Tag: reform

Week 33 in Trump

Posted on September 12, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires! Oh my! If you’re looking for more ways to help with hurricane relief, here are two good sources:

This week was a perfect example of how Trump shoots the hostage. By rescinding DACA, he forces Congress’s hand in making real, lasting immigration change. But he also throws nearly 800,000 DACA protected workers and students into limbo for the next six months and generates a boatload of ill will. This year, he could’ve used many of Obama’s leftovers as bargaining chips (the Paris accord, TPP, the Iran deal, DACA) but instead, he tends to rip the band-aid off too fast and lose his leverage in the process.

Here’s what happened in week 33…

Russia:

  1. In a review of their own operations, Facebook finds that 33,000 ads bought during the election have links to a Russian “troll farm” that pushes pro-Kremlin propaganda. $100,000 worth of ads lead to a Russian company that targeted voters in 2016.
  2. As part of their audit, they also found nearly 500 suspicious accounts operated out of Russia. That actually seems pretty small in the scheme of things.
  3. We learn that the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed FBI and DOJ documents around the Steele Dossier a few months ago. According to the head of the House investigation, Republican Rep. Michael Conaway, “We’ve got to run this thing to ground.” Whatever that means?
  4. Even though he stepped aside as the head of the House investigation, Devin Nunes (R-Cali) has been running his own side investigation into Russia, which might be hurting Trump’s case more than helping it.
  5. Donald Trump Jr. testifies for five hours behind closed doors. The interview was mostly conducted by committee staff with only a handful of committee members attending.
  6. In testimony, Don Jr. says he met with Russians last year because they said they had dirt and he was trying to determine Hillary Clinton’s “fitness for office.” He also denied that his father helped draft his original (and incorrect) statement.
  7. Like Kushner, Don Jr. tries to paint the Trump campaign as too chaotic and disorganized to have had a plan for collusion.
  8. There were gaps in Don Jr.’s testimony and he’ll likely be asked back for a public hearing.
  9. Trump has already met with the new Russian Ambassador to the U.S. with zero publicity. It wasn’t on his public schedule and there are no pictures and no info from the White House. Why did we not hear about this in the news? Because American press wasn’t invited. However, Russian press did report on the meeting.
  10. Around 3,000 cyber attacks hit Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, some of which they traced back to Russian IP addresses. Hopefully Europe has learned from the Russian meddling in both England’s and our elections…
  11. Mueller announces his intention to interview Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Hope Hicks, and several White House lawyers.
  12. Ahead of next year’s elections, the DNC begins shoring up it’s cybersecurity. About time, no?

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Justice Department drops its defense of Obama’s overtime rule, denying workers of their earned wages. The overtime rule would have required overtime pay for about 4 million more workers, putting more money in people’s pockets.
  2. Trump and Attorney General Sessions file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court that argues that it’s a constitutional right for businesses to discriminate against people in the LGBTQ community. If the court finds this to be true, a business could literally put a sign in their window that says “We don’t serve gays” and it would be legal. This is a slippery slope for anti-discrimination protections and equal protections under the law.

Healthcare:

  1. Not only did the Health and Humans Services Department defund almost all ACA outreach prior to open enrollment, but they put out ads criticizing the ACA to discourage enrollment. They also launched a social media attack against the ACA.
  2. Insurance regulators ask the government to extend the ACA subsidies past 2018 to help stabilize the insurance market.

International:

  1. The UN Security Council holds an emergency meeting to discuss North Korea’s nuclear threat. The U.S. urges the council to impose an oil embargo on North Korea and ban their textile exports.
  2. South Korea leaders think Trump is a little crazy, especially after he criticized them (in a tweet) over their handling of North Korea.
  3. The EU says that all their member countries must open their doors to refugees. Countries like Hungary and Slovakia have been holding out, and Slovakia is still refusing.
  4. It appears the U.S. didn’t offer Mexico any aid after the earthquake and hurricane that hit within days of each other, even though Mexico offered assistance for Harvey.
  5. Areas recently liberated from ISIS in Iraq and Syria provide a trove of intelligence info, giving us thousands of names of suspected ISIS operatives.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House unanimously approves a bill that says states can’t block the use of self-driving cars. This bill also allows the auto industry to place up to 25,000 self-driving cars on our roads without having to meet auto safety standards.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump ends DACA, saying he’ll phase it out over six months and that Congress should fix it within that time. Some of his advisors fear he doesn’t understand what it means to rescind DACA. The current end date is March 5, 2018.
  2. And as is the new norm under this presidency, there is an angry outcry with protests and rallies across the country. Protests last throughout the week.
  3. After Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali) urges Trump to reassure DACA recipients that they’ll be OK, Trump tweets that he’ll revisit DACA in 6 months if Congress hasn’t codified it. DACA recipients are still shell-shocked and scared.
  4. Trumps aides say he asked them for a way out of his campaign promise to rescind DACA while several state Attorneys General threatened a lawsuit against DACA.
  5. Mayors and law officials from around the country denounce the move to rescind DACA and express support for their DACA populations.
  6. As a result of the changes to DACA, the president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce resigns from Trump’s National Diversity Coalition.
  7. State Attorneys General across the country threaten to sue Trump over his DACA. At least 20 have urged him not to follow through on this.
  8. Fifteen states plus D.C. bring a lawsuit challenging Trump’s decision to rescind DACA.
  9. Business leaders speak out against rescinding DACA.
  10. Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton came out against rescinding DACA.
  11. Colleges and universities say they started last fall to implement steps to protect their DACA students from a Trump presidency.
  12. The University of California school system files a lawsuit against Trump for rescinding DACA.
  13. Janet Napolitano files a lawsuit against Trump over DACA.
  14. The Department of Homeland Security puts out a talking points memo that includes this: “The Department of Homeland Security urges DACA recipients to use the time remaining on their work authorizations to prepare for and arrange their departure from the United States—including proactively seeking travel documentation—or to apply for other immigration benefits for which they may be eligible.” Basically they’re threatening deportation.
  15. If DACA expires with no congressional fix, the DHS says it won’t “proactively provide immigration officers with a list with the names and addresses of DACA recipients, but if ICE officers ask for it, the agency will provide it.”
  16. Another lawsuit is filed against Trump’s transgender ban in the military.
  17. This is also listed under “Courts/Justice”, but it’s so discriminatory that it’s worth mentioning in this category as well. Trump and Sessions came out in favor of a baker who discriminated against a gay couple by refusing to bake them a wedding cake.
  18. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a previous court ruling expanding the definition of “bona fide relationship” in Trump’s travel ban (expanded now to include grandparents, nieces and nephews, and so on). The court also ruled that working with a resettlement agency constitutes a bona fide relationship, opening the door to letting in more refugees.
  19. The Department of Homeland Security announces that it cancelled its plans to conduct nationwide ICE raids, which would have targeted around 8,400 undocumented immigrants—the largest ICE raid of its kind. In light of the hurricanes, they decided to cancel it.
  20. A bipartisan group of Senators roll out a joint resolution condemning the white supremacists rallies in Charlottesville and denouncing hate groups like white supremacists, the KKK, neo-nazis, and so on. If the resolution passes, it will force Trump to either sign it (thus endorsing the condemnation) or not sign it (indicating that his loyalties do lie with these hate groups).

Climate/EPA:

  1. In a rare trifecta, there are three concurrent hurricanes threatening land. Along with Irma, Katia hits Mexico’s east side and Jose is expected to hang around Bermuda and Bahamas before hopefully going back out into the Atlantic.
  2. Hurricane Irma becomes a category 5, one of the strongest storms ever recorded In the Atlantic. The storm slams into the Caribbean islands and makes its way up the west side of Florida before becoming a tropical storm by the time it hits Georgia.
  3. The EPA claims they haven’t visited 13 Superfund sites in Texas because they aren’t accessible, but an Associated Press reporter went to 12 of them by land vehicle or foot and 1 by boat. The EPA called the story misleading and went after the reporter personally.
  4. Trump’s nominee to head up NASA, James Bridenstine, doesn’t believe in anthropogenic global warming. So he will be the head of a science-based agency.
  5. The EPA hired an inexperienced political employee to review grants and make final funding decisions for research projects. John Konkus reviews every award and grant, and has warned staff that he will be on the look out for the double C (climate change). Scientists will have to come up with a code word.
  6. While much of what Konkus has cut so were Obama’s priorities, he’s giving the heavily Republican state of Alaska the most scrutiny. This is likely related to threats from government agencies over Lisa Murkowski’s healthcare vote.
  7. The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to restore funding to the UN’s climate change agency, the agency that oversees the Paris accord. According to Rex Tillerson, we need to continue monitoring climate change and keep our seat at the table. Trump wants to stop funding the agency.
  8. EPA head Scott Pruitt says this isn’t the time to talk about climate change, even though the worsened storms we’re seeing now were predicted by scientists over a decade ago. At the very least, now is the time to talk about developing infrastructure to withstand climate change.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump continues to say that the U.S. is one of the highest taxed countries in the world. In truth, personal income tax falls somewhere near the middle compared with developed countries (when looking at tax revenue as a percent of GDP). Corporate tax revenue is even lower in comparison to other countries (538). The Tax Policy Center rates us even lower.
  2. Trump heads to North Dakota to push his tax plan.
  3. In a meeting with Senate and House leaders, Trump strikes a deal with Congressional Democrats on hurricane relief, the debt ceiling, and government funding. The caveat is that the debt ceiling and funding portions are only for the next three months; Republicans were looking for something longer term. This is a clean bill with no border wall funding and no protections for DACA (but it should give Congress some space to focus on immigration over the next few months).
  4. Republican leaders express disbelief and frustration to Mick Mulvaney that Trump struck a deal with Democratic leaders to pass a clean debt ceiling and spending bill. Chuck ain’t “Crying Chuck” no more…at least for now.
  5. After receiving positive press over the deal, Trump calls Schumer and Pelosi both to revel in the news.
  6. Congress signs the hurricane relief bill just in time. FEMA was expected to run out of money by the weekend.
  7. Schumer and Trump agree to try and end the debt ceiling, putting an end to a contentious ritual that has outlived its usefulness.

Elections:

  1. After the hacking attempts during the 2016 elections, some successful and some not, the U.S. needs to spend hundreds of millions to improve cybersecurity and voting practices. However, Congress is still fighting over the role Russian hackers played in the election (as are the American people), and they can’t agree on a way forward. Ideas include replacing voting equipment, strengthening state voter databases, training election workers better, and conducting post-election audits.
  2. Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State and the head of the voter suppression commission, publishes an essay on Breitbart claiming he has proof that thousands of out-of-state voters illegally voted in New Hampshire in 2016 and that they probably affected the results of the elections in that state.
  3. WaPo easily debunks Kobach’s “proof” with interviews of college students who did vote on out-of-state licenses, which is completely legal. Note that studies estimate Kobach’s voter laws in Kansas prevented about 34,000 legal voters in that state from having their votes count.
  4. Kobach’s suggestion that New Hampshire Democrat Maggie Hassan’s election was rigged has ignited a firestorm before the voter commission’s second meeting.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Almost 80 lobbyists and government contractors have memberships at Trump’s golf courses, and around 2/3 of them have golfed there at the same time as Trump. This leads some to question the constitutionality of Trump making money off people who are trying to access the office of the president.
  2. Word has it that Trump hasn’t even interviewed a candidate to replace John Kelly as Secretary of Homeland Security.
  3. In North Dakota, Trump tells the crowd that even with the drought (that is killing their crops), Dakotans are better off than those affected by Hurricane Harvey. He also says he’ll make the drought go away and is surprised that drought could happen this far north. Dust bowl anyone?
  4. Betsy DeVos rolls back Obama-era protections for victims of rape and sexual assault on campuses without replacing them with any new protections or guidelines.
  5. Trump denies emergency assistance to Oregon for the fires. He approved it for Montana after originally denying it, so maybe it’ll be the same here.
  6. An 8.1 earthquake strikes off the southwest coast of Mexico. Nearly 100 are dead and the recovery is still underway.
  7. The Florida corrections agency evacuates thousands of federal inmates, though it’s also reported that thousands are left in the hurricane evacuation zone.
  8. Trump begins selling gold “presidential medals” with his face on them to fundraise for his re-election campaign.
  9. In the weirdest Hurricane Irma news, someone starts a Facebook page on a lark urging people to shoot their guns into Irma to stop the hurricane and providing a “scientific” explanation for how it will all work. This forces Florida officials to issue several warnings to NOT shoot into Irma.
  10. All five living ex-presidents come together in an ad campaign for unity and to drum up aid for hurricane victims.

Polls:

  1. According to a recent poll, 76% of Americans think Dreamers should not be deported and should be allowed to obtain either citizenship or permanent residence.

Week 31 in Trump

Posted on August 28, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Courtesy of Fox News

Just a heads up, I’ve tried to move information about any of Trump’s rallies to the Elections section, because these are really campaign rallies and nothing else.

If you’re looking for ways to help out with the victims of Hurricane Harvey, here are a few options:

 

Russia:

  1. Glen Simpson, cofounder of Fusion GPS, testifies to the House Judiciary Committee. Fusion GPS was hired by unnamed Republicans to get opposition research on Trump, and then after the primaries, they were hired by unnamed Democrats. Fusion commissioned the Steele dossier.
  2. The Senate Intelligence Committee wants to declare WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service.” This allows more surveillance of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, and makes intelligence agencies release information about Russian threats to the U.S.
  3. New documents show that while Trump was running for office, his company was working on a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. They signed a letter of intent, but the project fell through and was abandoned in January of 2016.
  4. Robert Mueller subpoenas testimony from associates of Paul Manafort for his grand jury.
  5. Interesting side note: The PR company Manafort used, Mercury, worked with Anthony Podesta’s company (brother of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta) on a lobbying effort to improve relations between the Ukraine and EU.
  6. Tensions escalate between Trump and some GOP Members of Congress after a series of conversations in which Trump complains to them about the Russia sanctions bill.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Previously it was reported that the DOJ backed off on their request for information on visitors to an anti-Trump website, but this week a court orders the web hosting company to provide the information.
  2. A division of the White House anti-drug office, the National Marijuana Initiative, asks Massachusetts for data on current medical marijuana patients, once again bringing up questions of the right to privacy. I’m not sure how HIPAA regulations tie in here.
  3. Several state officials criticize Jeff Sessions for using incomplete, incorrect, and obsolete data in determining how the DOJ will handle states where marijuana is legal for either recreational or medical use.

Healthcare:

  1. It turns out that when Trump spoke at the Boy Scouts Jamboree in Shelley Moore Capito’s state of West Virginia, White House aides told Capito that she could only fly with him to the jamboree on Air Force One if she promised to vote for the healthcare bill. She declined, not having even seen the bill yet.

International:

  1. The U.S. Embassy in Russia suspends tourist visas until September 1 at all locations in Russia. On the 1st, they’ll start granting visas again, but only in Moscow.
  2. Trump reveals his strategy for Afghanistan. Though he had previously criticized the commander there and spoke against increasing troops, Trump ultimately bent to the commander’s will and agreed to a troop surge.
  3. The Afghanistan strategy he revealed is missing concrete details. He talks about meeting benchmarks, but doesn’t give any specifics about what those benchmarks are.
  4. Trump calls his plan dramatically different, but it’s largely a continuation of the previous administration.
  5. In spite of the troop surge, Trump dissolves the office of the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which engages NATO to coordinate allied actions there.
  6. The U.S. Treasury imposes sanctions against Russian and Chinese companies that provide support to North Korea.
  7. The UN confirms that two shipments from North Korea to Syria were intercepted in the past six months. The shipments were to the government agency in charge of Syria’s chemical weapons program.
  8. North Korea announces it’s producing more rocket engines and warhead tips, though Trump says in his Phoenix speech that we’re making progress with them.
  9. Turkey stops teaching evolution in middle and high school because the theory is too nuanced for young minds. They only teach it in university now, and I guess only to those lucky enough to go to university.
  10. Qatar re-establishes diplomatic ties with Iran after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the UAE cut off diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar as a way of trying to get them to drop ties with Iran. Can you say backfire?
  11. All terrorist suspects in the Barcelona attacks last week are dead.
  12. An estimated half million people gather in Barcelona to denounce violence, extremism, and Islamophobia after attacks.
  13. Jared Kushner travels to the Mideast to meet with leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan to discuss peace between Israel and Palestine. They’re trying a different method by bringing these surrounding countries to the table.
  14. The military uses questionable accounting methods to count the number of troops abroad to get around the caps put on those numbers under Obama. For example, the cap in Afghanistan is 8,400 troops, but it looks like there are closer to 12,000 troops (thought the Pentagon says there are 5,200 troops there).

