Tag: russia investigation

Week 113 in Trump

Posted on March 26, 2019 in Politics, Trump

NBC News

Finally the week we’ve been waiting for. Mueller completes his investigation and turns in his final report to Attorney General William Barr. Barr takes two days to review it and send a summary to Congress. It sounds like good news for Trump (no collusion!), but we won’t know for sure until we can see it ourselves. If we can see it ourselves, that is. Mueller declined to make a determination on obstruction, and Barr’s letter barely skims the surface of the content. At any rate, it’s been a little anti-climactic.

Here’s what else happened this week…

Russia:

  1. A court releases documents pertaining to the raid on Michael Cohen’s properties. It turns out that when federal prosecutors were investigating Michael Cohen last year, they were easily able to obtain digital data stored in the U.S., but Google wasn’t turning over information stored abroad. That is, until Trump signed the CLOUD Act, which made it easier for the FBI to obtain offshore information.
  2. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had planned to leave the DOJ in mid-March, but now it appears he’ll stay on longer to help the new Attorney General and to help his replacement transition in.
  3. The most intriguing thing I read this week is about a Russian journalist who went undercover at the Russian troll factory Internet Research, LLC, in 2014. Unfortunately, her report is in Russian and doesn’t translate well, but here are some highlights:
    • The factory runs 24/7, including holidays, with a few hundred people on every shift.
    • Those who have the best English skills pose as Americans and develop online personas.
    • Her job at the factory was to spark anti-American sentiment among Russians.
    • The factory also employs bloggers to get their message out.
    • The messages they send out are nearly identical to the messages put out by state-run media.
    • Take a look at some of the rallies they held to pit us against each other.
  1. And thus it ends…or does it? Robert Mueller files his final report to Attorney General William Barr, and now it’s up to Barr what to do with the information. Mueller hasn’t recommended any more indictments, though there are several ongoing investigations in district attorneys’ offices, state offices, and the House. Here’s a recap of the entire investigation (as is known to the public) so far. It’s interesting how much we forget.
  2. Remaining open investigations include:
    • Southern District of New York: the hush money payments, Trump’s inaugural fund, campaign finance violations, and the activities of a pro-Trump Super PAC.
    • NY state: Trump Organization real estate deals and possible insurance fraud, Trump Foundation, undocumented workers at Trump’s golf course, and Trump’s taxes.
    • Maryland and D.C. Districts: emoluments clause violations.
    • DOJ: Still investigating at least 12 Russian intelligence agents believed to play a part in the hacking attacks against the DNC.
    • House committees: Russia meddling, obstruction, security clearances, Deutsche Bank’s loans to Trump Organization, tax returns, Saudi Arabian ties, the Trump Tower meeting, and emoluments clause violations.
    • There’s also the Summer Zervos defamation lawsuit, the lawsuit over his legal fees, and Roger Stone’s court case.
  1. By the end of the weekend, just two days after receiving Mueller’s report, Barr delivers a summary of Mueller’s main findings to Congress. Main points, according to Barr:
    • Mueller didn’t find coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the elections.
    • Russian individuals offered several times to assist the Trump campaign.
    • Mueller declined to decide on obstruction of justice charges against Trump (similar to what happened during both the Nixon and Clinton investigations). Mueller did lay out the evidence for both sides of that argument, though.
    • Mueller said his report doesn’t exonerate Trump of obstruction allegations.
    • Barr and Rosenstein won’t charge Trump, but Congress can still look into the charges.
    • Barr promises to release additional information. It’s notable that Ken Starr released his entire report on Clinton to the public.
  1. Trump claims that Barr’s letter proves Mueller’s report exonerates him. At the beginning of the week, though, he said that Mueller’s report is illegitimate because Mueller was never elected.
    • Then Trump says House Republicans should vote to make the Mueller report public, but he later says that there should be no Mueller report. Make up your mind, man!
  1. Trump wants Attorney General Barr to open investigations into Hillary, Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan.
  2. Devin Nunes tells Fox News the Mueller Report should be burned (I wonder why). In other Nunes news, he’s suing two parody Twitter accounts, @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow, because they were mean to him. And hilariously so.
  3. Leaked bits of a deposition from Christopher Steele show he used web searches and crowdsourced reporting to verify some of the information about Webzilla in his dossier. He wasn’t aware the CNN iReport is not associated with CNN journalists. But that’s only part of the story—he was unable to disclose other methods of investigation.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Judicial Watch releases an additional trove of Clinton emails received from the FBI as a result of a FOIA request.
    • Judicial Watch and Fox News claim the emails show that Clinton did the same thing as Michael Flynn by talking to Tony Blair in the days before Obama’s inauguration, that she shared classified information on her private emails, and that she had offers to establish a back channel of communication with Netanyahu.
    • I’m about halfway through reading them, and I don’t see the sharing of classified information, and it’s hard to tell if she overstepped by talking to Blair. It looks like she put off the serious talks until after the inauguration.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Senate Republicans prepare to propose a resolution that would make it easier to confirm Trump’s judicial nominations at the district level by reducing the amount of debate time required.
  2. A county judge in Wisconsin temporarily blocks a bunch of laws passed by last year’s GOP legislature and governor that would have curbed the power of their new governor. The judge says that the legislature convened under an “extraordinary session” which isn’t covered in their state constitution.
    • The ruling cancels 82 appointments made by former governor Scott Walker.
    • Immediately following the decision, Governor Tony Evers takes advantage of the reprieve to pull Wisconsin out of a lawsuit whose aim is to overturn the ACA.
    • Evers could move quickly to enact his own agenda, but he says they’re taking their time to make changes thoughtfully, not impulsively (probably to avoid the same pitfall the GOP fell into here).
  1. The Supreme Court appears split so far in hearings about gerrymandering in Virginia. A lower court already ruled that the gerrymandering there disenfranchises minorities and gives the GOP a boost. House Republicans appealed the case, but it’s not clear they have legal standing to do so.
    • The Court has two similar cases pending for North Carolina and Maryland.

