Tag: north carolina

Week 109 in Trump

Posted on February 25, 2019 in Politics, Trump

NC Board of Elections video

Last week, rumors about winding down the Mueller investigation proved to be unfounded. I think we’re all ready and maybe a little anxious for it to be done. The Associated Press wrote up a good summary about what we’ve learned so far. It’s a longish read, but pretty interesting. A few things to brace for if you’re looking for impeachment here:

    • It’s not likely to happen.
    • It could be that Trump didn’t do anything knowingly wrong.
    • It could be that he did, but there’s no evidence of it.
    • It could be that he did, but there is evidence of it. And that case, we might find out about it and we might not.
    • All that is to say, don’t get your hopes up too high.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. At least sixteen states issue a legal challenge to Trump’s use of a national emergency to redirect billions in government funding to build his wall. The lawsuit claims that Trump doesn’t have the authority to override the funding decisions of Congress.
  2. Demonstrators at over 250 rallies across the country join to protest the national emergency declaration and the wall.
  3. Democrats in the House introduce a resolution to put an end to Trump’s national emergency for the wall. They’ll vote on it on Tuesday. If it passes, the Senate must take it up within 18 days.

Russia:

  1. The New York Times learns from documents and interviews that:
    • The Trump administration lied about the circumstances around Michael Flynn leaving.
    • Trump had private discussions with GOP Members of Congress about how to attack the Mueller investigation.
    • Trump called Matthew Whitaker last year when he was acting Attorney General and asked him to put Geoffrey Berman (or as Trump called him, “my guy”) in charge of the investigation into hush money payments to women. Berman is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and had already recused himself over conflicts of interest.
      • This puts Whitaker at odds with the testimony he gave to a Congressional committee. The chair of the committee gives Whitaker a chance to fix his testimony.
  1. Former FBI director Andrew McCabe says he briefed the bipartisan Gang of Eight congressional leaders on two FBI investigations they were opening into Trump in May of 2017 (one about Comey’s firing and one about campaign ties with Russia). He says none of them objected to it at the time.
  2. After James Comey was fired, the FBI developed a plan to protect evidence in the Russia investigation under concerns that more top-level officials would be fired.
  3. Roger Stone gets called back into court after he posts a picture of the judge in his case next to an image of a crosshairs. The judge places a strict gag order on Stone’s social media, radio, press release, blog, and media activities and says if he violates that order, “I will find it necessary to adjust your environment.”
    • The judge also extends the order to Stone’s spokespersons, family, and volunteers.
    • Stone says he’s having trouble putting food on the table and making rent. His previous income was $47,000 month. That’s $564,000 a year, in case you were wondering. How much does that guy eat?
  1. Rod Rosenstein plans to leave the DOJ in March.
  2. New York state prosecutors are preparing a case against Manafort in the event that Trump issues him a pardon. There is no double jeopardy because these are state charges as opposed to the federal charges he’s already pleaded guilty to or been convicted of. New charges would include state tax evasion and corporate accounting violations, among others.
  3. Mueller files a sentencing memo for Manafort on two charges of conspiracy to which Manafort pled guilty. You can read the memo here and the attachments here.
  4. Mueller is expected to deliver his final report next week and Barr is preparing to announce an end to the investigation… and then whoops! That was premature. It turns out that he’s not; it was just random speculation.
  5. Russia has already launched a coordinated disinformation campaign against 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Most action so far is against Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Beto O’Rourke.
  6. So far, every 2020 presidential candidate except for Trump has promised not to knowingly use any hacked or illegally obtained materials in the election cycle.

Legal Fallout:

  1. As recently as last week, the Trump administration was considering a proposal to sell nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Several Trump appointees had been pushing for the plan, which would have American companies build the plants. The administration has ignored legal and ethical warnings about the possibilities of spreading nuclear weapons technology in the Mideast.
    • Michael Flynn was one of the appointees pushing for this. He had been working on this for the company promoting it (IP3 International) before he was appointed, and kept at it after he was appointed.
    • Flynn’s successor, H.R. McMaster, tried to put an end to it.
    • One proposal included naming Trump’s friend Tom Barrack as a “special representative” to carry out the plan.
    • Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings brought this to the to the attention of the House Oversight Committee in 2018, but the Republican chair of the committee, Trey Gowdy, refused to follow up.
  1. A judge rules against Trump’s Labor Secretary, Alexander Acosta, saying he violated federal law by not notifying Jeff Epstein’s victims about a plea agreement with Epstein. Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from underage girls.
  2. Trump’s pick to be ambassador to the UN withdraws her name from consideration because of her family after it comes out that she had failed to pay taxes on time and had hired an undocumented nanny.
  3. The Office of Government Ethics finds that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross violated his ethics agreement and submitted false information on his financial disclosure.
  4. Emails show coordination between Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao’s office and the office of her husband, Mitch McConnell. She held meetings with politicians and business leaders at the request of McConnell, and in some cases, the people she met with received grants and assistance with state funding.
  5. A grand jury has been convened in an investigation into whether Ryan Zinke lied to federal investigators who were looking into whether Zinke did not approve a casino application because of political pressure. Two tribes in Connecticut say that MGM lobbied to oppose the casino.
  6. Democratic lawmakers say they have correspondence that indicates the Education Department tried to influence an investigation into the recognition of ACICS as an accreditor. ACICS accredited two for-profit colleges that were shut down by lawsuits. Under Obama, ACICS was no longer recognized as an accreditor. Documents show that the department wanted to replace their inspector general who was investigating the certification.
  7. A former Trump campaign staffer files a class action lawsuit against Trump’s practice of forcing staffers to sign non-disclosure agreements. The aim is to invalidate all the NDAs. Under the NDAs, staffers can’t criticize Trump or talk about their work with him.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court rules that lower courts in Texas interpreted precedent incorrectly when they ruled that a death row inmate was mentally capable and could thus be executed.
  2. Trump picks Jeff Rosen to be the new deputy attorney general, replacing Rod Rosenstein in March. Rosen is new to the DOJ and has no prosecutorial experience (most deputy AGs work their way up through the department).
  3. Justice Clarence Thomas calls on the Supreme Court to take another look at the New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which he says makes it hard for public officials to win libel suits against news media.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration issues a new rule that blocks any taxpayer-funded family planning clinic from providing abortion referrals. Clinics that provide abortions can’t receive funds from the federal family planning program. Trump will redirect some of that money to religious anti-abortion groups.
    • Just a reminder, these facilities provide general healthcare, STD testing and treatment, preventative treatments, and prenatal care mostly to poor women who don’t otherwise have access to healthcare.
  1. Students in Colorado take the lead in supporting a new bill that would ban abstinence-only sex ed, and would require teaching about safe sex, consent, and sexual orientation. Currently:
    • Eight states require teaching about consent.
    • 37 states require covering or stressing abstinence.
    • Only 13 states require teaching to be medically accurate.
    • Seven states prohibit teachers from showing same-sex relationships in a positive light.
    • Less than half of schools still require sex ed.

