Tag: senate

Week 51 in Trump

Posted on January 16, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Shithole, shithole, shithole. There, I said it. But that’s not what we should be focused on here. We all know that Trump uses colorful language. What we should be focused on is the intent behind those words in a meeting on immigration. Whatever else guides our immigration process, respect for all parties involved is imperative. IMO, immigration makes America great, and we lose out when people stop coming here. And that’s what’s happening right now, especially apparent in college applications and in the tourism industry. By disrespecting any country, Trump discourages people of all nationalities from coming here. So whether or not you think what Trump said is racist, enough people (even Norwegians!) do think it’s racist. And that makes them not want to come here.

Here’s what happened this week…

Russia:

  1. Mueller has said he wants to interview Trump, and at first Trump’s legal team says sure. But Trump goes from saying it’s likely he’ll sit down with Mueller to saying it’s unlikely. The legal team wants to submit written responses instead of having a face-to-face sit-down.
  2. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s National Security Adviser, says there’s evidence of Russia meddling in Mexico’s upcoming election in July.
  3. Bannon clarifies his words quoted in the book “Fire & Fury” by explaining it wasn’t treasonous of Don Jr. to organize the meeting with Russians last year because he’s too inexperienced. However it was treasonous of Manafort to attend because he should’ve known better.
  4. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, releases Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s court testimony after Chairman Chuck Grassley drags his feet on it for months. Feinstein has long been known as a senator who can bridge both sides of the aisle; she’s a deal maker. But this is an indication that she’s fed up with D.C. partisanship and doesn’t care about burning bridges. I won’t go into detail, but here are a few bits:
    • Fusion GPS didn’t know what they’d find about Trump’s dealings with Russia. They were doing opposition research in other countries as well.
    • They say the FBI had a source in the Trump campaign, and that source had concerns about Russia ties.
    • Much of the information in the dossier has been corroborated by U.S. intelligence; none of it has been disproven.
    • Steel reached out to the FBI of his own accord because he was alarmed by what he found. Steel cut off ties with the FBI when he started to think they weren’t following up on the investigation.
    • It was a lot of info. You can read the whole thing here.
  1. Chuck Grassley says that Feinstein’s action will make it harder to secure testimony from other witnesses, even though Simpson himself requested the testimony be publicized and even though Grassley has been refusing to approve requests for witnesses.
  2. Trump criticizes Feinstein’s release of the document and calls it underhanded and possibly criminal. He gave her a new nickname—“Sneaky Dianne Feinstein.” LOL.
  3. The Senate’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in our election lacks staff and resources compared to other investigations. There are only 7 Senate staffers assigned, compared to 46 staffers assigned in the Benghazi investigation in 2014.
  4. Russia Ambassador Jon Huntsman says the relationship between U.S. and Russia will be over if they interfere in the 2018 midterms. He also warns that he doesn’t think they’re going to quit.
  5. Trump attorney Michael Cohen files defamation suits against Buzzfeed and Fusion GPS. He says the dossier incorrectly names him in association with Russian contacts.
  6. We find out that Mueller added a prosecutor with extensive cyber crime experience to his team last fall. It looks like they’re adding computer crimes to the focus of their investigation.
  7. Senator Ben Cardin releases a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report that describes two decades of Russian attacks against democracy, concluding that we are not prepared to defend ourselves against Russian meddling in our elections—including the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. Why? Because the controlling party in Congress is too busy trying to prove it never happened in 2016.
  8. Trend Micro reveals that the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear is using the same hacking methods against the U.S. Senate that it used in the French elections last year against now President Macron. They set up a chain of websites mimicking U.S. Senate sites in order to harvest emails.
  9. The FBI has a foreign influence task force that will notify us about any Russian efforts to interfere in our elections and to manipulate social media.
  10. Facebook announces changes that will focus your news feed on family and friends instead of paid content as a way to fight fake news. Test runs of this haven’t been that successful, though.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A few of Trump’s judicial nominations expire, and Trump renominates two that the ABA rated not qualified to serve. He’s renominated 21 judicial nominees.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump signs an executive order giving the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs 60 days to come up with a plan for veterans to have seamless access to coverage for mental health and suicide prevention resources for a year.
  2. A Florida court strikes down a law that mandated a 24-hour waiting period after meeting with a doctor before having an abortion. The court says the law is a violation of a woman’s right to privacy.
  3. Trump announces that states will be able to have more control over their Medicaid guidelines including requiring work for able-bodied recipients.
  4. The Trump administration ends the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices, which provides information to the public about evidence-based programs for mental health and substance abuse. The registry helps individuals and organizations see what programs are out there and the results of those programs in order to determine best practices for their own communities. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) says they’ll just handle it themselves from now on.
  5. The Trump administration agrees to pay legal fees in the lawsuits against the Obama administration over the birth control mandate of the ACA. Originally the law firm wanted the government to pay $29 million.
  6. A CBO analysis shows that reauthorizing CHIP for 10 years would actually save $6 billion. The program expired last year when Congress failed to reauthorize it, and some states are running on life support.
  7. Nearly a year into his term, Trump’s pledge to pull together people and resources to address the opioid epidemic isn’t showing much promise. The drug policy office (the ONDCP) doesn’t have a director and at least seven appointees have left. The deputy chief of staff is a recent graduate whose only experience is working on Trump’s campaign.

