Here’s how fast things change from week to week. From Peter Baker of the New York Times:

“As of last week, the American public had been told that President Trump’s doctor had certified he would be the “the healthiest individual ever elected.” That the president was happy with his legal team and would not hire a new lawyer. That he did not know about the $130,000 payment to a former pornographic film actress who claimed to have had an affair with him.

As of this week, it turns out that the statement about his health was not actually from the doctor but had been dictated by Mr. Trump himself. That the president has split with the leaders of his legal team and hired the same new lawyer he had denied recruiting. And that Mr. Trump himself financed the $130,000 payment intended to buy the silence of the actress known as Stormy Daniels.”

Also, ICYMI, you should change your Twitter password.

Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

1. The New York Time obtains a list of questions that Mueller supposedly wants to ask the president. The questions turn out to be written by Trump’s legal team (specifically Jay Sekulow) after Mueller gave them the topics he wants to talk about.
2. But still, Trump tries to use the questions as proof that Mueller isn’t looking into collusion… even though several of the questions are about collusion.
3. The leaked questions apparently came from the Trump team, who is blaming the leak on Mueller, which is unlikely because Mueller’s team has probably never seen this list.
4. At any rate, the president’s team says this proves that Mueller has overreached the scope of his investigation even though they aren’t Mueller’s questions.
5. Trump’s lead attorney John Dowd (now resigned) says that Mueller recently brought up the idea of subpoenaing Trump if he refuses to appear. In response, Trump says Mueller is trying to set him up and trap him.
6. Ty Cobb announces his retirement as White House Counsel, and Emmet Flood will replace him. Flood was an impeachment lawyer for Bill Clinton in the 90s.
7. No one in Trump’s current legal team has the security clearances needed to discuss sensitive issues should Trump meet with Mueller. John Dowd, who left in March, was the only one on the team who had the needed clearance.
8. Cambridge Analytica closes its operations after losing clients and facing steep legal fees. The company is accused of misusing Facebook data to influence the 2016 elections in the U.S. and to influence the Brexit vote in the UK.
9. But then we learn that Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer have already joined a new data company, Emerdata, as directors. The Mercers were the money behind Cambridge Analytica, and Emerdata is owned by Cambridge Analytica’s parent company. The CEO and other members of Cambridge Analytica have also moved over to Emerdata. It seems they’re just rebranding Cambridge Analytica as Emerdata.
10. UK regulators order Cambridge Analytica to release the information they scraped about a U.S. voter along with details on how they obtained the data and what they did with it. The voter requested the information under UK laws, getting around the U.S. system that doesn’t provide the means to obtain this data. It’s possible we could all force Cambridge Analytica to give us this information about our own data.
11. In a round of media interviews, Rudy Giuliani says:

• • Trump is immune from being subpoenaed in a criminal proceeding (something the Supreme Court has not yet supported—the court tends to reject efforts to protect the president this way).
  • Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein should redeem themselves by ending the special counsel’s investigation.
  • FBI agents are like Nazi stormtroopers.

12. The judge in Paul Manafort’s trial questions why Mueller’s investigation into Manafort falls under his jurisdiction but the investigation into Michael Cohen doesn’t. He wonders if Mueller is just trying to squeeze Manafort for information about Trump.
13. None of the above means the judge thinks Manafort isn’t guilty; he just raises the possibility of sending the case down to a state prosecutor.
14. Mueller puts in a request for 70 blank subpoenas in the Manafort case.
15. Mueller also requests a 60-day postponement in Michael Flynn’s sentencing.
16. Devin Nunes didn’t bother to read a document turned over to him by the DOJ after Nunes threatened impeachment against Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray. The 2-page document contains the evidence used by the DOJ and FBI to open the Russia investigation (not the same as the Steele dossier, BTW).
17. And now Nunes wants to hold Jeff Sessions in contempt of Congress for not releasing classified documents to Nunes‘ committee, which is investigating FISA abuses.
18. Rod Rosenstein responds to the articles of impeachment drawn up against him by the House Freedom Caucus by saying that the DOJ won’t be extorted and that threats won’t stop him from doing his job.
19. We learn that after Trump agreed to sell the Ukraine missiles to help in their fight against Russia last year, the Ukraine stopped cooperating with the Mueller investigation and they halted their own investigation into Paul Manafort.
20. Demonstrators across Russia rally to protest Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. Nearly 1,600 protesters are arrested, including Putin’s most prominent opponent, Alexei Navalny.

Courts/Justice:

Apparently the Justice Department has been too busy fighting congressional subpoenas to get anything done this week.