International:

  1. Three Conservative Party MPs in the U.K. quit the party over the handling of Brexit. This is on top of two defections from the Labour Party earlier in the week. They join forces and the group grows to 11. They want to see a public vote on a new referendum.
  2. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan (who has said he’ll carry out Trump’s wishes rather than perform the actual duty of his position, which is to advise the president), briefs members of the Senate on Trump’s Syria policy. It gets very contentious when Lindsey Graham presses him for details.
  3. Putin says that Russia will target the U.S. with their new missiles if new missiles are placed in Europe. I’m not sure what spurred that comment.
  4. Though Trump promised a full troop withdrawal from Syria, now he says they’ll leave around 200 troops there to coordinate a safe zone. And then he moves the target again and says they’ll leave 400 troops.
  5. Despite Trump urging European countries to accept back their citizens who left to join ISIS, the U.S. refuses to accept back Hoda Muthana, a woman from the U.S. who joined ISIS. They say her citizenship is in question because her parents were here on a diplomatic mission from Yemen, though she was born in the U.S. after her father was discharged from service and she has a U.S. passport.
  6. Venezuelan soldiers open fire on civilians who were trying to keep part of the border open to receive humanitarian assistance. Two are dead and several injured.
  7. Venezuela cuts diplomatic ties with neighboring Colombia.
  8. Mike Pompeo says that Trump and Kim Jong Un might need to have another summit after their upcoming one because they might not be able to accomplish all they want to at this one. Pompeo also contradicts Trump, saying that North Korea remains a nuclear threat.
  9. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cuts a deal with a racist anti-Arab party, bringing an extremist fringe group into the mainstream. The move draws criticism from liberal Jewish groups like J Street and more conservative ones like AIPAC.

Family Separation:

  1. The practice of separating families, deporting the parents, and keeping the children here has brought the welfare system into the process. Foster parents aren’t supposed to be allowed to adopt these children, but it has happened before and could happen now, separating these families forever.
  2. A judge is deliberating over whether to force the U.S. government to pour over all their records in order to find the thousands of families they’ve separated. Look for a ruling on this soon.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Texts between a police lieutenant and right-wing organizers indicate bias in the handling of an alt-right clash with Antifa. However, the officer says he has similar texts with members of both sides. The mayor calls for an independent investigation.
  2. I can’t even keep up with the developments in the Jussie Smollett hate crime story. It seems right now like he faked the whole thing. Smollett maintains his innocence, but his character was cut from the last few episodes of Empire. We’ll see what happens in trial, if it goes that far.
  3. Trump continues to warn about migrant caravans heading our way. He’s an alarmist, plain and simple. It’s his job to handle things like this without creating pointless fear.
  4. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of hate groups in the U.S. is at an all-time high.
  5. An editorial in an Alabama newspaper calls for a resurgence of the KKK.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Several government reports produced under the Trump administration have found that climate change is for sure one of our biggest national security threats. Our top brass has testified repeatedly that climate change is one of our biggest security threats. Despite this, the White House plans to create a Presidential Committee on Climate Security to assess whether climate change is indeed a threat. It’ll be headed by William Happer, who says carbon emissions are an asset, not a pollutant.
    • Interestingly, the administration says the previous reports weren’t subject to rigorous and independent peer review. In fact, they have been reviewed. The reports that are unable to be replicated under peer review are those that try to disprove climate change.
  1. The EPA announces an effort to restrict perfluoroalkyl and related compounds (PFAS), which have been contaminating water systems across the country, particularly those by military bases.
  2. The EPA has reached out to a scientist who claims that low levels of pollution, toxic chemicals, and radiation are good for us. His suggestions for how the EPA should assess these issues has been added to the Federal Register nearly word for word.
  3. In Tasmania, brush fires that have been burning out of control for a month could wipe out ancient species.
  4. The Trump administration ends talks with California over fuel economy rules for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The administration wants to end Obama’s mileage standards and they’ve threatened to end California’s ability to set its own mileage standards.
  5. Patagonia made an additional $10 million in profits due to the business tax cuts implemented by the GOP. The founder is putting all that money toward fighting climate change.
  6. When asked about climate change, the new U.S. ambassador to Canada says that she believes in both sides of the science. There aren’t two sides. There’s the proven side, and then multiple sides trying to explain away the proven side with a multitude of unprovable hypotheses.
  7. Last week, we learned that Trump pressured the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep open two aging coal plants. This week, the TVA votes to close those plants.

Budget/Economy:

  1. In 2018, retail jobs were cut by their highest number since 2009, largely because of online shopping.
  2. Teachers strike in Oakland, demanding smaller classes, more counselors and full-time nurses, and a 12% raise over three years.
  3. China agrees to buy 10 million additional tons of soybeans from the United States. Since they canceled all orders in December, but did buy around 8 million tons in 2018, I’m not sure if that means they’re buying 10 million tons or 18 million tons in total, but either way it’s much less than what they bought in 2017.
  4. The Trump administration has paid $7.7 billion of the promised $12 billion in relief to farmers affected by the trade war with China.
  5. Trump says they made great progress in trade talks with China, so he delays raising tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.
  6. Most economists expect a recession by 2021 with about half of them expecting one this year or next.
  7. Illinois signs a bill to raise its minimum wage to $15 by 2025.

