Tag: #MeToo

Week 135 in Trump

Posted on August 27, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Even though the stock market did well under Obama, I would still argue that the president doesn’t have that much control over the markets. But in this new world where everything’s upside down, you can see by the image above that yes, the president does have some control over the markets. I’ve lost count of how many times the market has dumped because of Trump’s careless speech and tweets, and then perked back up because he announced something that didn’t come to fruition. Maybe he has more power over the markets because he’s the chosen one, the King of Israel, and the second coming. And yes, he did say he was all that…

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending August 25…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. In July, Trump expanded his policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico to two additional cities, more than doubling the number of refugees ordered to wait out their time in Mexico.
  2. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue cracks jokes about whiny farmers two days after China says they’ll stop buying all U.S. agricultural products. Farmers are already hurting because of the trade wars, and the bailout isn’t paying them anything close to what they’d make if they could actually sell their products.

Shootings This Week:

  1. The week‘s mass shootings (defined as killing or injuring four or more people):
    • A shooter injures four people at a block party near the campus of Clark Atlanta University.
    • A shooter injures four people, including a social worker and a security guard, near Skid Row in Los Angeles.
    • A shooter kills two people and injures two more outside a bar in Columbia, South Carolina.
    • A shooter kills an eight-year-old and injures three people after a football jamboree in St. Louis.
    • A shooter kills three people and injures two more in Houston. Police think it’s gang-related.
    • A shooter injures seven people at a toddler’s birthday party in Maryland.
    • A shooter kills one person and injures three more at a playground in Massachusetts. That asshole also kills the dog of one of the victims.
    • A teenager in New Mexico kills three people and injures four more.
    • Someone fires shots into a crowd in Chicago killing one and injuring three.
  1. After Trump lays the blame for mass shootings on mental illness, DHHS warned federal health officials not to post anything on social media about it, fearing the experts would contradict Trump.
    • What were they afraid they’d say? They’d say that mental illness is not a predictor in mass shootings and the vast majority of mass shooters have no diagnosed mental illness.
  1. The Parkland students release an ambitious gun control plan that includes expanding background checks, increasing wait periods, raising the minimum purchase age, instituting red flag laws, creating a national licensing and gun registry, banning assault weapons (which still need to be defined) and high capacity magazines, and creating a new director role to coordinate the federal response.
  2. Trump says he’s in favor of expanding background checks, and then after a call with NRA head Wayne LaPierre he says he’s not for it. And then later he says he might be for it.
  3. Dick’s Sporting Goods has a strong quarter despite their decision to reduce gun sales.
  4. The day before the El Paso shooting, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent out a fundraising mailer calling on Republicans to “DEFEND TEXAS NOW” and to take matters into their own hands. The mailer referenced the number of immigrants caught crossing the border illegally the previous month.

Russia:

  1. Since the explosion of the nuclear-propelled missile Russia was testing, four of the nearby nuclear monitoring stations have gone silent. The monitoring stations are part of a global network created to verify everyone is complying with the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
  2. Like Russia, China gets into the disinformation game. Twitter removes nearly 1,000 accounts and suspends around 200,000 because a state-backed disinformation campaign has been targeting the pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.
  3. Trump says he’ll invite Putin to next year’s G-7 Summit, which will likely be hosted at a Trump property. He just can’t let this one go.

Legal Fallout:

  1. An IRS whistle blower reports to the House Ways and Means Committee that there has been potentially inappropriate interference with the process of auditing Trump’s tax returns.
  2. Trump’s financial disclosure statements conflict with his filings with the United Kingdom regarding the value and income of his golf courses in Scotland. This is a violation of the Ethics in Government Act.
  3. Rudy Giuliani confirms that the State Department helped him push Ukraine to open investigations into former Vice President Biden and into the Democratic National Committee, which Ukraine is now doing. Giuliani thinks possible crimes might include “bribery, extortion, fraud, money laundering and illegal interference in 2016 election.”
    • The current Ukrainian prosecutor general says they’ve already looked into Biden and there’s nothing there.

