We have a new Senate and a new House, and our government is still shutdown. For the record, I’m confused by how Trump can blame the shutdown on Democrats when the shutdown started while Republicans controlled both the Senate and the House. It’s almost as if the outgoing Republican House set up the new Democratic House for an immediate clash with Trump.

Here’s what happened last week…

Border Wall/Shutdown:

The shutdown and wall deserve their own category, since they’re front and center of what’s been happening.

1. A brief timeline; I’m sure we can all see the dysfunction at work here:
   1. In December, the Republican Senate passes two bills to keep the government running.
   2. Just before the outgoing Republican House was ready to pass those bills, Trump says he won’t approve them without funding for his wall.
   3. The Republican House fails to pass them.
   4. The government shuts down.
   5. Trumps says he won’t re-open the government until he has border wall funding.
   6. The new Democratic House passes the same two bills the Republican Senate did last year, but the Senate has to vote on them again since it’s a new session.
   7. Mitch McConnell refuses to bring the bills to a vote because Trump disapproves, even though there’s a veto-proof majority in the Republican Senate.
2. Trump and his administration put out a number of “facts” about the illegal border crossings, but many are misleading or flat-out incorrect. Here’s a summary.
3. As a defense for his wall, Trump says that the Obamas have a 10-foot wall around their house. Pictures of the property show that they don’t. They have a little retaining wall around the front of their property that looks to be about two feet hight, to which they added a security fence. They also added chain link fencing in the back for the Secret Service. People need to learn the difference between a fence and a wall. Jeez.
4. Trump says he’ll keep the government shut down for months or even years if that’s what he has to do in order for his wall to be built.
5. A federal workers union files a lawsuit against the Trump administration saying that the shutdown is illegally forcing federal workers to work without pay.
6. Trump says he’ll consider declaring a state of emergency if that’s what it takes to get his border wall funded. It’s been three years since he started talking about his border wall; I think he’ll have a hard time proving there’s any imminent threat.
7. As an example of how NOT a crisis this is, average monthly border apprehensions under Trump are just over a third what they were under Bush. They’ve been decreasing for decades.
8. Though Trump tries to blame Democrats for the shutdown, he doesn’t deny it’s his fault when asked by reporters whether he’s still proud to call it his shutdown (as he said in a public meeting with Pelosi and Schumer in December).
9. The idea of trading wall funding for a pathway to citizenship for DACA comes back up, but Trump refuses to consider that.

• • Just a reminder, last year, Democrats offered Trump full funding for his wall ($25 billion) in return for citizenship options for DACA and Trump turned it down.

10. Security experts fear that since the wall has taken over the narrative, they won’t be able to get any of the other needed reforms around immigration.
11. TSA screeners start calling in sick to work because they can’t afford to get to work without their wages. Some are finding part-time work that actually pays them for what they do. (Reports that air traffic controllers are calling in sick appear to be unfounded.)
12. The largest airline pilots union sends a letter to Trump imploring him to end the shutdown out of concern for air safety.
13. Senior administration officials say that the Trump administration is only just now starting to realize the longterm effects of a shutdown, such as delays in processing tax refunds, SNAP recipients being unable to buy food, and HUD assistance being withheld.
14. Lawmakers on both sides request that their paychecks either be withheld or donated during the shutdown.
15. The Trump administration sends a letter to congressional leaders indicating that there is no compromising on a wall. Though he does soften his language to say physical barrier.
16. Mike Pence is tasked with negotiating a deal, and he brings a $2.5 billion compromise to the table. Which Trump promptly shoots down.
17. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that most illicit drugs in the U.S. come in through the border. The vast majority of drugs come in through legal ports of entry—by land, water, and air. Even Chris Wallace calls her out on that one.
18. Trump gets a little reprieve from some of the lawsuits he’s facing when Manhattan federal courts shut down civil litigation due to the government shutdown.
19. Trump has opted to leave national parks open during the shutdown despite lack of staff, while Obama closed them during his shutdown for safety reasons against much criticism. Three park visitors have died during the current shutdown.
20. Polling shows that government employees really hate the shutdown. 71% oppose it while 22% support it. Trump says that they’re behind him and that he can relate to furloughed workers who can’t pay their bills. Sure.

Russia:

1. A judge extends Mueller’s grand jury for another six months. The jury is coming up on the end of its 18-month term.
2. Russia detains a U.S. marine, accusing him of spying. Two things:

• • The marine has citizenship in four countries.
  • Russian politicians suggest they might be interested in swapping him for Maria Butina, the Russian national who pleaded guilty to espionage.

3. Igor Korobov, who has run the GRU military intelligence agency since 2016, dies after a “long illness.” The agency is accused of meddling in U.S. elections and hacking our election systems, and Korobov is suspected to be behind the poisonings of Russian ex-pats.
4. About that dossier, here’s a good summary of how it’s stood the test of time so far.