Elections:

  1. The elections board hearing into election fraud in North Carolina’s 9th district takes a dramatic turn this week:
    • Lisa Britt testifies that McCrae Dowless paid her to illegally collect and complete mail-in ballots and applications for mail-in ballots. Dowless was hired by a consulting group hired by the campaign for Republican candidate Mark Harris. Britt is Dowless’s step-daughter.
    • Harris sobs in court when his son testifies that he warned his dad about the questionable practices employed by Dowless, contradicting Mark Harris’s earlier testimony.
    • The next day, Harris says that North Carolina needs to hold another election to settle this race. It seems his attorneys are eager to put an end to the proceedings as their client is already guilty of perjuring himself on the stand.
    • North Carolina elections officials order a new election, putting an end to the investigation. I’m not clear if any criminal charge will arise from this, but states attorneys and the State Bureau of Investigation are looking into it.
    • Dowless has done work for both Republicans and Democrats in the past, and is also a convicted felon (on unrelated charges of fraud).
  1. Trump says he condemns all election fraud whether it’s Democrat or Republican (good) and then follows that with his unsupported accusations of voter fraud in California, Texas, and Florida (bad). He says they found millions of fraudulent votes in California and offers the late counts that leaned Democrat as proof. Likewise, he says the late counts in Florida prove fraud. He says votes in Texas weren’t properly done, referencing the Secretary of State’s efforts to clean out the voter rolls.
    • There’s never been any kind of indication or proof that people voted illegally in CA.
    • After 2016, I think they found 2 or 3 cases in Texas, at least two of whom voted Republican. This is a separate issue from the 95,000 or so voters the state was looking into for being illegally registered to vote. That number has been drastically reduced because most of the people on the list are actually citizens.
    • And in Florida, they were just counting all the votes; no fraud was found.
    • I think North Carolina has shown that fraud raises red flags and can be proven. Instead, Trump focuses on things he made up to justify his popular vote loss.
  1. New Jersey’s State Senate passes a bill requiring all presidential candidates to release their taxes in order to be included on the ballot. The bill has to get through the Assembly and then the governor.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Transportation Department cancels nearly $1 billion in funding for California’s troubled high-speed train project. They’re also trying to find ways to make California pay back the $2.5 billion they’ve already received.
    • California Governor Gavin Newsom had previously reduced the scope of the project.
  1. New York City’s transportation department defrauded FEMA out of $5.3 million in claims after Superstorm Sandy. They city agrees to pay it all back.
  2. The latest rumor is that Trump wants to replace his director of National Intelligence Dan Coates because of his testimony before Congress in January. I usually don’t report on rumors, but last fall all the staff turnover rumors came true. So we’ll see.
  3. Police arrest a Coast Guard lieutenant who plotted to kill a laundry list of Democratic politicians and what he considered “leftist” professors, judges, and journalists. He describes himself as a white nationalist and skinhead, and he calls the people on his list traitors.
  4. The NRA posts a picture of Nancy Pelosi and shooting victim Gabby Giffords with the headline “Target Practice.” Oops.

Polls:

  1. 61% of American disapprove of Trump using a national emergency to build his wall. About the same number don’t think there’s a national emergency there.

Week 99 in Trump

Posted on December 18, 2018 in Politics, Trump

So much happened last week, but my favorite part of the week was when Trump surprised Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer with a meeting with the press when they thought they were having a closed-door meeting. As far as transparency goes, that was awesome. But things went downhill fast, with a lot of shouting, a lot of misinformation, a bit of man-splaining, and some name-calling; only Nancy Pelosi was trying to talk policy. Pelosi came out of it not only looking like the adult in the room but also firmly pinning any potential government shutdown on Trump. It’s easy to see how she got the votes for Speaker.

Here’s what else happened this week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. NASA spacecraft OSIRIS-REx arrived in the orbit of an asteroid named Bennu. OSIRIS-REx launched two years ago and will spend the next year surveying and mapping the asteroid and hopefully bring us back some rock samples. Seriously. We sent a spacecraft to an ASTEROID!
  2. The week had some hate:
    • Jehovah’s Witnesses have been targeted with hate crimes 5 times this year in Washington state. The latest attack destroyed a church in a fire.
    • Again in Washington, eight self-professed neo-Nazis assault a black man, yelling racist slurs as they attack him.
    • Someone spreads anti-Semitic pamphlets throughout Pittsburgh, and a student plasters State University of New York’s Purchase College with Nazi-themed posters.

Russia:

  1. Maria Butina pleads guilty to acting as an illegal foreign agent and agrees to cooperate with federal investigators. She’s the first Russian charged to admit trying to influence the 2016 elections.
  2. Here are some highlights:
    • In 2015, Butina began working with Alexander Torshin to establish “unofficial” lines of communication with political leaders for the benefit of the Russian Federation (because official lines weren’t working).
    • Butina targeted Republicans because she thought a Republican would win the presidency in 2016.
    • She worked with her boyfriend, South Dakotan Paul Erickson, on her plan and also to make the contacts she needed.
    • Butina planned to use the NRA to lay the groundwork because of their influence over the Republican party.
    • She received funding from a Russian billionaire.
    • In the middle of all this, Butina obtained a student visa so she could stay in the U.S.
    • She worked to meet with Trump’s advisors once he was elected. Butina and Erickson also tried to set up meetings between Trump advisors and Russian officials.
  1. As of this week, we know through court filings and guilty pleas that at least 16 Trump business and campaign associates had contact with Russians during the 2016 campaign. And every one of them lied about it.
  2. Newspapers and businesses across the country receive bomb threats, suspected to come from Russian hackers. The hackers ask for bitcoin in order to not detonate the (non-existent) bombs.
  3. Everything was going so well for Michael Flynn, who was probably on track to serve no jail time. And then, his lawyers file a court document claiming that the FBI didn’t let him know he maybe needed a lawyer during the interviews where he lied to investigators (which led to the charges against him). They say that the FBI tricked Flynn into lying but still don’t say why Flynn lied.
  4. Mueller says Flynn is an experienced military man in a high-level government position. He should know better than to lie to U.S. intelligence in any situation, and there was no coercion for him to lie.
  5. Two of Flynn’s associates say he was meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 elections to talk about cooperation between Russia and the U.S. Russia would help end the Syrian conflict and the U.S. would ease sanctions.
    • The talks continued even after U.S. intelligence agencies told Trump’s campaign that Russia was behind the DNC hacks and subsequent leaks.
  1. On judge‘s orders, Mueller turns over their documentation of the interviews with Flynn where he is said to have lied.
  2. Texts and emails show that Paul Manafort was advising the Trump administration on ways to discredit Mueller’s investigations. Manafort recommended attacking the FBI, the DOJ, the Steele Dossier (and the Clinton campaign’s involvement) and any Obama officials involved in getting the FISA warrant. He recommended accusing the DNC of colluding with Ukraine.
  3. Studies commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee find that clearly all of the messaging coming from Russian entities was designed to benefit the Republican party and later Trump specifically.
    • One report finds that Russians used every major social media platform to influence the elections in 2016.
    • The other report analyzed how the Russian company Internet Research Agency targeted specific demographics for political messaging. IRA targeted blacks and other minorities to either discourage them from voting and turn them against Democrats.
    • Russian trolls and bots put a lot of time into dividing us on gun rights and immigration issues. They’d embed themselves in specific circles using authentic content, and then start posting provocative misinformation.
    • Posts on Instagram generated more than twice the user engagement than other major platforms.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump says he never told Cohen to break the law, but didn’t dispute that he told Cohen to pay off his mistresses to keep them quiet about their affairs. Trump says Cohen should’ve known what was legal; Cohen says he was under Trump’s sway.
  2. Sources says that Trump was involved in meetings where Cohen and David Pecker (of American Media Inc. (AMI)) talked about the payments.
  3. In his sentencing hearing, Cohen implies that he has more to talk about than just hush money payments. He gets a three-year sentence plus fines.
    • As a reminder, he pled guilty to: tax evasion, campaign finance violations, lying to banks, and lying to Congress. These are not all his known crimes.
    • Sean Hannity deletes all his tweets linking him to Cohen just before Cohen is sentenced.
  1. AMI is also in a cooperation agreement and has agreed to tell prosecutors everything they know about Trump. If you remember, AMI also has a vault of the negative stories about Trump that they killed in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
  2. David Pecker also admits to the hush money payments. AMI says the payments were to influence the elections, giving even more credence to the allegation that these were illegal campaign donations.
  3. Investigators are looking into donations to Trump’s inaugural committee and to a pro-Trump super PAC. They say foreign agents from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE might have disguised donations to buy influence over U.S. policy. Not surprisingly, Manafort it involved in this.
  4. When Trump and his siblings inflated invoices for their shell company decades ago, they also used those invoices as justification to inflate rent increases in their apartment buildings. This has caused the rent in those buildings to be artificially inflated for decades, even though the Trumps no longer own them.
  5. In a defamation lawsuit, Roger Stone admits to telling lies on InfoWars. Stone says he didn’t do his research and took the word of Sam Nunberg about alleged foreign donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “Didn’t do his research” is how all this BS gets spread around in the first place so do your research!

