blows an engine, killing one passenger who was partially sucked out and apparently hit by shrapnel. The pilot shows nerves of steel, and turns out to be one of the Navy’s first female fighter pilots.
  14. The DOJ’s inspector general referred his findings on Andrew McCabe to the top federal prosecutor, who could file charges against McCabe.
  15. McCabe’s lawyers say that McCabe will sue Trump for defamation.
  16. A man shoots up a Waffle House in Tennessee, killing four people. Authorities had revoked his firearms license and seized his weapons last year, giving the weapons to the shooter’s father who then turned around and gave the guns back. The big hero of the day is James Shaw Jr., who charged the shooter, grabbed the weapon, and threw it to the other side of the counter.
  17. Ugh. Another data breach. SunTrust Banks announces that one of their employees might have stolen the personal data of 1.5 million customers. Not only that, but the employee likely gave that info to a “criminal third party.”
  18. After years of calling the parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims “crisis actors” in a false flag shooting, Alex Jones now says he believes the shooting really did happen. I’m guessing that’s because some of the parents are suing him for defamation. Of note, Alex Jones also recently lost custody of his children. His defense during that trial was that his decades of spreading conspiracy theories and lies is “performance art.”

Polls:

  1. Mueller’s favorability drops 11 points over the past month, likely a result of the Trump and GOP campaigns to attack his credibility. 32% see him favorably, 30% unfavorably, and 38% have no opinion.
  2. Mueller has a 19% unfavorability rating with Democrats, but almost half of Republicans view him unfavorably (up nearly 20 points from last month).
  3. Trump’s approval rating with white Evangelical Protestants hits a new high, reaching 75%. I wonder what he’s done that’s made them think more highly of him.

Week 64 in Trump

Posted on April 16, 2018 in Politics, Trump

I open this week with a quote from Trump on how a trade war might affect farmers:

“But if we do a deal with China, if, during the course of a negotiation they want to hit the farmers because they think that hits me, I wouldn’t say that’s nice. But I tell you, our farmers are great patriots… They understand that they’re doing this for the country. And we’ll make it up to them. And in the end, they’re going to be much stronger than they are right now.”

He also said that farm income has been trending downward over the last eight years (it’s actually the last four) and said that because of his actions on NAFTA and China, “farmers will be better off than they ever were.” I hope he’s right but if he’s not, then thanks, farmers, for taking a hit for the rest of us.