International:

  1. The UN pushes Israel to NOT deport tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Africa. Israel gave them until March to leave or face jail, and will even pay for their airfare home and pay them $3,500.
  2. Trump considers a small military attack against North Korea to let them know we’re serious, while at the same time hoping it doesn’t start a nuclear war. His administration is trying to convince him not to, saying nuclear war is not worth it.
  3. The Trump administration proposes a plan to ease restrictions on using nuclear weapons and also to develop new low-yield nuclear warheads for Trident missiles. The plan also increases the situations where we might use nuclear weapons.
  4. Trump cancels his planned trip to the UK, saying he doesn’t like Theresa May and then blaming Barrack Obama for George Bush’s plan to move the embassy in London. He criticizes Obama for selling the original embassy for too little, a price that was negotiated under Bush.
  5. Our ambassador to Panama, John Feeley, resigns because he can no longer serve under Trump. Feeley is a career diplomat and a former Marine. Here’s what he said:

“As a junior foreign service officer, I signed an oath to serve faithfully the president and his administration in an apolitical fashion, even when I might not agree with certain policies. My instructors made clear that if I believed I could not do that, I would be honor bound to resign. That time has come.”

  1. Trump OKs the Iran deal again, but adds sanctions to 14 individuals and entities for issues not related to Iran’s nukes.
  2. One of the individuals Trump sanctions is the head of Iran’s judiciary. Iran slams the decision and says it warrants a severe response.
  3. Trump sets a ticking clock in the Iran deal (he has a thing for setting random deadlines). He says he’ll approve the deal for now, but he gives Congress and our EU allies 120 days to alter the agreement according to his requirements. He wants to permanently block the path for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Representative Ed Royce (R-CA), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announces his retirement from Congress. He’s the eighth committee chair to announce he won’t be returning.
  2. He’s followed by Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), who announces he won’t run again either, though there are rumors he’ll run for a neighboring district.
  3. One weird thing that comes up this week is that a member of Congress proposes putting earmarks back into legislation. Earmarks (pork barrel spending) have been restricted for 8 years because they were out of control. My opinion? I don’t think lawmakers should have to bribe each other just to get them to do what’s right.
  4. Trump also suggests Congress should go back to using earmarks to entice legislators to vote for bills, because the current system isn’t working.
  5. Following Trump’s tweet that he’s a “stable genius,” Representative Brendan Boyle (R-Penn.) proposes legislation that would require presidential candidates to undergo a mental health examination. He’s calling it the “Stable Genius Act.”