Healthcare:

1. Tom Price, former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, says that last year’s tax reform will raise health insurance costs because it repealed the individual mandate. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) agrees, saying average premiums will increase by around 10% per year more than if the mandate remained in place. This will amount to about an 18% increase this year, according to the Urban Institute.
2. Whoops! Tom Price later walks those statements back, saying repealing the mandate was absolutely the right thing to do.
3. The Urban Institute also predicts that getting rid of the mandate, along with other changes like allowing substandard policies, will cost the federal government $33 billion per year MORE to insure 6.4 million FEWER people.
4. Four million fewer people are already uninsured compared to this time in 2016.
5. Iowa passes the “Fetal Heartbeat” bill, making most abortions illegal after about 6 weeks (or once a heartbeat is detected). Many women don’t even know they’re pregnant at this point.
6. Because it’s not enough that fentanyl added to heroine led to a massive increase in overdoses, dealers are also adding fentanyl to cocaine. Cocaine deaths have been rising as dealers target drug users who are trying to avoid opiates. Many states don’t keep record of this kind of drug combination, but in Connecticut where they do track it, cocaine+fentanyl deaths rose 420% over the past three years.
7. Trump says he’ll appoint Dr. Mehmet Oz to the Sport, Fitness, and Nutrition council.

International:

1. In a public presentation to the Israeli Defense Ministry, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that Iran has lied about its nuclear weapons program. The information he presents is from 1999-2003, a time when we pretty much knew Iran was lying about their program, but the presentation seems aimed at making us think they’ve broken the Iran deal, which Netanyahu wants Trump to dump.
   My 2 cents? Leaving the agreement frees up Iran to develop whatever nuclear program they want, and we will have given them back $1.7 billion worth of previously frozen assets to do it. What kind of deal is that?
2. We learn that Trump aides hired Israeli private investigators last year to find dirt on key members of the Obama administration who were responsible for negotiating the Iran deal, including national security advisors Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl. One thing they were trying to find is whether either Rhodes or Kahl had benefited personally or professionally from the deal (which IMO reveals more about Trump than it does about Rhodes or Kahl).
3. Kahl reveals a mysterious attempt from a UK company last year to contact his wife about a school she volunteers with. The company’s website has since been taken down, and Kahl thinks it was part of the above investigation.
4. The Israeli investigators hired by Trump’s aides were also hired by Harvey Weinstein to go after his accusers and stop the publicity around his sexual harassment and abuse.
5. After Netanyahu’s presentation, the White House issues a statement that Iran has a robust, clandestine nuclear program that it hides from the world and Iranian citizens. This alarms many people because of its similarities to the accusations that pushed us into the Iraq war. The White House later updates the statement to say Iran HAD not HAS such a program. They blame the error on a typo.
6. John Kerry has been working behind the scenes to save the Iran deal, meeting with UN and foreign officials to find ways to keep the deal in place.
7. Trumps says that withdrawing from the Iran deal sends North Korea the right message in the lead up to our negotiations with them. I guess that could be true if the right message is that we don’t hold up our agreements.
8. If the U.S. pulls out of the Iran deal, it would leave the rest of the world to navigate a very complicated web of sanctions on international businesses.
9. The Trump administration is working to get three U.S. hostages held in North Korea released. I wish him success, but two things: 1) Rudy Giuliani claims that their release has already been obtained (it hasn’t), and 2) Trump says that the past administration tried to get them released with no success (two of the three were imprisoned last year, so it’s highly doubtful Obama was involved).
10. North Korea accuses Trump of provoking them with his tough talk on military might. They also warn us not to mistake their willingness to talk for weakness.
11. Ahead of his meeting with North Korea, Trump orders the Pentagon to prepare for pulling troops out of South Korea.
12. Trump freezes funding for Syria‘s main humanitarian group, the White Helmets. If you don’t know who they are, check out the short documentary about them.
13. Suicide bombers in Kabul kill at least 31 people.

Legislation/Congress:

1. The House chaplain, who Paul Ryan forced to resign last week, rescinds his resignation, forcing Ryan to either fire him or keep him on. Ryan decides to keep him, leaving us all wondering what the heck happened there.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Seven states, including Texas, file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to end DACA, even though Trump has already attempted to do this and the courts stopped him.

• • Here are the states involved in the suit, along with the number of people with DACA status: Texas (121,000), South Carolina (6,400), Arkansas (5,100), Alabama (4,300), Nebraska (3,400), Louisiana (2,000), and West Virginia (100).
  • Compare that to California (223,000), Illinois (42,000), New York (42,000), and Florida (33,000). It seems the states least affect by DACA (with the exception of Texas) are the ones that want to end it.