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court refuses to hear cases about blocking funding for Planned Parenthood. This leaves in place the lower court rulings that say states can’t cancel Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood offices.
  2. The Senate confirms Jonathan Kobes to a federal appeals court despite the ABA questioning his knowledge of the law and ability to understand complex legal analysis. This is Trump’s second unqualified but confirmed judicial nominee.
  3. The chief justice of California’s Supreme Court changes her party affiliation from Republican to No Party Preference. She says it’s been coming for a while, but Kavanaugh’s confirmation was the nail in the coffin.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration shuts down an HIV research project in Montana because they use fetal tissue to research a cure for HIV/AIDS. Restrictions on the use of fetal tissue have been shutting down research projects across the country.
  2. The Senate votes against a bill that would extend VA benefits for thousands of vets who were exposed to Agent Orange. The House passed this bill unanimously.
  3. A federal judge in Texas rules that without the mandate, certain parts of the ACA are unconstitutional. Trump says that’s great news, but even legislators who tried to kill the ACA aren’t thrilled with this ruling. Many are even confused by it. The White House assures us that the ACA will remain in place through the appeals process. Oh, and the ruling comes the day before open enrollment ends.

International:

  1. Trump rejects the information given by U.S. intelligence agencies in his daily briefings on world events. Specifically, he’s denied that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, he says North Korea will halt their nuclear weapons program, and he disagrees with them about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, climate change, and the role of the Saudi Crown Prince in Khashoggi’s murder.
  2. Theresa May delays a vote to approve her Brexit deal, and then survives a vote of no confidence. She then returns to Brussels to negotiate once more, but returns empty-handed.
  3. On top of weeks of protests across France, a shooter kills three people and injures 13 at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, putting all Christmas Markets in France on high alert and launching a manhunt. Police later find and shoot the gunman.
  4. A cyber attack on the Marriott earlier this year accessed the personal information of around 500 million guests. Investigators blame the cyber attack on Chinese intelligence.
  5. Trump continues to stand by Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite GOP Senators standing against him on this. Interesting side note: Some members of the Saudi royal family would like to stop MbS from being crowned king, but support from the U.S. and Trump could sway them.
  6. The Senate passes a resolution that declares MbS is not only involved in Khashoggi’s murder but is responsible for it.
  7. The Senate passes a recommendation to end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
  8. Party members in Hungary that are normally in opposition to one other unite in protest against Prime Minister Viktor Ordan’s authoritarian rule. Rallies and protests have spread across the country, taking the Prime Minister and his Fidesz party by surprise. Ordan has been steadily increasing his power while weakening democratic institutions and processes.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Senate reverses a Trump policy that helped hide information about donors to political non-profits. With the Senate bill, donors must be disclosed to the IRS.
  2. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signs a series of lame duck bills into law, curtailing the power of the office he is leaving because the person taking his place is a Democrat. From what I can see, the GOP plan seems to be: 1) Gerrymander districts so the other party can’t ever get a majority (even with a majority of votes statewide); and 2) When the populace finally votes your party out, change all the rules of government to make sure they can’t get anything done. Such a bad precedent.
    • Lawsuits against these bills are already in the works. Several of North Carolina’s attempt at passing bills to weaken incoming Democratic officials two years ago are still stuck in the courts.
    • Republicans in Wisconsin’s state legislature started working on these bills months ago just in case there was a shift in parties.
  1. Florida’s governor-elect Ron DeSantis wants to delay implementation of the voter approved ballot initiative that restored voting rights to felons who’ve served their time (excepting certain violent crimes).
  2. The House passes a bill to prevent states from holding children in adult jails and to ban the practice of shackling pregnant girls. The bill also funds tutoring, mental health assistance, and drug and alcohol programs for juvenile offenders.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The number of migrant minors held in U.S. custody is now nearly 15,000. A big reason for the backlog is that sponsors for these children are afraid to come forward for fear of being deported themselves.
  2. Church leaders form an interfaith protest at the U.S.-Mexico border in support of those seeking asylum. Officials arrest 32 faith leaders and activists at the protest.
  3. Officials in Ohio arrest a man who was plotting to kill people in a Jewish synagogue. Hate crimes against Jews have increased more than any other type of hate crime.
  4. Immigration judges for the most part want to make the right choices and not send people back to their home countries to get killed. The Global Migration Project at Columbia University recently found over 60 people who were killed or harmed after being sent home.
  5. The Trump administration starts working once again to deport refugees from the Vietnam war who’ve lived in the U.S. for decades.
  6. Trump says the updated NAFTA deal means that Mexico will pay for his wall. In case you were wondering, it doesn’t.
  7. A seven-year-old migrant girl dies after getting sick eight hours after being taken into custody. Homeland Security says that she didn’t have anything to eat or drink for days before being detained, but her family says that’s not true. The fastest way to get her medical assistance was a 90-minute bus ride, during which she worsened until she was no longer breathing when they arrived. An investigation is underway.
  8. Trump uses the shooting in Strasbourg as a reason we need to shore up our borders, but it turns out the shooter was born in Strasbourg.
  9. Trump claims that the migrants coming in to this country are spreading contagious diseases. There’s no evidence of this.
  10. Trump says a lot of his wall is already built and that it has decreased illegal migration significantly. He seems to be referring to fencing built or fixed between 1992 and 2016.
  11. Trump says says migrants crossing the border illegally are pouring drugs into the country, but according to the DEA most drugs come in through legal ports of entry.