Healthcare:

  1. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that 14 states plus the District of Columbia aren’t in compliance with federal Medicaid laws covering abortion. They don’t cover the abortion pill in cases of rape, incest, or endangerment.

International:

  1. Mike Pompeo briefs the State Department on International religious freedoms. They deny access to all media except “faith-based” media, and refuse to release transcripts. They also refuse to release the list of faith-based media on the guest list and the criteria for being invited.
  2. Within six days of the mosque shootings that left nearly 50 people dead, New Zealand passes gun laws banning “military-style” assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. That’s how you get it done, folks.
  3. Trump declares that the U.S. should officially recognized Israel’s occupation of Golan Heights.
  4. Theresa May requests a delay on the Brexit deadline from the EU, and they grant her a short stay. Unless the Parliament can agree on a deal, they have until April 12 to exit.
  5. The ISIS caliphate is destroyed, marking the end of a four-year campaign to wrest control of the land back from the group. This means that they don’t hold any land in Iraq or Syria, but the threat isn’t gone. They’ve already moved to a more traditional terrorist group—a clandestine network running guerrilla attacks.
  6. Trump announces he’s withdrawing the sanctions against North Korea that he said were announced earlier that day. Except no sanctions were announced that day, leading some to believe that he’s referring to sanctions announced the previous day. However, the administration says he’s talking about sanctions that hadn’t even been announced yet and that were super secret. Whoopsies!
    • Fast forward a few days: According to five sources, it turns out that the “secret sanction” story was a cover. Trump was referring to the sanctions announced the previous day but was talked out of withdrawing them. There were no unannounced sanctions.
  1. The U.S. increases the number of troops that will stay in Syria to 1,000.
  2. The U.S. announces new Iran sanctions, this time against 14 people and 17 entities associated with Iran’s defense and research organization, SPND.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Crime is rising in Tijuana, so some people who live there are stealing Trump’s new concertina wire off the fence at the border to put around and protect their own homes.
  2. The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps says Trump poses a risk to combat readiness by sending troops to the border and by using military funding for the border wall. Already they’ve had to cancel several trainings and delay much-needed repairs to their bases.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro visits the White House, and says this (to which Trump vigorously nods in agreement): The U.S. and Brazil are together ”in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God, our Creator, against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes, and against fake news.” No wonder they call him the Trump of the Tropics.
    • Bolsonaro has previously said he’d rather his son die than be gay and that parents should beat the gay out of their children. Nice guy.
  1. The Supreme Court rules that people with past criminal records can be detained indefinitely throughout the course of their deportation proceedings even if they’ve never committed another crime. This will likely cause more overcrowding in detention centers.
  2. In yet another desecration of a Jewish cemetery, vandals knock over 59 gravestones and mark them with antisemitic slurs, swastikas, and Hitler references.
  3. House Democrats reintroduce a bill that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of groups protected in the Civil Rights Act. Why? Because most states don’t provide protections, and you can be kicked out of your apartment or fired from your job for being part of the LGBTQ community.
  4. The U.S. has denied travel visas to several women trying to participate in the UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women. Some of these women fell under the Muslim Ban, but the U.S. government technically isn’t allowed to prevent individuals from going to the UN headquarters in New York. The same thing happened last year.
  5. A flight attendant for Mesa Airlines out of Arizona put Mexico and Canada on her “no fly” list because she’s a DACA recipient and Trump’s new rules prevent her from flying outside the country. They put her on a flight to Mexico anyway, and not surprisingly she was detained. And even though she’s from Peru, they sent her back to Mexico. She was held for over a month before finally being released.
  6. A comparison of hate-crime incidents and Trump rallies shows that counties where Trump rallies were held had a 226% increase in hate crimes vs. counties that didn’t host Trump rallies. The study controlled for crime rates and active hate groups, among other things, and counties that held rallies were compared to similar counties that did not.
  7. Despite the Trump administration’s announcement last week that they’re moving forward on the ban on transgender troops, a judge blocks them from doing so. Apparently the administration says that a previous court order blocking the ban was lifted, but it wasn’t.
  8. As part of a court settlement, the state of Michigan says they’ll no longer fund adoption agencies that discriminate against LGBTQ couples.
  9. Indiana and New Mexico add non-binary gender options to official documents, and United Airlines adds the option for booking flights.
  10. Someone vandalizes a mosque in southern California with fire and graffiti referencing the New Zealand killing of nearly 50 Muslims in two mosques. What kind of person glorifies a mass killing? Geez.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Midwest is hit with record flooding, and it’s not done yet. There’s still snowmelt coming along with spring rains. Floating ice in the floodwaters has only increased the damage.
    • Nebraska is largely under emergency declarations. Flooding also hit parts of Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Wyoming (and earlier this year, Michigan, Illinois, and California).
    • The flooding has killed livestock, destroyed grain bins, and closed businesses. A number of farmers aren’t expected to recover from this.
  1. A cyclone hits Mozambique, killing at least 750 people.
  2. A federal judge rules that the Department of the Interior (specifically the BLM) broke the law by ignoring climate impact studies in their decisions to open Wyoming lands to gas and oil drilling under Obama.
    • This could become a stumbling block to the Trump administration’s efforts to further expand gas and oil drilling.
    • The judge doesn’t block the drilling outright, but directs the BLM to perform climate impact evaluations again.
  1. Newly released audio recordings of a meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America show that shortly after David Bernhardt was appointed to the second highest position in the Interior Department, members laughed about their unprecedented access to the president and administration.
    • Bernhardt is currently nominated to become Secretary of the Interior, replacing Ryan Zinke.
    • So far, the Interior has granted the Independent Petroleum Association of America nearly all of their deregulation requests.
  1. California’s population grew by 11.7% since 2005, but gas consumption is down and the state runs on 33% renewable energy (two years ahead of schedule).
  2. Carbon dioxide emissions in the United Kingdom decrease for the sixth year in a row.
  3. Nevada joins the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance, making it the 23rd state to join.