Anyway, here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. The FBI raids Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s office and hotel room, seizing emails, tax records, and business documents. Which seriously enraged Trump, based on his subsequent comments. As a reminder, Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels and at least one other woman who allegedly had an affair with Trump.
  2. Reportedly, Cohen made recordings of meetings and conversations, which the FBI also seized.
  3. The raids were based on a referral from Robert Mueller, so Trump calls Mueller’s team “the most biased group of people” and says they’re mostly Democrats with a few Obama-appointed Republicans. Though they are actually mostly Republicans.
  4. Trump calls Cohen just to check in and see how he’s doing.
  5. We learn that Cohen is being investigated for bank fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance violations. Mueller handed this investigation off to a New York attorney likely because it was out of his jurisdiction. Rod Rosenstein signed off on the search warrant.
  6. Most legal experts say that this warrant must have been bullet-proof in order for the FBI to get it, because it’s extraordinary to serve a warrant on a lawyer like this.
  7. Trump isn’t the only guy Cohen negotiates hush deals for. He also negotiated one for major RNC fundraiser and RNC deputy finance chairman Elliott Broidy. This makes Broidy the third RNC official to be caught up in scandal in the past year and the second to step down from his position.
  8. Trump requests an emergency order preventing prosecutors from looking at the seized material, saying he should be able to review them first because of client/attorney privilege.
  9. In response to the raid, Lou Dobbs (who has apparently been advising Trump all along) tells Trump he should fire Mueller. Trump mulls it over in the middle of a publicized meeting with military brass while they were supposed to be talking about a response to Syria’s chemical weapons attack.
  10. Trump calls it an attack on the country and says the FBI “broke in” to Cohen’s office. His rants attack the usual suspects: Jeff Sessions, the FBI, Hillary Clinton, Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe. He even steps up his Twitter game for this one.
  11. Politicians from both sides step in to support Mueller, including Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) who confirms widespread respect for Mueller in Washington and warns Trump against firing him.
  12. While many legal minds have said Trump doesn’t have the power to fire Mueller, he and his press secretary both say he does.
  13. The White House says they aren’t sure if Cohen still represents Trump. Also, Trump isn’t so sure he wants to sit down with Mueller anymore.
  14. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York recuses himself from the Cohen investigation because of his ties with donors to the Trump campaign.
  15. We learn that Trump tried to have Mueller fired last December, but his lawyers talked him out of it.
  16. Mueller is looking at a $150,000 donation to the Trump Organization from a Ukrainian billionaire (Victor Punchuk). In return for the donation, Trump appeared in a 20-minute video for a conference in Kiev.
  17. Mark Zuckerberg submits written testimony and then testifies before Congress for two days about data privacy (fully illustrating the technology gap between the generations).
  18. Paul Manafort’s lawyers file another motion to suppress evidence. This time it’s the evidence found in a storage unit and they say the employee didn’t have the authority to open the unit for the FBI.
  19. A judge denies Manafort’s request for bail. He’s been denied bail multiple times now. His trial is scheduled to start in July.
  20. The NRA admits to receiving money from almost two dozen Russians (or Americans living in Russia) over the past two years.
  21. Veteran Republicans form a group, Republicans for the Rule of Law, to help protect Mueller from being fired. Also, a bipartisan group of Senators introduce a bill to protect Mueller. Mitch McConnell agrees that Mueller should continue his work, but he doesn’t think Mueller needs to be protected.
  22. Steve Bannon floats a plan to put an end to the Mueller investigation:
    • Fire Rosenstein.
    • Stop cooperating with Mueller.
    • Assert executive privilege and make all White House interviews with Mueller over the past year null and void.
  1. Excerpts leak from James Comey’s soon-to-be-released book, and it becomes an immediate best seller almost a week before its scheduled release. Trump does not respond well. I’m not going to go into what Comey says on his media blitz nor what’s in the book, because it’s not really confirmable.
  2. The RNC actively works to discredit Comey ahead of his book release. They create a website called “Lyin’ Comey” that features quotes of Democrats criticizing him. Their campaign plan includes: digital ads, monitoring Comey’s appearances, a rapid response team to provide rebuttals, and coordinating surrogates to fan out and defend Trump. I don’t know if I’m more bothered that such a campaign exists or that they don’t mind making it public knowledge.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Judge Curiel finalizes the $25 million Trump University settlement. Curiel’s the guy who Trump said couldn’t be unbiased in the case because he’s Mexican.
  2. The Justice Department’s inspector general releases their report on Andy McCabe. (Caveat: I have yet to read the full report.) It doesn’t sound like there’s much that we haven’t already heard, and the report doesn’t include McCabe’s rebuttal. The dispute centers around a Wall Street Journal article in which McCabe authorized staff to rebut the allegations made in the article. McCabe, who first denied giving permission until he was served a reminder, says he authorized it to preserve the reputation of the FBI; the OIG says he did it to preserve his own reputation.

Healthcare:

  1. Voters in Utah, Nebraska, and Idaho are working to get Medicaid expansion on the ballot since their governors refused the federal money they could have received under the ACA to do it.
  2. An appeals court in Maryland rules that a law preventing price gouging by pharmaceutical companies is unconstitutional.

International:

  1. Trump calls out Putin, Russia, and Iran for backing “Animal Assad” in Syria in a barrage of tweets. Russia responds that they don’t do Twitter diplomacy.
  2. Russia says great Britain staged the chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
  3. Trump, along with Great Britain and France, orders airstrikes on chemical weapons facilities in Syria in retaliation for the regime’s chemical weapon attack. Putin calls this an act of aggression and calls for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
  4. After the missile strike, Trump tweets those ill-fated words, “Mission accomplished!” Also, Russia says Syrian air defenses shot down most of our missiles. Doubtful, but impossible to verify.
  5. Russia also vetoes a UN resolution to set up an independent investigation into Syria’s use of chemical weapons.
  6. Tom Bossert, Homeland Security adviser, resigns at the request of the new National Security Adviser, John Bolton. Bolton appears to be cleaning house.
  7. Trump cancels his trip to South America to respond to Syria’s chemical weapons attack. Mike Pence takes his place on the trip to South America.
  8. Mike Pompeo prepares for his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State by calling Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, among other former secretaries. If you remember, Pompeo helped keep Benghazi in the news and called Clinton‘s response “morally reprehensible.” He also liked a tweet calling Kerry a traitor. So either he didn’t mean those things, or he’s looking for some morally reprehensible and traitorous advice. For her part, Clinton has been willing to talk with him and help him out.
  9. Pompeo’s confirmation will be tough, as he failed to sway any of his opponents in his hearing.
  10. We learn that Russia has been thwarting our efforts in Syria by jamming our drone’s reception of GPS satellite signals.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Trump signs legislation to crack down on online companies that aid and abet sex trafficking of minors. The bill establishes punishments, including jail time, for people who run these sites.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Justice Department removes questions on crime surveys about sexual orientation and gender identity, effectively preventing the monitoring of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community.
  2. Maryland bans conversion therapy on minors (that is, therapy that attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation). Both the American Psychological Association and the American Counseling Association find the practice harmful and ineffective. Hawaii will likely follow suit.
  3. A large number of Americans don’t believe 6 million Jews were killed in the holocaust. They think the number is much, much smaller. They also didn’t know that Auschwitz was a notorious concentration camp. Are our schools really that bad?
  4. Facebook bans white nationalist Richard Spencer, but he still has Twitter accounts. Last month, Facebook banned the anti-Muslim hate group Britain First.
  5. On top of sending tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, Haitians, Nigerians, and Syrians back to countries they haven’t been to in the decades since they received temporary protected status, Trump also wants to send Vietnamese immigrants who are protected by a bilateral treaty back to communist-led Vietnam.
  6. All states that border Mexico agree to provide National Guard troops to help CBP per Trump’s request.
  7. Hungarian journalists at state-run media outlets say they pushed an anti-immigrant message before the elections to create animosity toward immigrants and increase nationalist sentiment. They also pushed lies about George Soros influencing the election.

Climate/EPA:

  1. EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson takes responsibility for the questionable pay raises for Scott Pruitt’s friends, though an email from one of the people who got a questionable raise contradicts this.
  2. News breaks that Scott Pruitt fired his former deputy chief of staff for refusing to retroactively approve Pruitt’s travel demands. Apparently, he asked the employee to come up with justification for a trip.
  3. Trump signs an executive order that would loosen air pollution standards and sideline science in setting pollution regulations in individual states.
  4. The Government Accountability Office says that Scott Pruitt broke the law by installing a $43,000 sound proof phone booth. Spending more than $5,000 requires him to notify Congress first.
  5. The non-profit Environmental Defense Fund plans to launch a satellite that can monitor methane releases and pinpoint the biggest offenders.

Budget/Economy:

  1. After all of Trump’s criticism of Amazon for not collecting state taxes (which it mostly does), we learn that the Trump Organization’s online store only collects taxes in two states.
  2. According to the CBO, the budget deficit is on track to surpass $1 trillion again sooner than expected (by 2020). They raised the expected deficit for this year to $804 billion and for 2019 to $981 billion. And this is under a forecast with an upgraded GDP growth rate of 3.1%.
  3. Trump tells his top officials to look into getting back in to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which he pulled out of last year because it was such a “disaster.” In February, nearly half the Senate Republicans urged him to rejoin.
  4. TPP member countries express an unwillingness to reopen TPP negotiations to include the U.S., and then Trump reverses course and says he’d only consider rejoining if the term were substantially better for the U.S.
    Background: Joining the TPP would’ve given us a trade advantage against China with Pacific Rim countries, but China has been moving in to fill that gap.
  5. Jobless rates continue to fall, marking the 162nd week that claims have been below 300,000. That’s since March of 2015.
  6. Both Oklahoma and Arizona teachers wind their protests down. Arizona’s governor promises a phased 20% raise for teachers by 2020.
  7. The White House proposes large cuts to public assistance programs along with work requirements. They request a $17 billion cut to SNAP that would affect around 23,000 military families. Which again begs the question “Why aren’t we paying our men and women in the military enough to live on?”
  8. They also propose to expand the definition of welfare to include SNAP, Medicaid, and other safety-net programs. This is part of their effort to overhaul public assistance, which also includes work requirements.
  9. Republicans in Congress unveil a new farm bill that would require SNAP recipients to either work or attend school or training for 20 hours a week. The plan does not include Trump’s idea of providing some of the food to SNAP recipients in the form of government rations. The CBO estimates that this could remove 1 million people from SNAP over 10 years.
  10. Good news for people who eat organic, though. The farm bill cracks down on inspections of imported products that are labeled organic.
  11. Trump orders an audit of the US postal service.
  12. Trump wants to try to rescind billions of dollars in spending that he signed into law last month. Mick Mulvaney is developing the plan, even though Republican lawmakers don’t want these negotiations to start up again.
  13. On the other hand, House Majority leader is working in tandem to get this through the House, and Mitch McConnell seems open to getting it done in the Senate. This is being done alongside a Balanced Budget Amendment to the constitution, which has very little chance of passing.
  14. The Department of the Interior walks back its plans to drastically raise entrance fees at national parks, and will instead raise prices $5 across the board.
  15. Federal appeal judges seem to think that it’s a conflict of interest that Mick Mulvaney heads both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget.

Elections:

  1. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announces he won’t seek reelection, bringing the total number of House Republicans not seeking reelection to 46.
  2. There are two Republicans vying for his Wisconsin seat, the most prominent of which is a white supremacist who got banned from Twitter.
  3. Ryan endorses California Representative Kevin McCarthy to replace him as Speaker of the House. If you’ll remember, Kevin lost out on his initial bid to become speaker when he admitted that the Benghazi hearings were dragged out in order to smear Hillary Clinton.
  4. The New Jersey legislature passes an automatic voter registration bill. It will be the 13th state to implement this, and Nevada has it on the ballot this year.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump met with the chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group to talk about a new broadcasting standard that Sinclair is invested in. It would let authorities broadcast to any American’s phone.
  2. Sinclair’s chairman says that during the 2016 campaign, he told Trump: “We are here to deliver your message.”
  3. Several senators request that the FCC investigate Sinclair after complaints arose about Sinclair forcing anchors at local stations to read propaganda pieces. Ajit Pai, FCC chairman, refuses.
  4. Since the Parkland shootings, several cities and states have begun implementing gun regulations, and there’ve even been some changes at the federal level, like allowing the CDC to study gun violence.
  5. On the other hand, a school district in Pennsylvania opts to arm their teachers with miniature baseball bats.
  6. Senator Tammy Duckworth gives birth to her daughter, becoming the first sitting senator have a baby.
  7. Trump issues a full pardon to Scooter Libby, who was Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.
    Background: Libby was convicted of perjury, making false statements to the FBI, and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the information leak that lead to exposing the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. The leak appeared to be in retribution for criticism of the Bush administration by Valerie’s husband.

  8. Marches across the country this week include the March for Science, the Tax March (to protest the new tax bill), and gun rights marches. Of note, gun rights groups encouraged people to carry unloaded weapons, which many did. At least I assume they were unloaded.

Polls:

  1. Just over half of Americans now support a single-payer healthcare system.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who tried to stop bills to expand the state’s education funding, says that children were physically harmed during the teacher strikes because they were left at home alone.

“I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”

Week 63 in Trump

Posted on April 9, 2018 in Politics, Trump

YOU'RE FIRED Rubber Stamp over a white background.

I’ve been thinking that Trump doesn’t fire people personally because he has an aversion to doing the actual firing as opposed to doing the reality show firing. You can tell he tries to make people so uncomfortable in their jobs that they’ll quit before he gets around to firing them. What I didn’t realize is that the president’s ability to fill a position under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act hinges around vague language that describes when the president can make his own appointments in case of vacancies, and firing someone doesn’t seem to be one of those cases. So it’s in his best interest if they quit. Crazy.