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Trump contradicts himself in a tweetstorm, first saying that Democrats are blocking congress from getting anything done, and then changing his mind by saying he’s signed more legislation than most administrations. Which is it?

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

Charlottesville Fallout:

  1. The fallout from Trump’s Charlottesville comments continues, with the science envoy resigning from the State Department.
  2. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination criticizes Trump for waffling in his condemnation of hate groups after Charlottesville, saying the U.S. must “unequivocally reject and condemn the racist violent events and demonstrations.” This type of early warning from the panel is usually only used in places with a lot of ethnic and religious violence.
  3. When asked about the UN statement, Tillerson says that the state department upholds American values around the world and that the president speaks for himself, not America. Since when does the president not speak for America?
  4. Paul Ryan says Trump messed up when calling out both sides in Charlottesville, but stops short of saying he should apologize.
  5. Pence says we should build more monuments, not tear any down. “We ought to be celebrating the men and women who have helped our nation move towards a more perfect union and tell the whole story of America.” Soooo we should celebrate those who wanted to secede from the U.S. and fought for the right to enslave blacks? Horse puckey.
  6. Rabbis from four different Jewish groups back out of next month’s traditional calls with the president around the Jewish holidays because of his waffling response.
  7. Seven members of Trump’s infrastructure council resign partly because of his response to Charlottesville.
  8. Economic advisor Gary Cohn publicly rebuked Trump for not being more outspoken against the white supremacist groups in Charlottesville. He also drew up a resignation letter, but decided to stay on instead, saying that Jew-hating white supremacists won’t make this Jew leave his job.
  9. The police response in Charlottesville was so blasé that when a member of the white supremacist groups pointed a gun at the crowd of counter-protestors and then shot at the ground near them, police did nothing. The man was later arrested.
  10. Here’s a summary of Trump’s vacillation around Charlottesville:
    • On the Saturday of the weekend of the violence, Trump calls out both sides and falsely blames the right and the left.
    • On Monday, he gives a scripted statement and denounces hate groups specifically by name.
    • On Tuesday, he yells angrily at reporters and blames both sides again.
    • On the following Monday, he strikes a conciliatory tone and calls for unity.
    • On Tuesday (in Phoenix), he spends about a half an hour blaming both sides and defending his response while omitting the part where he put both sides on the same footing.
    • On Wednesday, he speaks in Reno where he reads from a script and urges love and unity.
  11. Ukraine removes 1,320 statues of Vladimir Lenin and 1,069 Soviet monuments from its public spaces.

The Rest:

  1. Trump threatens to end DACA while his aides push him to protect Dreamers. They want him to use it as a bargaining chip.
  2. Trump implements a new transgender ban in the military, giving John Mattis six months to work out the details (specifically around how to handle transgender troops currently serving). It sounds like no new openly transgender people can join the armed services.
  3. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s daughter, who is also a veteran, responds to the ban, posting “This man is a disgrace. I’ve tried to keep politics out of my social media feed as much as possible, but this is inexcusable.” The rest of the post is, well… she talks like a sailor. I wonder if she and her dad talk politics?
  4. Far-right activists use fake antifa Twitter accounts and images of battered women to smear the left, claiming antifa groups support beating women.
  5. While most of the far-right, pro-Trump rallies scheduled this week across 36 states are cancelled citing security and safety reasons, thousands turn out to denounce white supremacy across the country. San Francisco looks like the largest. Most marches are peaceful, but the antifa in Berkeley have some violent scuffles with small groups of alt-right ralliers.
  6. Unlike during previous strong hurricanes, INS says they’ll keep their checkpoints open as people try to get out of the path of Hurricane Harvey.
  7. Trump controversially pardons Maricopa County’s ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He had previously asked AG Jeff Sessions to stop the federal case against Arpaio. When Sessions said that would be inappropriate, Trump decided to wait until the trial and then grant clemency. He’s been planning this all along.
  8. The pardon generates criticism from all sides—from Democrats to Republicans to Judges. Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, John McCain, and John Kasich, among many others, all speak out. While the pardon is lawful, Trump didn’t officially alert the DOJ and didn’t follow the typical Office of Pardon Attorney process.
  9. According to some nationalists in Trump’s base, the pardon erases any doubt about whether Trump meant to empower them after the Charlottesville violence.
  10. One of Trump’s campaign advisors, Walid Phares, offers to testify on behalf of Iraqi Christians who are being deported under the new administration. The catch? He charges $15,000 a pop. During the campaign, Phares was a strong advocate of Trump’s harsh immigration laws. Opportunist.
  11. During the hurricane, Trump again tweets about how Mexico will pay for the wall, though also he says he’ll shut down the government if Congress doesn’t include funding for the wall in the spending bill. Mexico again reiterates that no, it won’t be paying for a wall.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Department of the Interior orders the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to stop working on a study on health risks for people who live near mountaintop removal coal mining. The problem is likely toxic metals leaching into the water supply. There are elevated death rates and birth defects in the affected communities.
  2. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke sends Trump his recommendations of changes to the size of three national monuments and management changes for other monuments.
  3. He recommends reducing the size of these monument, most likely to open them up to drilling, mining, logging, or recreational vehicles: Bears Ears (Utah), Grand Staircase-Escalante (Utah), and Cascade-Siskiyou (Oregon).
  4. He also recommends changing management guidelines for several monuments, including allowing fishing in marine sanctuaries (which kind of defeats the purpose, no?).
  5. In response, Patagonia takes out $700,000 in ads against Ryan Zinke.
  6. The EPA pulls out of the Climate Leadership Awards program and conference, which it has the lead sponsor of since 2012. The program recognizes companies that reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions.
  7. Leaders in the petroleum industry publicly praise Trump’s deregulation efforts, but privately wish he’d slow down. They’re afraid of a backlash and of loosening regulations so much that a disaster happens.
  8. Companies that are already retrofitting to meet some of the standards worry that less scrupulous companies will take advantage of looser regulations. For the methane regulation, the fix is cheap and easy, yet publicly the industry still praises its rollback.
  9. Oil and gas companies also fear removing too many regulations will result in severe setbacks for the industry.

  10. Trump prevents the National Park Service from voicing concerns about NRA-backed legislation that would restrict the agency’s jurisdiction over hunting and fishing inside park boundaries.
  11. Alaska’s permafrost is melting as a result of global warming. This, in turn, releases more carbon and methane trapped inside the permafrost, exacerbating the cycle of global warming even further.
  12. Category 4 Hurricane Harvey is the harshest hurricane in a decade to hit the U.S. It quickly diminishes to a category 1 storm, but causes massive damage and flooding. I put this under Climate not because the hurricane was caused by global warming, but because scientists say global warming contributed to the factors that caused massive flooding, including rising sea levels and a new tendency for pressure systems to hold weather patterns in place.
  13. Help comes from all over to assist with the flooding. Louisiana, New York, California, Utah, North Carolina, and more states all send assistance.
  14. Questions abound over why Houston and Harris County weren’t evacuated. Evacuating 6.5 million people is no easy task, and would have required more time than they had. Also they thought maybe the media was hyping it up… fake news, right?
  15. The hurricane shuts down oil and gas facilities in the gulf and companies evacuate drilling platforms. Experts predict gas prices might increase as much as 24 cents a gallon.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Despite Trump’s threats, Mitch McConnell is certain the debt ceiling raise will go through.
  2. Trump threatens to terminate NAFTA in a tweet because Canada and Mexico are being difficult. This would cut us off economically from our neighbors. So much for the art of the deal.
  3. The deadline for tax reform has been punted from the August recess to Thanksgiving and now to the end of the year. Trump had originally planned to release his own tax reform plan at the end of August recess, but now they say they’re leaving the plan up to Congress.
  4. The tax reform details are sketchy, but so far it looks like they want to lower taxes on corporations and make up for it by getting rid of certain loopholes for taxpayers (like interest deductions on your mortgage and federal deductions for state and local taxes). In plain terms, taxes for corporations go down; taxes for most people go up.
  5. Also on the table in the tax plan is taxing 401k contributions. WTF? What would be the benefit of putting money in a 401k in that case?
  6. Trump blames McConnell and Ryan for the debt ceiling “mess,” saying if they would’ve listened to Trump and tagged it on to the veteran’s bill, it would be done already. Now, Trump says, Democrats are holding it up, which is patently false since it hasn’t even been brought down for debate yet.

Elections:

  1. Following the previous week’s ruling that the Texas district lines were discriminatory and unconstitutional, a court this week rules that the rewrite of the Texas voter ID law is also discriminatory and unconstitutional. This is the second time the voter ID law has been struck down. Texas has had six such violations so far this year. If it gets four more, it’s a civil rights violation.
  2. Trump holds another 2020 election rally, this time in Phoenix. He spends about half of his 77-minute speech defending his response to Charlottesville, omitting key parts of his response. He attacks two Republican senators in their home state, lies about his crowd size and the size of the crowd protesting him, goes after the media, and blames Democrats for Republicans not being able to get anything done. Tip: Republicans don’t need Democrats to get anything done right now.
  3. I’m not going to go through the entire speech, but CNN critiques it here if you’re interested.
  4. A study shows that 1 in 10 Bernie Sanders primary voters voted for Trump in the general, enough to make a difference in the three states that won him the election. Note that some transfer between the primaries and the general election is normal. We’ve been hearing it was about the economy and trade, but the study shows that these hardly played a role. The biggest factor was race. (I haven’t broken down the source data, but NPR has a pretty good summary.)
  5. GOP leaders express support for Jeff Flake after Trump’s criticism. The Senate Leadership Fund plans to target his primary opponent, Kelli Ward, who Trump has been praising.

Miscellaneous:

  1. A prankster who emails one of Breitbart’s editors reveals that, more than getting out the truth, the site is interested in propaganda, specifically smearing whoever Bannon says.
  2. The rift between McConnell and Trump deepens, and the two haven’t spoken in weeks; not since their August 9 call that devolved into a screaming match..
  3. By one count, Trump has made 1057 false or misleading statements since his inauguration, averaging nearly five a day.
  4. Another one for your White House bingo card: Sebastian Gorka’s out. There’s a dispute over whether he quit or was fired.
  5. GOP Senator Thom Tillis introduces bill to protect Mueller. Trump calls him to tell him he hopes it doesn’t pass.
  6. Trump monitors the situation in Texas closely over the weekend, and FEMA is on the ground and working, but Trump also found time to tweet insults to Claire McCaskill, promises for a wall with Mexico, and threats to pull out of NAFTA.
  7. After aides warn him not to, Trump looks directly at the eclipse.
  8. Military officials appear to consolidate power in the White House as they continue to advise a president with little foreign experience.
  9. After last week’s destroyer accident that killed 10, the Navy Admiral in charge of the boat is relieved of his command.
  10. John Kelly and White House staff secretary Rob Porter now make the decisions on what gets to the president. Members of the conservative media complain. It looks like uber-conservative sites like Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, and Infowars are out.
  11. Despite quitting five weeks ago, Sean Spicer is still at the White House and apparently still getting a paycheck.
  12. Jim Mattis speaks to soldiers in Jordan, telling them they’re a great example to our country right now and that they need to hold the line until Americans get back to understanding and respecting each other and just being friendly again.
  13. OSHA removes the list of workplace deaths from the home page of its website and replaces it with ways companies can voluntarily work with OSHA to improve safety.
  14. Trump says he’ll visit Texas as soon as he can do so without disruption.

Week 28 in Trump

Posted on August 7, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Well we’re at 200 days, and here’s what Trump says he’s accomplished so far: Supreme Court Justice confirmation, surging economy and jobs, border and military security, ISIS, and cracking down on the MS-13 gang. I can give him Gorsuch and increased border security, but the rest? The economy is a continuation of Obama’s last budget (though the current stock market bubble I would give to Trump), he’s continuing Obama’s program against ISIS, and every administration cracks down on the MS-13 gang. I suppose he could also point to his rollbacks of air, water, and environmental protections as well as worker protections and civil rights protections.

At any rate, Trump is still pushing for healthcare reform, but most members of congress think they’ll have to choose between that and tax reform. They also need to raise the debt ceiling by the end of September.

Meanwhile, here’s what happened this week.

Russia:

  1. Trump signs the Russia/Iran/North Korea sanctions bill into law, though he calls it flawed and possibly unconstitutional.
  2. Trump says U.S.-Russia relations are at an all-time low and that it’s Congress’s fault. John McCain’s response: “Our relationship w/ Russia is at dangerous low. You can thank Putin for attacking our democracy, invading neighbors & threatening our allies.”
  3. We learn that Trump dictated Donald Jr.’s misleading statement about his meeting with Russians last year (or at the very least, he participated in forming it). This could put Trump Sr. and those who helped him in legal trouble.
  4. Representative Tim Franks (R-AZ) tries to cast doubts on Mueller’s integrity due to his relationship with Comey, and calls on him to resign.
  5. A new lawsuit accuses Fox and Ed Bukowski (a Trump donor) of creating a fake news story to move the attention away from Trump and the Russia investigation to the DNC and Clinton. Here are the moving pieces:
    • According to the suit Fox misquoted the plaintiff (Rod Wheeler) in a story about Seth Rich’s murder, in which Fox alleged that Seth had hacked the DNC for Russia and that’s why he was murdered.
    • The Rich family asked Fox to stop and Fox later did recant the story, but Sean Hannity kept it alive.
    • The lawsuit alleges that the White House knew about and supported the story, which Sean Spicer has denied.
    • A text between Bukowski and Wheeler indicates that Trump knew about the story.
    • Despite the retractions, the Fox story led to conspiracy theories, including that Hillary Clinton had Seth killed in retribution for hacking the DNC emails (adding just another dead body to her string of dozens—seriously there is no better serial killer mastermind than Hillary).
  6. Kushner told interns on the Hill that Trump’s campaign wasn’t organized enough to collude with Russia saying, “they thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices.”
  7. Democrats move to revoke Kushner’s security clearance, though it’s doubtful it will go anywhere.
  8. Robert Mueller now has 16 lawyers working on the special investigation.The latest lawyer to join used to work on fraud and foreign bribery for the DoJ.
  9. The Russia investigation expands to include financial crimes.
  10. Mueller launches a grand jury. A grand jury gives the investigation more power to obtain documents, question witnesses under oath, and obtain indictments.
  11. The grand jury issues subpoenas for witnesses, as well as phone and other records, regarding the meeting Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner took with a number of Russians in June of last year. Congressional committees ask for phone records as well.
  12. GOP staffers fly to England to try to get Christopher Steele, author of the infamous Steele dossier, to testify for the House Intelligence Committee.
  13. The House Judiciary Committee prioritizes investigating Hillary Clinton over Russia meddling in the elections, possible collusion, and the firing of Comey. The chairman, Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), asks the DoJ to appoint a special investigator to investigate “troubling” and “unanswered” questions about Clinton and other Obama appointees.
  14. The Senate Judiciary Committee, on the other hand, is very focused on the Russia investigation.
  15. The RNC tells staff to preserve all documents related to the 2016 elections.
  16. Acting FBI director Andy McCabe tells top FBI officials that they could be called as witnesses in the Russia investigation.
  17. The Senate Judiciary Committee proposes a bill to protect the special investigator.
  18. Sources say Kelly was so upset about Comey’s firing that he thought about resigning, but Comey told him not to.
  19. Along with monitoring cyber threats on election day last year, FBI analysts also monitored social media for fake news. They had already identified several social media user accounts behind the stories, many from abroad.
  20. Russia’s been circling the Baltic States, but this week NATO says ‘knock it off.’