Courts/Justice:

1. The Supreme Court agrees to hear two gerrymandering cases—one from North Carolina and one from Maryland. Two lower courts found the district maps violated the constitution. The Supreme Court has avoided ruling on gerrymandering, but with the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, the issue has become more urgent.

Healthcare:

1. After years of taking steps to put abortion rights at risk at the state level, new state legislatures start proposing bills to make a woman’s right to choose more secure.

International:

1. The Democratic Republic of Congo holds a chaotic presidential election where fake results start circulating on social media. So they cut internet and messaging service in the entire country.
2. The State Department issues a warning that U.S. citizens could be randomly detained if they travel to China.
3. National Security Advisor John Bolton says the U.S. won’t withdraw troops from Syria until Turkey promises not to attack the Kurds (who’ve been helping us in the region). Trump had previously said he wanted the withdrawal to happen quickly.
4. The private information of hundreds of German politicians was hacked and released on Twitter. This affected every group except the far right.

Legislation/Congress:

1. The new Democratic-majority House gets sworn in and officially take their seats. There are 111 new representatives and senators, which includes 42 women and 24 people of color. This is the most diverse congress in history, but women still make up just 25%.
2. The House elects Nancy Pelosi to Speaker of the House. Kevin McCarthy becomes the House Minority Leader and Steny Hoyer becomes the House Majority Leader. No surprises there.
3. Hours after being sworn in to Congress, Michigan Representative Rachida Tlaib recounts a conversation she had with her son where she told him “…we’re going to go in and impeach the motherfucker.” That creates lots of fodder for conservative circles.
4. House GOP members boo Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as she places her vote for Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker. They really have it in for her.
5. The new House immediately passes two bills to re-open the government. They are basically the same bills that the Senate passed before Christmas, but now that Trump refuses to support those bills, Mitch McConnell refuses to bring it to a vote in the Senate. Even though the Senate had veto-proof support.
6. Trump tells a group of legislators that he can’t sign the two House bills because it would make him look foolish. I’m sure there are plenty of furloughed workers thinking that it’s better for him to look foolish than for them to keep losing their wages.
7. Trump meets with congressional leaders for a border security briefing, hoping to reach a compromise.
8. The evening before the new Congress begins, the Senate confirms 77 of Trump’s nominees in a bipartisan effort. They include the ambassador to Yemen, a Census director, a National Drug Control Policy director, and just a few judicial nominees. Most were for executive branch positions.
9. This is the first time since the current budget process was put in place 42 years ago that Congress has transferred power with major parts of the government shut down.
10. Democrats in the House make climate change a priority and create a select committee to focus on it.
11. The first major bill put forward by the Democrats is a major elections reform bill. It includes:

• • Making it easier for citizens to vote.
  • Cracking down on voter suppression policies like voter roll purges and gerrymandering.
  • Reinstating parts of the Voting Rights Act that prohibit discrimination against groups of voters.
  • Making money in politics more transparent by disclosing donors and ad buyers.
  • Helping House candidates who can’t raise as much money by matching their fundraising with federal dollars.
  • Placing limits on super PACs.
  • Forcing presidential candidates to release their tax returns and requiring them to have ethics plans once elected.
  • Prohibiting House members from serving on corporate boards.
  • Prohibiting House members from using federal dollars to pay out sexual harassment settlements.
  • Cracking down on lobbyists.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Three teens with the migrant caravan in Tijuana are kidnapped, tortured, and held for ransom. When they can’t pay (because OF COURSE THEY CAN’T), the kidnappers kill two of them and the third manages to escape.
2. A DOJ memo shows the Trump administration is thinking about rolling back parts of the Civil Rights Act known as “disparate impact.” Disparate impact labels actions as discriminatory if they have an uneven impact on different groups of people.
3. The DOJ acknowledges errors in a report it issued last year linking immigration and terrorism, but once again refuses to correct the errors.

• • The report claims that nearly 75% of convicted terrorists are foreign-born. Of the people they included in this statistic, over 1/3 were never charged with a crime related to terrorism.
  • The report makes misleading statements about sex offenses committed by immigrants, claiming they were responsible for nearly 70,000 offenses in three years when it was actually over a 55 year period. The number also represents arrests, not convictions.
  • The report cherry-picks examples to support a policy of ending chain migration.

4. Trump falsely claims that CBP has apprehended 3,775 known terrorists at our southern border. The numbers come from a DHS briefing, but the briefing doesn’t say where the apprehensions occurred. In reality, this number refers to apprehensions mostly at airports and across the globe, not just the U.S. Many of these were stopped simply because their name matched an entry on the terrorist watch list and not necessarily because they themselves were terrorists.
5. Kirstjen Nielsen says they’ve apprehended 3,000 special interest aliens at the southern border (but didn’t specific a time period). For the record, anyone not from the Western Hemisphere who crosses the border legally or otherwise is classified as special interest.
6. Maine’s outgoing Governor Paul LePage repeats his debunked claim that 90% of drug dealers in Maine are out-of-state blacks and Hispanics, and that they impregnate Maine’s white women. And then he pardons a former Republican (white) lawmaker who was convicted on drug trafficking charges.
7. Trump’s administration stops cooperating with human rights investigations in the U.S. by the UN.
8. Trump’s crackdown on MS-13 gangs caught up and deported high school students who had no criminal background and who were not actually associated with the gang. Many were here legally, but were deported anyway, destroying their American dream.

