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.

2. 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.
3. Mueller is looking into foreign donations to Trump’s inaugural fund, including from the above countries and Russia-linked Columbus Nova.
4. 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.
5. Interesting side note: The inaugural committee treasurer was a co-conspirator in a fraud case, and two other members were convicted of financial crimes.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. A federal judge in D.C. denies Paul Manafort’s request to dismiss any of the charges Mueller brought against him.
10. 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.
11. Mueller, the DOJ, and the FBI are all investigating Cambridge Analytica (but they aren’t the only ones investigating the company).
12. The Mercers are liquidating Cambridge Analytica, and the company files for bankruptcy. The new Mercer company, Emerdata, is covering their legal fees.
13. 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…
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. Paul Manafort’s son-in-law pleads guilty and is cooperating with Mueller.
17. Mueller subpoenas two more associates of Roger Stone, Jason Sullivan (social media expert) and John Kakanis (accountant and driver).
18. 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.”
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. 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).
22. Trump initially backed the DOJ’s refusal to out the source, but now he’s backing Nunes’ efforts to unmask the source’s identity.
23. 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.
    
24. 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.
25. 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!
26. He follows that up with a promise to officially demand that the DOJ open an investigation into whether any FBI spies infiltrated his campaign.
27. 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.
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. 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.

14. 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.
15. 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.
16. ISIS is behind a series of bomb attacks and a sword attack on a police precinct in Indonesia.
17. 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.
18. But then State officials say Trump is slashing funding for the efforts in Syria.
19. 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.
20. 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).

4. 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.
5. Last year, asylum seekers were denied at the highest rate in a decade. The most likely to be denied were from Central America.
6. 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.
7. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.
12. A passenger jet crashes in Havana, Cuba shortly after taking off. 110 are dead, and 3 passengers survive.
13. 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%.