But I digress. Here’s what happened this week…

Russia:

  1. We learn through Russian media that Trump invited Putin for a White House visit when he congratulated Putin on his electoral victory.
  2. After opening arguments, Paul Manafort‘s lawyers withdrew part of their civil suit. Manafort says Mueller is overreaching in his investigation, but a court document shows that Rod Rosenstein gave Mueller authority to investigate Manafort’s relations with Russia and with the Ukraine. The judge doesn’t think Manafort has much of a case.
  3. The first prison sentence comes down in the Mueller investigation. It’s short — Alex van der Zwaan, the son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, gets 30 days in prison and a $20,000 fine for lying to the FBI.
  4. Konstantin Kilimnik is identified as the Russian agent with whom Manafort and Rick Gates had contact during the 2016 campaign.
  5. The State Department says that the expelled Russian diplomats can be replaced on a case-by-case basis. Expelling diplomats doesn’t change the agreement that outlines the number of Russian diplomats allowed in the states, so they can ramp it back up.
  6. While Mueller says Trump is a subject of the Russia investigation, he also says Trump is not a target. What this means is that Trump is anywhere between a witness and a suspect, and we don’t know which side he’s closer to. So this doesn’t tell us much.
  7. Mueller’s team questions two Russian oligarchs traveling to the U.S., searching at least one of their phones. Mueller also requests an interview with a third oligarch who has not traveled here. He’s looking into whether Russians illegally funded Trump’s campaign or inauguration.
  8. In his last public statement as national security advisor, H. R. McMaster says we haven’t done enough to punish Russia for its increased global aggression. Just hours before that, Trump said that no one has been tougher on Russia than him.
  9. But then, the U.S. sanctions 24 Russian oligarchs and government officials, including a few with ties to the Trump campaign. The sanctions also target about a dozen companies owned by the oligarchs.
  10. A newly released email shows that on the day Roger Stone went on InfoWars and predicted leaks about the Clinton Foundation, he emailed Sam Nunberg to say he had dinner with Julian Assange the night before. This indicates he had knowledge of the documents hacked by Wikileaks, but Stone now claims that he didn’t meet with Assange and flight records would prove it.
  11. Mark Zuckerberg says it’s reasonable for anyone on social media to expect that their data has been scraped in some way. And of course it is. We get warnings all the time about the info people are scraping and we choose to ignore it.
  12. Facebook estimates that Cambridge Analytica could have accessed information from up to 87 million users. They’ll start notifying Facebook users whose information was accessed.
  13. Mueller plans to issue a series of reports on his investigation. The first is about whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice and should be released this summer.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A federal judge dismisses a lawsuit against Massachusetts’s assault weapon ban, saying that right to own the banned guns and ammunition isn’t guaranteed by the second amendment.
  2. Florida officials appeal a court order directing them to create a new process to restore rights to former felons.

Healthcare:

  1. The Department of Health and Human Services removes information from its website about low-cost and no-cost women’s health issues, specifically around breastfeeding issues and cancer.
  2. A federal judge orders the government to stop blocking undocumented women from getting access to medical appointments, counseling, and procedures (including abortions).
  3. The surgeon general issues a nationwide advisory to give more people access to naloxone, along with training on how to use it. Naloxone reverses the effects of opioid overdose.

International:

  1. Despite a public commitment that we won’t leave Syria hanging, Trump says we’ll be out of there soon and he freezes funds to help stabilize the area.
  2. Assad launches another chemical attack on Syrian rebels, killing at least 40 and injuring at least 500. And now it’s up to John Bolton to come up with our next steps. Oyveh.
  3. Trump‘s announcement about Syria takes his military staff by surprise. A day after Trump says we’ll be out of Syria soon because ISIS is almost defeated, the White House says that we remain committed to fighting ISIS in Syria.
  4. Russian and Chinese military leaders meet, to show America their close ties with each other and to reaffirm those ties.
  5. A delivery truck drives into a crowd in Germany killing two people and injuring 20. The driver, a German citizen, kills himself. There are no ties to ISIS so far.
  6. The Department of Homeland Security says it found cell tower simulators—called stingrays—last year in DC. Foreign spies and other criminals can use these to track people and to intercept communications, and hardly anything has been done to combat them.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Chicago bans a long list of semi-automatic weapons.
  2. I can’t believe this had to be done. State legislators in New York pass a law making it illegal for police officers to have sex with people in their custody.
  3. South Carolina representative Ralph Norman took out his loaded pistol and laid it on a table during a meeting with constituents while they were discussing gun violence. South Carolina’s Democratic party calls for an investigation. Never point your gun—loaded or not—at anything you don’t want to shoot. And it’s probably never a good idea to shoot your constituents.
  4. Representative Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.) resigns over using taxpayer money for sexual harassment lawsuit payouts.
  5. While Marco Rubio has been telling Parkland students that he supports raising the purchase age for certain weapons to 21, he’s also been pushing to end a similar law in DC.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump tweets that DACA is dead and again blames Democrats in Congress. He encourages Republicans in Congress to stem the ‘massive influx’ of people and drugs over the border.
    Background: Trump rescinded DACA in fall of 2017 and gave Congress until March to fix it. The only reason it’s still going is that it’s held up in the courts. It’s possible this tweet storm stems from recent CBP data showing a major uptick in border crossings in March, which seems typical for every year except 2017.
  2. Adding a citizenship question to the census (which the administration wants to do) will likely hurt these states the most: Nevada, Texas, California, New Jersey, Arizona, Florida and Maryland. The census is the backbone for all sorts of government programs and for government representation. Tying the census to any kind of federal law enforcement inhibits full census reporting because people are afraid they’ll be reported to the DOJ.
    Background: Information from the 1940 census was secretly used in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II under the Second War Power Act.
  3. Seventeen states, DC, and six cities sue to get the question dropped.
  4. Trump announces he’ll send National Guard troops to help guard the border. From what he says, this seems like a reaction to Fox & Friends’ shady reporting about a caravan of immigrants traveling through Mexico to storm our borders. The caravan is actually an annual human rights protest march in which some people request asylum in Mexico and the U.S.
    Background: Bush spent $1.2 billion sending National Guards troops to help border patrol, and Obama spent $110 million on the same. But neither of them did it in reaction to a hyped up news story.
  5. In a tax roundtable:
    • Trump doubles down on his theme of Mexicans-as-rapists through a misunderstanding of the caravan in Mexico. He later says women are “being raped at levels never seen before” in response to reports that women and children travel in numbers as a safety measure.
    • Trump tells a story, clearly designed to heighten people’s fear of immigrants, about how young girls never see their parents again after they’re “cut up” by immigrant gang members.
  1. Trump takes credit for getting Mexico’s president to break up the caravan, saying he pressured Mexican officials in a conversation on Monday. The White House later says this conversation never took place. And also, the caravan didn’t break up.
  2. The Trump administration institutes quotas for immigration judges to speed up processing.
  3. Police shoot and kill another black man. This guy was holding a pipe, which I guess is more easily mistaken for a gun than a cellphone is.
  4. Though Native Americans only make up 10% of the Department of the Interior’s staff, 33% of the staff that Ryan Zinke reassigned are Native Americans.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Michigan says it’s done giving away free water to residents of Flint. They say the water has been up to par for two years. But they’re still replacing the contaminated pipes so you can see why residents are wary.
  2. Michigan, home of what is probably the largest clean water disaster in the U.S. (see above), approves Nestle’s request to increase the amount of water they pump out of the state. Over 80,000 people commented against the move during the public comment period.
  3. The EPA scraps the fuel mileage targets for passenger cars and SUVs that were put in place under Obama to help combat global warming. They also plan to challenge California’s right to set their own targets, which was established under the Clean Air Act due to the state’s history of smog problems. Even if we back off of our standards, the rest of the world won’t, and we’ll have to play catch-up at some point.
  4. The Justice Department sues California over a state law that limits the federal government’s right to buy or sell federal land in the state.
  5. The administration is looking into rescinding a rule that protects endangered wildlife in order to give agricultural and mineral interests more freedom and access to use land that is currently off limits.
  6. Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior, picks Susan Combs to oversee federal wildlife policy. This is only important because she opposes the Endangered Species Act and has spent the last several years fighting it.
  7. Last week, I wrote about Scott Pruitt paying $50 a night for a room in a lobbyist’s DC apartment, which then turned out to be a whole apartment. This week, we learn that his daughter stayed with him there as well while she was interning at the White House. And also:
    • He paid about $2,150 less than the going rate in DC.
    • The ethics committee signed off on the agreement, but now say he didn’t give them complete information.
    • The condo is partially owned by the wife of the head of Enbridge Inc., whose pipeline-expansion project was approved last year by the EPA under Pruitt. The head of Enbridge has been a long-time fundraiser for Pruitt.