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration announces an end to Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 200,000 El Salvadorians who’ve lived here more than 17 years. They have 18 months to leave the U.S. or possibly be deported. There’s no clear path to citizenship for them as they aren’t necessarily eligible to apply for permanent status.
  2. The Supreme Court refuses to hear Mississippi’s new law that allows government workers and private businesses to deny service to people based on religious beliefs. This opens up the LGBTQ community and non-Christians to discrimination. The law states that marriage is between one man and one woman only, that sex can only happen in such a marriage, and that a birth gender can’t be changed. This could affect marriage licenses, adoptions, foster families, medical care, and so on. Also, you better not be having sex out of wedlock in Mississippi! The court says the law can only be challenged by people who’ve already been harmed by the law.
  3. Jeff Sessions rescinds more that two dozen documents that provide guidance for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). People with disabilities are particularly worried about the removal of the guidelines around employing people with disabilities.
  4. Trump opens to the press a bipartisan immigration meeting that was supposed to be closed to the press. In it, he agrees with Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s proposal for a clean DREAM Act until Republican Kevin McCarthy reminds him that’s not what he really wants. Even still, he keeps going back to it.
  5. Here’s how the meeting went:
    • He wants the Democrats to participate.
    • He says we can handle DACA and them move on to full immigration reform.
    • But then he says the DACA bill must include funding for the wall.
    • Oh, and then it also has to end the visa lottery and family based migration.
    • Result: There still is no clean DREAM Act.
  1. And then on the same day, a federal judge blocks Trump’s executive order to stop DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The administration begins accepting renewal actions again, a relief to the thousands whose status is about to expire. The court says that Jeff Sessions’ claim that DACA is illegal is “based on a flawed legal premise.” So DACA will stay in effect as the lawsuit makes its way through the courts.
  2. The day after the immigration meeting, Trump clarifies that he wants any DACA bill to fund the wall, because without the wall it doesn’t work. Whatever that means. A wall won’t improve much along the border, and Customs and Border Patrol want the money spent elsewhere. Most illegal entries are at actual ports of entry.
  3. Trump proposes cutting proven security measures to fund the border wall. He’d cut funding for surveillance, radar, and patrol boats, all of which experts and officials say are more effective than a wall would be.
  4. Also, Trump backs away from the idea of a big beautiful wall across the entire length of the southern border, because who knew that it would have to cross rivers and ravines and mountainous terrain? He says there’ll be some fence, some wall, and some high-tech deterrents.
  5. Border crossings from Mexico are at a low, with apprehensions at their lowest since the early 70s. However, deportations and detentions of people who have been living in the U.S. are up, and ICE is targeting people with clean records.
  6. After raiding nearly 100 7-11 stores, ICE detains 21 people.
  7. Despite Trump’s expressed willingness to work on immigration in a bipartisan way, Republicans have come out with a hardline policy that clashes with both Trump’s and Democrats’ visions.
  8. At an immigration meeting, Trump wonders why we let in people from “shithole” countries like Africa, El Salvador, and Haiti. Which leads to us hearing “shithole” on the news for the first time ever. And reading it in the papers. He thinks we should let in more Norwegians, who, by the way, are single-payer socialists. Not surprisingly, this leads to a shitstorm in the media and on social media.
  9. It also leads to the Haitian government and several African governments calling in U.S. diplomats for a meeting.
  10. The UN denounces Trump’s statement as racist. The African Union Mission condemns the comments, and demands both a retraction and an apology.
