This restores my faith in humanity. A man who lost his wife in the El Paso shooting and had no family left opened up her funeral to the entire community. Over 1,000 strangers showed up to comfort the grieving man and pay their respects to his wife. The funeral home was filled to capacity, and people waited outside for hours for their turn to come inside. People from across the globe send flowers, and some people even travel from out of town or out of state to get there.
Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending August 18…
Shootings This Week:
- The week‘s mass shootings (defined as killing or injuring four or more people):
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- A shooter wounds four people behind a grocery store in Greenwood, MS.
- A shooter in Tacoma, WA, kills two people and injures three.
- A shooter near the Alabama State University campus in Montgomery, AL, kills two people and injures three.
- A shooter injures five people in Philadelphia.
- A shooter injures seven people at a house party in Houston. It was a pop-up party, started by random invitations on Snapchat.
- A shooter injures four teenagers in the Kansas City Sheraton Plaza hotel.
- This was another bad week for LEOs, too.
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- During a traffic stop in Riverside, CA, a shooter kills one police officer and injures two more before the police kill the suspect.
- Six police officers are shot and injured in an hours-long shootout in Philadelphia during an attempted drug bust. The shooter was firing an AR-15.
- Public tips lead to three arrests in three states of men threatening mass shootings.
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- One posted his interest in committing a mass shooting on Facebook.
- One texted his ex-girlfriend threatening a mass shooting.
- On threatened to shoot up a Jewish community center.
- Prosecutors indict a young man who threatened federal agents. Agents seized 25 guns and around 10,000 rounds of ammunition from his house.
- The House Judiciary Committee announces they’ll cut their August recess short in order to move forward three gun safety bills.
- A leaked memo shows that Congressional Republicans’ talking points about mass shootings include labeling them “violence from the left.” Left-wing extremism is responsible for 3% of extremist killings as opposed to the right-wing’s 73%. In 2018, all extremist killings were related to right-wing extremism, mostly white supremacy.
Russia:
- The nuclear blast that killed five Russians occurred during a failed test of a nuclear-powered missile, likely the one that Putin has called “invincible.”
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- Days after the blast, which caused local radiation levels to spike, Russian officials ordered an evacuation of a small town near the blast for “military drills.” They then cancel the evacuation, saying the drills have been cancelled, leading defense experts to believe they’re suspending more tests for now.
- FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub accuses her Republican colleagues of blocking an investigation into a complaint of allegations of Russian money laundering involving the NRA. The complaint stems from a reported FBI investigation.
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- Weintraub claims Republicans on the FEC stopped the General Counsel from even reaching out to the FBI to confirm whether or not this investigation actually exists.
Legal Fallout:
- The guards who neglected to check on Jeffrey Epstein before he hanged himself didn’t check on him because they fell asleep. They falsified records to cover it up.
- Epstein’s autopsy found broken bones in his neck that can happen in a suicidal hanging, but that are more common in a homicidal strangling. The conspiracy theories grow.
- But then, the cause of death is listed as suicide by hanging. And the conspiracy theories continue to grow. *sigh*
- Two women file lawsuits against Epstein’s estate under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
- The House Judiciary Committee subpoenas Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former White House official Rick Dearborn to testify September 17. We’ll see if it actually happens this time.
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- The White House wants to invoke executive privilege to restrict Lewandowski’s testimony, but he never worked for the White House.
Courts/Justice:
- The DOJ submits a brief asking the Supreme Court to rule that Title VII (which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sex, race, color, religion or national origin) does not apply to transgender people.
Healthcare:
- Despite the spate of highly restrictive abortion laws passed by states in recent years, draconian restrictions on abortion are extremely unpopular in the U.S., with less than 25% of people supporting total bans. 58% of Americans support legalized abortion in all or most cases.
- A Kaiser Family Foundation study shows that support for so-called heartbeat bills, which ban abortions later than six weeks into pregnancy, plummets when people are told what those laws actually do.
- Doctors in Congo say they’ve cured two Ebola patients they treated with new Ebola drugs.
- A VA inspector general report shows that for a six-month period in 2017, the VA incorrectly denied about 17,400 veterans $53.3 million in medical claims. A bipartisan group of lawmakers pushes for reconsideration of those claims.
International:
- Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests continue this week, with flash-mob style protests across the territory.
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- Officials shut down all outgoing flights at the airport, and requested incoming flights not come, for two days due to the number of protestors at the airport.