  12. In referring to illegal immigration over the southern border, Trump says: “We caught 10 terrorists over the last very short period of time. Ten.” I’m not sure what he means by ‘the last very short period of time,’ but most terrorists are blocked from entry into the U.S. at airports. And a State Department study found “no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States.”
  13. Betsy DeVos moves to rescind Obama-era guidance over school discipline that prevented minority students from receiving harsher punishments than their white classmates.
  14. Miss USA, Miss Columbia and Miss Australia are caught on tape mocking other Miss Universe contestants’ English-speaking skills.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A new study that compares past and future climates suggests that over the past 200 years, human activity has reversed millions of years of cooling. So yes, our climate changes, but generally not as rapidly as now.
  2. At the UN climate talks, Trump’s top climate and energy advisor is greeted with laughter when he gives a talk that includes pitching coal, the fossil fuel largely responsible for climate change. Turns out that most of the audience is there merely to protest; the U.S. couldn’t get enough people who are serious about climate change to attend.
  3. At the same talks, nations discuss the latest IPCC report which calls for dramatic cuts in emissions. Oil producing nations want to keep the report out of the final agreement, and the U.S. backs them. They end up welcoming the “timeliness” of the report as opposed to the content of the report.
  4. Even more interesting, though, is the fact that U.S. officials were working behind the scenes to continue making contributions to the Paris agreement.
  5. The Trump administration wants to reclassify nuclear waste so we don’t have to be so cautious in disposing of it, making disposal cheaper. Though this is the same administration that says a little radiation every day is good for you!
  6. The Trump administration proposes weakening the clean water rules that were created by George H.W. Bush and expanded on under Obama. The changes loosen protections against pollutants, pesticides, and toxic waste in certain waterways.
  7. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke resigns in the middle of more than a dozen ethics investigations into his political activity, travel expenses, and possible conflicts of interest. Zinke used his position roll back environmental protections and to exploit federal lands with the goal of global energy dominance.
  8. Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt will take over for Zinke temporarily. Bernhardt was a fossil fuels and water industry lobbyist before coming to the department (whose mission, by the way, is to be a good steward of our public lands).
  9. The Trump administration auctions off leases that will allow fracking on public lands near Utah’s national parks.
  10. A new study shows that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef might be adapting to the warmer waters caused by climate change. The harm done to the reef this year was less than expected despite warmer waters.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China agrees to cut tariffs on U.S. automobiles to 15%.
  2. Trump says he’ll shut down the government if the spending bill doesn’t fund his border wall. He even says he’ll be proud to shut it down.
  3. Trump signs an executive order to help fund underserved communities known as “opportunity zones.”
  4. Trump wants to get rid of subsidies for electric vehicles, which would give foreign automakers an advantage in EV development.
  5. The budget deficit for the first two months of fiscal year 2019 is double what it was in the first two months of fiscal year 2018. The administration predicts the deficit will be over $1 trillion for three straight years.
  6. In 2010, Wells Fargo incorrectly foreclosed on around 545 homeowners due to a computer glitch. Most of these people lost their homes, their current and future equity, and in some cases their pets because they had to move. To make up for it, Wells Fargo sends the borrowers checks that grossly under-compensated them for their losses.
  7. A few months ago, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau put out a report showing that Wells Fargo was price-gouging student borrowers. The Trump administration has been sitting on that information.
  8. Betsy DeVos loses a court battle and now has to cancel $150 million in federal student loan debt. The loan forgiveness affects 15,000 borrowers who were cheated by for-profit colleges.

Elections:

  1. A federal court in Virginia hands down documents in a case that concluded that 11 of Virginia’s districts are illegally gerrymandered. The case is pending before the Supreme Court, but the legislature must redraw the district lines anyway. One of the documents includes a variety of plans, but none of them redraw less than 21 districts.
  2. Things aren’t looking good for Mark Harris, Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina’s 9th District. It turns out that he sought to hire Leslie Dowless to help win the 2018 race after losing a race in 2016, knowing Dowless’ reputation for using sketchy means to win elections. Dowless illegally harvested ballots according to witnesses.
  3. George Papadopoulos feels like he’s ready to run for Congress. Now that he’s done his jail time for lying about Russian contacts, that is.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Time Magazine names a group of journalist as their Person of the Year. The group, which Time calls The Guardians, include the slain journalists at the Capital Gazette and Jamal Khashoggi, among others. One of the reasons for this choice is that “manipulation and abuse of truth is really the common thread in so many of this year’s major stories.”
  2. The House Judiciary Committee questions a Google executive for over three hours because Republicans think Google searches bring up results that aren’t fair to conservatives. Both parties are concerned about privacy issues.
  3. Stormy Daniels has to pay Trump nearly $300,000 in legal fees because her defamation suit against him was dismissed.
  4. A Kansas state senator switches party affiliations from Republican to Democrat after being ostracized for supporting the Democratic candidate for governor over Kris Kobach.
  5. The Trumps cancel the White House tradition of a holiday press party. Last year, they held the event but declined the tradition of taking pictures with anyone who wanted one.
  6. After Nick Ayers turns down the chief of staff position, Chris Christie takes himself out of the running as well. Jared Kushner’s in the running, but then Trump picks Mick Mulvaney to be acting chief of staff. Mulvaney is already wearing a couple different hats.
  7. The Trumps plan to take a 16-day trip to Mar-a-Lago over the holidays.
  8. Voyager 2 becomes the second human-made object to leave our solar system (Voyager 1 was the first). Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and its equipment still functions.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating in rural areas is 61% compared to 31% in urban areas and 41% in suburban areas.