  11. Trump then denies ever saying it, despite people in attendance confirming it. The one African-American Republican in the Senate, who was in attendance, called it disappointing. Trump suggests these meetings should be recorded. That would be terrific. At the end of the weekend, it’s still a he-said/she-said with some saying he did say it (including Lindsay Graham) and some saying they don’t recall it.
  12. After the blowout from his statement, Trump gets mad and says democrats don’t want a DACA deal. Jeff Flakes calls BS, saying he’s worked with democrats on this for 17 years and of course they want it. There’s actually a bipartisan plan with good compromises that Trump shot down.
  13. Trump also tweets that he has a wonderful relationship with Haitians… even though the administration just decided to deport 20,000 of them who are here under TPS.
  14. Jeff Bezos donates $33 million to a scholarship fund for Dreamers.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejects Rick Perry’s proposal for nuclear and coal power. The proposal would prop up coal power plants by requiring renewable energy power plants to keep a minimum amount of coal power on hand. Instead of forcing competition between fossil fuels and cleaner, cheaper sources, the plan would’ve forced customers to pay for unnecessary coal plants.
  2. After colliding with another ship, the Iranian oil tanker Sanchi is on fire and leaking oil into the China Sea. It finally sinks after several days, and 29 sailors are missing and presumed dead.
  3. Florida Governor Scott Brown pushes back against Trump’s plan to open 90% of U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas exploration, which leads to Florida getting an exemption to the rule less than a week after it was announced. Apparently it would hit their tourism business, but California’s tourism industry is twice as large. Also, nearly every governor in the other affected states opposes this, and it opens the Department of the Interior to legal challenges..
  4. The CEO of BP, Bob Dudley, says they already have a full plate in the U.S. and expresses caution about exploring new areas. The price of oil is still low (though rising), and the focus right now is on shale oil (on-land fracking).
  5. A newly released memo from Robert E. Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp., to Trump shows that Trump has granted him (or at least tried to grant him) his 3-page wishlist of getting rid of environmental protections around fossil fuels. Among his requests—getting rid of the Clean Power Plan, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, cutting the EPA staff by 50%, and getting rid of a tax credit for wind and solar energy. And before you say we shouldn’t subsidize wind and solar, remember they are not nearly as heavily subsidized as gas, oil, and coal.
  6. Arizona, Georgia, New Mexico, North Carolina, and South Carolina had their warmest year on record last year, and last month was Alaska’s warmest December on record, especially concerning because of the Arctic ice melt.
  7. Ryan Zinke announces a major overhaul of the Department of the Interior and changes to the way federal land is managed.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump speaks to farmers in Nashville to bolster his tax plan. He tells them they are “so lucky” he gave them the privilege of voting for him.
  2. Trump announces he’ll travel to Devos, Switzerland, to the world economic forum, where he’ll push his America first agenda to global business and political leaders. Presidents typically don’t attend this meeting due to its association with the wealthy elite.
  3. The Trump administration exempted 5 banks from being punished after they were convicted for manipulating global interest rates. One of those was Deutsche Bank.
  4. Canadian leaders are increasingly convinced that Trump will pull the U.S. out of NAFTA.
  5. Some good news from Walmart: They announce that they’ll raise their starting wage to $11/hour due to the new tax plan. In fairness, they‘ve been steadily increasing the wage in recent years, and several states where they operate already had an $11 minimum in place.
  6. Or maybe it’s not good news. They’ll give bonuses only to people who’ve been there 20 years or more, and they’re laying off thousands and closing dozens of Sam’s Club stores.