Healthcare:

  1. Because of Trump’s changes to the rules, Planned Parenthood withdraws from the Title X family planning program, which provides funding for healthcare services for low-income and underserved communities. Trump’s rule prohibits Title X recipients from providing abortions or referring patients for abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or medical emergency.
    • Planned Parenthood serves about 40% of all Title X recipients, providing preventive care, contraception, and yes, abortions.
    • Maine’s sole Title X provider also withdraws.
    • Title X has had a huge influence in reducing unintended pregnancies and thus reducing abortions. Without it, the number of unintended pregnancies is estimated to double for poor women.
    • IMO, now we’ll have more babies on welfare and we’ll bitch about that too.
  1. At least three children held in migrant detention centers have died, in part from the flu; yet the government won’t be giving any detainees a flu shot. It’s like they’re hoping to cause a pandemic or something.
    • Fun fact: Prior to Trump, no child had died in U.S. immigration custody in nearly a decade.
  1. Five years into the ACA, it’s eliminated 44% of the gap between insured wealthy and insured poor, and 27% of the gap between whites and minorities. Also, Lindsey Graham says Republicans will run on trying to repeal the ACA again in 2020.

International:

  1. The Pentagon’s inspector general reports their findings that ISIS is growing again in Syria and Iraq. The report blames Trump for the instability caused by drawing down troops in Syria too quickly and pulling all diplomatic personnel out of Iraq, which allowed a space for the militants to regroup.
    • Brett McGurk, the Special Envoy who resigned following Trump’s drawdown announcement, says he warned of this repeatedly at the time.
  1. After Trump floats buying Greenland from Denmark, the prime minister of Denmark says that’s absurd. So Trump calls her nasty (all strong women are nasty, right?). And since the world laughs at him, Trump decides to cancel his state visit to Denmark. He had been invited by Queen Margrethe II for a state visit the first week in September.
    • Why does Trump want to buy Greenland? Likely to exploit its fossil fuel reserves and to have a strategic military base location.
  1. Leaders in the European Union reject UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s request to restart Brexit negotiations.
  2. The British government announces they’ll halt all free movement between the UK and EU countries on day one of Brexit, even though there are no systems in place to support this. Experts say there’s no way that can be done because it can’t be enforced.
    • There are 3 million EU citizens in the UK. It’s unknown yet what will happen to the 1.3 million Brits living abroad in EU countries.
    • Immigration to Britain is at a five-year low, but that’s mostly from the EU. Migrants from other countries, which appeared to be what concerned Brexiters the most, is still high.
  1. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells the World Zionist Congress that Hitler only wanted to expel Jews, he didn’t want to exterminate them. He repeats a widely debunked conspiracy theory laying the blame for the holocaust on a Muslim leader named Haj Amin al-Husseini. I did not expect him to be a Hitler apologist.
  2. Trump heads off to the G-7 Summit, which is typically a time when some of the world’s major economies come together to work toward global solutions. But this time, the U.S. is an outlier in terms of trade, climate change, and Iran, and that throws a wrench in the typical agreements made here.
    • Instead of endorsing the standard communique (which reflects the G-7’s shared values), they end by endorsing a one-page document of issues they’ll continue to work on. This is only the second time since 1975 a communique hasn’t been endorsed.
    • Trump says these deals are unfair to the U.S. But of course he does. We’re always the victim in his mind.
    • Trump says Melania has gotten to know Kim Jong Un well. Not sure when they would’ve met? Turns out they have never met.
    • As far as Iran goes, Trump says, “The biggest part of the conclusion, they can’t have nuclear weapons.” Just a little history lesson. The reason conservatives gave for calling the Iran deal the worst deal ever is that it only dealt with nuclear weapons and didn’t deal with state-sponsored violence and terrorism. The deal was by all accounts tremendously successful in curtailing Iran’s nuclear capabilities. And now that Trump has scrapped that deal, all he wants is to curb their nuclear weapons? WTAF?
    • French President Macron invites the Iranian foreign minister to come by the G-7. He’s hoping to get Trump to meet with him eventually.
  1. Protests in Hong Kong escalate after a police officer shoots a live round into the air while police armed with water canons to disperse crowd. Demonstrators barricade streets and try to dismantle monitoring cameras installed around the city.
  2. Russia’s protests also continue. Several students have been arrested, and the opposition leader is finally released from a month-long stay in prison for starting the protests.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The NYPD fires the officer who killed Eric Garner.
  2. A federal judge allows a lawsuit against Trump’s transgender military ban to move forward because transgender service members’ claim is constitutionally valid. However, only transgender troops who were forced to leave the military can file suit.
  3. A school board in Virginia that recently lost its court battle to defend its transgender bathroom bill says they’ll continue to fight the ruling. Don’t they have anything more productive to throw their energy behind?
  4. Trump accuses Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats of being disloyal, or if not disloyal, ignorant. Maybe I should send him a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”
    • This is the same Jewish trope that Ilhan Omar got called out for. Omar met with Jewish people, educated herself on why it was wrong, and apologized. I wonder if Trump will do the same?
    • Also, IKYMI, Jewish Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic (by about 75% to 25%).
  1. The Trump administration issues a rule that allows them to indefinitely detain people who cross the border illegally, including families.
    • The change will also take away state’s licensing authority and give it to ICE.
    • I’m not sure how they’re getting around the Flores agreement, which limits the length of time we can detain minors.
    • Just a reminder, releasing them with papers allowing them to work costs us far, far less than detaining them. Detaining them costs around $750 per day, or nearly $274,000 per year. Given an average of 40,000 detainees, that’s close to $11 billion year. Do we hate them so much we’re willing to pay that price for their pain?
  1. The top aide to Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan resigns, frustrated with how the White House handles major policy rollouts.
    • The White House is mad that McAleenan undersold the rollout of the change in policy allowing indefinite detention.
  1. The Army lowers its recruitment expectations for 2019 after missing its goals in 2018. This is in no small part due to how immigrant and minority soldiers have been treated under this administration. They previously had certain protections, but now have to deal with fears of being deported, fears of their families being deported, and other soldiers who wear MAGA hats and patches. If you don’t know why that sparks fear in minorities, it‘s because white hate groups have embraced those hats and changed what was once just random campaign swag to a symbol of hate.
  2. North Carolina’s governor vetoes a bill that would have required sheriffs to work closely with ICE on immigration enforcement.
  3. Trump wants to end birthright citizenship, granted in the 14th Amendment, for children of immigrants.
  4. Trump also wants to reduce the number of refugees allowed into the U.S. each year. That number is already down to 30,000 from 85,000 in 2016.
  5. The DOJ sends an email to all immigration employees that includes a link to a white nationalist article that attacks immigration judges and uses racial slurs. The DOJ says the email is compiled by a third-party vendor and that they don’t review it before it goes out.
  6. New York, Connecticut, and Vermont sue to block Trump’s rule that could put immigrants’ legal residency or citizenship in jeopardy if they use any social welfare programs.