Week 69 in Trump

Posted on May 21, 2018 in Politics, Trump

We’re in full election mode (already), with primaries happening across the country throughout the summer. So here’s my reminder to each of you to IGNORE the TV and radio ads, ignore the negative campaigns, throw away those mailers, and do your own research on the candidates and issues. Ads are solely designed to manipulate and often fool you, and they’re usually full of misinformation. And ignore what you read on social media unless it’s a trusted source, because we all know what happens when we fall for that BS.

Off my soap box. Here’s what happened this week in politics…

Russia:

UPDATE: Very belatedly, I learned that it was reported this week that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, of Trump Tower meeting fame, met with Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS before and after the Trump Tower meeting. Veselnitskaya says she doesn’t recall the meetings, but Simpson testified that they were invited by a client to a dinner meeting in New York the night before and attended a social event in DC the night after at which they didn’t speak much. They had a common client which included a court appearance on June 9, 2016, the same day as the Trump Tower meeting.

  1. It looks like Russia might not have been the only country working for a Trump win in 2016. A few months before the 2016 election, Donald Trump Jr. met with Erik Prince (of Blackwater), George Nader (an emissary for Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates princes), and Joel Zamel (an Israeli social media specialist). Trump aide Steven Miller was there as well.
    • Nader said the princes were eager to help Trump win the election.
    • Zamel’s firm had already proposed a multi-million-dollar social media effort to help Trump.
    • As this relationship was growing, Nader was also working on projects to destabilize Iran.
    • Nader met several times with Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn.
  1. And then there’s Qatar. A Qatari investor, met with Michael Cohen (and allegedly Michael Flynn) during the Trump transition. The investor later said in court that he bribed administration officials.
  2. Mueller is looking into foreign donations to Trump’s inaugural fund, including from the above countries and Russia-linked Columbus Nova.
  3. And speaking of inaugural funding, $1 million of it came from conservative activists at BH Group LLC, who provides Trump with lists of judicial nominees. The group was behind stalling Merrick Garland’s nomination and introducing Neil Gorsuch.
  4. Interesting side note: The inaugural committee treasurer was a co-conspirator in a fraud case, and two other members were convicted of financial crimes.
  5. Trump thinks that because Mueller is looking into these other countries, Mueller hasn’t found anything and he’s done with the Russia part. Mueller is investigating several aspects of the case right now.
  6. Trump also thinks that because the New York Times reported on this, the paper thinks Mueller didn’t find anything in his Russia investigation. The New York Times says uh… no.
  7. The FBI identifies a former CIA software engineer, Joshua A. Schulte, as being behind the leak of CIA files that were dumped by Wikileaks last year. However, instead of charging him with the leak, they are holding him on child pornography charges.
  8. A federal judge in D.C. denies Paul Manafort’s request to dismiss any of the charges Mueller brought against him.
  9. Mueller files the unredacted, classified memo defining the scope of his investigation with the court under seal. The judge requested this information in Manafort’s case.
  10. Mueller, the DOJ, and the FBI are all investigating Cambridge Analytica (but they aren’t the only ones investigating the company).
  11. The Mercers are liquidating Cambridge Analytica, and the company files for bankruptcy. The new Mercer company, Emerdata, is covering their legal fees.
  12. An ex-employee of Cambridge Analytica testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee that one of the things they were hired for was to target African-American communities to discourage them from voting and to suppress voter turnout. So much for representative democracy…
  13. The Senate Judiciary Committee releases interview transcripts about the meeting with Don Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner, and a Russian lawyer. The transcripts show how eager they were to get dirt on Hillary Clinton and how frustrated they were by their inability to get it.
  14. The Senate Intelligence Committee contradicts the House Intelligence Committee, saying that Russia did interfere with the 2016 election with the goal of electing Trump. Their findings support the intelligence communities’ conclusions.
  15. Paul Manafort’s son-in-law pleads guilty and is cooperating with Mueller.
  16. Mueller subpoenas two more associates of Roger Stone, Jason Sullivan (social media expert) and John Kakanis (accountant and driver).
  17. Trump repeats his unfounded accusation that the FBI was spying on him and that they had a secret informant embedded in his campaign. He tweets that “they are out to frame Donald Trump for crimes he didn’t commit.”
  18. The FBI says that when it was brought to their attention that Carter Page, Sam Clovis, and George Papadopolous each had questionable contact with Russians during the campaign, the FBI had an American intelligence source in England meet with the them to find out more information.
  19. The most likely reason the FBI did this covertly was to protect the Trump campaign in case it turned up nothing. This way avoided pre-election publicity, unlike the very public investigation into Hillary’s emails.
  20. Devin Nunes has been pushing for the release of classified material that would unmask the identity of the FBI’s source. This has the FBI so concerned that they’ve been scrambling for weeks to ensure the safety of the source (because they know Nunes will leak it).
  21. Trump initially backed the DOJ’s refusal to out the source, but now he’s backing Nunes’ efforts to unmask the source’s identity.
  22. And then someone does it for them. NBC publishes the suspected identity of the intelligence source as U.S. professor Stefan Halper, a former Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administration official. It’s not clear who leaked it.
    UPDATE! NBC clarified that there’s no proof Halper was the informant. The Daily Caller first reported it might be Halper in March.
  23. Devin Nunes accuses the DOJ of leaking the information to undermine the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes and Trey Gowdy refuse any further meetings with the DOJ on the matter.
  24. Trump unleashes a major tweet storm attacking the usual suspects: The New York Times, Hillary Clinton, Mueller’s team, Andrew McCabe, Terry McCauliffe, the DOJ and the FBI. FISA! Emails! Dossier!
  25. He follows that up with a promise to officially demand that the DOJ open an investigation into whether any FBI spies infiltrated his campaign.
  26. In response, the DOJ asks the inspector general to fold Trump’s request into his existing investigation into FBI surveillance procedures used during the 2016 campaigns.
  27. Brian Lanza goes from working on Trump’s transition team to being a lobbyist to the U.S. for a Russian energy and aluminum firm run by Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska is under U.S. sanctions.
  28. The lawyer at Novartis who signed the contract to hire Michael Cohen announces he’ll step down, calling the action “an error.” He says this will bring public debate about the matter to an end. LOL.
  29. The RNC has paid nearly $500,000 in legal fees for White House staff caught up in the Russia investigation.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump announces proposed changes to Title X to end funding to any clinics that provide abortions (even though none of that money can be used for abortions). It would also end funding to clinics that refer women for abortions.
  2. 19 states sue to block Trump from changing Title X requirements. They say that Trump’s changes threaten funding for women’s health services, including birth control, STD testing, cancer screenings, and infertility treatment. This would affect over 4 million people.