Budget/Economy:

  1. February’s job report was dismal, with just 20,000 jobs added. Of those, nearly 3/4 were created in one state—California.
  2. The U.S. also had its largest monthly deficit ever in February, coming to $234 billion. The previous high was $231.7 billion in February of 2012.
  3. General Motors plans to idle five of their U.S. plants and lay off 14,000 workers. Trump pressures them to stay open or sell to another company that can use the factories.
  4. The Trump administration wants to cap federal student loan borrowing, saying that will cause schools to lower tuition fees. School administrators say that isn’t how it works.
  5. Betsy DeVos wants to stop subsidizing low-income students and wants to end loan forgiveness for public service workers.
  6. The Trump administration says that the tax cuts won’t create 3% growth after all. We also need to rollback labor regulations (I think businesses have already gotten a pretty decent break here), a $1 trillion infrastructure plan (yes!), and additional tax cuts (how’re we supposed to pay for the infrastructure then?).

Elections:

  1. Arizona pulls out of the controversial Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program. Crosscheck was founded to compare voter records across states to make sure people aren’t registered to vote in more than one state, and to purge voter rolls if they are. After Kris Kobach took over the program, false matches started coming to light and multiple lawsuits ensued (one claiming that the system falsely matches records in 99% of all matches).
    • Nine states have dropped from the Crosscheck program so far.
    • 26 states belong to a different program, the Electronic Registration Information Center, founded by Pew Charitable Trusts.
  1. Ever since voters in Florida passed Amendment 4 last year, restoring voting rights to ex-felons who’ve completed their sentence, the state government has been working on ways to stymie that effort. Their House just passed a bill that would make ex-felons pay fees and fines before getting their voting rights back.
    • There’s a question of whether this is constitutional (imposing fees or taxes on voting).
    • And why did so many voters vote for this issue and then go on to vote for officials that they knew would oppose it?
  1. A federal court orders legislators in Mississippi to redraw a State Senate district that they previously drew to dilute minority voting power. The judge says the district violates the Voting Rights Act.
  2. Trump says it’s Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s fault that the economy didn’t exceed 4% growth last year.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Paul Ryan will join the board of Fox Corp’s new organization after the sale of their film and TV assets to Disney.
  2. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump both use WhatsApp and personal email accounts for official government business. But her emails…
  3. Trump lays into John McCain and then blames the media for his outburst when he doesn’t get the audience response he was expecting. He did this during a speech in Ohio and on Twitter with no prodding from any members of the media.
  4. Within days of each other, two Parkland school shooter survivors commit suicide. We passed the year anniversary 5 weeks ago. In the same week, one of the parents who lost his child in the Sandy Hook shooting also commits suicide. He and his wife started a foundation to combat violence.
  5. Trump signs an executive order forcing colleges to comply with his standards of free speech in order to receive certain federal grants.
  6. The Trump supporter who sent pipe bombs to targets of Trump’s ire pleads guilty. He says he didn’t design them to blow up, though he knew they could’ve. He sounds pretty remorseful.
  7. The DoD Inspector General opens an investigation into whether Acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan showed favoritism to Boeing over other manufacturers.
  8. Teachers from an elementary school in Indiana sue the local sheriff’s office after the office conducted an active shooter drill where they took staff into a room in small groups at a time, lined them up on their knees, and shot at them from behind using plastic pellets.
 What could go wrong?

Polls:

  1. The U.S. drops to number 19 in the World Happiness Report, which is still pretty good when you consider they look at 156 countries. Finland is still the happiest country on earth.
  2. 78% of the Republican Fox News audience thinks Trump is the most successful president in history. 79% say U.S. intelligence agencies are trying to sabotage him. Only 49% of Republicans who don’t watch Fox News believe either of those things. Read into that what you want…

Week 77 in Trump

Posted on July 16, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Sean Gallup / Getty Images

It was a busy week, with Trump going after NATO on his way to making nice with Putin, protests greeting him wherever he goes, and Mueller dropping a 29-page indictment days before Trump’s meeting with Putin. Back home, things aren’t getting much better for new asylum seekers and for families separated at the border (though some have been reunited). Tariffs are still a hot issue, as is Peter Strzok’s testimony (I swear the right saw one version of the hearing and the left saw a completely different one – crazy).