Courts/Justice:

  1. A judge found former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt. Arpaio defied a court order by detaining people he suspected of being undocumented.
  2. In a private meeting, Jeff Sessions takes the brunt of police department anger over Trump’s statements the previous week about roughing up suspects
  3. Trump’s picks for lower-court lifelong judgeship terms are young and conservative (not surprisingly). He’s filling lower court positions faster than his predecessors, with 5 judge seats filled.
  4. While encouraging police departments to crack down on crime, Sessions also says that police misconduct won’t be tolerated.
  5. General Kelly tells Jeff Sessions his job is safe. He has to tell him because, of course, Trump and Sessions aren’t talking.
  6. A federal judge strikes down parts of Alabama’s new state abortion law based on constitutionality. Alabama law requires minors to have parental permission for an abortion, but they can get a legal waiver. Under the parts of the law that got struck down, minors would have faced a legal proceeding involving her parents, the DA, and someone to represent the fetus.
  7. Jeff Sessions says that the DoJ has opened as many leaker investigations in the last 6 months as were opened in the previous 3 years. He says they’re cracking down on both leakers and journalists, but later backs off the journalist part after receiving criticism even from leaders in his own party.
  8. A Republican donor sues the Republican party for fraud for failing to repeal the ACA, saying that the plan to repeal the ACA was used for fundraising even though candidates knew they wouldn’t get it done.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump continues to threaten withholding payments to insurance companies. Insurance companies complain about the uncertainty coming from the White House and estimate an average of 21% in insurance premium hikes if they don’t get clarification soon.
  2. Trump’s threats keep healthcare alive in Congress when members of Congress would rather get busy on tax reform, which is already on a very tight deadline.
  3. Along with the bipartisan committee in the House working on fixes to the ACA, a bipartisan Senate group also begins hearings to shore it up.
  4. The bipartisan House committee releases their plan, which includes:
    • Shoring up the subsidies and creating a stabilization fund.
    • Getting rid of the tax on medical devices.
    • Giving states more control, but not as much as other House or Senate bills.
    • Easing the employer mandate so it applies to companies with more than 500 workers instead of 50.

International:

  1. Apparently I missed last week that Iran tested a space missile, which ramped up tensions between Iran and the U.S. again. The purpose of the missile is to launch satellites into orbit though.
  2. The current draft of the new State Department statement of purpose eliminates the promotion of justice and democracy, indicating that those are no longer our global priorities.
  3. Tillerson refuses to fund the Global Engagement Center, which among other things fights Russian and terrorist propaganda.
  4. The U.S. military thinks there’s evidence that North Korea has tested how to launch missiles from a submarine.
  5. Someone leaks the White House records of Trump’s early conversations with world leaders—specifically Australian Prime Minister Turnbull and Mexican President Pena Nieto. This is IMO one of the most egregious leaks from this White House, as these are typically classified. It did provide these tidbits though:
    • Trump told Pena Nieto that the wall isn’t important, but that Pena Nieto needed to stop saying that Mexico won’t pay for it for appearances sake.
    • Trump got extremely rude with Turnbull over accepting refugees under a previous agreement. He said: “I have had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.”
  6. Trump is frustrated with the situation Afghanistan because we aren’t winning. He wants to replace the commander of U.S. forces there. He complains that NATO isn’t doing enough and suggests we should get a piece of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.
  7. The UN passes a resolution that will cut North Korea’s foreign income by about a billion (with both China and Russia endorsing). Big win for Nikki Haley.
  8. Trump signs sanctions against Venezuela.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Prior to August recess, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) confirmed nine “pro-forma” sessions with full senate agreement. This blocks Trump from making any recess appointments. They most likely did this so he wouldn’t fire and replace Jeff Sessions. I wouldn’t mess with Lisa…

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The DoJ goes after affirmative action, launching investigations into whether colleges and universities discriminate against white people. The Supreme Court has recently upheld affirmative action.
  2. At a recent conference, John Kelly said he thinks he talked Trump out of the border wall. ICYDK, the only reason we have the idea of a border wall is that Trump’s campaign managers couldn’t get him to focus on immigration. So they gave him the slogan ″build that wall″ to focus his attention.
    UPDATE: I’m downgrading that second part to “rumor has it” until I can vet it. I can’t locate my source for that.     UPDATE 2: This is confirmed in Forbes.
  3. Trump endorses the RAISE Act from senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue, saying it will reduce poverty, raise wages, and save taxpayers billions and billions. He says our current system favors low-wage immigrants and puts pressure on our resources. This act proposes a points-based system favoring those who speak English, can support themselves, and have a high skill set. Points would be based on age, education, English ability, job offer, Nobel prize, Olympics, investors, and spouses.
  4. Trump says the RAISE Act would prevent new immigrants from receiving welfare, which is actually already the law.
  5. The RAISE Act would cut immigration roughly in half, though economists say that in order to meet Trump’s predicted economic growth, we need to double our current number of immigrants.
  6. During a press briefing on the above, Steven Miller becomes extremely rude and condescending when Jim Acosta from CNN presses him on whether they are socially engineering ethnic flow into the U.S.
    • Miller said that because we allow in more immigrants now than we ever before, the RAISE act isn’t biased. He didn’t take into account that the immigration rate per capita in the U.S. is already lower than in most developed countries.
    • He said you do have to speak English already to become a citizen, but didn’t take into account that there are exceptions.
    • He butchers the meaning of the New Colossus (the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty).
    • He tells Acosta that his question ”is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant and foolish things you’ve ever said.” Miller then calls Acosta “cosmopolitan” and chides him like a child.
  7. Trump says that Mexican President Pena Nieto called him to compliment him on what a great job he’s doing with immigration. Nieto says nyet. Didn’t happen. Sarah Huckabee Sanders also admits it didn’t happen.
  8. In a first, the NAACP issues a travel advisory for a U.S. state—Missouri.
  9. The DoJ sends letters to four cities saying they won’t receive money to fight drug and gang crime unless they give ICE officials access to jails. These cities are having major issues with gun violence, which that money would go toward fighting.
  10. Non-scientist Sam Clovis, Trump’s pick for USDA chief scientist, wrote in his old blog that black leaders are race traders, that progressives enslave minorities, and that Obama is a Maoist with communist roots.
  11. Trump considers Rick Perry to replace John Kelly at Homeland Security. Perry’s views on immigration are much softer than Trump’s.

(more…)

Week 23 in Trump

Posted on July 3, 2017 in Politics, Trump

With friends like these… as the healthcare battle heats up, Republicans start turning on their own, with a GOP PAC pushing ads against holdout senators and major donors threatening to shut their purses until they start seeing some action.

After the PAC attack on Dean Heller, Josh Holmes, Mr. McConnell’s former chief of staff, said, “That the White House is asking people to take a tough vote and then running ads against members while we’re still in negotiations is so dumb it’s amazing we even have to have the conversation.”

Here’s what happened this week in Trump:

Russia:

  1. Trump remains quiet about what he plans to do to prevent Russian interference in our elections in the future. He has never asked Comey how to stop a future cyber/disinformation attack, and Jeff Sessions has never received a classified briefing on the issue.
  2. Paul Manafort reveals that his firm received over $17 million from the Ukraine’s Party of Regions, which is affiliated with the Kremlin. He didn’t reveal this at the time it happened, which is required by law.
  3. Matt Tait, a security consultant, says that Peter Smith, a Republican opposition researcher, recruited him to authenticate the veracity of some hacked emails that were claimed to come from Clinton’s private server. He never completed the task and the emails seem to have been a hoax, but…
  4. It turns out that Smith claimed to represent Michael Flynn in an effort to find emails that Clinton deleted hoping to use them against her in the election. Smith also supported Flynn in his effort to establish relations with Russian officials. Smith spoke to the Wall Street Journal about this story 10 days before he died on May 14 (at age 81, no foul play suspected). Interesting fact: Smith funded the troopergate investigation into Clinton, bankrolled David Bock to smear Clinton, and tried to find a woman who would initiate a paternity suit against Clinton.
  5. Tait says he received a recruitment document from Smith listing these senior officials of the Trump campaign or staff: Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Sam Clovis, Lt. Gen. Flynn, and Lisa Nelson.
  6. The document also lists a company Smith had set up, KLS Research, to avoid campaign reporting. It’s not clear who all was involved in that.
  7. U.S. intelligence reports that Russian hackers were looking for an intermediary through which they could get emails to Flynn last year, which fits into the role Smith was playing.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court rules that state grants that are available to nonprofits can’t be denied to a church-run school. This ruling applied specifically to playground safety, but it opens the door for taxpayers to provide funds to religious organizations.
  2. The Supreme Court says they’ll hear the gay wedding cake case (the one where some business owners want it to be legal to discriminate against gay couples).
  3. The compliance counsel at the DOJ, Hui Chen, resigns saying that the administration doesn’t live up to the standards she’s supposed to be enforcing in the business world.

Healthcare:

  1. After a group aligned with Trump and Pence went after Nevada Senator Dean Heller last week for his refusal to support the healthcare bill, Mitch McConnell called the White House to complain, calling the attack “beyond stupid.” The group pulls the ad campaign.
  2. The CBO scores the Senate’s healthcare plan. They estimate that 22 million Americans will lose healthcare coverage over the next decade, just slightly better then the 23 million that would lose it under the House plan. The CBO also estimates that premiums would rise before falling to less than under the ACA, out-of-pocket costs would increase, and there would be fewer covered benefits. But hey, we’ll save about $320 billion over 10 years.
  3. Senate republicans add a provision to their bill that would prevent someone with a lapse in coverage from receiving coverage for 6 months.
  4. Kellyanne Conway says people who lose Medicaid should look into getting jobs. Nearly 70% of able recipients already do work, but maybe we could find jobs for some of those folks in nursing homes?
  5. Despite continual promises that, no matter what, a vote will be held on the healthcare bill, Mitch McConnell abruptly announces that he’s postponing the vote until after the July 4 recess. Earlier he had warned that if the repeal doesn’t get done this week, the GOP would lose all leverage and be forced to compromise with Democrats.
  6. Trump invites all Republican senators to the White House for a meeting, during which he says “This will be great if we get it done. And if we don’t get it done, it’s just going to be something that we’re not going to like. And that’s OK, and I understand that very well.”
  7. After the meeting, some senators express that they don’t think Trump understands the bill and that Trump seemed surprised that some are calling it a tax break for the rich.
  8. A bipartisan group of governors who have been conspiring quietly on blocking the healthcare bill come out strongly against it this week. When Republican senators come home for July recess, these governors push back hard.
  9. But never ones to give up hope, GOP senators are working behind the scenes to change the bill enough to bring on more votes. Expect this to continue throughout the recess.
  10. While the hardliners want to cut more money from the healthcare bill, Trump says in a speech this week, “Add some money to it!”
  11. Trump later says they should just repeal the ACA and replace it at a later date. This is concerning because they don’t have anything they can agree on after 6 years of wanting it, and not having a replacement will knock even more people off insurance.
  12. The White House later denies that Trump has changed his mind on this.
  13. Forty economists write a letter to McConnell saying that the healthcare bill is a giant step in the wrong direction.
  14. Educators and school leaders come out against the healthcare bill, especially in depressed areas where the school nurse and therapists are reimbursed through Medicaid and tools are provided for students with special needs.

International:

  1. French President Macron invites Trump to France for Bastille Day.
  2. Trump looks at cracking down on Pakistani militants launching attacks on neighboring Afghanistan, including drone strikes and withholding aid from Pakistan.
  3. Trump is behind on getting foreign ambassadors nominated and confirmed. His are taking an average of 77 days, Obama’s took 26 days, and Bush’s took 11 days. The holdup seems to be in his formal submissions for approval.
  4. The CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation expresses concerns over the massive foreign aid cuts in Trump’s budget (which is less than 1% of our budget). A large amount of global progress in health and development is because of us. Private philanthropy can’t make up for it. The cuts would:
    • Make it harder for NGOs to eradicate diseases (the ebola outbreak is an example of how this affects us at home).
    • Make it harder to help women with reproductive health and choice.
    • Make it harder for President Bush’s PEPFAR program to prevent AIDs. In countries where PEPFAR is established, political instability has dropped 40%.
  5. The House Appropriations Committee approves an amendment that would revoke the president’s war authority, requiring congressional approval. It would repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) bill passed in response to 9/11. Representative Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) has been trying to get this passed for years.
  6. The U.S. plans a $1.42 billion arms deal with Taiwan, sure to invoke a reaction from China.
  7. Tillerson and Mattis continue to work behind the scenes to find a solution to the stand-off in the Mideast between Qatar and four other nations. They are still at odds with Trump and Kushner on this because Qatar is actually a strategic ally for us.
  8. The UN agrees to a $570 million budget cut for its peacekeeping missions. The administration had fought for even larger cuts.

Legislation:

  1. The House passes two bills that target undocumented immigrants. Kate’s Law increases maximum penalties for deported immigrants who repeatedly try to enter the U.S. The No Sanctuary for Criminals Act eliminates federal grants for sanctuary cities and allows victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants sue those cities.
  2. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signs HB 128 into law, letting schools teach bible classes. No word on whether the Quran and Bhagavad Gita are also allowed.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Supreme Court agrees to hear the travel ban in the next session, but reinstates parts of it with strict guidelines. The ban won’t affect anyone with a bona fide relationship with an entity in the U.S. People can come here for family, work, school, and so on. The court agrees to hear it in October, by which point it could be moot. That’s plenty of time for the administration to review it’s vetting policies. For an idea of how the justices feel about immigration and discrimination, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch all would have reinstated the ban in its entirety.
  2. The administration issues guidelines for implementing the ban. People coming from the banned countries must have work, school, or close family ties—extended family (like grandparents, aunts and uncles, or nieces and nephews) does not count. Anyone with legal documents should be allowed in. Refugees are banned for 120 days. Somehow a step-sibling is defined as closer than a grandparent.
  3. Khaled Almilaji is a renowned Syrian doctor who ran a campaign to vaccinate 1.4 million Syrian children. Because of the ban, he gives up on returning to the U.S., opting for Canada instead.
  4. The Supreme Court overturns an Arkansas court and says that Arkansas discriminated against a lesbian couple by forcing them to go to court to get both women’s names on their child’s birth certificate. Under Arkansas law, a woman’s husband is listed as the father even if he’s not the biological father; gay couples want the same treatment.
  5. About a thousand military recruits are waiting for basic training but had their visas expire during their wait, leaving them undocumented. They were recruited for a fast-track citizenship program for their medical and language skills.
  6. The Texas Supreme Court rules against government-sponsored spousal benefit requirements for same-sex marriages. See you in the Supreme Court, I’m sure.
  7. Trump appoints Bethany Kozma, an anti-transgender activist, to the office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.
  8. The administration disbands the White House Council on Women and Girls.
  9. Jim Mattis delays a plan to allow transgender recruits in the military.
  10. June ends with no recognition of Pride Month from White House.
  11. White House aide Stephen Miller pushes Rex Tillerson to get tougher on immigration, which just seems to piss Tillerson off.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Emails show that the EPA’s chief of staff pressured one of the agency’s top scientists to change her testimony in a congressional hearing to downplay the firing of 57 scientific advisors. Scientists think the firings are evidence of the weakened role of science in the Trump administration. “The Board of Scientific Counselors had 68 members two months ago. It will have 11 come Sept. 1,” Dr. Swackhamer said. “They’ve essentially suspended scientific activities by ending these terms. We have no meetings scheduled, no bodies to do the work.”
  2. The House Science Committee majority sends daily emails to members and staff. This isn’t new, but now the emails include links to conservative media that deny global warming, including Breitbart, the Daily Mail, and Koch media sources like the Washington Free Beacon and the Daily Caller.
  3. Per Trump’s executive order, Scott Pruitt delivers a proposal to rescind Obama’s Waters of the United States (Wotus) protections. This will likely be a long legal battle. Wotus adds onto the Clean Water Act by protecting not only large bodies of water, but also smaller waterways that feed into them. The reversal removes protections from one-third of U.S. drinking water, and the administration openly admits it’s a business decision.
  4. Less than a month after meeting with the CEO of Dow Chemical, Scott Pruitt announces that the EPA would no longer pursue a ban on a Dow pesticide known to impact the development of brains of fetuses and infants.
  5. It looks like Rick Perry is going to get his wish for a red-team, blue-team climate study, which pits scientists with opposing views against each other basically trying to poke holes in the other’s research. Scott Pruitt plans to launch a critique of climate science with the goal of challenging mainstream climate science. Fingers crossed that they’ll do this right.
  6. Florida Governor Rick Scott sign HB 989, which lets Floridians object to specific teaching tools. This bill is widely regarded to be aimed at global warming and evolution. Anybody can complain, even if they don’t have a child in school, and a hearing officer must review each complaint.
  7. A coal power plant in central Mississippi gives up on it’s efforts to create clean coal power by capturing emissions. The technology isn’t working, so they plan to burn natural gas instead.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Janet Yellen says she doesn’t expect another major financial crisis in her lifetime, thanks to the consumer protections written into the banking reforms under Obama. She adds that unwinding those reforms would be a bad thing. Also that same day I got an email from Paul Ryan touting the House bill that reverses some of those banking reforms…
  2. The fight over tax reform is on in the House, upending a tentative agreement that would’ve initiated the process of tax reform and causing the budget committee to cancel their work this week.
  3. The dollar falls to 12-month low against the euro.
  4. Some Republican-dominated states are starting to approve significant tax increases after working for years under the theory that lower taxes lead to a stronger economy. Notably Kansas, South Carolina, and Tennessee are raising taxes to meet revenue requirements. This could pose a challenge to tax reform at the federal level.