International:

  1. The U.S. opens their new embassy in Jerusalem, completing the move from Tel-Aviv.
  2. The U.S. delegation to celebrate the opening of the new U.S. embassy invites Pastor Robert Jeffress to speak at the opening. Ironic, since he’s said that you can’t be saved by being a Jew. He also says ‘Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.’ He’s made similar comments about Islam.
  3. Several foreign envoys invited to the opening declined to come.
  4. Palestinians were protesting in the weeks before the embassy opening and the 70th anniversary of Nakba (which commemorates the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians from Israel). During the opening celebration, 60 protestors are shot and killed, and 37 are injured, by Israeli forces.
  5. The protests extend to Turkey.
  6. South Africa and Turkey recall their ambassadors from Tel-Aviv, and Kuwait requests an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
  7. Nikki Haley, our UN ambassador, walks out of the emergency meeting when the Palestinian representative begins to speak. She had just praised Israel for using restraint with the protestors.
  8. Then the U.S. blocks a security council resolution to look into the 60 Palestinian deaths.
  9. The White House blames the deaths at the wall on Hamas propaganda.
  10. The UN General Assembly votes 128 to 9 to declare Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital null and void saying it will hamper peace efforts there. This is really just symbolic. The nine who voted against are the U.S., Israel, Togo, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Micronesia, Palau, Honduras, and Guatemala
  11. An Iraqi party led by a cleric who has been highly critical of American politics in the Mideast is the big winner in the Iraqi elections. U.S. officials will need to rethink their strategy with Iraq since this party might choose the next Prime Minister.
  12. As he promised last week, and at the recommendation of John Bolton, Trump gets rid of our top cybersecurity position in the White House.
  13. North Korea threatens to cancel the upcoming meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un:
    • At first they say it’s because of U.S.-South Korean joint military drills.
    • They later say they don’t want Trump pushing them into a corner on nuclear agreement and that they won’t abandon their nuclear program.
    • Then they are angry over John Bolton saying that we could use a Libya model of disarmament… because we all remember how well that went down for Gaddafi.
    • North Korea does cancel talks with South Korea.
  1. Trump questions his aides about whether to proceed, and calls the South Korean president to find out why North and South Korea’s statements differ.
  2. The number of ISIS fighters in Afghanistan is estimated at 1,500 to 2,000, about half the number there a year and a half ago.
  3. ISIS is behind a series of bomb attacks and a sword attack on a police precinct in Indonesia.
  4. Despite Trump saying he’s going to pull us out of Syria ASAP, the State Department plans to keep the counterterrorism unit overseeing the situation open for at least six more months.
  5. But then State officials say Trump is slashing funding for the efforts in Syria.
  6. Recent statements from European leaders indicate that they have stopped holding out for better relations with the U.S. and are working on ways to take the lead on democracy across the world. They no longer believe that Trump’s nationalist movement is an aberration.
  7. Democrats in Congress call on the inspectors general of several agencies to open an investigation into why the Trump administration hasn’t implemented the required sanctions against Russia yet.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The North Carolina Senate GOP (possibly the worst legislative body in the nation) votes to cut education spending in only those districts with Democratic Senators. This is apparently in return for the Democrats forcing a late-night debate on the budget.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. After the DOJ announces that we’ll be separating parents and children trying to cross the border, Homeland Security prepares to house the children on military bases.
  2. Even though this is a new policy implemented under Trump’s DHS, Trump says it’s Democrats’ fault we have to separate families. Huh?
  3. Trump takes heat for calling MS-13 gang members animals in the context of undocumented immigration, while his supporters say his words were taken out of context. Well, they’re sort of right, but Trump has played on people’s fears by hyping up the power and violence of MS-13. A few MS-13 facts:
    • There are 10,000 MS-13 members in the U.S. out of around 1.4 million gang members total. MS-13 makes up about 0.7% of all U.S. gang members.
    • When ICE conducted a gang sweep last week, only 104 of the 1,300 arrested were MS-13 members, and of the 104, only 8 were here illegally.
    • Trump says many gang members have come in over a short period of time and that they’re taking over towns. In reality, there are less than half the number of MS-13 members than were here in 2012 (when there were 24,000). The gang is three decades old, and is not seeing a resurgence.
    • The Obama administration placed sanctions on the gang, labelling them a transnational criminal organization (they’re based in the U.S. and Central America).
  1. Even though Trump is deporting fewer undocumented immigrants than Obama, the percentage of people being deport who have committed no crime other than being here illegally is double what it was under Obama. This is why you’re seeing more stories about families being ripped apart and upstanding community members being deported.
  2. Last year, asylum seekers were denied at the highest rate in a decade. The most likely to be denied were from Central America.
  3. Trump appoints Tony Perkins to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The mission of the USCIRF is to defend freedom of religion and belief abroad. Perkins is a strange choice given that he’s spread anti-Muslim propaganda and espoused anti-LGBTQ propaganda, likening it to bestiality and pedophilia.
  4. Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer signs a bill into law that allows faith-based adoption agencies to deny prospective parents based on religious beliefs. So these agencies can discriminate against LGBTQ parents and Muslim parents, among others. Because all those beautiful children would be better off in orphanages or foster care than in a loving family, right?