Here’s what happened last week…

Russia:

  1. Michael Flynn will likely be sentenced in the fall, right around midterm elections.
  2. We learn that during their trip to Moscow last week, Republican members of Congress met with two Russians who are currently under U.S. sanctions. While several lawmakers came back with a softened stance on Russia, Senator John Kennedy told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Congress will double down on sanctions if Russia interferes again.
  3. While working to get a meeting with Putin, Trump insulted members of his administration who didn’t think the meeting was a good idea, calling them “stupid people.” He berated his own people in deference to Putin.
  4. Twitter has deleted 70 million suspicious accounts, most of which are bots or fake accounts.
  5. Paul Manafort’s request for a delay of trial backfires when a judge denies it and moves him to a closer facility. Manafort says it’s too hard to prepared for trial while incarcerated 100 miles away, but objected strongly to the move—a big surprise to the judge. But then we learn that in his current prison, Manafort:
    • Has access to computers.
    • Has his own phone and no limit to how many calls he can make.
    • Has access to all his files.
    • Has private living quarters with his own bathroom and shower.
    • Doesn’t have to wear a uniform.
  1. Manafort asks the judge not to move him, but the judge thinks it’s the easiest fix to the problem of being 100 miles away.
  2. Mueller requests 100 new blank subpoenas for the Manafort trial on top of the 150 he requested last month.
  3. Peter Strzok, a former top counterintelligence FBI agent who was involved in the Russia investigation, testifies publicly before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committee.
  4. Strzok’s hearing devolves into a shouting match, with GOP Reps resorting to profanity and Strzok staunchly defending the FBI. Nothing new was learned, there was much posturing, and Strzok heartily defended the FBI and himself (leading to people who don’t like him to start calling him “smug”). He often had to explain how the FBI hierarchy works and how they check their politics at the door. Strzok was limited on what he could say about much of the ongoing investigation.
  5. A day after Strzok’s testimony, the woman he exchanged texts with, Lisa Page, testifies behind close doors. Despite Republicans previously trying to smear her by saying she wasn’t cooperating, Mark Meadows (R-NC) came out saying she was more forthcoming than Strzok. Like Strzok, she defended her texts, saying that their political feelings did not influence their work.
  6. GOP lawmakers don’t want Page to testify publicly (they were resistant to Strzok testifying publicly as well).
  7. After the farce of a hearing with Strzok, Trey Gowdy has this to say. You just don’t know which Gowdy you’re going to get from one day to the next…

“As I have repeatedly said, it is clear, based on the evidence, Russia had disdain for Secretary Clinton and was motivated in whole or in part by a desire to harm her candidacy or undermine her presidency had she prevailed.”