Climate/EPA:

1. Despite Trump’s efforts to resuscitate the coal industry, more coal plants have closed in Trump’s first two years than in Obama’s entire first term. The decline is expected to speed up in 2019 as coal consumption continues to fall.

Budget/Economy:

1. The unemployment rate ticked up in December even though employment increased by 312,000. But that’s not bad news; it went up because more people have moved back into the job market. Wages were also up in December.
2. Putin says that Russia will fill in the trade gap left by the U.S. by providing soybeans and poultry to China.
3. Trump blames the stock market’s worst month since the Great Depression on a glitch.
4. The U.S. national debt rises to $21.974 trillion. It’s grown $2 trillion in Trump’s first two years.
5. Ford scraps plans to build a new plant in Mexico and will instead expand operations in Michigan. They’ll still move some production to Mexico though.

Elections:

1. Another Republican Senator, Pat Roberts of Kansas, announces he won’t run for re-election.
2. Courts in Virginia issue documents around congressional voting district maps, saying the current districts are gerrymandered. The court is redrawing the maps, but the case is before the Supreme Court.
3. Elizabeth Warren kicks off her 2020 campaign for president. Julián Castro and John Delaney are also running.

Miscellaneous:

1. Mitt Romney pens an op-ed criticizing Trump and saying that he hasn’t risen to the mantle of his office. Lindsay Graham warns him that criticizing Trump will hurt him and hurt Utah.
2. Thirteen years after launch, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft visits Ultima Thule, the most distant object we’ve explored. New Horizons is sending back pictures of the 20-mile-long object.
3. There’s another mass shooting this week, this time at a bowling alley in Torrance, CA. Three people are dead, two are injured.
4. Trump holds a stream-of-consciousness press conference. Here are a few highlights.

• • In the midst of a government shutdown where hundreds of thousands of workers aren’t getting paid, he confirms that Pence and his cabinet get a $10,000 raise.
  • He says he’ll use Eminent Domain to take land from people who own it near the border so he can build his wall (or fence, or whatever he’s calling it now). He says he can do this without congressional approval.
  • He says he might declare a national emergency to get the wall built without congressional approval.
  • He claims that other presidents have told him they wished they built the wall themselves. (They haven’t. In fact, all four living presidents and a spokesperson for the late Bush Sr. deny having any such conversation.)
  • He calls Rashid Tlaib’s comment about impeachment and calling him a motherfucker “disgraceful.” He’s not that far off base here, but he’s also the pot calling the kettle black.
  • He says you can’t impeach someone who’s doing a great job (even Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), standing behind him, couldn’t help but chuckle).
  • He claims we’ve already built a lot of the wall. (We haven’t; we’ve only worked on existing fences.)
  • He claims drugs are pouring into the country and they don’t go through ports of entry. (The majority of drugs entering the country come in through legal ports of entry.)
  • The updated NAFTA deal will pay for the wall. (It won’t. If it did, he wouldn’t be asking for money. He also says the deal is brand new, which it isn’t.)
  • He says Russia’s not happy we’re pulling out of Syria. (Russia says their happy we’re pulling out of Syria.)
  • He takes credit for lower gas prices, and says he averted a recession. (Turns out the market for oil just relaxed on the realization that sanctions against Iran won’t create a shortage.)
  • He says the U.S. has taken in many billions of dollars of tariffs, apparently not understanding that the American people actually pay for the tariffs.
  • And it wouldn’t be complete if he didn’t say there was no collusion; that he won and Hillary lost; and that he’s done more in two years than any other president.

5. Trump holds a cabinet meeting where he:

• • Compares the border wall to the walls in the Vatican (not the same thing).
  • Says there are 30-35 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. (there are closer to 11 million).
  • Says his generals are better looking than Tom Cruise.
  • Says he knows more about drones than anybody.
  • Claims that Obama gave Iran $150 billion and $1.8 billion in cash. This has been debunked a gazillion times, but as a reminder, the first amount was the release of frozen Iranian assets (in other words, property of Iran that we were holding) and the second amount was repayment of a debt owed.

6. In a repeat of his first cabinet meeting, members took their turn at heaping praise on Trump.
7. And in the realm of “draining the swamp,” a former Boeing executive runs the DOD, a former coal lobbyist runs the EPA, a former pharma lobbyist runs Health and Human Services, and a former fossil fuel lobbyist runs the Department of the Interior. Winning!