    • He didn’t always pay his $50, and he wouldn’t leave the apartment when his agreement was up.
    • He wanted to spend $100,000 a month on a private jet subscription.
    • His security detail is more than three times as large as his predecessor’s (and his predecessor’s was part-time, unlike Pruitt’s full-time detail).
    • He tried to get his security to use sirens to get through traffic so he wouldn’t be late for dinner.
    • He used an obscure provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act to give massive raises to some of his friends that he hired at the EPA, and then refused to take responsibility in a Fox interview.
    • Several EPA officials who confronted Pruitt about his spending were reassigned, were demoted, or requested new assignments because of the work environment.
  1. A federal judge dismisses Exxon Mobil’s lawsuit against states attorney generals, allowing the lawyers to continue investigating whether Exxon knew about climate change and lied to the public to cover it up.
  2. A district judge rules that officials must take climate change into account when making certain infrastructure decisions.
  3. Indonesia declares a state of emergency after an oil spill caused by a leak in a pipeline in Borneo. The spill has spread across an area larger than Paris and is now heading out into the open ocean. The spill caused the death of 5 fisherman caught when clean-up workers sparked a fire.

Budget/Economy:

  1. On Monday, Trump hits back at people who fact-checked his tweet storm about Amazon last week, maintaining that Amazon is bad for the USPS and that they don’t pay taxes.
    Background: Trump isn’t concerned about the USPS. He hasn’t even appointed a board of governors yet for the post office, so they’re running on a temporary emergency committee with limited powers. Also, the Trump campaign spent over $150,000 at Amazon for office supplies. So there’s that.
  2. And on Monday, stocks continue to dive on a tech sell off as Trump keeps up his criticism of Amazon. But then stocks recover on Tuesday. And then they’re down… and then…
  3. The market volatility continues throughout the week, with pretty major fluctuations. According to JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, investors aren’t reading the Fed’s moves correctly. Vanguard founder Jack Bogle says he’s never seen anything like it. Bloomberg says that the market had it’s worst April start since 1929, however it looks to be recovering.
  4. China retaliates against Trump’s announced tariffs by placing tariffs of their own on 128 American goods, estimated at about $3 billion.
  5. Trump raises the tariff ante by threatening tariffs on an additional $50 billion of Chinese goods, and China threatens tariffs on another $50 billion worth of American goods. Both sides say they don’t want a trade war though.
  6. Agricultural organizations express concerns over potential trade disagreements, noting that the current situation will definitely cut into hog farmers’ bottom lines. Trade agreements have generally been good for farmers. When Trump pulled out of TPP, Japan instated emergency tariffs on U.S. beef of 50%. When Trump threatened NAFTA, Mexico increased their corn imports from Brazil. The price of soybeans also dropped this week on the threat of greater trade disputes.
  7. Teachers in Oklahoma walk out of classes in protest. They’re looking for better salaries and school funding. Kentucky teachers protest as well, and Arizona teachers are working on a date to start their protest.
  8. Mick Mulvaney, the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recommends weakening the bureau’s responsibilities and requiring congressional approval for CFPB rules. Instead of being an independent and apolitical agency, Mulvaney says the director should report to the president and that it should be funded by Congress and not the Fed.
  9. Trump and Kevin McCarthy (Majority House Leader) are working to rescind some of the funding agreed upon in the bipartisan spending bill earlier this year. Trump had tried to get a line-item veto for the bill, but the Supreme Court ruled that out in a court case 20 years ago.