2. An all-black, all-female team of three was named a finalist in NASA’s high school competition, but NASA had to end public voting early when racists on 4chan launched a racially-based social media campaign against them.
3. Kirstjen Nielsen, Homeland Security Secretary, ends temporary protected status for the Hondurans who came hear nearly two decades ago as refugees after Hurricane Mitch devastated their country. That’s nearly 86,000 people who have called the U.S. their home for 20 years.
4. They may not call it a Muslim ban, but actions speak louder than words. So far this fiscal year, Christians refugees admitted into the U.S. outnumber Muslims by more almost four times. 1,800 Muslims have been allowed compared to 6,700 Christians, and the number of Muslims has shrunk by more than any other religious group, right in line with Trump having said he’ll prioritize Christian refugees.
5. Several U.S. citizens get caught up each year in ICE detainments, some of whom have been detained for over three years. The average time U.S. citizens are detained is 180 days; that’s a half a year these people lose. Citizens have also been deported, and had to have an embassy intervene for their return.
   Side note: It’s illegal for ICE to detain U.S. citizens. Where’s the accountability here?
6. About 250 members of the caravan of asylum seekers marching across Mexico reach the U.S. border, where most are turned away by border patrol. 49 have been admitted to the U.S. while the rest are living in a tent city south of the border.
7. Mike Pence calls Joe Arpaio a tireless champion for the rule of law. In case you forgot, Arpaio’s lost countless civil suits for his treatment of prisoners and is also a convict himself, though he was pardoned by Trump.
8. 2017 saw a 17% drop in international students coming to the U.S. Why is this important? Foreign students contribute about $37 billion to the U.S. economy each year.
9. In 44 states, a majority of residents support the right for same-sex couples to marry. The states that don’t support it: Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, and North Carolina. Alabama is the only state where a majority oppose that right.

Climate/EPA:

1. Eighteen states, including California, sue the Trump administration over its attempts to roll back Obama-era fuel efficiency goals.
2. The sea ice cover in the Bering Sea this winter hit a record low, and a striking low at that. It was just half the cover of the previous record low.
3. Scott Pruitt’s questionable foreign travel has been facilitated by lobbyists and wealthy donors, including Richard Smotkin, who arranged Pruitt’s trip to Morocco was later awarded a $40,000/month contract to lobby for the Moroccan government. Sheldon Adelson helped him with his trip to Israel. And former lobbyist Matthew Freedman worked to line up a trip to Australia.
4. Three top-level officials part ways with the EPA after Pruitt testified to Congress the previous week. Pruitt blamed subordinates for his own ethical lapses.
5. Under Ryan Zinke, the Fish and Wildlife Service removes Yellowstone grizzlies from the endangered species list. At the same time they’re working on solutions to diversify this small group of bears by importing bears from other areas. So they’ll take bears from areas where they’re still considered endangered, and move them to an area where they are not considered endangered?
6. There are rumors of a power struggle between Pruitt and Zinke, which could be why so many negative stories about both of them are coming out.

Budget/Economy:

1. The unemployment rate drops to 3.9%, and wages rise slightly, though not as much as economists expect in such a tight labor market. One reason could be increasing inflation or fears of it.
2. California moves up to fifth in the world economies, behind the U.S., China, Japan, and Germany. The state is 12% of the U.S. population (nearing 40 million) and provides 14.2% of the U.S. economy.
3. Marco Rubio criticizes the GOP tax reform, saying, “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the money’s been massively poured back into the American worker.”
4. Whoops again! He later walks that statement back (just like Tom Price did on healthcare).
5. Arizona teachers end their walkout after getting most, but not all, of what they were protesting for.
6. Here’s a new one for corporations. They’ve started creating response plans just in case Trump targets them or their industry in one of his Twitter rants.
7. The Purdue University Ag Economy Barometer, which shot up on Trump’s election, falls for the second month in a row. The barometer is an indicator of how the agricultural industry is doing as a whole.

Elections:

1. All four Federal Election Commission (FEC) commissioners have held their jobs well past their intended terms. They’ve stayed on 11, 9, 7, and 5 years past the end of their terms. Also, there are supposed to be six commissioners, not four. The Senate majority and minority leaders are supposed to recommend replacements, but they haven’t.
2. The DOJ updates its policy manual, removing a reference to maintaining a free press and expanding their policy on whistleblowers.
3. Paul Ryan warns that if Democrats win in the November midterms, they could make it impossible to get anything done and would be more aggressive in congressional oversight of the administration. Well if that’s not the pot calling the kettle black…
4. Since not enough has been done to ensure the security of our midterm elections from foreign interference, Democrats in Congress pledge to NOT exploit any stolen materials in their campaigns. Republicans have so far refused to do the same, leaving us open to continued interference.
5. Dianne Feinstein is the frontrunner in California’s senate race, but the second place runner is an anti-Semite running on the Republican ticket. The GOP just kicked him out of their convention and plan to vote to kick him out of the party. But how is this guy second?!