- Violence breaks out sporadically, but the largest protest over the weekend is mostly peaceful. Nearly 1.7 million people, or a quarter of the city show up in the pouring rain to protest.
- Satellite images of the Hong Kong border show over 500 Chinese military vehicles hidden along the border, waiting to be deployed against protestors.
- Pro-democracy protests also continue in Russia for the sixth straight week.
- Last week, I said that Israel doesn’t let Trump tell them what to do. But it turns out Israel does. They bar Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from entering Israel because they support BDS (and because Trump said to). Israel later says Tlaib can come visit her Palestinian grandmother, but Tlaib declines because of the restriction and conditions place on the visit.
- I’m still confused over Trump’s concern over A$AP Rocky, but anyhoo… a Swedish court finds Rocky guilty of assault, but doesn’t give him any more jail time.
- Trump floats purchasing Greenland.
- A suicide bomber at a wedding reception in Kabul kills 63 people and injures 182 more. The Islamic State claims responsibility; the Taliban denies any responsibility.
- Foreign diplomates and officials are already making contingency plans in case they have to deal with Trump for four more years, fearing he’ll win in 2020.
Countries are holding off on launching new initiatives with the U.S. as a precaution.
- It’s kind of telling that the leaders Trump has the most goodwill with right now are those who are gutting democracy in their countries (Hungary, Poland, and Israel).
- Trump wants to create a naval blockade along Venezuela’s coast to stop the import and export of goods from the country. Sr. Pentagon officials don’t see the point, think it’s impractical, and say it would stretch them even thinner in the international arena.
Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:
- The Trump administration plans to dig up Native American gravesites in order to build the border wall. Democrats in Congress are working to exempt historic cemeteries like this from being part of the wall.
Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:
- An American fencer who won bronze and helped Team USA win gold at the Pan Am Games takes a knee during the national anthem to protest racism, gun violence, our horrific treatment of immigrants, and Trump.
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- A hammer thrower who took gold raises her fist in protest at the end of the national anthem.
- Last year, Alabama filed a suit against the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau arguing that undocumented immigrants shouldn’t be counted when apportioning federal representation and funding. This would be a major shift away from how we’ve done things in the past.
- Families separated at the border by the Trump administration are suing for damages, specifically families with kids who claim they were abused in foster care. As expensive as family separation and endless detention has been for taxpayers, these lawsuit settlements could cost us 100s of millions more.
- The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a nationwide injunction against Trump’s policy of denying any asylum claims for people who enter the U.S. via a third country. So the policy goes back into effect in Texas and New Mexico, but not California and Arizona.
- The Trump administration introduces a new rule that changes how recipients of public assistance are evaluated for U.S. residency and citizenship. The rule adds things like receiving food stamps or medicaid to the things immigration officials can take into consideration.
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- Pros: Fewer people getting public assistance.
- Cons: People will forego the help they need for fear that they won’t get residency or citizenship (meaning children will go hungry, for a start).
- In defending the new rule, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli rewrites the poem at the base of the statue of liberty. He says:
“Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge.”
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- Here’s the actual line from the poem. I’ll let you compare the difference. Jeez.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
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- He later says that the poem only refers to people coming from Europe.
- In implementing the rule, the DHS ignored a majority of the 266,077 public comments submitted.
- California seeks an injunction to block the new rule on the basis that it’s intended to discriminate.
- On the campaign trail, Trump promised to be a very good friend to the LGBTQ community. Well, a couple bans later (along with with removing protections against discrimination), he proposes a new rule that would let companies doing federal business discriminate against LGBTQ workers based on closely held religious beliefs.
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- The rule also allows discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nation of origin, gender, and more.
- This is just one in a string of new rules that makes it harder to win a discrimination case in court.
- Representative Steve King (R-IA) defends his anti-abortion stance in cases of rape and incest by asking, if we didn’t have rape and incest, would there be any population left?” Makes me wonder what kind of sex this guy is having.
- The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court’s ruling that DHS must provide immigrant children in detention centers with edible food, clean water, soap, and toothbrushes. The ruling also says that the children cannot be sleep-deprived.
- Gavin Grimm finally wins his discrimination case against a Virginia school board over transgender bathroom use. The case was temporarily put on hold when Trump rescinded the bill allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their gender identity.
- The officer who drove into a group of people protesting at an immigrant detention center resigns. One of the protestors suffered a broken leg and internal bleeding, while other were sprayed by other officers with pepper spray.
- A new analysis shows that black men are 2.5 times more likely that white men to die during a police encounter. Latino men, black women, and all Native Americans are also killed by police at a higher rate.