Elections:

  1. The Supreme Court hears arguments over Ohio’s method of striking voters from their roles. In the state, failure to vote triggers the removal process, which could drop legit voters. The suit argues that this is illegal.
  2. Former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio says he’ll run for Senate. Trump pardoned Arpaio after his conviction for criminal contempt for continuing to racially profile Latinos after a court ordered him to stop.
  3. Arizona’s consent decree preventing bullying or intimidating at poll sites expires.
  4. A federal court threw out North Carolina’s district maps because they were drawn to favor one party (Republicans). This could change everything, because previous thought was that gerrymandering couldn’t be based on racial or other discriminatory divides. This is the first time maps were thrown out because they disenfranchise a party. The judge said that the Republican drawn districts “were “motivated by invidious partisan intent” that would divide the state into 13 districts, 10 of which are Republican.”
  5. Trump’s voter fraud commission plans to destroy the data they collected instead of handing it over to DHS, which is taking over the issue.

Miscellaneous:

  1. A Senate bill that uses the Congressional Review Act to reverse the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality gets enough cosponsors to require a vote on the Senate floor.
  2. Steve Bannon steps down as executive chairman of Breitbart after his inflammatory statements about Trump and his family are published. Rebekah Mercer, once Bannon’s wealthy supporter, is behind it.
  3. Trump is still trying to fit Andrew Puzder into his administration somehow. Puzder used to run Carl’s Jr. and pulled out of his previous nomination to labor secretary after domestic abuse allegations came up.
  4. The Committee to Protect Journalists name Trump as the world’s most oppressive leader for all he’s done to undermine global press freedom. He beat Erdogan and Putin.
  5. Fact checkers find errors in Michael Wolff’s “Fire and Fury”. Some are factual, and some are just sloppy writing with typos and wrong words.
  6. After the book is published, Trump says he’ll look at loosening libel laws so it’ll be easier to sue people who spread lies about you. This seems to me like a dangerous road for him to walk.
  7. Vermont’s Senate approves legalized marijuana, just as Jeff Sessions announces the DOJ will not continue their hands-off policy for states that have legalized pot.
  8. White House aides have until the end of the month to decide if they’ll stay through November (and the midterm elections).
  9. The Trump administration enthusiastically pushes for the reauthorization of FISA. But just as the House is about to vote on it and just after watching a Fox News segment criticizing FISA, Trump tweets against the act, saying that’s what Obama used to spy on him. Then it seems someone caught him up on the administration’s actual stance on FISA and he tweets support for it, saying that he fixed the whole unmasking thing.
  10. The White House sends out a report certifying Trump’s health after his physical. The report is supposed to be from the White House physician, but they misspell his name.
  11. The D.C. Trump Hotel gets reassessed for 2018 and gets a $1 million tax break.
  12. The Hawaiian Emergency Management Agency sends out a false ballistic missile alarm, sending email and text alerts to people across the islands. It turns out that someone pushed the wrong button on a shift change. It takes over a half hour to issue a correction, and instead of reassuring his people, Trump golfs through it.
  13. The Department of Education (under Betsy Devos) awards a contract for collecting student debts to a company Devos invested in.
  14. We learn that Trump’s lawyer paid a porn star $130,000 one month before the election so she wouldn’t talk about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump.

Polls:

  1. This is surprising. 49% of Americans give credit to Obama for the current state of the economy. 40% give credit to Trump.

Week 50 in Trump

Posted on January 8, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Week 50: Very stable genius.

I’m not going to report much on the revelations in Michael Wolff‘s new gossipy tell-all book because I don’t put a lot of credence in third-party political books (not since a slew of books pushing false narratives came out about Obama and Clinton). Wolff reportedly has recordings of his interviews in the West Wing, though, so if he’s just publishing what people said, he can back that up.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t secretly revel in some of the stories—they corroborate what most people who don’t support Trump already think anyway. Most of the staff quoted in the book think Trump is truly a dope and it doesn’t seem like he really wanted to be president at all. The book did launch a huge and public feud between the Trump and Bannon camps. I’ll talk about the fallout below.

But here’s what happened in real politics this week.

Missed from Last Week:

  1. The Interior Department rolls back yet another Obama-era regulation. This one protected migratory birds endangered by oil, gas, wind, and solar operations.
  2. The Interior Department reverses a decision by the Obama administration and renews leases for copper and nickel mining at the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota.
  3. The Trump administration scales back Obama-era fines against nursing homes that harm or endanger residents. Enforcement of these Medicare programs were already weak, and this just gives fewer protections to their elderly residents.
  4. The DOJ wants to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census, which would certainly reduce participation by immigrants, both documented and undocumented. The results of the census determine the distribution of congressional seats, funding of social programs, elections, and ways that state and federal dollars are spent.