Miscellaneous:

1. Thousands of demonstrators in Puerto Rico protest over austerity measures, which come at a horrible time as they try to rebuild. Police shut the protests down using tear gas.
2. The Department of Education is sending $600 million in disaster assistance to Puerto Rico.
3. Trump’s previous personal physician, Harold Bornstein, who before the 2016 election purportedly wrote a glowing letter about Trump’s health in hyperbolic terms, now says that Trump dictated that letter. You’re shocked, I know. I was shocked too.
4. Bornstein also says that Trump aides, including his personal bodyguard, raided Bornstein’s office and took all of Trump’s medical records. The White House says that was just part of the transition into office.
5. With both Trump and Pence slated to speak at the NRA convention, parts of the convention have ironically been designated gun-free zones. Good thing the bad guy with a gun didn’t find out there were no good guys with a gun there.
6. During his NRA speech (and also full of irony), Trump reads an article from “fake news” CNN as proof that Mueller overreached in his investigation (though the article didn’t really say that).
7. Also in his speech, Trump criticized both France’s and the UK’s gun laws, saying those laws failed to prevent the 2015 terrorist attack in France and the knife violence in the UK. To bring his point home, Trump mimed shooting a gun at one victim at a time in reference to the Paris attacks. France and the UK are both pretty pissed.
8. At the NRA convention, you can buy pistols that look like cell phones. This come just one month after Sacramento police killed an unarmed man because they mistook his cell phone for a gun.
9. Rudy Giuliani tries to clear Trump of one crime by insinuating he committed another—and on a Hannity interview no less. He says Trump reimbursed Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment, inferring that Trump knew about the hush money despite his claims otherwise.
10. Giuliani also says it’s possible Trump paid hush money to additional women, but later walks that back.
11. Trump, or more likely someone more speaking for Trump, tweets an explanation for what Giuliani said, but basically confirms that he reimbursed Cohen.
12. Trump himself excuses Giuliani saying that he’s the new guy and he’ll get his facts straight. Well then what was he doing touring national TV talk shows?
13. In another less than helpful moment, Giuliani says it would be OK if Mueller went after Jared Kushner, but not Ivanka. Apparently Kushner is disposable.
14. Giuliani later says that Trump didn’t realize until just last week that his payments to Michael Cohen were to cover the hush money paid to Stormy Daniels.
15. Kellyanne Conway’s husband, George Conway, tweets the relevant FEC rules, which suggest that no matter how the payment went down, election rules were violated.
16. Trump signs an executive order to expand grants and partnerships with faith-based groups in an effort to reduce separation of church and state. Every agency is ordered to work on faith-based partnerships.
17. Even the Nobel prize runs up against #MeToo. There will be no prize in literature awarded this year because of a sex scandal. They’ll name two winners next year instead.
18. And speaking of the Nobel prize, several House Republicans nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for the work he’s doing with North Korea.
19. In John McCain’s new book, he says he regrets not picking Joe Lieberman as his 2008 running mate instead of Sarah Palin. Even if they still wouldn’t have been elected, I would argue that picking Lieberman would’ve drastically changed our current political climate.
20. Gina Haspel offers to withdraw her name from the nomination for CIA director, but the White House says they’ll continue to back her.
21. Rick Perry supports ending the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) because he thinks applied research belongs in the private sector (I guess so someone can profit off it). ARPA-E advances innovative energy research, often resuscitating research that stalled in the private sector. George W. Bush created ARPA-E, but it was first funded by Obama, so that could be why Trump wants to kill it.
22. You remember that lobbyist’s condo that Scott Pruitt was paying submarket rents for? Well it turns out that Mike Crapo (R-ID), the Senate Banking Committee chair, held 78 campaign events there.
23. NASA launches a new mission to Mars. The InSight robotic lander will send a probe into the layers of Mars’ surface and study the structure. It’s scheduled to land on Mars on November 26.
24. And in nonpolitical news, Mt. Kilauea erupts on Hawaii’s big island, opening multiple fissures in Leilani Estates, causing evacuations, and destroying homes, cars, and structures. The eruption caused several earthquakes, including one 6.9 in magnitude. The smaller island of Kauai had it’s own national disaster a few weeks ago, with severe flooding on the north side after receiving 50 inches of rain in 24 hours.