Elections:

  1. One of the GOP candidates for Lieutenant Governor in Idaho says that maybe if we pushed women with the death penalty, they would stop seeking abortions. Don’t vote for this guy!
  2. In tax roundtable, Trump goes off script and says millions of people vote multiple times, specifically in California. Trust me, we can barely get anybody to vote once in CA, much less get them out there to do it again and again.
  3. Many Republicans in Congress see keeping control of the House in the midterm elections as hopeless, so Mitch McConnell is focused on keeping control of the Senate.
  4. A review of news subscriptions shows that Trump did better in areas where there’s a “news desert.” In other words, where there weren’t enough news outlets to quickly fact check what Trump said, people tended to believe him more.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Another woman files a suit to nullify a non-disclosure agreement related to Trump. She says she faced harassment while working on Trump’s campaign (to clarify, not from Trump himself).
  2. At the White House Easter Egg Roll, which is largely attended by kids, Trump takes a moment to talk up the U.S. economy and military might.
  3. Trump tweets about his latest polls, calling Obama ‘Cheating Obama’. Probably the first president to accuse a predecessor of cheating.
  4. Trump calls the (hardworking men and women of the) FBI and DOJ an embarrassment to our country.
  5. The former head of the VA, David Shulkin, says he was never asked to tender a resignation letter and never did so, which he offers as proof that he was fired.
  6. A shooting at YouTube’s headquarters sends three people to the hospital. The shooting, a female, was upset about YouTube’s new monetization policies.
  7. Trump will once again skip the White House Correspondents‘ dinner.
  8. A fire on the 50th floor of Trump Tower takes the life of one person living there, a death that might have been prevented if fire sprinklers had been installed in the upper residential floors. Six firemen were also injured. A minor fire broke out two months ago on the roof of the building.
  9. Trump steps into the fire story a little too quickly, and, before news breaks of the man’s death, tweets:

“Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!”

  1. The Department of Homeland Security has a new media plan. They plan to compile a list of journalists and media influencers, and to monitor what the people on the list put out to the public.
  2. Sources say that Trump conferenced in Lou Dobbs to senior-level meetings during his first year in office, often interrupting officials to let Dobbs advise him.
  3. Todd Johnson, a Trump campaign manager in New Mexico and Defense Department appointee, resigned after it was discovered he posted controversial and false stories about Obama, like birtherism and how Obama is the anti-Christ. He also posted anti-Muslim propaganda.
  4. Twenty-six email domains managed by the Executive Office of the President were tested for security compliance, and 18 were found to be out of compliance. Only one had fully implemented the security protocol. But her emails!!!
  5. Trump says he didn’t know anything about Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, which would mean that Cohen committed fraud.
  6. Robert Mercer, a major funder of Breitbart and the Trump campaign, gave Secure America Now $2 million. Secure America Now is an extreme-right organization that bought anti-Muslim ads to place on Facebook and Google in 2016. The ads were micro-targeted to voters who would be receptive of them.
  7. Ronny Jackson is up for a military promotion, which means if he takes the job as head of the Veteran’s Administration, it could cost him nearly $1 million in lifetime retirement benefits.
  8. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) requests an explanation from Sinclair Broadcasting’s chairman about forcing their anchors at local stations to read propaganda statements.
  9. Fun fact: Sinclair’s contracts include a clause that penalizes employees for quitting, which might be discouraging anchors from protesting the propaganda pieces. Also, these clauses are likely not enforceable.

Polls:

A new poll shows that:

  • 48% of Americans trust CNN more than Trump.
  • 45% trust MSNBC more than Trump.
  • 30% trust Fox News more than Trump.
  • 75% of Republicans trust Trump more than CNN.
  • 72% of Republicans trust Trump more than MSNBC.
  • 35% of Republicans trust Trump more than Fox News.

  • Trump’s support among women fell from 41% to 35% this month.
  • Trump’s support among men rose from 50% to 53%.

Week 62 in Trump

Posted on April 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

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

Here’s what else happened this week.

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Quote of the Week

David Shulkin, outgoing head of the VA

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