- Well this is so not good. Experts at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) argue that domestic terrorists, like ISIS, are trying to create dirty bombs (that is, radioactive bombs). This includes white hate groups and neo-Nazis.
Alt-Right vs. Antifa:
- While Portland police planned well for a white supremacist rally and the corresponding counter-protests by antifa, several fights broke out and police arrested 13 people and seized several weapons.
- Trump says we should designate antifa as a terrorist group (just a reminder that antifa stands for anti-fascist, and it’s not an organized enough group to be considered a terrorist group).
- One of the alt-right leaders just turned himself in for charges of felony rioting from a previous fight.
- The alt-right organizer says the whole point of the rally is to bring attention to antifa after the beating of far-right journalist Andy Ngo.
- If you don’t think that Trump fans the flames of white supremacy, white supremacists would disagree with you. The Proud Boys organizer Joe Biggsold says:
“Go look at President Trump’s Twitter. He talked about Portland, said he’s watching antifa. That’s all we wanted. We wanted national attention, and we got it. Mission success.”
- My question here is, if there were no white supremacy groups, would there be any antifa? And does antifa organize protests on their own, or do they just come out to protest white hate groups? The only exception to that that I’ve seen is the inauguration day vandalism.
Climate:
- 29 states and cities sue the Trump administration over the new rules attempting to rescind Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The new rules would ease emissions restrictions on coal-burning power plants.
- The Interior Department issues new rules to weaken the Endangered Species Act. The act, which was passed by Republicans in 1973, protects hundreds of species. The Secretary of the Interior is a former fossil fuel lobbyists, so the speculation is that this will allow for more drilling. Cue the lawsuits.
- The use of neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics, for short) has made our farms around 50 times more toxic to honeybees and likely to other insects as well.
- In another testament to the impulsive nature of this administration, the EPA reverses its decision to allow “cyanide bombs” to kill wildlife. Apparently the public outcry over this took them by surprise.
- India holds a tree-planting marathon, with students, volunteers, and government officials planting 220 million trees in just one day.
- A U.S. Geological Survey study found plastic particles in more than 90% of the rainwater samples they tested in the Denver-Boulder areas and surrounding mountains. It’s raining plastic, folks.
- While the globe is still waiting for the fateful day when warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius, several U.S. areas have already reached it and are feeling the effects.
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- New Jersey and other New England states, New York City, and Los Angeles, are among the most rapidly heating areas.
- Other states feeling the burn include northern parts of Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan. Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, and Arizona also have some hot spots.
- The warming affects industries and causes overgrowths of toxic algae and seaweeds.
Budget/Economy:
- Seemingly spooked by the market’s reaction to tariff announcements, Trump delays tariffs on Chinese goods that are big-sellers during the holidays. They’ll go into effect in mid-December.
- So far this year, tariffs have doubled customs duties to $57 billon.
- This fiscal year’s budget deficit grows to $866.8 billion, surpassing last year’s total and we still have two months to go in the fiscal year. The deficit is expected to surpass $1 trillion this year, two years earlier than previously predicted.
- GDP growth slowed in fiscal year 2019, indicating that tax cuts and deficit spending aren’t what will boost the economy in the long term. And after all the financial maneuverings, the economy is on pace to keep up the steady growth of the past 10 years.
- Analysts attribute the slowing to the GOP tax cuts, increased government spending, and a population that’s getting older. The GOP still says that the tax cuts will boost GDP growth.
- In case you thought last week would be the worst for the markets… Stocks took a little rollercoaster ride, dropping nearly 1,000 points in one day. Most indexes drop around 3%. They bounce back up (mostly), but bond yields are still pushing lower.
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- Trump blames his own Fed and pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.
- The 10-year and 2-year bond yield curves invert for the first time since 2007, a fairly predictable indication of recession. But we’re not in predictable times right now. This is what triggered the stock market drop.
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- A yield curve inversion occurs when the yields for short-term bonds is higher than the yields for long-term bonds. If investors think a recession is coming, they’ll settle for those lower yields in long-term bonds.
- You can look at Treasury bonds as a bet on economic growth. What’s happening now indicates that investors think the damage is done and this market bounce is temporary.
- We had warnings in March and May, where the 3-year yield curve temporarily inverted.
- The caveat? Steps the Fed took to get us out of the Great Recession changed some of the fundamentals of the market. So it could be the yield curve isn’t the reliable indicator it’s been in the past. Another caveat? Economists have also made that caveat before previous recessions.