Elections:

  1. Trump’s voter fraud commission asks states to provide detailed information about every voter in their systems, including addresses, 10-year voting histories, party registrations, and the last four digits of SSNs. This commission is headed by Mike Pence and Kris Kobach, who has written some of the harshest and most litigated voter suppression laws.
  2. While some states merely express concern about the request, at least 24 say they will not comply. Primary concerns are constitutionality, privacy, what the commission plans to do with the data, and how the data will be protected from Russian hackers.
  3. Trump wonders what these states are trying to hide.
  4. Kobach tried to implement a smaller version of this database in Kansas, and has been sued repeatedly for it and even fined in the process.
  5. Kobach promises to make some of the collected information public, though not the most sensitive information.
  6. The commission told states to send the information to an unsecured email address.
  7. And finally, Mike Pence’s state of Indiana says they won’t comply, and Kobach announces that his own state, Kansas, won’t comply with the request. WTF??

Miscellaneous:

  1. The AP releases an analysis showing how partisan gerrymandering has benefited the GOP, finding that Republicans widened or retained power because of the district lines they drew. The AP looked at all 435 House races and about 4,700 state seats. Four times as many states have Republican skewed districts than Democratic ones.
  2. Sean Spicer continues to ban live broadcasts and video recordings of the daily briefings.
  3. Europe gets hit with another ransomware attack called Petya.
  4. Time magazine finds that fake covers featuring Trump are hanging in many of his country clubs. They ask the Trump Organization to remove them all.
  5. Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekalow, is accused of filtering millions from his charity to his family and himself.
  6. Spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders accuses the media of being fake news while telling them to watch a video that might be fake news. In a briefing, she denounced the media (to a room full of the media) for producing fake news, using CNN’s recent retraction as an example AND telling journalists to watch a video by the discredited James O’Keefe as proof, though with the caveat ″whether it’s accurate or not I don’t know…″ Playboy reporter Brian Karem unloaded on her for inflaming a room full of journalists who’re just trying to get the story right while the White House continues to lie to them (and can I say, that was a beautiful moment).
  7. Tillerson blows up—I mean really blows up—at a high-level aide, apparently from building frustration about not being able to staff up his department because of White House oversight.
  8. Trump holds a fundraiser for his re-election campaign in 3 years at his own hotel.
  9. Trump continues to call Democrats on the Hill obstructionists, even though they tried working with him at first and they’ve offered to work together on healthcare. Everyone probably could’ve worked together on an infrastructure bill, but that good will is gone now.
  10. Trump goes on a bizarre Twitter rant where he says Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (of Morning Joe) tried to get into Mar-a-Lago last winter and that Mika was bleeding from a bad facelift.
  11. This results in a unified, bipartisan chorus of protests that the tweets went too far…from pretty much everybody except Sarah Huckabee Sanders who defended the tweet.
  12. Then Joe and Mika accuse White House staff members of trying to blackmail them by promising to stop a negative story about Mika in the Enquirer if they apologized to Trump for their coverage of him.
  13. While the majority of Democrats are counseling against talk of impeachment, a group of House Democrats push a bill that would create a commission to investigate Trump and, if applicable, use the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office.
  14. Ivanka Trump, senior advisor to the president, says she tries to stay out of politics.
  15. The Inspector General clears the National Park Service of charges that they altered pictures of the sizes of crowds at Trump’s and Obama’s inaugurations. Whew. I was worried.
  16. Trump reportedly watches five hours of TV per day.
  17. The birth rate for teenage girls dropped 67% from 1991 to last year. It’s now at an all-time low and doctors point to knowledge of and access to contraceptives.
  18. Trump sends federal agents to help Chicago deal with its crime problem.
  19. Jason Chaffetz’ last day as a representative is this week. I don’t understand at all why he quit 6 months into his term.
  20. Impeachment marches and counter protests are held across the country.
  21. The last staffers of the science division at the White House leave this week. They were charged with policy issues like STEM education, biotechnology, and crisis response.
  22. Public beaches in New Jersey are closed Sunday due to a budget impasse. Chris Christie takes his family to the beach while all other beach goers are turned away.

Polls:

  1. The annual Pew Research Global Attitudes survey shows that 22% of people outside the U.S. have confidence that Trump will do the right thing, compared with 64% who had confidence in Obama at the same stage of his presidency. Trump rated higher than Obama in only 2 of the 37 countries polled: Russia and Israel.
  2. 74% in the Pew survey don’t trust Trump to do the right thing versus 59% who think the same of Putin.
  3. The survey also finds that U.S. favorability abroad has dropped from 64% to 49% under Trump.

Week 22 in Trump

Posted on June 26, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Russia, Russia, Russia. The Washington Post published a timeline of events in the Russian hacking probe, so this week’s recap is pretty full of all things Russia. But then the Senate finally released their super-secret healthcare bill, so between those two, this week’s post is pretty long.

Russian Investigation:

  1. We now know that Russian hackers launched cyber attacks last year on at least 21 state election servers, that they changed at least one voter roll, and that they stole voter records. Russian military intelligence also hacked a voting software vendor and sent spear-phishing emails to local election officials. Voting systems weren’t affected as far as we know.
  2. Congressional committees are investigating whether any of the hacked data ended up with the Trump campaign.
  3. We also know that even though senior government officials knew that Flynn was a security risk, they continued to give him security briefings.
  4. The Washington Post timeline of events shows that Putin led the Russian meddling op and that his specific goals were to defeat or harm Clinton and help elect Trump.
  5. We learn that partisanship slowed down our reaction at all levels.
    • Obama received intelligence about Russia meddling in a CIA report in August and wrestled with what to do. He didn’t want to be seen as swaying the election, leading Republicans opposed publicizing it, intelligence agencies were slow to move on it.
    • Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson (who also testified to Congress this week) tried to launch an effort to secure systems at a state level. However, he faced resistance from state officials who saw it as a federal takeover.
    • The bipartisan Congressional Gang of 8 was slow to schedule a meeting, though intelligence tried repeatedly.
  6. Here are a few things that were done to address the problem:
    • Obama had a three-point plan: assess Russia’s role and intent, strengthen areas of vulnerability, and get bipartisan support from congressional leaders and states to accept federal help.
    • The Obama administration warned Putin several times, increased sanctions, closed down two Russian facilities in the U.S., and sent dozens of Russian agents packing.
    • Last fall there was a surge in requests for special visas for Russians with highly technical skills to work at Russian facilities. They were denied until after the election.
    • Obama approved planting cyber weapons in Russia’s infrastructure, which could be triggered if things escalate between our countries. It’s up to Trump to decide whether to use this.
  7. Russia’s interference is unprecedented and mostly successful, though they were found out fairly quickly. So far, Russia hasn’t faced consequences proportionate to the damage caused by the attack.
  8. Intelligence officials voice concern that the State Department is being too lax with Russian diplomats and say we should crack down on their travel in the U.S. since the evidence shows the diplomats are taking advantage of lax enforcement to continue running intelligence ops.
  9. Bipartisan lawmakers complain that the administration is trying to delay their efforts to get tough on Russia.
  10. Democratic representatives say Kushner’s security clearance should be suspended. They also criticize the White House for allowing Michael Flynn to have security clearance for three weeks while they knew of his Russian activities.
  11. Jeff Sessions hires outside counsel.
  12. Trump admits he doesn’t have and didn’t make recordings of his conversations with Comey. Ironically, if he never would have brought it up, Comey might not have released the memo and Trump might not be under investigation for obstruction.
  13. Trump indicates that he bluffed about the tapes to influence Comey’s testimony. Note that this is witness tampering even if he was only trying to get Comey to be truthful.
  14. Trump blames Obama for not taking enough steps to protect us from Russia’s meddling. In blaming Obama for not doing more,Trump inadvertently admits that Russia did meddle, something he has until now mostly denied.
  15. Trump blames White House counsel Donald McGahn for letting the Russia probe spin out of control.
  16. Trey Gowdy, who ran something like 8 hearings on Benghazi, says he won’t hold any hearings on Russia’s meddling nor on Jared Kushner’s security clearance. His predecessor on the oversight committee, Jason Chaffetz, held hearings.
  17. The Kremlin calls Ambassador Sergey Kislyak back to Russia and will likely replace him with deputy foreign minister Anatoly Antonov.
  18. It turns out that Europe has been working on ways to fight meddling from the Russians for years. They’ve been using the same tactics—spreading disinformation, hacking, and trolling—across the continent. Europeans feel they have a better handle on it than we do here, and say looking at us is like watching ″House of Cards.″
  19. Spicer says he hasn’t talked to the president about Russia interference in the elections. Seriously?
  20. More troubles for Michael Flynn. He didn’t report a trip to Saudi Arabia where he represented U.S., Russian, and Saudi interests. His former business partner is also under investigation around payments from foreign clients.
  21. Tillerson has a plan for future relations with Russia: warn them about any more aggressive actions, work together on strategic interests, and emphasize stability.
  22. The administration debates withdrawing from the INF treaty with Russia, a disarmament pact that bans a class of nuclear missiles. Welcome to the new arms race.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Last week wasn’t a big week for courts, but this coming week will be. Last week, the Supreme court agrees to hear Wisconsin’s gerrymandering case. This could have long-reaching implications on how district lines can be drawn.

Healthcare:

  1. Senate Democrats invite Senate Republicans to a sit-down over healthcare, “so we can hear your plans and talk about how to make healthcare more affordable and accessible…” Mitch McConnell says that Democrats refuse to participate. Democrats, it seems, just called his bluff.
  2. Democrats hold the Senate floor overnight. At one point, Schumer tried to get McConnell to agree to at least 10 hours of debate, but he didn’t bite. The ACA had about 26 days of debate.
  3. The Senate releases their version of the ACA replacement, The Better Care Reconciliation Act, with a CBO score expected sometime this week. The Senate promised a top-to-bottom rewrite of the House bill, but it’s similar to the House version; and though it’s a little more modest, it’s still mean. Like the House bill, it’s expected to raise premiums, lower coverage, and cut Medicaid.
  4. Here are the basics of the Senate bill:
    • Caps and reduces Medicaid expansion, eliminating the expansion by 2024 (this insured 14 million people under the ACA).
    • States can implement a work requirement for able-bodied Medicaid recipients.
    • Reduces the number of people eligible for healthcare coverage subsidies.
    • Provides $50 billion to states over four years to help offset costs.
    • Provides $62 billion over 10 years to a fund that would help states offset gaps in coverage.
    • Keeps protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
    • Ends employer and individual mandates.
    • Lets states define mandated coverages.
    • Cuts funding to Planned Parenthood (or any other medical facility that provides abortions).
    • Repeals all taxes, but the Cadillac tax on employer plans would return in 2025.
    • Provides $2 billion to help fight the opioid epidemic.
  5. Whether or not there are enough votes, and right now there aren’t, it seems the Senate plans to vote on the bill before the July 4 recess.
  6. Even Republicans complain about the rush to bring this bill to vote and the secrecy in which it was developed.
  7. The AARP and AMA weigh in against the bill, citing concerns about older citizens and the disabled. Even insurance companies hate this bill, predicting a 25% shortfall in covering the actual cost of care.
  8. On the day the new bill is released, protestors outside McConnell’s office are forcibly removed for demonstrating, many of whom were disabled—using wheelchairs and other assistive devices.
  9. The following senators say they won’t vote for the bill in its current form: Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Ron Johnson. A 5th, Dean Heller of Nevada, later comes out against the bill. Others, like Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Ben Sasse, and Bill Cassidy, are on the fence.
  10. Obama makes a rare policy statement and slams the Senate healthcare bill as inhumane.
  11. Sean Spicer says that Trump is “committed to making sure that no one who currently is in the Medicaid program is affected in anyway, which is reflected in the Senate Bill and he’s pleased with that.” This makes me think Trump doesn’t know what’s in the bill.
  12. Trump slams Democrats for opposing the healthcare bills, but it’s his own party really holding this up since they have a majority. Republicans on the Hill know that they now own healthcare as a political issue.
  13. As soon as Dean Heller comes out against the healthcare bill, America First Policies (a group Mike Pence fundraised for), goes after him with an ad campaign. They did this so quickly, they must have been prepared for it. Heller’s seat is one of the least safe Republican seats in 2018, but even so, the campaign aims to punish Heller and to force his vote, an act of retaliation that is making senior Republicans nervous.
  14. California’s bill for single payer is shelved for now. Speaker Anthony Rendon says it needs to be fleshed out before they can pass it.

International:

  1. An armed attacker drove into police on the Champs Elysees, but was killed before he could do much damage. Less that 24 hours later, police foil a suicide bomber attack in a Brussels train station, with the attacker killing only himself.
  2. Saudi security forces disrupt a planned terrorist attack near the Grand Mosque in Mecca, and the suicide bomber ends up blowing himself up, killing only himself and injuring 11.
  3. Canada’s plan to deal with the new administration’s protectionist tendencies is to organize a network of American officials, lawmakers and businesses in order to cultivate relationships beyond the White House. Canadian officials have been speaking with mayors, governors, members of Congress, and business leaders, circumventing the White House.
  4. Talks between the U.S. and Asian countries left delegates more pessimistic than ever about issues with North Korea, with North Korea leaving no room for negotiation.
  5. Turkey bans teaching evolution in schools and police fire rubber bullets into an LGBTQ pride parade there. This is what a burgeoning authoritarian regime looks like.
  6. An oil tanker explodes in Pakistan, leaving at least 148 dead and 50 more in critical condition.
  7. Some Trump advisors push for regime change in Tehran, with war a possibility. Tillerson would like to work with Iran towards a ″peaceful transition of that government.″ Iran is not amused.
  8. Tillerson plans to remove Iraq and Myanmar from the list of worst offenders of the use of child soldiers, and refuses to add Afghanistan. This goes against recommendations of experts and senior diplomats, and indicates human rights is not a big concern.