Climate:

  1. 16 of the past 17 years have been the hottest ever recorded, according to the National Climate Assessment. This heat correlates with an increase in intense and heavy precipitation.
  2. Mercedes-Benz joins VW, Ford, BMW, and Honda in their agreement with California on emissions limitations, which is in opposition to Trump’s recent reversal of Obama’s emissions regulations.
    • Last month, Trump summoned leaders of Toyota, General Motors, Chrysler, and Fiat to pressure them not to join in.
  1. Trump suggests in a meeting that we should drop nuclear bombs into the eyes of hurricanes to weaken them before they hit the U.S. This has been floated before, but it’s been known for decades that it wouldn’t work. There’s the obvious problem of radiation fallout, but also, a nuclear blast wouldn’t be strong enough to significantly affect the storm. My favorite description of the meeting so far? “You could hear a gnat fart in that meeting.”
  2. Trump skips the G-7 meeting on climate change, saying he had to deal with issues with Germany and India, but those leaders are actually in attendance at the meeting on climate change.
  3. At the end of the G-7, Trump says he‘s the greatest environmentalist to be president. Confusing, since most of his changes to regulations open us up to more pollution, worsening climate change, and exploitation by the fossil fuel industry. But then he addresses that by saying he cares more about keeping the U.S. wealthy. Ah… so greed is better than doing what’s right?
  4. At the G-7, leaders approve providing aide to help Brazil combat fires in the Amazon rainforest.
  5. The rainforest has been on fire for three weeks, with the number of fires up 85% from last year to more than 80,000 fires.
    • Brazil declared a state of emergency, but it seems that most of these fires were set by farmers, miners, and loggers who were encouraged by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
    • Bolsonaro says non-governmental organizations (NGOs) started the fires, but shows no evidence. He also fires the scientist who heads the agency that discovered the steep rise in deforestation.
  1. Why is this fire such a big deal?
    • The Amazon rainforest provides about 1/5 of the oxygen on the planet. So one out of every five breaths you take is thanks to the Amazon.
      UPDATE: I have to retract the above statement. Scientists don’t know where that 1/5 number came from and say it’s closer to 6%.
    • The fires release plumes of carbon monoxide, which cause smog and can exacerbate climate change.
    • The Amazon absorbs excess carbon dioxide, helping to stave off climate change.
    • Scientists predict that losing too much of the rainforest will change rainfall patterns around the globe, including in the U.S. Midwest, which would see a decline in rainfall.