- The New York Fed recession indicator issues recession warnings as well.
- And more recession jitters. Goldman Sachs expresses concern that a protracted trade war will trigger a recession.
- At a rally, Trump says, “I never said China was going to be easy,” directly contradicting what he said in March 2018: trade wars “are easy to win.”
- Moody Analytics estimates the trade war has axed 300,000 jobs and blunted GDP growth by 0.3 percentage points.
- John Deere and Caterpillar both fall short of investor expectations and Deere lowers its annual earnings forecast as a result of the trade war with China coupled with extreme weather.
- The yield curve inversion occurs in the UK as well.
- The UK’s economy shrank last quarter for the first time in nearly seven years. The European economy is slowing in general right now, but the UK is facing a possible no-deal Brexit, which would slow them down even further.
- Germany‘s economy, the EU’s largest, shrank in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019. Germany has taken a hit in their auto industry because of the trade wars.
- The European Central Bank proposes stimulus measures in expectation of a global downturn. Their interest rates are already negative, and they’re considering further cuts.
- China’s industrial output growth was at its weakest in 17 years.
- Japan buys $22 billion in U.S. Treasuries in June. That’s the most of any country and it makes Japan the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries.
- Finally for some good news. Retail sales in the U.S. beat expectations in July, and major retailers had their biggest sales increase in four months. Economists raise their GDP growth expectations for the quarter.
- Trump says he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook over the weekend to talk about how tariffs affect Apple and how Apple’s major competitor, Samsung, gets around the tariffs. Is that normal for a president to meet with one CEO? I don’t know.
- Trump says the stock market will collapse if we don’t vote for him next year. It might collapse either way. He has a 50/50 chance of being right.
- Trump’s administration is reviewing unspent funds for foreign programs that were approved by Congress with an eye on redirecting those funds in a process called rescission. But he won’t touch Mike Pence’s or Ivanka’s programs.
Elections:
- A Republican group files a lawsuit against the voter-passed citizen redistricting commission in Michigan. They say the commission is unconstitutional. Voters passed similar anti-gerrymandering measures in other states, where the GOP is also trying to circumvent the vote of the people.
- At least eight state still use paperless ballots, so there’s no audit trail in the case of a challenge or recount. However, a judge orders Georgia to stop using paperless touchscreen voting machines by 2020.
- Trump holds a rally at a Shell plant in Pennsylvania where thousands of union workers are told to show up and to not yell or protest, or they won’t get paid. The rally was held during a time when workers get overtime, so they were looking at a good loss if they didn’t show.
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- Trump tells that group of workers that Shell‘s manufacturing complex never would’ve happened without him, even though Shell announced it under Obama in 2012.
- Trump renews his claims of voter fraud in New Hampshire, and receives a quick rebuke from FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub, who says:
“People have studied this. Academics have studied this. Lawyers have studied this. The government has studied this. Democrats have studied this. Republicans have studied this. And no one can find any evidence of rampant voter fraud either historically or particularly in the 2016 elections.”
- While both parties have used the recall to try to get rid of elected officials they don’t like, the GOP wields it like a weapon. There have been 45 state-level recall elections in the history of the U.S., and 20 of those were just in the past 10 years.
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- In California, they recalled a state senator to break the Democratic supermajority in 2018.
- In Nevada, they tried to recall three lawmakers in 2018.
- In New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, and California, they’re trying or planning to recall the governors.
- In Colorado they recalled two lawmakers in 2013. This year, they’re trying to recall four lawmakers and are targeting more.
- In comparison, Democrats tried to recall Scott Walker and his Lt. Governor in Wisconsin in 2012, and are working on a recall of the governor of Alaska.
- Trump says he can decide which TV networks air the presidential debates.
Miscellaneous:
- Remember that big scandal under Obama where we all found out that the National Security Agency (NSA) was surveilling our phone records? Well, that program has been shut down indefinitely, but Trump wants to reauthorize it and make it permanent.
- Trump says being president will cost him $5 billion. Isn’t that all he was worth in the first place?
Polls:
- 72% of Americans support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Even 54% of Republicans do, thought that’s down from 59% in March, 2017.
Quote of the Week:
This quote comes from a surprising source: former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci (the Mooch).
“We recognize that the president is a clear and present danger to the American society, the American culture. There are many people inside the White House and in the Cabinet. I would ask the left to let’s create an off-ramp for those people because when you’re trying to deprogram people from a cult, one of the first things you have to do is allow them to change their mind, and you have to allow them to have the space to change their mind.”