Legislation:

  1. A draft of an executive order to address drug prices actually doesn’t reduce prices and even allows pharmaceutical companies to charge higher prices abroad and to stop selling to hospitals in need at discount prices.
  2. After the Missouri Senate passed the anti-abortion bill SB 5, the House amended it to be even more misogynistic. It now preempts a St. Louis ordinance that bans landlords from discriminating based on your method of birth control, whether you’re pregnant, or whether you’ve had an abortion.
  3. Trump signs into law a bipartisan bill to reform the VA system. The bill makes it easier to fire and discipline problem employees, and is a result of the problem with wait times for patients.
  4. As the Senate bill imposing harsher sanctions on Iran and Russia goes to the House, the White House lobbies the House to weaken the bill. The bill restricts the president’s ability to weaken Russia sanctions.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump has yet to comment on the act of terror committed in London by a white guy against Muslims leaving a mosque.
  2. Following the Philando Castile case, another officer, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, is found not guilty of first-degree reckless homicide. She was on trial for fatally shooting Sylville Smith during a foot chase.
  3. Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin (so far) join together in suing the state of Texas over the recently passed sanctuary cities bill, SB 4.
  4. A federal appeals court lifts an injunction on a Mississippi law that lets individuals and government employees discriminate against members of the LGBTQ community on religious grounds. The law is likely to remain blocked through the appeals process, though.
  5. California restricts state employees from taking business trips to Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, and South Dakota after those states pass bills that allow discrimination against LGBTQ (and other) parents in adoption and foster care cases or that allow school groups to ban LGBTQ members. Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee were already barred for similar reasons.
  6. The State Department restarts the Countering Violent Extremism program, but cancels funding for Life After Hate (whose purpose is to de-radicalize neo-Nazis and stop white extremism). Life After Hate has seen a 20-fold increase in requests for help since the election.

Climate/EPA:

  1. DOE Secretary Rick Perry says he doesn’t believe the primary driver in global warming is CO2 and implies that the oceans might have something to do with it instead. This is refuted by conclusions of the EPA, NASA, and NOAA, to name a few. However, it does match what the head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, has said.
  2. Scott Pruitt says he won’t renew the contracts of 38 scientists currently on the Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC). He also plans to lay off 1,200 people from the EPA.
  3. Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, plans to cut at least 4,000 jobs in his department.
  4. India joins other members of BRICS (a group including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in nudging the U.S. back into the climate agreement and in asking developed countries to fulfill their commitments.
  5. The Trump administration removes the Yellowstone grizzly bear from the endangered species list. Depending on who you talk to, this is either a prime example of how well the endangered species program works or a dangerous step for grizzlies.
  6. OSHA rolls back some Obama-era protections for workers in the maritime and construction industries around exposure to beryllium, a potentially deadly mineral.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Economists say the only way to hit the 3% GDP growth projected in Trump’s budget is to increase the workforce. The only way to do that is to double the immigrant population.
  2. The Department of Labor won’t enforce the Fiduciary Rule created under Obama. This rule would make retirement plan managers provide unbiased investment advice instead of advice that would line their own pockets.
  3. The House Subcommittee on Health, Labor, Employment and Pensions discusses three anti-union bills.
  4. Boeing and Carrier, both companies that Trump previously negotiated with to keep jobs in the U.S., announce layoffs and additional moves to manufacturing abroad.
  5. Trump’s proposed budget would cut HUD programs to shelter the poor and fight homelessness, but the federal housing subsidy that pays him millions of dollars a year wouldn’t be affected.
  6. In a rally, Trump says he’s for the poor people, but that he doesn’t want any poor people in his cabinet. And poor people cheered.

Elections:

  1. Republican Karen Handel defeats Democrat Jon Ossoff in the Representative runoff in Georgia’s 6th (Tom Price’s seat). Republican Ralph Norman also defeats Democrat Archie Parnell in South Carolina’s 5th (Nick Mulvaney’s seat). These lead to much over-analysis and reading too much into it from both sides.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus reject an invitation to meet with Trump, saying they’re pessimistic after their last visit and don’t want to be a part of another photo op.
  2. A man stabs a police officer at the Flint, Michigan, airport while allegedly yelling “God is great!” in Arabic.
  3. Rumor is that Trump hopes to nominate Sam Clovis, a talk show radio host, as Chief Scientist at the Department of Agriculture (USDA). In fairness, Clovis does have a PhD in Public Administration, but he’s no scientist.
  4. Deep Root Analytics, a Republican data analytics firm, accidentally stores personal information on 198 million American voters out in the open on an unsecured server. The ID for each voter exposed enough data points to pull together an incredible amount of private information for each name.
  5. Trump holds his 5th political rally since taking office, this time in Iowa. He makes more misstatements than I can include here, but here are a few.
    • He promises to pass a law that would ban immigrants from getting welfare benefits until they’ve been here five years, which has been law since the 1990s.
    • He criticizes wind energy in a state that gets a third of its energy from wind.
    • He denounces the wars in the Mideast even though he just authorized additional forces to Afghanistan.
    • He calls the Paris agreement binding, though he called it non-binding in his Rose Garden speech a month ago. Hint: it’s non-binding.
    • He derides trade deals, though the Iowa economy partly relies on exports.
    • He says the U.S. is one of the highest taxed nations. We rank 31st in order of highest taxes paid in developed countries (or 4th lowest), and we’re well below the average for developed countries.
  6. Trump selects Jerry Falwell Jr. to head an education reform task force charged with reducing student protections mandated by the Department of Education, including certain Title IX rules on reporting and investigating sexual assault on campus.
  7. Trump appoints lobbyist Richard Hohlt to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. Hohlt is a registered agent of Saudi Arabia, and was paid nearly a half million dollars to lobby on their behalf.
  8. Jane Sanders (Bernie’s wife) retains a lawyer to represent her in a fraud investigation around the loans she received for the Vermont college she was once president of.
  9. A judge sanctions Kris Kobach for deceptive conduct in a court case brought by the ACLU over voter rights. Kobach withheld subpoenaed documents containing proposed changes to the National Voter Registration Act, saying they weren’t relevant to the case. The judge determined that to be a lie. Kobach is Trump’s pick to head his voter fraud commission.
  10. Mike Pence officiates Steve Mnuchin’s wedding.
  11. The Koch network works to influence the Trump administration after first giving them the cold shoulder, starting with a meeting with Mike Pence. The Kochs announce plans to spend $300-$400 million in the next election cycle with the goals of influencing tax reforms, rolling back protections, and pushing for a more conservative healthcare bill.
  12. An AP analysis concludes that the most recent partisan gerrymandering efforts mostly benefitted the GOP. Redistricting has been so blatant that many states have spent years fighting over their district lines in courts.
  13. Matt Mika, a victim of the baseball practice shooting, is released from the hospital.

Polls:

  1. 81% of Americans don’t want Trump to interfere with Mueller.
  2. Trump’s approval rating in the CBS News Poll is at a new low of 36%, with a 57% disapproval rating.
  3. 18% of Americans support withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, while 70% are concerned that it will hurt the country’s standing in the world.
  4. 64% of Americans disapprove of the administration’s handling of global warming; 34% approve.
  5. Americans believe Comey more than Trump 2-to-1.
  6. 16% of Americans think the House healthcare plan is good; 48% say it’s bad.

Week 16 in Trump

Posted on May 15, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Attribution: Getty Images

Last week, the news was absolutely dominated by the firing of FBI director James Comey. So much so that I added a new section just for that. But what should’ve been the big news of the week wasn’t political; it was a world-wide hack of an estimated 200,000 computers by the WannaCry virus. The virus controls files on a computer and the hacker asks for a ransom to give you back control. So here’s a friendly reminder to be careful when clicking links and to do frequent backups of your computer (so if anyone does hold your files for ransom, you can say pffft, I have copies anyway). This is more likely to hit PCs than Macs, but these are good practices for both.

James Comey:

  1. Trump abruptly fires James Comey. The termination letter indicates that the decision is based on recommendations from AG Sessions (supposedly recused from anything Russia related) and Deputy AG Rosenstein.
  2. The White House gives mixed timelines for how long Trump has been considering this, starting anywhere from the day he was elected to a few months to a few weeks to just this week. The firing comes less than a week after Comey’s testimony to a Senate committee.
  3. Despite praising Comey for months, Trump suddenly says he’s not doing a good job.
  4. Comey is the third person investigating the Trump administration that Trump has fired (the other two are acting AG Sally Yates and NY U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara).
  5. White House spokespersons scramble to get the right story out. Sean Spicer literally hides in the bushes for several minutes before finally coming out to speak with reporters.
  6. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that FBI agents, along with Trump and AG Sessions, had lost confidence in the director (later contradicted by Andy McCabe’s testimony).
  7. Early talking points put Rosenstein’s recommendation front and center as the reason for firing Comey. He pushes back against that and asks the White House to correct the record. He put together a memo at the request of the president, who was looking for a reason to release Comey.
  8. White House sources say that Trump made the decision after watching the Sunday talk shows over the weekend. He told some of his aides that there is something wrong with Comey.
  9. The reasons given for firing Comedy start to unravel. I don’t even know how to put this all in order, so here’s a deep dive from WaPo if you’re interested.
  10. By Friday, in an interview with Lester Holt, Trump calls Comey a “showboat” and “grandstander,” and says that he would’ve fired Comey regardless of the DoJ’ opinion.
  11. In the same interview, Trump says he was thinking about the Russia probe when he decided to fire Comey. “In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’” This undercut the denials from the White House that Comey’s firing had anything to do with the Russia investigation.
  12. Comey learns he was fired while speaking to a group of FBI employees in California when he sees his image on the TV behind the group of employees. At first he thinks it’s a joke. But nope, he really just got fired on live TV. It appears the termination letter was delivered to the FBI offices in Washington AFTER the news broke on TV.
  13. Days before he was terminated, Comey reportedly met with Rosenstein to ask for additional resources for the Russia investigation. Andy McCabe later said he didn’t know about this.
  14. AG Sessions will be instrumental in hiring a replacement for Comey, which would put him right back in the center of the Russian investigation he is supposed to be recused from.
  15. FBI agents fear that the firing will disrupt the Russia investigation.
  16. FBI morale plummets with many agents angry over Comey’s firing, throwing shade on Trump’s allegations that morale was at a low under Comey.
  17. Trump plans a visit to FBI offices but later cancels when he learns he wouldn’t receive a warm reception there after firing a reportedly popular director.
  18. We learn that Comey had apparently refused to give Trump aides a preview of the testimony he was planning to give to a Senate Judiciary Committee prior to his firing.
  19. Comey’s scheduled testimony in the Senate is canceled, and acting director Andy McCabe testifies in his place. Congress invites Comey to testify next week behind closed doors and he says no thanks, I’d rather testify publicly.
  20. Even Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is scratching his head over this. He asked the inspector general to add Comey’s firing to the Russia investigation.
  21. Trump suggests in a tweet that there he might have tapes of his conversations with Comey and warns him against “leaking to the press.” Comey says he isn’t worried about what might be on any tapes, if there are any.
  22. Reportedly, Trump had asked Comey to pledge his loyalty to Trump more than once and Comey refused.

 

Russia:

  1. Sally Yates testifies to a Senate Judiciary committee. Here are the main takeaways:
    • Michael Flynn was at risk for being compromised by Russian blackmail.
    • There is overwhelming evidence that Russia meddled to help Trump into office.
    • She indicated that there is evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians (by saying she was unable to answer the question without divulging classified info).
  1. The partisanship of the committee is on display, with Republicans focusing on Yates’ refusal to support the travel ban and Democrats focusing on Flynn and Russia.
  2. After Yates’ testimony, Spicer downplays her warnings and accused her of having an agenda against Trump.
  3. In James Clapper’s testimony, he says he hasn’t seen evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia. Trump jumped on that as vindication, saying Clapper said there is no evidence. Not the same thing.
  4. During his testimony, Comey overstates the amount of email Huma Abedin forwarded to her husband’s server. He also mistakenly says the emails were marked as classified.
  5. The day after he fires Comey, Trump hosts Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Survey Kislyak (Kislyak was the target of last year’s intelligence surveillance). The White House allows only a Russian photographer into the Oval Office and bars U.S. media. The White House is surprised to learn that the photographer, who they thought was Lavrov’s official photographer, also works for the Russian news agency Tass. They claim they were “tricked” when the photographs show up in Russian propaganda and social media.
  6. Henry Kissinger also pays a surprise visit to the White House.
  7. Even after Comey’s firing, Mitch McConnell continues to reject calls for an independent investigation, saying it will impede the current investigations.
  8. Federal prosecutors issue grand jury subpoenas to associates of Michael Flynn, according to CNN. Note: Only CBS has confirmed this story so far.
  9. The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas Michael Flynn to obtain documents surrounding interactions with Russians.
  10. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) agrees to share financial information with Senate investigators regarding Russia ties. FinCEN tackles money laundering, and will provide financial records related to Trump or to his associates.
  11. Trump hires a law firm to send a certified letter to Lindsay Graham saying he doesn’t have monetary dealings with Russia (excepting a Miss Universe contest and a real estate deal). The law firm, Morgan and Lewis, won the Russia Law Firm of the Year award in 2016.
  12. Andy McCabe testifies to the Senate committee. The main takeaways from his testimony are:
    • Comey had not lost the support of FBI agents; he is respected and morale was high until his termination.
    • He knows of no attempts by the White House to impede the Russia investigation.
    • The Russia investigation will go on regardless of the change in leadership at the FBI.
    • This investigation is a very large part of what the FBI is working on now.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reverses Eric Holder’s sentencing policies on low-level drug crimes, and presses federal prosecutors to charge people with the most serious offense they can and to push for the harshest sentencing (for federal offenses only).
  2. The reversal reverts back to the ‘tough on crime’ policies of the 90s that (opinion alert) gave us harsher sentences, overcrowded prisons, and a generation of mostly minority men who were aggressively pursued and prosecuted. These are the policies that were highly criticized during the 2016 election.
  3. The reversal also contradicts bipartisan agreement in Washington and the states that we put too many people behind bars for too long for mild offenses, and that our large prison population is too costly to both communities and the affected families. As a Senator, Sessions backed legislation creating harsh penalties for marijuana offenses, and he stalled bipartisan sentencing reform.
  4. The DoJ won’t say whether AG Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia investigation, will recuse himself from the selection process for Comey’s replacement.
  5. A Senate subcommittee, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), is looking into breaking up or restructuring the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Though Trump’s threat to break up the court makes this look suspicious, they’re looking at this because the population represented by this court is outsized.

Healthcare:

  1. Nothing new on healthcare this week aside from some raucous townhalls where GOP Representatives were forced to defend their votes. But I have to give kudos to Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), even though he authored the state waiver amendment that saved the replacement for the ACA. He listened to his constituents argue with, yell at, and boo him for FIVE hours–mostly about healthcare and Russia. Regardless of whether you agree with his politics, that takes some steel balls.

International:

  1. Senior military and foreign policy advisers propose a new Afghanistan strategy that would add more than 3,000 new troops on top of the existing 5,400, stepping up the war with the Taliban again.
  2. Trump approves a plan to arm Syrian Kurds against ISIS. This could put U.S./Turkey relations on ice, and Erdogan does, in fact, register his disapproval later in the week.
  3. Jared Kushner’s family business brings up ethics questions when his sister encourages Chinese investors to invest at least $500,000 in a real estate deal in return for receiving visas through the EB-5 program. This is completely lawful, but bad optics.
  4. North Korea launches yet another missile test that lands near Russia. No wonder Putin’s starting to get a little edgy about North Korea.
  5. Chinese President Xi Jinping holds an infrastructure summit with 29 other heads of state from Asia, Europe, the Mid East, and Africa. China proposes a multibillion dollar plan to boost transportation and power plants throughout the participating countries, increasing their global trade and potentially pushing China past the U.S. as a global power.