Budget/Economy:

  1. J.P. Morgan predicts that tariffs will cost American families up to $1,000 per year.
  2. U.S. Steel plans to lay off 200 Michigan workers. This comes after their announcement that they’ll idle two blast furnaces due to declining steel prices and lower demand.
  3. Business analysts say the economic boost from the GOP tax cuts have dwindled, and they expect the economy to shrink by the second quarter of next year. Looks like that tax cut was just a quick sugar fix after all…
  4. Trump, along with two senior economic advisers, brush off concerns about an impending recession. Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro both say the trade war isn’t hurting the economy, contradicting Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s words from the previous week. This is in response to economic indicators flashing recession warnings starting last week.
  5. Trump wants the Fed to cut interest rates by a full percentage point. Interest rates are already relatively low, and cutting them too much right now doesn’t give the Fed much wiggle room in case a slowing economy necessitates further cuts.
  6. The White House floats a temporary payroll tax cut to boost the economy and encourage spending. This could 1) cut into Social Security and Medicare funds and 2) increase the already-ballooning deficit.
  7. But then, Trump takes tax cuts off the table for now, because “we have a strong economy.” Mixed messages.
  8. Trump’s trade wars and tax changes are having a negative effect on the ability of truck drivers to make a living. About 75% of truck drivers supported Trump.
  9. Trump signs an executive order that forgives all student loan debt for permanently disabled veterans.
  10. The mayors of 70 cities send a letter to the SNAP administrator complaining about Trump’s proposed changes to the SNAP program, which would dump millions off the program.
  11. The week ends with Trump calling China’s President Xi Jinping his enemy and announcing that he would increase his planned tariffs by 5% on $550 million worth of goods. China says they’ll increase tariffs on vehicles to 25% plus other retaliatory tariffs. Trump calls China an enemy of the U.S.
  12. The Dow Jones drops over 600 points (around 2.4%), the Nasdaq drops 3%, and the S&P drops 2.6%. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says it’s because of trade policy uncertainty, so Trump calls him an enemy of the U.S. Ya know, just like China.
  13. And after China announces their retaliatory tariffs, Trump tweets, “Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA.” Pretty sure he can’t do that, even though he’s the chosen one.
  14. He also orders all shipping carriers to search for and refuse any Fentanyl deliveries.
  15. The BLS revises its estimate of total jobs created from March 2018 to March 2019 downward by 501,000. This type of revision isn’t unusual once the actual numbers are reported, though the revisions are usually in 10s of thousands, not 100s of thousands.
  16. At the G-7, Trump says we’re working on trade deals with multiple countries, including Japan. That’s not what Japan says.
  17. Trump also says that we’re back in trade talks with China, and that calls were made over the weekend. That’s not what China says. When he gets called out for making conflicting statements about trade with China, he says it’s just how he negotiates.
  18. Trump expresses regret at the hard line he’s taken on the trade war with China, but his aides are quick to clarify that he meant he should’ve been harsher.
  19. Trump says next year’s G-7 summit will be held at one of his country clubs. No conflict of interest there.
  20. The number of Americans who think current economic conditions are good dropped 5 points from 70% in May to 65% now.