  1. Mueller comes down with 12 new indictments again Russian intelligence (GRU) officers in a filing that gives us much more detail about what happened with the hacking, who was involved, and what Mueller actually knows (which is a lot more than I thought). Here are some highlights:
    • The indictments are for stealing and leaking emails from Democrats and Democratic organizations to help Trump get elected in 2016.
    • Hackers used spearphishing and malware.
    • They used screen shots and keystroke loggers to monitor what DNC and DCCC employees were typing.
    • They extracted gigabytes of opposition research on Republican candidates.
    • The Russian government was behind the interference campaign.
    • The Russians being indicted created the Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks online personas.
    • An associate of senior members of Trump’s campaign was in touch with Guccifer 2.0. That person is believed to be Roger Stone, but that’s not spelled out in the indictment.
    • A congressional candidate asked Guccifer 2.0 for stolen documents on their opponent, which that candidate did receive.
    • The Russian hackers made their first attempt to hack Hillary’s personal emails on the same day that Trump (on TV) asked Russia to find the 30,000 missing emails.
    • Two of the hackers conspired to access servers of people and organizations that handle elections, like secretaries of state, state boards of elections, and supporting software companies.
    • The hackers breached a state board of elections website and accessed information for 500,000 voters along with DNC analytics.
    • The scope of the indictment shows that the misinformation campaign involved more than just propaganda and division.
  1. Democratic leaders on congressional intelligence committees urge Trump to cancel his meeting with Putin following the announcement of the indictments and to demand proof that Russia is no longer interfering in our elections.
  2. Trump says he might consider canceling joint NATO exercises in the Baltic States if Putin requests it.
  3. The White House orders the FBI to expand access to classified information to all intelligence committee members. Remember, these documents are about an ongoing investigation.
  4. After the indictment is published, Trump blames the DNC for the hack, saying Republicans had stronger internet security. And then he went on to blame Obama, since it happened under his administration.
    Side note: In his testimony, James Comey said that Republicans were also hacked, but the hacked information was never released. From what I can find, old RNC servers and Republican state campaigns were successfully hacked, but the Trump campaign and current RNC servers were not. I can’t verify this though.
  5. Trump also says it never occurred to him to demand the extradition of the Russians who’ve been indicted so far in the probe so they can face charges.
  6. Mitch McConnell rejects bipartisan requests for a select committee investigation into the Russian meddling and hacking in the 2016 elections. They aren’t requesting an investigation into Trump; just a non-partisan effort to understand what happened and to make sure Russia can’t do it again.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Trump nominates DC district court judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to fill Kennedy’s seat. Kavanaugh clerked for Kennedy and been a part of the DC scene for much of his career.
  2. Rod Rosenstein has requested help from U.S district attorneys to review government documents related to Kavanaugh due to the scope of the documents requested.
  3. Even though Brian Benczkowski, Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, has never prosecuted a criminal case and previously represented Alfa Bank, every GOP senator votes to confirm him to the position.
  4. Trump issues an executive order giving agency heads more leeway in hiring administrative judges, who implement much of the regulatory agenda in an administration.
  5. The DOJ files a notice that it will try to overturn a ruling that allows AT&T to buy Time Warner, claiming that the acquisition violates anti-trust laws.
  6. Trump wants to be able to hold prisoners for 100 years in Guantanamo without ever bringing charges.

Healthcare:

  1. Russian asbestos company Uralasbest creates asbestos pallets with Trump’s likeness on them. The company cites former EPA head Scott Pruitt’s and Trump’s voiced support for the carcinogenic product.
  2. A new congressional report says that from 2012 to 2017, three companies sent around 1.6 billion opioids to Missouri pharmacies (that averages to about 260 pills for every person in the state).
  3. The administration plans to shut down the National Guideline Clearinghouse, which keeps records of medical guidelines and research. This is an invaluable source of information for medical practitioners and gets about 200,000 visitors per month. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) says they won’t even keep an archived version.

International:

  1. Brexit leader Boris Johnson resigns as Foreign Secretary less than a day after Brexit Secretary David Davis resigns. Their resignations are over the regulatory and trade terms of Brexit.
  2. Israeli, Saudi Arabian, and UAE officials have been trying to get Trump to strike a bargain with Putin where Russia would help get Iran out of Syria and the U.S. would drop sanctions against Russia (for invading Ukraine and Crimea).
  3. Before his upcoming meetings with Putin and NATO, Trump says that he thinks his meetings with Putin will be easier than meetings with our allies in NATO.
  4. Irony alert. At the NATO summit, Trump says Germany is “a captive of Russia.”
  5. Though NATO nations have been increasing their military spending as a percent of GDP (per a 2014 agreement), Trump criticizes them for not yet meeting their 2% promise. And then says they should spend 4% of GDP on the military, a level above even U.S. spending.
  6. Trump claims we spend 4.2% of our GDP on defense instead of the reported 3.5%.
  7. Trump declares victory at the NATO summit, saying European nations quickly agreed to his spending demands and were grateful to him. But other nations say they just reaffirmed the 2014 agreement to reach 2% spending by 2024.
  8. The Sun publishes an interview with Trump where he’s highly critical of Theresa May’s approach to Brexit while praising former secretary Boris Yeltsin. In the interview, Trump says he told May how to do Brexit, but she “wrecked” it. And then he says the trade deal is off.
  9. The next day, Trump says May is doing a great job. May discounts the interview, saying it’s just the press, and Trump calls it fake news. Of note, The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox (not fake) News.
  10. Sarah Huckabee Sanders then tries to clean it up by saying that he said he never said anything bad about May.
  11. And then May and Trump agree to pursue a free trade deal after Brexit is complete. Brexit is currently complicated by the departure of two key figures in the deal. Actually, it’s complicated by so many things.
  12. Taking a line from white nationalists, Trump says that immigration is changing Europe’s culture, and that it’s a bad thing.
  13. There are nationwide protests in the U.K. while Trump is there, including in Scotland where he goes to golf at one of his properties. In London, demonstrators fly a “Trump Baby” blimp as part of their protests. The protestors also play mariachi music and tapes of detained children crying for their parents.
  14. Trump and Melanie get called out for not bowing and curtsying to the queen, though that is not a required protocol, just a respectful one. But then Trump walks in front of the queen, leaving her to catch up and try to figure out what side to walk on while they inspect a guard of honour.
  15. Theresa May says Trump told her to sue the EU instead of negotiating with them.
  16. Trump says that our allies in the EU are our foes.
  17. All this time that Trump has been highly critical of Qatar for sponsoring terrorists, his administration has been working out a deal to sell Qatar $21 billion in weapons, authorized by none other than Trump.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Both the House and the Senate pass bipartisan resolutions reaffirming our support for NATO.
  2. Even though a bipartisan spending agreement earlier this year allowed for funding of CDC research into gun violence, GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee blocked a proposal to provide $10 million in such funding.
  3. The House Appropriations Committee passes an amendment that would let adoption agencies nationwide discriminate against prospective parents based on closely held religious beliefs. States that don’t comply could lose 15% of their funding for adoption agencies. Just another step to increase LGBTQ discrimination.