Legislation:

  1. Texas Governor Abbott signs SB 4, a racial-profiling law that allows local police offers to ask anyone for proof of citizenship, similar to Arizona’s controversial laws. Some local police departments voice concern that this will further strain relationships with immigrant communities. Some say nothing will change.
  2. Trump signs an executive order creating a commission on voter fraud, specifically Trump’s allegations of massive voter fraud, and to investigate vulnerabilities in our voting systems. To sweeten the deal for Democrats, they’ll also investigate voter suppression. Mike Pence and Kris Kobach head the commission. Kobach instituted the much litigated voter ID laws in Kansas, which studies have shown reduced voter turnout.
  3. Trump signs an executive order on cyber security that builds on Obama’s previous efforts to improve security over government networks. Cyber experts and industry groups praise the order.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A reporter queries Spicer about Trump’s use of the phrase “Muslim ban” in the campaign, specifically about the page on the campaign website titled “DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON PREVENTING MUSLIM IMMIGRATION.” Minutes later, that page is gone.
  2. The revised travel ban goes before the 4th circuit court, with hearings in the 9th circuit court scheduled for next week. At issue is whether the ban was intended to discriminate against Muslims.
  3. The Texas legislature proposes a bill similar to the one Alabama signed into law last week that would allow adoption agencies to reject adoptive parents on religious grounds. This opens the door for discrimination against gay couples, couples of multiple faiths, and single parents.
  4. The Supreme Court reverses an Alabama court that ruled Alabama doesn’t have to honor adoptions from other states (specifically, the case was about a lesbian adoption, of course). The Supreme Court ruled that gay adoptions are no exception to the law that all states must honor other states’ agreements.
  5. The Virginia Supreme Court upholds a ruling that crimes against members of the LGBTQ community don’t qualify as hate crimes.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump names Ivanka to lead a group to review our policies on climate change, and meetings to start discussions are set for this week. He’s still considering pulling out of the Paris Agreement.
  2. White House advisors postpone the above meetings.
  3. The Senate rejects a Congressional Resolution passed by the House that would repeal limits on methane emissions from oil and gas drilling. This is the first resolution to repeal an Obama-era regulation that has been rejected.
  4. Secretary of State Tillerson signs the Fairbanks Declaration, acknowledging the threat of climate change to the Arctic and also stating that we need to do something about it. Again, at the same time Trump is considering leaving the Paris Agreement.
  5. Two expert EPA advisors resign to protest last week’s firing of members of a science committee, saying “We cannot in good conscience be complicit in our co-chairs’ removal, or in the watering down of credible science, engineering, and methodological rigor that is at the heart of that decision.”
  6. The Department of the Interior suspends over 200 advisory panels pending review.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The administration won’t finish its review of Dodd-Frank within the 120-day deadline. Instead, it’ll get reviewed piece-meal, with information being reported as each piece is completed.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump threatens to end White House press briefings because it’s to hard to speak accurately. In other words, being honest is hard.
  2. Reince Priebus warned White House staffers against trying to secretly hand news info to Trump. Apparently a staffer gave Trump a climate change article that turned out to be a hoax. Luckily, someone caught it before Trump could tweet about it. Sometimes aides slip him information to boost their agenda, and sometimes they do it as a game.
  3. Fun fact: Trump has been sued 134 times since his inauguration on a variety of issues. Several of the suits stemmed from the travel ban, and some are frivolous. But this number is 3 times that of the past 3 presidents combined for the first months of their terms.
  4. A new study finds that Wisconsin’s new voter ID requirements suppressed up to 200,000 votes in last year’s election. Trump won Wisconsin by 22,748 votes. Caveat: This study was conducted by the progressive group Priorities USA so the numbers are probably high, but the problem of voter suppression was confirmed in several other studies to a lesser extent.
  5. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) requests info from the Senate Intelligence Committee about whether the Obama administration or the intelligence community surveilled any of members of Congress.
  6. Betsy DeVos gets booed while giving a commencement address at Bethune-Cookman University.

Polls:

  1. The latest Quinnipiac poll shows Trump’s approval dropped back down to 36%. Additional results from the poll include:
    • His disapproval rating is at an all-time high of 58%
    • The percentage of Americans who strongly approve of him is tied for an all-time low at 25 percent.
    • The percentage who strongly disapprove has reached an all-time high of 51 percent.
    • For the first time the numbers are turning in his base. The number of white people without college degrees who approve dropped from 57% to 47%
  1. According to an NBC poll, 48% of Americans say the latest healthcare legislation to pass the House is a bad thing compared to 23% who say it’s good.

Things Politicians Say:

  1. When asked by Time magazine if he feels his administration has been too combative, Trump says, “It could be my fault. I don’t want to necessarily blame, but there’s a great meanness out there that I’m surprised at.” Sorry dude, but if you can’t take it, don’t dish it out in the first place.
  2. Trump calls the Navy’s new electromagnetic catapult to launch planes off aircraft carriers “no good” and says they need to go back to “goddamned steam.” This catches Navy leaders off-guard as the new digital system, though imperfect, has many benefits over the older steam systems. But it’s all part of modernizing and making our military great again.
  3. And I’ll leave you with this, from Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS): “Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us.’ There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves. Just, like, homeless people … I think just morally, spiritually, socially, [some people] just don’t want health care. The Medicaid population, which is [on] a free credit card, as a group, do probably the least preventive medicine and taking care of themselves and eating healthy and exercising. And I’m not judging, I’m just saying socially that’s where they are. So there’s a group of people that even with unlimited access to health care are only going to use the emergency room when their arm is chopped off or when their pneumonia is so bad they get brought [into] the ER.”

Week 14 In Trump

Posted on May 1, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Quote of the week:

“I love my previous life. I had so many things going. I, actually, this is more work than in my previous life,” Trump said. “I thought it would be easier. I thought it was more of a — I’m a details-oriented person I think you would say that. But I do miss my old life. I like to work so that’s not a problem but this is actually more work.”

Anybody who thinks presidenting is easy — in fact anyone who doesn’t think it’s just about the hardest job in the world — has never really paid attention to our government.

Russia:

  1. The Senate Intelligence Committee adds more staffers to help investigate Russia ties after they are criticized for the slow pace of their investigation.
  2. The slow pace also generates a bigger push for an independent investigation (73% of Americans want one).
  3. Rep. Jason Chaffetz says that it appears Michael Flynn broke the law in accepting foreign money for appearances and lobbying because as a retired Lieutenant General he is required to obtain permission.
  4. Sean Spicer shifts blame to the Obama administration for having given Flynn security clearance, though Obama had also fired Flynn. Meanwhile, the White House refuses to turn over the documents requested by the oversight committee, something Spicer denies.
  5. The Defense Department inspector general also launches an investigation into Michael Flynn.

 

Courts/Justice:

  1. Arkansas forges ahead with their executions, killing three more inmates this week.
  2. Trump says he’ll get rid of the requirement that employers provide birth-control coverage to their employees, but the DoJ indicates that they intend to continue fighting for that coverage.
  3. The Senate confirms Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General, and he’ll be taking over handling of the Russia probe.
  4. We learn that the DoJ, in a 180-degree turn, has withdrawn a primary claim against a Texas voter ID law. The DoJ until now has maintained that the law was written with discriminatory intent, a reversal that indicates the DoJ’s new position toward protecting minority interests. Or toward not protecting those interests.
  5. In response to a California judge ruling against Trump’s financial threats against sanctuary cities, Trump says he’s considering breaking apart the ninth circuit court of appeals, apparently unaware of presidential limits.
  6. In the ongoing conflict between North Carolina’s Republican legislature and its new Democratic governor, the legislature is trying to pass bills that would strip Governor Cooper of his ability to fill seats on the state court of appeals. In response, conservative Republican Judge J. Douglas McCullough steps down a month before his required retirement date to allow the governor to appoint someone to fill his seat. He is so opposed to the Republican antics that he is willing to have a Democrat replace him on the bench.

Healthcare:

  1. The GOP works again to revise their healthcare bill so they can bring it to a vote, this time catering to the interests of the Freedom Caucus.
  2. Changes to the bill give states more flexibility, letting them apply for waivers to some provisions. This includes rules around pre-existing conditions, patient age, prescription drug coverage, and mental health coverage.
  3. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, government costs would actually increase by $2.3 billion if they stop paying the ACA subsidies (as has been threatened in order to make the system fail).
  4. 79% of Americans say Trump should try to make the ACA work instead of trying to make it fail quickly. 50% of Americans don’t have faith in the replacement plan for the ACA.
  5. The UN sends a letter to the Trump administration warning that repealing the ACA without a robust replacement that ensures coverage is available to all could violate our obligations to international law.
  6. The House fails again to pull together enough votes to repeal and replace the ACA. The latest iteration got the Freedom Caucus on board, but lost moderate Republicans.
  7. Rep. Warren Davidson tells a woman at a town hall that her son isn’t skilled enough to have insurance coverage. When later asked about it, he reiterated that healthcare coverage is something we have to earn.

International:

  1. French President Hollande throws his support behind Emmanuel Macron in next month’s elections, calling on voters to reject far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
  2. All the Senators are bused up to the White House for a briefing on North Korea by Rex Tillerson, Jim Mattis, Dan Coats, and General Joseph Dunford.
  3. Trump says that there could be a “major, major” conflict with North Korea. While most Senators and news media agree the situation is bad, Fox News says tensions are at a “fever pitch.”
  4. North Korea launches yet another ballistic missile test. Like the last one, this missile also fails.
  5. Secretary Mattis travels to Afghanistan to figure out how to handle the issue of Russia supplying the Taliban with weapons.
  6. In retaliation for Syria’s chemical attack, the U.S. imposes new sanctions against them.
  7. A Russian spy ship collides with a freighter and sinks in the Black Sea.
  8. The Trumps host Mauricio Macri, the president of Argentina, and his wife at the White House.
  9. Trump invites Philippine strongman (and human rights violator) Rodrigo Duterte for a White House visit.
  10. In continuing his moves to stifle dissent and free speech, Turkish President Erdogan fires around 4,000 government workers, and bans access to Wikipedia and certain TV shows countrywide. Remember Erdogan is the guy Trump called to congratulate on his win in consolidating power.
  11. The State Department wants to vet any remarks made by Nikki Haley before she speaks.

Legislation:

  1. In yet another move to pretend Obama’s presidency never happened, Trump signs an executive order to review our national monuments (federally protected and owned land). In fairness, this affects all monuments, not just those designated by Obama; however Trump has specifically pointed out those that were designated by Obama as inhibiting development. He can either abolish the designations or make the monuments smaller.
  2. The next day he tweets “As families prepare for summer vacations in our National Parks – Democrats threaten to close them and shut down the government. Terrible!” A little disconnect?
  3. In response to the executive order, clothing maker Patagonia threatens legal action.
  4. The FCC proposes rules to weaken net neutrality. More than 800 leaders of U.S. start-ups signed a letter to Ajit Pai, FCC chairman, asking that these rules not be changed. In brief, net neutrality forces ISPs to treat all packets of information equally. For example, they can’t charge Hulu more for data than Netflix or YouTube, and they can’t slow down one person’s data so another’s can flow faster.
  5. Trump signs an executive order around agriculture, which instructs Sonny Perdue (Secretary of Agriculture) to review regulations and identify unnecessary rules that can be eliminated. It creates a new task force to make recommendations on existing food and agriculture policies that could hinder profit-making of agribusiness.
  6. Trump signs an executive order to encourage offshore drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, making federal waters available for oil and gas leasing. Many cities and states have their own laws around this, so parts of the Atlantic may still be off limits.
  7. Despite his criticism of executive orders, especially of Obama’s use of executive orders, Trump ends the week with 32 executive orders under his belt, the most of any president in their first 100 days since WWII.
  8. Trump ends his first 100 days having signed 29 pieces of legislation from Congress, 11 of which do nothing more than repeal Obama-era rules and regulations.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-semitic incidents are up 86% the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year. Only around a third of those were the hoax bomb threats against Jewish community centers.
  2. The Trump administration awards GEO, a company that donated almost half a million dollars to his campaign, the contract for a private immigration detention center.
  3. A federal judge blocks the Trump administration’s attempts to cut funding to sanctuary cities. Trump accuses his opponents of “judge shopping.” Once again, the administration’s words come back to haunt them. They previously said they would wield funding like a weapon and bring sanctuary cities to their knees, among other threats. The judge took their statements into account in his ruling.
  4. Mexico expresses concern that the border wall could violate a 47-year-old treaty between the U.S. and Mexico, and also that a wall could worsen flooding in some areas. The decision could be left up to international courts if Mexico protests the wall based on the treaty.
  5. Trump and Republican leaders butt heads over LGBTQ protections versus religious rights. Trump wants protection policies to remain; Republicans favor restricting those policies based on religious liberty. Trump has in the past professed support for protecting the LGBTQ community.
  6. Homeland Security creates a new agency, Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement or Voice, or VOICE, to assist families of victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants, even though undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than citizens. Some of their work appears to duplicate work already being done by states and localities, such as VINE, or Victim Information and Notification Everyday.
  7. Of the undocumented immigrants targeted for deportation in the days after Trump took office, around half had either no criminal offenses or minor traffic offenses. The number of immigrants picked up represents about a 32% increase over the previous year.

Climate:

  1. Energy Secretary Rick Perry endorses renegotiating parts of the Paris agreement instead of simply withdrawing from it.
  2. Protestors against Trump’s climate policies march in cities across the country on Trump’s 100th day in support of science-based policies that support our health and the health of the planet.
  3. The night before the climate marches, the EPA removes its scientific climate change website from public view. The site is archived, and they say they’re updating it to match the new direction of the agency. This causes great concern in the scientific community, but we’ll see whether the info gets put back up.
  4. Because of climate change, coffee production has been in a deficit for the past 4 years. Meanwhile consumption is reaching an all-time high. But not to worry; scientists are on it, working on plants that can withstand disease and grow with less water.
  5. Ice roads in Canada are freezing later and melting earlier than before, reducing the window in which isolated residents can travel and goods can be trucked. The roads take longer to freeze and the ice isn’t as thick, making it more dangerous for travel.

Budget/Economy/Trade:

  1. Trump issues a tax plan, which is more like a wishlist than an actual plan. In short, the plan:
    • Cuts corporate taxes for businesses of all sizes, from the biggest to mom-and-pop stores.
    • Cuts the top tax rate by 4.6 points.
    • Eliminates the ACA tax of 3.8% on top earners, bringing their total tax cut to 8.4 points.
    • Eliminates the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax (AMT).
    • Increases the standard deduction to help middle class earners (this might require eliminating other deductions).
    • Doesn’t include tax revenue to support the infrastructure plan.
    • Rejects the border tariff proposed by House Republicans.
    • Creates a loophole where people could create pass-through corporations and lower their effective tax rate to 15%.
    • Eliminates the state and local tax deductions from federal income tax.
  2. Analysts say the economy would have to grow by 5% to make up for the budget shortfall.
  3. The Tax Policy Center estimates the cuts will reduce federal revenue by $6.2 trillion over 10 years.
  4. Mnuchin says he can’t guarantee that the middle class won’t pay more under the new tax bill but he says there should be no absolute tax breaks for the wealthy. Even though their tax bracket is dropping at least four points. I’m trying to work out the math here…
  5. Analysts say that the economic policies in the tax plan don’t support policies in Trump’s trade and immigration plans. They say he needs an overall economic vision that brings all the different pieces together, a vision that is currently lacking.
  6. Trump orders a 20% tariff on softwood lumber coming in from Canada, which is predicted to increase the cost of new homes. He argues that the lumber is unfairly subsidized which hurts lumber companies in the U.S., but this seems to be in response to an import tax Canada on U.S. dairy products processed in a certain way (the processing style was used as a way to get around NAFTA trade rules).
  7. Democrats say they’ll stall the spending bill and risk a government shutdown if the healthcare vote happens this week.
  8. On Wednesday, Congress leans toward signing a one-week extension to the budget to keep the government going.
  9. Trump throws in a wrench by making demands to begin funding the border wall and to begin defunding the ACA (specifically the payments that help low-income people).
  10. Trump backs away from his demands around the border wall and the ACA this go around.
  11. Or wait, does he really?
  12. Yes. Yes, he does.
  13. Ryan says the spending bill will not include ACA payments that help lower-income people afford care.
  14. Or wait, will it?
  15. Yes. Yes, it will include those payments.
  16. The House and Senate pass a short-term budget bill to prevent a shutdown. The vote didn’t hinge on any healthcare changes nor on any funding for the wall.
  17. Also in the bill, the NIH will get a $2 billion dollar increase, a rejection of Trump’s cuts to the agency in his proposed budget.
  18. The White House submits a draft proposal to withdraw from NAFTA. Republicans and Democrats in Congress both say hold up, wait a minute here.
  19. Trump threatens to terminate NAFTA, causing shakeups in the markets, Congress, Canada, and Mexico.
  20. After both Mexican and Canadian leaders phone Trump, he agrees not to terminate NAFTA. It seems that what actually convinced him, though, was Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, showing him map of the farmers who would be negatively affected by scrapping NAFTA and telling him that these are Trump voters.
  21. The latest numbers show that the U.S. had sluggish economic growth last quarter at just .7%, the weakest in three years. Consumer spending was down as well. This might not have much to do with Trump, though, as we’re still on Obama’s budget.