Elections:

  1. Trump tweets that Google gave Hillary anywhere from 2.6 million to 16 million votes in 2016. In fairness, he was taking (and exaggerating) the word of Dr. Robert Epstein, a researcher who testified to Congress; but further inspection of the study doesn’t bear out his conclusions.
    • Epstein himself says that there’s no evidence Google manipulated search results to favor Clinton. Also, the number of voters he alleges were influenced is not much more than a guess.
    • Epstein has tangled with Google since 2012, when they tagged his website for spreading malware. He then spent four years claiming their search results could influence elections. And then amazingly, the conclusions from his research (which included studying a grand total of 95 people) matched his predictions exactly.
  1. I’ve been staying out of the presidential elections because there are so many Democratic candidates, I was waiting until a few of them got weeded out. But now we have a new candidate, Joe Walsh, trying to primary Trump. You might remember him as the member of congress who yelled out “You lie!” during one of the Barack Obama’s state of the union addresses. Or you might remember him as a birther and a conspiracy theorist. But he’s apologized for all that and thinks he should be president.

Week 111 in Trump

Posted on March 13, 2019 in Politics, Trump

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

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

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

Missed from Last Week:

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

Russia:

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

Legal Fallout:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

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

Family Separation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

Here are some polling numbers from Quinnipiac:

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

Week 89 in Trump

Posted on October 8, 2018 in Politics, Trump

One of these voted their conscience; two of them pretended to.

I’m so tired. I’m so tired of the Kavanaugh nomination sucking up all the air in the room and igniting everyone’s emotions. I’ve never seen people on both sides so emotionally vested in getting their way on a Supreme Court Nomination. It’s possibly because there’s more at stake right now, and none of our leaders made any effort to quiet down the vitriol. Voters from both sides ended up feeling unheard. Victims ended up feeling unheard. What was really painful was to have friends share their sex abuse stories with me, which was made all the more painful by friends who dismiss the claims of victims. It’s time to take a step back, regroup, and look at what we really believe in. Can we continue to let boys be boys while slut shaming the women those boys take advantage of? I just don’t think that’s gonna fly anymore.

Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox. Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Here’s a sad statement of the current politics of partisanship. When Jeff Flake was asked if he could’ve requested an FBI investigation and delay in Kavanaugh’s hearing if he was running again, he said “Of course not!”
  2. In case you were wondering if there’s any traction on making Trump’s tax returns or financial statements public, last week 21 Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee voted against releasing any of that information. That’s OK, because this week the New York Times beat them to the punch. More later.

Russia:

  1. Before the 2016 elections, several Republican Trump critics were victims of attempted hacking by Russian operatives. The FBI now says that the scope of that investigation has become greater than just computer intrusion, and they refer the case to Robert Mueller’s team.
  2. The DOJ indicts seven members of the Russian military, charging that they hacked into drug tests for Olympic athletes and leaked the information. This seems to have been in retaliation for all the investigations into Russian doping that resulted in several Russian athletes being unable to compete.
  3. Paul Manafort starts meeting with Mueller’s team as part of his plea agreement.
  4. Randy Credico, who was Roger Stone’s middleman between him and Julian Assange, says he’ll plead the fifth in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
  5. Two money laundering experts from Mueller’s team have left and gone back to their regular practices. Mueller team now has 13 staffers.
  6. Russian trolls and Russian TV have been supporting the Kavanaugh confirmation.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump told Michael Cohen to get a restraining order to prevent Stormy Daniels from talking to the press. Trump told Cohen to coordinate this with his son, Eric, who then asked a Trump Organization lawyer to draw up the papers.
  2. The New York Times publishes a lengthy article detailing the alleged methods, both legal and not so much, that the Trump family used to avoid paying hundreds of millions in taxes. Note: I haven’t read the full article yet, and I know there are some sketchy loopholes that blur the lines between legal and illegal tax avoidance.
  3. Here are some claims in the article:
    • Trump’s father gave him today’s equivalent of $413 million over the decades. Only a big deal because Trump says he’s a self-made billionaire, having only received $1 million in startup money from his father.
    • The Trumps transferred over $1 billion to their children, and paid a tax rate of about 5% on that.
    • Trump started earning $20,000 a year from his father’s company at age 3 in 1950.
    • After college, he received around $200,000 per year. This increased to about $2.5 million a year in his 40s. (Note: The NYT converted the numbers to today’s dollars; I converted them back for a little reality check. So these are approximations.)
    • Fred Trump also lent Donald Trump $60.7 million, most of which was never paid back. Fred bailed Donald out of a few potential bankruptcies, including making an illegal loan under New Jersey gaming laws. Fred provided the collateral for bank loans to Donald when he got into financial trouble.
    • When Fred Trump was ailing, Donald Trump tried to get him to change his will and to make him sole executor of the estate. At this point, it seems Fred no longer trusted Trump not to bankrupt the company and refused the changes.
    • The Trump children created a shell company to siphon money from Fred Trump’s estate into their own estates to avoid taxes. Family companies for managing family estates are not unusual, and they come with their own legal tax loopholes. But this company used questionable tactics like padded invoices to justify expenditures.
    • The family created a grantor-retained annuity trust, or GRAT, to transfer assets. Also completely legal, but in this case they severely undervalued the assets that were transferred in order to avoid taxes.
  1. After publication of the above article, New York Tax Department considers opening an investigation into the allegations. Even if the statute of limitations has expired, civil fines can still be levied for uncollected taxes.
  2. A lawyer for Trump says there was no “fraud or tax evasion” and that any actions taken were on the advice of financial professionals.
  3. Fun fact: If you’re wondering what led to the New York Times’ report, the story opened up when a reporter came across a filing from Maryanne Trump Barry, Trump’s sister. When she was being confirmed by the Senate to her judgeship, she included a document in her filing that showed a $1 million dollar contribution from what turned out to be a shell company.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Tom Cotton says they’re opening an investigation into Dianne Feinstein’s handling of Christine Blasey Ford’s letter and into Blasey Ford’s lawyers. Mitch McConnell echoes the call for investigation.
  2. Harvard cancels the classes taught by Kavanaugh. Then we hear that he withdrew from teaching, so I’m not sure exactly how that all shook out. Students were circulating a petition against him teaching there.
  3. McConnell says they’ll vote this week on Kavanaugh’s confirmation no matter the results of the investigation, and they do.
  4. At the opening of the FBI investigation into accusations against Kavanaugh, Trump tweets that the FBI can interview anybody they want, but at the time of the tweet, the FBI was still under the limits reported last week (with limits on who they can talk to and which allegations they can investigate). It sounds like Trump did want to give FBI free reign, but White House counsel said that would be disastrous.
    • The FBI didn’t interview either Blasey Ford or Kavanaugh.
    • Several accusers and witnesses request that the FBI interview them and try to get information to the FBI, including texts sent before some accusations came out. None of these are included in the investigation.