Climate/EPA:

  1. The EPA and the White House try to block a publication from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry that highlights a water contamination problem near military bases and chemical plants. The report says a class of chemicals that has contaminated the water supplies is more toxic at lower levels than was previously thought.
  2. Emails show Trump aides thought this would be a PR nightmare.
  3. Multi-year ice makes up 34% of the ice in the Arctic, down from 61% in 1984. Ice that’s more than five years old makes up only 2%. Young ice melts more quickly, exacerbating the effects of climate change.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Hundreds of people protest across the country as part of the Poor People’s Campaign. The campaign is demanding that our legislators do more to fight poverty and racism.
  2. Last week, Trump tweeted that he was going to help Chinese telecom company ZTE recover from U.S. sanctions. Now we learn that this happened just a few days after China provided $500 million in assistance to an Indonesian project that will financially benefit Trump.
  3. And then, in a show of bipartisan agreement, the House Appropriations Committee rejects any efforts from Trump to assist ZTE. They include a provision in an appropriations bill to maintain the sanctions.
  4. A renegotiated NAFTA isn’t looking likely this year, and GOP Senators from farm states work to prevent Trump from pulling out completely. They think such a move would hurt the GOP in the midterms in farm states. Really? Your concern isn’t the farmers, it’s whether or not you’ll get re-elected?
  5. Teacher strikes continue this week, this time in North Carolina. They’re striking for better salaries and better school funding. This is the sixth state to see a school strike, and it’s illegal in North Carolina.
  6. 43% of U.S. households, or 51 million households, can’t afford all of the following needs: housing, food, child care, healthcare, transportation, and a cell phone (and, yes, a cell phone is a need—especially for poor people). 16.1 million of these households live in poverty, and 34.7 million households have limited assets and low incomes even though they’re employed.
  7. The House fails to pass a farm bill, which would’ve overhauled certain welfare programs. Several members of the Freedom Caucus voted against it because they want immigration reform.
  8. Trump has been pushing the postmaster general to raise the shipping fees for Amazon and other companies by as much as double. The postmaster general has explained to Trump several times that these agreements must be reviewed by a regulatory committee. She can’t just raise their prices randomly.
  9. Treasure Secretary Mnuchin says that the trade war between the U.S. and China is on hold after an agreement to drop the threat of tariffs while they negotiate.
  10. Remember when Wilbur Ross held up a can of Campbell’s Soup to show how little affect the steel and aluminum tariffs would have? Well this week, Campbell announces a higher than expected decline in profits this year by 5-6%.

Elections:

  1. Trump tweets that the expanding scope of Mueller’s investigation is designed specifically to hurt the Republican party in this year’s midterms. Law enforcement experts say that the more likely case is that Mueller is working overtime to get parts of the investigation wrapped up months BEFORE the midterms in order to avoid influencing those elections. Despite Comey’s actions in 2016, federal law enforcement tries to keep things quiet in the run-up to an election.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Gina Haspel admits that in hindsight, torture was a bad idea and something the CIA shouldn’t have undertaken.
  2. The Senate confirms Haspel to head the CIA, the first woman to hold that position.
  3. Blake Farenthold, who resigned from the House of Representatives after using taxpayer dollars to pay off a sexual harassment settlement, is now a government lobbyist for the Calhoun Port Authority. Despite his new 6-figure salary, he won’t repay us for that $84,000 settlement. Also, who would hire a guy like this? Calhoun Port Authority, I guess.
  4. Trump files his financial disclosure, which shows that he repaid Michael Cohen in full for the Stormy Daniels hush money.
  5. Upon receiving Trump’s financial disclosure, the Office of Government Ethics refers Trump to the DOJ for filing false financials, saying that this might be relevant to any inquiry Rod Rosenstein might be pursuing.
  6. Here’s one for the nepotism files. Trump picks Mitch McConnell’s brother-in-law to lead the Department of Labor’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.
  7. The leaker of the suspicious action reports (SARs) on Michael Cohen’s financial transactions says he leaked the info because two SARs reporting even larger transactions are missing from the government database. It turns out that those SARs have restricted access. These reports are from prior to September 2017 and include transactions totaling around $3 million.
  8. The leaker risked a possible $250,000 in fines and up to 5 years in prison to leak the documents, which are supposed to be held secret. He feared that information was being withheld from law enforcement.
  9. Here’s some recent news on Qatar. It could be all related or not related at all.
    • A Canadian firm with funding from the Qatar Investment Authority is close to finalizing a deal that would bail the Kushner family company out of it’s troubled property at 666 5th Avenue.
    • Qatari officials recently said that when Trump backed the Saudi Arabian blockade against them in 2017, they thought it was payback for Qatar refusing to financially back Jared Kushner’s father on the above property.
    • Qatari officials considered turning information over to the Mueller investigation about Kushner’s relationship with the UAE, but in the end decided against it fearing further retribution.
    • Now Trump, who last year said Qatar was a sponsor of Mideast terrorism, says that they’re an ally in the fight against terrorism. Mike Pompeo recently urged Saudi officials to end the Qatari crisis.
  1. Two school shootings this week: one in Santa Fe, Texas, and one in Jonesboro, Georgia. In Georgia, two people were shot and one killed. In Texas, there are 10 dead and 10 injured.
    • Students protest gun violence at Paul Ryan’s Washington office. Several are arrested.
    • Just like after the Parkland shooting, Trump promises action.
    • A Fox News commentator blames the Texas shooting on Common Core.
    • Texas Governor Greg Abbott blames it on too many doors.
    • Ollie North, new NBA president, blames the shooting on ADHD, saying these kids are drugged on Ritalin.
    • The Lt. Gov. of Texas blames the shootings on violent video games, no religion in schools, abortion, broken families, doors (again), unarmed teachers, and irresponsible gun owners.
    • The police chief of Houston writes an impassioned plea for action on gun reform, saying he’s no longer interested in hearing about gun rights anymore.
  1. A gunman fires his weapon at the Trump National Doral Golf Club, ranting about Donald Trump, Barrack Obama, and P. Diddy. He doesn’t shoot anyone, but police do shoot him. He’s in stable condition. One police officer suffers a broken wrist.
  2. A passenger jet crashes in Havana, Cuba shortly after taking off. 110 are dead, and 3 passengers survive.
  3. Trump nominates the acting head of the VA, Robert Wilkie, to be the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Here’s hoping they did a preliminary vetting this time.

Polls:

  1. 74% of Americans think the evidence is solid that the earth has been getting warmer.
  2. 53% say global warming is caused by human activity.
  3. The percent of Americans who believe in global warming is highest in Millennials (81%) and lowest in the Silent Generation (63%).
  4. The percent of Americans who think global warming is caused by human activity is also highest with Millennials at 65%.