Miscellaneous:

  1. To add to Fox’s public image issues, a new class-action lawsuit against the media conglomerate alleges racial discrimination.
  2. The Senate denies Breitbart’s request for permanent press pass credentials saying they need answers to more questions.
  3. It’s another bad week for Alex Jones of InfoWars, who is in the middle of a custody suit. Chobani sues him for defamation after Jones linked the founder of the company to a sexual assault case and accused him of importing refugee rapists. And then Jones lost his custody suit.
  4. The State Department removes a page on its website featuring Mar-a-Lago after criticism that it used government resources to basically advertise the resort.
  5. The Senate confirms Alexander Acosta as Secretary of Labor.
  6. Trump thought once he won, the press would be kinder to him.
  7. Trump speaks at the annual NRA meeting in Atlanta, the first sitting president since Ronald Reagan in 1983 to do so.
  8. Ivanka travels to Germany for a panel discussion on women’s economic empowerment, on Angela Merkel’s invite. The first day doesn’t go well as she’s forced to defend her father to a skeptical audience.
  9. Ann Coulter is speaking at UC Berkeley. Then she’s not (UCB postponed for security concerns). Then she is (forget security, I’ll just speak in a public square). Then she’s not (she lost the support of the groups who asked her to speak). The primary catalyst here is the security concern with far right and far left extremist groups, but the issue quickly escalates into accusations of free speech infringement.
  10. Paul Ryan is less popular than Donald Trump with just a 22% approval rating.
  11. A new poll shows that most Trump voters do believe that Obama was spying on the Trump campaign.
  12. And finally of note this week is this Politico story about press office lies. It seems the press were warned from the start that the White House would feed them lies just to mess with them. Staffers lie more for sport than for furthering any agenda; it’s all a game. Information is plentiful when you’re doing a story on palace intrigue, but not so much when it comes to actual policy. What they say off the record is far more accurate than what they say on the record, especially when it comes to TV appearances. For example, Spicer has lied or mislead 51 times in his briefings.

Legislation Signed By Trump In His First 100 Days

Posted on May 1, 2017 in Legislation, Trump

Here’s a list of all the bills signed into law by Trump in his first hundred days. I’ll update this later with brief descriptions of each and what they do, but for now, note that every law that is a disapproval or is disapproving repeals something Obama put into place.

April 28, 2017

H.J.Res. 99 – Joint Resolution making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2017, and for other purposes.

April 19, 2017

S.J.Res. 36 – Joint Resolution providing for the appointment of Roger W. Ferguson as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

S.J.Res. 35 – Joint Resolution providing for the appointment of Michael Govan as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

S.J.Res. 30 – Joint Resolution providing for the reappointment of Steve Case as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

S. 544 – An Act to amend the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 to modify the termination date for the Veterans Choice Program, and for other purposes.

Signed on April 18, 2017

H.R. 353 – Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017

Signed on April 13, 2017

H.J.Res. 67 – Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to savings arrangements established by qualified State political subdivisions for non-governmental employees.

H.J.Res. 43 – Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the final rule submitted by Secretary of Health and Human Services relating to compliance with title X requirements by project…

Signed on April 3, 2017

S.J.Res. 34 – Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to “Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband…

H.R. 1228 – An Act to provide for the appointment of members of the Board of Directors of the Office of Compliance to replace members whose terms expire during 2017, and for other purposes.

H.J.Res. 83, which nullifies the Department of Labor’s rule titled Clarification of Employer’s Continuing Obligation to Make and Maintain an Accurate Record of Each Recordable Injury and Illness; and

H.J.Res. 69, which nullifies the Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service’s final rule relating to non-subsistence takings of wildlife on National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska

Signed on March 31, 2017

S.J.Res.1 – Joint Resolution approving the location of a memorial to commemorate and honor the members of the Armed Forces who served on active duty in support of Operation Desert Storm or Operation Desert Shield.

H.R.1362 – An Act to name the Department of Veterans Affairs community-based outpatient clinic in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the Faleomavaega Eni Fa’aua’a Hunkin VA Clinic.

H.J.Res.42 – Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to drug testing of unemployment compensation applicants.

Signed on March 28, 2017

S. 305 – Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017

Signed on March 27, 2017

H.J.Res.57 – Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to accountability and State plans under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

H.J. Res. 58 – Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Education relating to teacher preparation issues.

H.J. Res. 44 – Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of the Interior relating to Bureau of Land Management regulations that establish the procedures used to prepare, revise, or amend land use plans pursuant to the Federal Land

H.J. Res. 37 – Joint Resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration relating to the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

Signed on March 21, 2017

S.442 – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017

Signed on March 13, 2017

H.R.609 – To designate the Department of Veterans Affairs health care center in Center Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, as the “Abie Abraham VA Clinic”.

Signed on February 28, 2017

H.R. 321 – Inspiring the Next Space Pioneers, Innovators, Researchers, and Explorers (INSPIRE) Women Act

H.R. 255 – Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act

H.J.Res. 40 – Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Social Security Administration relating to Implementation of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007.

Signed on February 16, 2017

H.J.Res.38 – Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule.

Signed on February 14, 2017

H.J.Res.41 – Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of a rule submitted by the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to “Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers”.

Signed on January 31, 2017

H.R.72 – GAO Access and Oversight Act of 2017

Signed on January 20, 2017

S.84 – A bill to provide for an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as Secretary of Defense within seven years of relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the Armed Forces.

Week 12 in Trump

Posted on April 17, 2017 in Politics, Trump

In week 12, we had the usual international intrigue, quietly signed resolutions, and a number of policy reversals. I also added a new category, Stupid Things Politicians Say. Sadly necessary.

Here’s what happened last week.

Russian Investigation:

  1. American authorities request the arrest of Russian hacker Peotr Levashov in Spain. His wife had told Russian state media RT that he was one of the hackers involved in the 2016 U.S. elections.
  2. Documents show that Paul Manafort actively courted Trump in order to get a foothold in his campaign. Manafort claims it was the other way around.
  3. Tillerson says Russia needs to confront their meddling in our elections and Europe’s to evaluate how it fits in with their long-term goals. He also says that things won’t improve between our countries as long as this is ongoing.
  4. Both Republicans and Democrats in the House review the documents that Devin Nunes saw at the White House and that he later said unmasked the names of Trump associates who were incidentally surveilled. Members of both parties agree that there’s no there there. Nunes’ original reaction appears to have led to Trump’s accusations of Susan Rice, but it seems Rice hasn’t done anything illegal or out of the usual.
  5. We now know that the FBI obtained a secret FISA warrant last year to surveil communications of Carter Page, who was an adviser to Trump at the time. This indicates that federal agencies had probable cause to think that Page is or was an agent of a foreign power (or in layman’s terms, a spy).
  6. Documents surface that confirm that a pro-Russian political party in the Ukraine made payments to Paul Manafort. This supports the “black ledger” that was found last year with a list of payments along with accusations that money was being laundered through his company.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Neil Gorsuch is sworn in as a Supreme Court justice.
  2. In another strike against gerrymandering, a federal judge upheld a lower court’s 2014 ruling that a Texas voter ID law passed in 2011 had the intent to discriminate against blacks and Latinos. This opens the possibility that certain Texas districts could be placed under preclearance, which means they can’t implement any voting changes without approval from the U.S. Attorney General or the U.S. District Court for D.C.
  3. Gerrymandering continues to be a big issue in the courts – there are at least six active cases. As one radio host told his guest this week “I’m sorry to keep bringing you back on the same goddamn law.”
  4. AG Jeff Sessions plans to end the National Commission on Forensic Science, a scientific partnership to improve forensic science standards. The commission was chartered by Obama in 2013, so I can only assume this is why it’s being disbanded.
  5. It turns out that the money behind Gorsuch’s ad campaign came from the Judicial Crisis Network.
  6. Impeachment hearings begin for Alabama’s governor Robert Bentley. Bentley is accused of using government resources to cover up an affair. He subsequently resigns and is replaced by Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey.
  7. Based on requests from Elizabeth Warren and Elijah Cummings, the GAO announces an investigation into Trump’s transition regarding the use of funds and conflicts of interest.
  8. In response to lawsuits accusing Trump of inciting violence at some of his campaign rallies, his legal team says he is immune from lawsuits because he won the election. Hmmm… they might want to revisit Jones v. Clinton.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump says he wants to renew efforts at repealing and replacing the ACA.
  2. Trump threatens to withhold ACA payments to insurance companies in the billions of dollars in order to cause the healthcare system to blow up. He thinks this will force Democrats to work with him on a solution. Insurance companies warn that this would cause chaos in the individual markets.
  3. The administration later recants and continues to make the payments, possibly because the CBO found that the healthcare exchanges are likely to stay stable and Standard & Poor found that the markets could become profitable, refuting the theory that the ACA is in a death spiral.

International:

  1. The White House accuses Putin of trying to hide Assad’s role in the chemical attack the previous week, and officials think that Putin was aware of the attack before it happened. There is no evidence Russia was involved, though a Russian drone flying over the hospital that Assad later bombed could point to some coordination.
  2. Putin suggests that the chemical attack was a false flag attack, designed by the U.S. to frame Assad. He also compares the U.S. assessment of the Syrian chemical attack to us going into Iraq based on (seemingly incorrect) intelligence over weapons of mass destruction. Even though the results of this attack are readily apparent.
  3. After several days of back and forth over whether it would happen, Tillerson meets in person with Putin. Both agree that relations between our countries are at a low.
  4. Tillerson says Russia has to choose between Assad and the US.
  5. Russia vetoes a UN resolution that would’ve required Assad to cooperate with an independent investigation into the chemical attacks.
  6. Trump hasn’t tried to set up a meeting with Pope Francis during the G7 summit in Italy. This is a pretty unusual omission for a sitting president.
  7. A bomb explodes near the German soccer team’s bus. The suspect is an Iraqi with alleged ties to ISIS, though there is no solid evidence as of now.
  8. Hot on the heels of the 59 tomahawk missiles launched at Syria, the U.S. drops the MOAB (mother of all bombs), our largest non-nuclear bomb, in Afghanistan with the intent to destroy a network of tunnels and caves used by ISIS. It’s reported that 94 ISIS military were killed, and a network of tunnels and caves was destroyed along with weapons and ammunition.
  9. The U.S. warns of using a preemptive strike against North Korea if we suspect they’re going to test a nuclear weapon. North Korea responds by saying they’d strike first.
  10. China mobilizes 25,000 troops and its military is on nationwide alert given the tensions with North Korea. China is urging cool heads and de-escalation between the U.S. and North Korea.
  11. The day before Easter and the day after its annual military parade, North Korea attempted another missile launch which failed, blowing up almost immediately.
  12. A North Korean official says that Trump’s tweets are behind the escalating tensions between us.
  13. In Syria, a U.S. drone attack killed at least 18 Syrian allies in what the Pentagon is calling the worst friendly fire incident in the war against ISIS.
  14. Interesting comparison on support for airstrikes in Syria:
    • In 2013, 38% of Democrats supported them; in 2017, that number is 37%.
    • In 2103, 22% of Republican supported them; in 2017, that number is 86%.

Legislation:

  1. In Alabama, the Senate votes to allow the Briarwood Presbyterian church in Birmingham to form its own police force.
  2. The New York legislature passes a law making tuition at state or city colleges free for residents making less than a specified income. This will be phased in over three years.
  3. Trump signs another resolution overturning Obama-era rules. This reversal allows states to defund clinics that perform abortions even though federal funds legally cannot be used to fund abortions.
  4. Later that same day, Trump signs the 13th resolution overturning Obama-era rules. This reversal cuts a Labor Department regulation that would’ve allowed states and counties to expand retirement savings accounts for people who don’t get those through their employers.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The North Caroline legislature puts forth a bill to ban same sex marriage in the state. The bill doesn’t make it to the house floor and won’t be heard this year.
  2. Two members of groups labeled as hate groups by the SPLC are assigned to positions in immigration agencies in the White House. John Feere worked at CIS and Julie Kirchner worked at FAIR.
  3. ICE officials stop distributing their weekly report of cities and counties not cooperating with immigration because they kept getting it wrong. This report is required as part of the executive orders signed by Trump in January.
  4. The U.S. tourism industry has upped their estimated losses to $7 billion due to extreme vetting and other travel-related regulations enacted by Trump.
  5. Newly released data show that phones are being searched twice as frequently this year as last year for travelers entering the U.S. The data also show that the searches primarily target Muslims and that the searches are often accompanied by hostile questioning.
  6. AG Sessions toured the U.S./Mexico border and unveiled new guidance for enforcing immigration law.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Scott Pruitt says we should exit the Paris climate accord, which has been endorsed by all but about 20 countries. However, according to the rules of the agreement, it takes three years for a country to withdraw with a one-year waiting period. So it wouldn’t happen until the current presidential term is up.
  2. Trump solicits comments from business leaders on which regulations to get rid of. Not surprisingly the EPA and labor are the two biggest targets. Look for more regulation changes to come around these suggestions.
  3. The EPA proposes cutting programs that protect children (and the rest of us) from lead exposure including lead paint removal regulations and emissions testing, the two largest contributors of exposure to lead. Studies show that exposure to too much lead as a child results in developmental issues and possible violence, and it is largely irreversible.
  4. Trump prepares an order to expand offshore drilling, including Arctic drilling.
  5. 61% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of environmental issues. 79% of Americans under 35 disapprove.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Trump administration looks to end the federal hiring freeze because of complaints that it’s hampering the government’s ability to get things done. Apparently the freeze increased the VA’s backlog of benefits claims, delayed processing Social Security payments, caused childcare facilities for military personnel to close, and reduced the number of FDA employees working on approving new drugs.
  2. Trump scraps the tax reform platform that was part of his election campaign and starts planning from scratch again. Time is tight, as Mnuchin set an August deadline for the plan.
  3. On top of the infrastructure plan being put on the back-burner, recent governmental actions will reduce infrastructure spending across the country. Cutbacks are largely around train lines and transportation grants.
  4. After Trump says that the dollar is getting too strong the dollar index reaches its lowest level of the month.
  5. The tax bill being drafted includes a repeal of the Johnson Amendment, which is in place to prevent church leaders from making political endorsements.
  6. 60% of Americans say that corporations and the very wealthy are likely not paying their fair share in taxes.
  7. The U.S. and China agree to a 100-day trade plan and avoid a trade war.
  8. The Office of Budget Management plans to send guidance to government agencies telling them to plan for big cuts.

Flip-flops:

In one week Trump changes his stance on a bunch of campaign statements.

  1. During the campaign, we were going to label China a currency manipulator. As of now, China is no longer a currency manipulator.
  2. During the campaign, NATO was an obsolete agency. As of now, NATO is no longer obsolete.
  3. During the campaign, Janet Yellen was ruining the country. As of now, Trump likes and respects Yellen and is considering keep her on.
  4. During the campaign, Trump thought low interest rates might cause a recession. As of now, he supports a low interest rate policy.
  5. During the campaign, Trump said “Our military is in shambles!” As of now, “It’s so incredible. It’s brilliant. It’s genius. Our technology, our equipment, is better than anybody by a factor of five.”
  6. During the campaign, Trump said the U.S. Export-Import Bank was excess garbage and agreed with conservatives on shutting it down. As of now, he says “It turns out that, first of all, lots of small companies are really helped, the vendor companies.”
  7. During the campaign, Trump said he would place steep tariffs on Chinese imports. As of now, he says there will be no 45% tariff on Chinese goods.
  8. During the campaign, Trump pushed a non-interventionist stance in Syria. As of now, he’s not only bombed Syria, but also increased troops on the ground.
  9. During the campaign, Trump promised to eliminate the debt in eight years. As of now, Mick Mulvaney says that was hyperbole.
  10. During the campaign, Wikileaks and Julian Assange were doing a service. As of now, Mike Pompeo says “WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service.” He calls Assange a narcissist and a fraud.