    • The above referenced text messages show that Kavanaugh was contacting classmates asking them to deny Ramirez’s accusations before those accusations were made public.
  1. Lindsey Graham tells Trump that if Kavanaugh’s nomination fails, he should renominate him.
  2. Two ethics complaints against Kavanaugh come before the DC District Court, which ironically is overseen by blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. The complaints center around perjury (filed prior to his testimony about sexual misconduct) and partisanship (filed after that testimony).
  3. The DC Court has already forwarded more than a dozen complaints against Kavanaugh to Justice Roberts on the Supreme Court. The DC Court had already dismissed some of the complaints as frivolous, forwarding only those thought to have substance.
  4. It turns out the ABA had questions about Kavanaugh in his 2006 confirmation hearings as well. They downgraded his rating from “well qualified” to just “qualified,” which is still positive. Their change was based on evaluations of Kavanaugh’s temperament, where he was called “unprepared” and “sanctimonious,” and where his ability to be balanced and fair was questioned.
  5. Kavanaugh’s testimony this week even turned some of his long-time friends and colleagues (both Republican and Democrat) against his nomination.
  6. Trump mocks Christine Blasey Ford IN A CAMPAIGN RALLY. I don’t know what’s worse, the way he mocked her or the way the crowd cheered and then yelled “Lock her up!” At any rate, Trump lied about what Blasey Ford could and could not remember, and the crowd ate it up.
  7. Both Jeff Flake and Susan Collins denounce Trump for mocking Blasey Ford.
  8. The GOP accuses Democrats of using and dumping Blasey Ford. Meanwhile, Republicans have been following Trump’s lead by discrediting and mocking her.
  9. Sarah Huckabee Sanders defends Trump in a press briefing the next day, saying that he was only stating the facts.
  10. And then Trump mocks Al Franken for folding like a wet rag when accused of grabbing several women’s butts. This is how Trump feels about people who take responsibility.
  11. 2,400 law professors sign a letter outlining why Kavanaugh shouldn’t be confirmed.
  12. Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says Kavanaugh shouldn’t be confirmed. Stevens first supported Kavanaugh, but changed his mind after Kavanaugh’s partisan statements during his testimony this week.
  13. The National Council of Churches calls on Kavanaugh to withdraw.
  14. Senator Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) says Trump should’ve nominated someone else, gave an impassioned speech about the #MeToo movement and sexual assault, and then voted to confirm Kavanaugh.
  15. Kavanaugh writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal apologizing for his behavior in front of the Senate. He claims he was overcome, even though he read a planned opening statement.
  16. Senators are allowed to view the FBI reports in a sealed room, one at a time and then in groups.
  17. Chuck Grassley releases an executive summary of the FBI report (though I don’t know who wrote the summary). The summary says their interviews provided no corroborating evidence, but Republicans start saying that the interviews refuted Blasey Ford’s account. Tip: Not corroborating something is not the same as refuting it.
  18. Eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee ask Chuck Grassley to correct the record when he says that there was no sign of any inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse in any of the six FBI reports on him. Those Democrats say that information is not accurate. But we’ll never know unless the information becomes public.
  19. Republicans say the FBI report was thorough; Democrats say it was incomplete.
  20. Emotions continue to escalate (I didn’t think they could get much higher than the previous week), and both pro- and anti-Kavanaugh protests pop up across the country. Hundreds of anti-Kavanaugh protestors are arrested in DC. My favorite protest is the kegger they throw outside of Mitch McConnell’s office. I like beer.
  21. Susan Collins and Joe Manchin, who are two of the key votes, say they’ll vote to confirm Kavanaugh. Heidi Heitkamp says she’ll vote no, and Jeff Flake, despite all his reservations, votes yes.
  22. The ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary revisits it’s evaluation of Kavanaugh’s rating based on his temperamental testimony this week.
  23. Trump threatens Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski’s re-election chances, saying that she’ll never recover from her “no” vote (which was actually a “present” vote). Trumps adds that he’s very popular in Alaska.
  24. Trump says it’s a scary time for men and boys right now because of all these accusations. I guess it’s a scary time if you have something to hide.
  25. And after all that turmoil, Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court by the narrowest margin for a Supreme Court Justice in over 130 years. The vote was 50-48. If Manchin would’ve voted no, Mike Pence would’ve come in to cast the deciding vote.
  26. There’s already an effort to drum up support to impeach Kavanaugh, so now’s a good time to remind everyone how hard that is. Even if it gets through the House, it would never pass the threshold in the Senate.
  27. And just a reminder, Blasey Ford still has been unable to return to her home due to threats. Remind me again why victims don’t come forward?