  4. The House passes with no objections an amendment to the Intelligence Authorization Act that will create a Foreign Malign Influence Response Center. The center will defend against foreign efforts to interfere in our elections (I think they’re looking at you, Russia). Dan Coates, Director of National Intelligence, will work to establish this collaboration across all relevant agencies.
  5. The Senate, in preparation for Trump’s meeting with NATO, passes a non-binding motion in support for NATO. The vote was 97-2.

Family Separation:

  1. A federal judge rules that Trump can’t detain immigrant families long-term.
  2. Some women who were pregnant when detained by ICE complain of having miscarriages with no medical assistance.
  3. The Trump administration returns to ankle bracelet monitoring, or what he called “catch and release” under Obama. This method has historically resulted in an extremely high percentage of people showing up for their immigration hearings.
  4. In a court filing, ICE says it can’t reunite a separated family because they can’t locate the parents, who might be American citizens.
  5. A judge orders ICE to post notices in detention facilities letting detainees know that they don’t have to agree to be deported in order to be reunited with their families. It’s not like every deported parent has been reunited with their children anyway. Apparently ICE officials have been exploiting this to get people to be voluntarily deported.
  6. A judge orders the Trump administration to pay for reunification costs themselves. Before, if a parent didn’t have the money to travel to wherever their child has been moved to, they couldn’t be reunited. Some parents were told they have to pay for a DNA test to be reunited. There’s obviously a misunderstanding here over what it means to be an asylum seeker.
  7. The Trump administration puts an end to the Central American Minors program. This was an Obama-era program that reunited Central American children with their parents in the U.S. This is just one of several humanitarian relief programs the Trump administration has ended. There’s a class action lawsuit against the termination of this program.
  8. The Trump administration fails to reunite the youngest separated children by the court-ordered deadline.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Hate crimes across the country have been increasing since 2015, and experts say it’s partly because of political rhetoric, specifically Trump’s vitriolic brand of it. Hate crimes spiked right after the 2016 election.
  2. The DOJ issues new guidance to reject asylum claims based on gang or domestic violence. This means ICE can turn people away before they even get a chance to plead for asylum.
  3. John Schnatter resigns as chairman of Papa Johns after using a racial slur in a role-playing game on a company call. Schnatter has been a controversial figure, saying the ACA would increase the cost of each pizza by 14 cents and some franchises would have to cut employee’s hours. More recently, he’s complained that the NFL protest was costing his company.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A Pence family business, Kiel Bros. Oil Co., went bankrupt in 2004 leaving behind several abandoned gas stations. Kentucky, Illinois, and Mike Pence’s home state of Indiana have spent $10s of millions to clean up those gas stations.
  2. The EPA sends a proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. The new plan would loosen limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, while the Clean Power Plan tightened them up. The changes are at the behest of industry lobbyists.