Miscellaneous:

  1. In a newspaper interview, Trump appears to distance himself from Steve Bannon and diminished the role he played in the campaign. He won’t say whether he still has confidence in Bannon, and claims he didn’t know Bannon until the campaign even though they met six years ago.
  2. Firemen rescue Ben Carson and his wife from a stuck elevator in an affordable housing complex in Miami.
  3. Trump leaves for Mar-a-Lago a day early this week for the Easter weekend. This is his seventh trip there in 12 weeks.
  4. Betsy DeVos reverses some of Obama’s protections for student loan borrowers, including general auditing and accountability requirements for loaners.
  5. The White House announces that visitor logs will be kept secret. Three agencies sue for access.
  6. Trump’s approval rating ticks up a bit following his shows of force abroad.
  7. In what was expected to be the second biggest day of protest since the election, Tax Marches are held across the country to urge Trump to release his taxes for the past five years as is standard for recent presidents.
  8. Trump again claims the marchers are paid protestors, and I again respond, “where’s my #*$&* money?”
  9. In a Kansas district that Republicans have easily won by double-digit margins for the past 25 years, the Republican candidate won by only 7 points. Trump won by 27% and previous Republican candidates have won by margins greater than 30 points.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

  1. Spicer puts his foot in his mouth while trying to make the point that those who support Assad are in the wrong: “You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to chemical weapons.” He continued to dig himself deeper instead of just correcting himself.
  2. Defending his vote on internet privacy rules, Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R – Wisconsin) says, “Nobody’s got to use the Internet.” Huh? Except anybody who works. Or goes to school. Or really, pretty much anyone in the U.S. who wants any chance at success.
  3. Representative Markwayne Mullin (R – Oklahoma) says at a town hall meeting with constituents, “You say you pay for me to do this? That’s bullcrap.” Then doubling down, he says “I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got here and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to go.”

Week Ten in Trump

Posted on April 3, 2017 in Politics, Trump

As I mentioned last week, Congress is making extensive use of the Congressional Review process to reverse many of Obama’s regulations from last year. As of now, Trump has signed eight resolutions reversing regulations, and Congress passed six more with a couple dozen more yet to be voted on. Paul Ryan says “these things will help get people back to work, and after years of sluggish growth, give a real boost to our economy,” even though the rules being overturned were all enacted last year and have not really had a chance to affect the economy either way.

Trump is also using executive orders to make changes. One thing to remember as far as executive orders go is that many of them only start the process of changing the regulations. The relevant agencies still need to review and revise the regulations, and these things take time. And they’ll like hit legal challenges.

By the way, if you like these roundups, you might also like these two. Both are a bit further left than I am, but I love how the Vice newsletter rounds up the week in one big, long-assed sentence.

Russia Investigation:

  1. After last week’s questionable activities on the part of Devin Nunes around classified Russia documents, Democrats call for him to step down from the House Intelligence Committee and Senator Schumer says he should be replaced.
  2. Jared Kushner volunteers to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Russia probe.
  3. According to the DoJ, the Trump administration tried to prevent Sally Yates, the fired acting AG, from testifying to the House Intelligence Committee, citing executive privilege. Yates had previously written the DoJ to be sure she could testify about this in a public hearing. She says her testimony will contradict previous statements made by the administration.
  4. Spicer refutes reports that the White House pushed to prevent Sally Yates from testifying in the Russia probe.
  5. Nunes subsequently cancels the hearing this week where Yates was supposed to testify. House Democrats on the Intelligence Committee provide a witness list, yet Nunes accuses them of stalling the investigation. It seems by the end of the week that the House investigation is on hold.
  6. It turns out Nunes did get his information about incidental surveillance last week from White House staffers Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Michael Ellis, who both work on national security.
  7. In a twist of irony, Sean Spicer says in his briefing that it shouldn’t matter who talked to whom. That what’s important is the substance… Huh? I thought the leaks were the important thing in the Russia scandal, not the substance?
  8. Mike Flynn says he’ll testify in the Russia probe if he gets full immunity, a request that both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees rejected saying it was too early to justify it.
  9. The Senate Intelligence Committee begins their hearings on Russia’s meddling in the elections and ties to the administration. They have at least 20 interviews lined up. (FYI: Richard Burr (Rep.) and Mark Warner (Dem.) head this committee.)
  10. A USA Today review of court cases and legal documents shows that Trump’s businesses have been linked to ”at least 10 wealthy former Soviet businessmen with alleged ties to criminal organizations or money laundering.”
  11. It turns out that Russia wasn’t just helping Trump during the general election, they were helping during the primaries as well.
  12. In the initial Senate hearings, we hear testimony that there were 15,000 operatives around world who were involved in creating and spreading fake news around the election.
  13. Mark Warner says there are reports that Russia had upwards of 1,000 hackers working in a facility in Russia to troll social media and create fake news targeting key areas in the U.S. using a network of bots. They used advanced algorithms to directly pinpoint certain demographics with misinformation.
  14. The FBI investigation goes back further than we thought. They are looking into whether the Trump campaign or its associates were complicit (knowingly or not) in assisting with the hacks of the DNC and others in early 2016.
  15. While no evidence has surfaced to support Trump’s wiretapping claims, it is true that the Obama administration was careful to keep records of the investigation, including an indexed list of the existing documents on the Russian investigation out of concern for what might happen to the documents.
  16. Trump continues to tweet about the unproven wiretapping claims and to call the Russia probe fake news.
  17. Clinton Watts testifies in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. If you didn’t listen to it, you should. None of it should be much of a surprise, but the way he ties it together is interesting. Here are a few clips:

Court:

  1. Democrats threaten to filibuster the Gorsuch nomination, which Republicans call unprecedented… seeming to forget all about the unprecedented move of blocking Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland for nearly a year due to it being an election year and all.
  2. Republicans need eight Democratic senators to support the Gorsuch nomination in order to avoid a filibuster. So far they have two – Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Heidi Heitkamp (ND). (Update today: Democrats have enough to filibuster).
  3. A federal judge says that the lawsuit against Trump for inciting violence at one of his rallies can proceed. Three protestors at a rally were roughed up by Trump supporters, and video shows Trump appearing to egg them on. Trump’s defense claimed freedom of speech, which the judge rejected.

Healthcare:

This is simmering on the back burner for now, but there were a few newsworthy items this week:

  1. Negotiations start up again in the House for the repeal of the ACA, but the Senate and the White House are not interested.
  2. Paul Ryan says he doesn’t want to work with Democrats on healthcare.
  3. Sean Spicer says Trump is absolutely willing to work with Democrats on this.
  4. After the Freedom Caucus fails to fall in line on the healthcare bill, Trump threatens to go after the them in the 2018 elections if they don’t get behind him.

International:

  1. NATO changes the date of their meeting to accommodate Secretary of State Tillerson’s schedule, so he will attend the meeting with NATO foreign ministers after all.
  2. Britain formally starts the process of exiting the EU (better known as Brexit), ending a 44-year relationship. The process must be completed within two years.
  3. Trump loosens combat rules in Somalia, opening up greater areas to air strikes, putting more civilians at risk, and laying the groundwork for expanded military action against Islam militants in the area. These rules were in place to prevent civilian casualties.
  4. On the campaign trail, Trump called NAFTA the “worst trade deal” but now says he will keep major portions in place. He’s wants stricter enforcement of the rules, but indicates there will not be big changes to the agreement.

Legislation:

  1. The House introduces a bill to repeal the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. It establishes a voucher program and removes some of the nutritional standards set forth original bill.
  2. After a reporter asks Trump about Michael Flynn during a signing event, Trump leaves without signing the executive orders. Pence tries to bring him back for the signing, but Trump ends up signing them later, away from the media.
  3. Trump continues to cut back regulations by signing four bills into law this week:
    • The first is a congressional resolution that reverses Obama’s BLM resource management rule aimed at managing and conserving public lands. Obama’s changes were intended to use “science-based, landscape-scale approaches” to issues like wildfires, wildlife habitats, and renewable energy, which some feared would take away too much local control.
    • The second reverses the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule, which prevented the government from granting federal contracts to companies with a history of wage, labor, or workplace safety violations.
    • The next two remove requirements for teacher training and for how states execute the Every Student Succeeds Act. This act was a bipartisan law supported by the Chamber of Commerce along with civil rights and business groups.
  4. Trump signs executive orders to address the trade deficit and to create trade policies that are more supportive of US companies and consumers. As part of this, he commissioned a 90-day study on trade deficits and abuses.
  5. Following last week’s Senate vote, the House also passes the resolution to reverse the FCC internet privacy rules from last year. With the reversal, internet service providers won’t need to get your permission to use or sell your personal info, including your location and your browsing history. Trump is expected to sign it into law, though democrats are urging him not to, citing privacy concerns. Now’s the time to bolster up your internet security and look into setting up a VPN. Anonymous browsing doesn’t work against your ISP; they still know it’s you. Fun fact: Fundraising campaigns raised $250,000 to buy the browsing history of lawmakers who support the bill.
  6. Mike Pence casts a vote in the senate to break a 50-50 tie on a rule that would overturn Title X protections and essentially allow states to withhold funds from family planning centers that provide abortions, even if those funds are not used for abortions.
  7. The Senate votes to reverse a rule that made it easier for states to create retirement plans for workers who do not have a company-sponsored retirement plan. The House already passed this bill, so it is headed to Trump for a signature.
  8. The Kansas Senate passes House Bill 2044 to expand Medicaid and take advantage of those provisions in Obamacare. This should extend healthcare insurance coverage to an estimated 150,000 Kansas residents. Governor Sam Brownback vetoes the bill despite evidence that Medicaid works.
  9. Iowa is on a roll:
    • Governor Terry Branstad signed legislation not only blocking hikes to the minimum wage, but also bringing back down the minimum wage in localities that had already raised it above the current minimum. In essence, he defined a maximum minimum wage.
    • He also signed a law reducing worker compensation laws.
    • On a strictly party-line vote, a house committee adopted the 20-week abortion ban amendment. A Republican lawmaker catches flack when she says women should carry miscarried fetuses to term.
  10. The UN raises concerns about our basic right to protest. Since the election, 19 states have introduced legislation to criminalize peaceful protests, to increase penalties for blocking traffic, and to remove basic protections for protestors.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The judge from Hawaii who was the first to block Trump’s second travel ban decides to extend the blocking order.
  2. ICE arrests three people who were beginning the process of becoming citizens by applying for green cards. They kept their appointments despite their fear of being detained. One is a mother of three, married to a US citizen. Of the five, two had no criminal violations and three had minor traffic violations.
  3. Two doctors who run a pain management facility in Texas are threatened with deportation after an administrative error lists them as overstaying their visas. They were given 24 hours to leave, though they each had procedures, including surgeries, scheduled with their patients. They were able to obtain a stay.
  4. Men dressed in shirts that say “Jewish Defense League” beat a Palestinian-American school teacher with flag poles near the APAIC conference.
  5. North Carolina moves to repeal and replace the bathroom rule that stated you must use the restroom according to the gender on your birth certificate, buckling under financial pressure from NCAA boycotts. The deal was a compromise to get more Republicans on board, which included limiting cities’ ability to create any anti-discrimination rules until 2020. Members of the LGBTQ community say it doesn’t go far enough.
  6. The final version of the 2020 census questionnaire no longer includes questions about gender identity and sexual orientation. A draft version included these questions, which would have been the first time this information would have been included.
  7. AG Jeff Sessions says the DoJ will withhold grants for criminal justice programs from sanctuary cities. Mayors of sanctuary cities around the country say they’ll put up a fight in court if federal funds are withdrawn.
  8. Seattle sues the administration over the executive order demanding federal funds be withheld from sanctuary cities.
  9. The LA County Sheriff comes out against the current bill in the CA state legislature that would make CA a sanctuary state, saying it would make it too hard to deport felons. All CA sheriffs say that when ICE requests that they hold a parolee a few days over their release date (presumably so ICE can come pick them up), they do not comply (for constitutional reasons mostly).

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump signed executive orders that basically halt efforts by the Obama administration to address climate change. The orders instruct the EPA to focus on clean air and water and to stop working on climate change — meanwhile, coal plants can now dump waste into waterways, so I’m not sure where the clean water part comes in.
  2. In the wake of the rollbacks, environmental groups already have lawsuits in the works.
  3. Staff in the Energy Department are prohibited from using the following phrases in written communications: “climate change,” “emissions reduction,” and “Paris Agreement.”
  4. Exxon sends a letter to Trump urging him to stay in the Paris climate accord, stating that it’s an ”effective framework for addressing the risks of climate change.”
  5. Trump lifts a moratorium on federal leases for coal mining, though few companies are interested in mining the newly available areas. Though Trump says he’ll bring back coal jobs, more and more power plants are moving to natural gas and 6 coal plants have either closed or plan to close since the election. Coal production has outpaced consumption, on average, since 2000.
  6. The House passes the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act, which prohibits the EPA from using science that isn’t publicly available when creating new regulations. The EPA often uses scientific data that they don’t own and therefore don’t always have the right to release it publicly. This restricts the scientific studies and data they can use.
  7. Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, encourages companies to step up and fill in the void left by Trump gutting EPA regulations. Several companies (from Apple to Walmart), cities, and states say they’ll continue down the climate regulation path set out by Obama despite the rollback of regulations.
  8. EPA scientists conclude that the insecticide chlorpyrifos should be banned due to its affect on learning and memory. Scott Pruitt rejects their conclusion. It’s already been banned from household use, but is currently used on around 50 types of crops.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The economy is expected to grow more slowly than the 3-4% Trump promised. Economists expect it to grow 2.3% this year and 2.5% next year.
  2. A woman hits at least one police car and almost hits several officers in DC Wednesday morning. Terrorism is not suspected.
  3. Trump selects Chris Christie to run his drug commission.
  4. Felony charges are filed against the two anti-abortion activists who misrepresented themselves as researchers and secretly filmed Planned Parenthood meetings.
  5. The entire White House staff, in support of Trump, plans to skip the correspondents dinner.
  6. After taking heat for her non-government office in the White House last week, Ivanka will become a government employee after all. TBD what will happen with her business holdings.
  7. Some of Trump’s wealthier donors chip in millions for a 10-state ad campaign to bolster his approval ratings and highlight his achievements.
  8. Trump groups Democrats and the Freedom Caucus together as his enemy in a tweet: “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”
  9. Three people at the inauguration in January claim to have heard George W. Bush remark afterward, “That was some weird shit.”
  10. Kushner is placed in charge of the White House Office of American Innovation, a group that will look at business-based solutions to government problems.
  11. Trump proclaims April 2017 to be National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. I hope everyone sees the irony here.
  12. The Trump administration released the financial disclosures for White House staff. Notable findings:
    • Bannon made up to $2.3 million last year.
    • Gary Cohn, a former Goldman executive, is worth between $252-$611 million.
    • Ivanka and Jared retain their vast real estate and investment business.
    • Kellyanne Conway made over $800,000 last year.
  13. Mike Pence says he doesn’t dine alone with women other than his wife. It may seem a gallant gesture, but it limits the power of women who work with him. For example, he could eat alone and talk government with any one of his male staff members but not any of his female staff members. It harks back to the old boys club, it’s archaic, and it’s built on the premise that men can’t control themselves around women.
  14. Republicans indicate that they won’t fight support for Planned Parenthood as part of budget negotiations (but they might do it under reconciliation, which puts their decisions into law).
  15. Trump’s infrastructure plans had been put on hold until 2018, but now he wants to work on tax reform and infrastructure at the same time. This is seen as an attempt to get the support of Democrats and avoid the Freedom Caucus.