Healthcare:

  1. The EPA proposes loosening restrictions on radiation. Their announcement includes assessments from scientific outliers who say a little radiation could be good for human health. Even though very small amounts of radiation are known to cause cancer.

International:

  1. Mike Pompeo announces that the U.S. is ending the Treaty of Amity, a 1955 treaty with Iran, after the UN tries to use the treaty as a basis for ordering the U.S. to ease up on sanctions for humanitarian goods.
  2. John Bolton later says that the U.S. will also pull out of a dispute resolution protocol from the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. He bases this move on a challenge from the Palestinian Authority of our decision to move our Israel embassy to Jerusalem.
  3. Mike Pence gives a speech at the Hudson institute designed to move American public sentiment against China and to support the idea that they’re trying to meddle in our elections using economics because they don’t like Trump and want a different American president.
  4. The U.S. accuses Russia of building a missile system that could launch nuclear weapons to Europe and Alaska. The development of such a system was banned under a Cold War treaty.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. California has now passed over 1,000 new laws this year, including several aimed at recovering some of the regulations Trump has dissolved at the federal level around issues like net neutrality, energy and climate, gun control, and #MeToo.

Family Separation:

  1. An investigation by the Inspector General of the DHS finds that they never had a centralized database to track the immigrant families that they separated earlier this year. Instead, they were using spreadsheets that they compiled manually from emailed Word documents. That sure explains why they were unable to find family members in their computer system.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration begins denying visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats, saying they must be married in order to receive a visa. Some of these diplomats come from countries where gay marriage is illegal, so they’re unable to get married.
  2. Federal prosecutors charge and arrest four members of the California-based Rise Above Movement for their intent to incite a riot and commit violence at the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville last year. This group is small but violent, calling themselves an alt-right fight club.
  3. Federal inspectors at the Adelanto detention center in San Bernardino County, CA, find dismal conditions. They find 15 nooses made out of bed sheets hanging in cells, and they find health and dental care severely lacking. Adelanto is part of the GEO Group, a private, for-profit prison company.
  4. I’ve talked before about steps taken by the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Sudan, Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nigeria. This week, a federal judge grants a preliminary injunction that blocks any deportations for now. TPS protections will continue while a legal case is decided, giving temporary relief to over 300,000 people who were threatened with deportation.
  5. Even though Congress placed a hold on the funds, the Trump administration moved forward with plans to give Mexico $20 million to deport immigrants so they can’t make it to our borders. Despite the hold, Trump transferred the funds anyway. Mexico says they never approved of this plan.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A federal court holds that the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is in compliance with the law. Obama created the massive monument off of the New England coast in the Atlantic Ocean.
  2. Denmark says they’ll ban the sale of new fossil-fueled cars by 2030.
  3. California allocates $800 million to be able to store energy generated by solar panels to have more electricity available from solar in the nighttime hours.
  4. The EPA rewrites its rules about what scientific studies can be used in making public health policy against the wishes of its scientific advisors. Proprietary information can no longer be used, which will exclude findings from patients participating in private-sector studies.
  5. William Nordhaus and Paul Romer win the Nobel Prize for Economics. Nordhaus has been working in climate change’s effects on economy since the 1970s, and his model is widely used to show the relationship between the climate and the economy.
  6. A UN report on climate change expects an increase in global temperatures of 2.7 degrees F much sooner than previously thought. This would intensify sea level rise, droughts, wildfires, and poverty. They call for a 45% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and for halting them by 2050. Trump has said he’ll increase greenhouse gas emissions, though we’re already halfway to that 2.7 degree rise.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Amazon announces that they’ll start paying all of their employees at least $15 per hour.
  2. It turns out that most of the changes to NAFTA were already included in TPP. Trump and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly denounced those trade deals as two of the worst deals ever, but they’re calling the USMCA, basically a mashup of the NAFTA and TPP, one of the best deals ever. The dairy concessions from Canada are probably the biggest difference.
    • That means we could’ve pretty much gotten the same deal without alienating many of our trading partners and without giving China the extra trading power they obtained from the hole we left behind by cancelling the TPP.
  1. Unemployment hits record lows at 3.7%.
  2. The U.S. trade deficit expanded to 6.4% in August. Despite all the tariffs, the deficit was $53.2 billion, the highest level in six months.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Wikipedia says its authors shouldn’t use Breitbart and InfoWars as news sources on its pages. They call Breitbart unreliable, and say InfoWars is a “conspiracy theorist and fake news website.”
  2. In a press conference, Trump tells a female reporter “I know you’re not thinking. You never do,” while a group of men behind him chuckle and smirk.
  3. In the official White House transcript of the event, they change the word “thinking” to “thanking.” Mm-hmm…
  4. The Pentagon screening facility finds two envelopes suspected of contain ricin, and the Secret Service says that another suspicious envelope was addressed to Trump. A man was arrested in Utah in relation to the envelopes.
  5. The death toll in Indonesia from the earthquake and resulting tsunami reaches 2,000. Thousands are still missing.
  6. Trump falls back on that old tired narrative, claiming that Kavanaugh protestors are being paid by Soros. To which I say “Where’s my damn check, George ?”

Polls:

  1. Worldwide, 7 in 10 people have no confidence in Trump. Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Xi Jinping, and even Vladimir Putin all received higher confidence ratings.
  2. 37% of Americans have confidence in the Supreme Court, down from 60% in the 80s.
  3. This Quinnipiac poll on support for Kavanaugh’s confirmation is hard to distill, so here’s a link to the results, broken down by demographics. It’s pretty interesting.
  4. 41% of Americans oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination, with 33% supporting it.
  5. 45% of Americans believe Blasey Ford; 33% believe Kavanaugh.
  6. 56% of Republicans would still consider voting for a candidate accused of sexual harassment; 81% of Democrats say they’d definitely not.