Budget/Economy:

  1. This week, federal agencies start implementing the guidelines in Trump’s executive orders on public employee unions.
  2. Randomly, Russia is the beneficiary of Trump’s trade war with China, as China triples its soybean imports from Russia and cancels 1.1 million tons worth of soybean orders from the U.S.
  3. The price of soybeans drops to a 10-year low in the U.S., as the prices in Brazil reach new highs, because of Trump’s trade wars.
  4. Other countries, including China, are unsure of what Trump wants from them in his trade war. Most think he doesn’t have a strategy.
  5. The Trump administration says they’re in the process of putting tariffs in place on $200 billion worth of goods from China, effectively halting trade talks between the U.S. and China.
  6. And according to Steven Mnuchin, trade talks with China have broken down. China says the U.S. is acting erratically and encouraging trade wars.
  7. Oh, and in case you were wondering, none of those tariffs affect the Ivanka lines manufactured in China.
  8. Despite the Senate having taken steps to make sure that Trump couldn’t help out sanctioned Chinese company ZTE, the Commerce Department loosens restrictions on the company, allowing it to continue doing business with US companies.
  9. Trump claims that our GDP has doubled and even tripled since he took office. First, it can only be one or the other and not both. Second, while the GDP is growing, it’s not even up 10% since he took office. The GDP has doubled since 2000, and tripled since 1992.
  10. A recent study from the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that the top 20% of U.S. earners received 65% of the benefit of tax reforms enacted since 2000. Here are a few findings:
    • Since 2000, tax cuts have cut federal revenue by $5.1 trillion, expected to double by 2025.
    • in 2012, when the Bush cuts and some Obama cuts were in place, the highest earners saw the most benefit.
    • in 2015, when some of the Bush cuts were reversed and ACA taxes were in place, the benefit was spread across all earners.
    • In 2018, now that the GOP tax reform is in place, the benefits go back to the high earners.
  1. Worker wages dropped 1% in the second quarter from the previous quarter. Real wages dropped 1.4% due to inflation levels hitting a 6-year high. Experts don’t know why wages aren’t seeing the increase that is typical in a tight labor market like this.
  2. Trump declares an end to the war on poverty, claiming (incorrectly) that only 3% of Americans are truly poor. While Republicans have long criticized safety net programs as ineffective, Trump is now saying that they’ve worked and the war is over. So now it’s time to reform social welfare and entitlement programs.

Elections:

  1. In a recorded conversation, a GOP candidate in the Georgia gubernatorial primary basically told one of his opponents that they cared about the same issues but that they couldn’t let the public in on that because of politics. He also explains how he shifted policies to stop donors from donating to a PAC that didn’t support him.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump pardons Dwight and Steven Hammond, two Oregon ranchers who set fire to federal land. Their arrests led to the armed standoff at a wildlife refuge by supporters of the Hammonds.
  2. Trump’s person driver of over two decades has received only two raises over the last 15 years. In order to get his last raise, he had to give up his employer-based health insurance. He’s suing for unpaid overtime to the tune of $200,000.