Russia:

  1. Paul Manafort sues Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, and the DOJ. The suit asks the federal court to narrow the scope of Mueller’s authority. Manafort’s legal team thinks Mueller is out of bounds investigating money laundering. Legal experts say the suit probably won’t hold water, based on Rod Rosenstein’s earlier testimony to Congress where he said he gave Mueller leeway to follow the investigation where it led. Remember, Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater investigation led to Monica Lewinsky.
  2. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Directory Christopher Wray meet with Paul Ryan about Representative Devin Nunes’ request for documents in the Russia investigation. Rosenstein and Wray were there to ask to keep the documents private at this time because sharing could hamper their investigation.
  3. Ryan, who had previously supported the Russia investigation, caves to Nunes and orders the FBI to turn over the documents to Nunes, which they do. Nunes, by the way, is supposed to be recused from this investigation. The documents in question are law enforcement sensitive and documents of this type are rarely shared outside the FBI.
  4. Fusion GPS founders write an op-ed asking the Senate to release their testimony and explaining some of the testimony they gave. Fusion thinks the Senate is trying to hide their testimony.
  5. Instead of complying with Fusion GPS’s request to publicize their testimony, Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley instead says they can come back and testify publicly. Why not just save us the time and money and publish the testimony that was already given?
  6. Representatives Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, leaders of the Freedom Caucus, call on Jeff Sessions to step down over recusing himself from the Russia investigation.
  7. Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham send a letter to the FBI requesting an investigation into Christopher Steele, author of the Steele dossier. They claim that Steele misled the FBI when talking about his contacts with the media. After a year of investigation, this is all they’ve got? Mueller is light years ahead of them.
  8. The AP confirms that Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Sessions obviously refused the directive and recused himself shortly thereafter, prompting Trump to tell him to resign. Which he did. And which Trump refused to accept.
  9. Hand-written notes by Reince Priebus confirm some of James Comey’s testimony about Trump’s requests of him before he was fired.
  10. A few days before Trump fired Comey, an aide to Jeff Sessions asked one congressional staffer if he had any damaging information on Comey, an apparent effort to undermine the FBI.
  11. The FBI releases new documents that show Andy McCabe didn’t have any conflicts of interest overseeing the Clinton email investigation.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions reverses Obama-era guidance on keeping federal hands off of regulating states that have legalized marijuana. At his hearings, he said he would not change anything in this regard. On the flip side, veterans can now discuss marijuana use with the VA and not lose their benefits.
  2. Just in the nick of time, because the acting U.S. attorneys were temporary and their term runs out this week, Sessions appoints 17 interim attorneys. There’s a little cronyism going on here, starting with the replacement for Preet Bharara in the Southern District of New York. His replacement is a law partner with Rudy Giuliani.
  3. Scott Pruitt says he’d like to be attorney general if Jeff Sessions leaves.
  4. Trump calls on the DOJ to prosecute Hillary’s former aide Huma Abedin and also James Comey.
  5. Trump also calls the DOJ part of the “deep state.” Sarah Huckabee Sanders says he didn’t mean it.

Healthcare:

  1. Dismantling the ACA piece by piece. After removing the individual mandate in last year’s tax plan, Trump proposes alternative healthcare plans that wouldn’t have to cover the 10 essential health benefits required by the ACA.
  2. Deaths in the coal mining industry almost doubled this year over last, with 15 miners dying in 2017.
  3. Last year, Susan Collins (R-Maine) acknowledged that the healthcare reforms she was promised in return for her yes vote on the tax bill wouldn’t be enacted in 2017, but hopefully would be in January 2018. Now she’s saying she hopes to see them by 2019.

International:

  1. Protests continue in Iran this week. But Iran deploys the Revolutionary Guard, and at least 21 are dead and around 450 protestors are in custody in Tehran.
  2. The U.S. plans to call for an emergency UN session to address the Iranian protests.
  3. A few pro-government rallies pop up across Iran to counter the ongoing anti-government protests.
  4. Trump announces a freeze on military aid to Pakistan, which has been a strategic but befuddling ally in the fight against terrorism. The Pakistani government holds an emergency security meeting to figure out how to deal with Trump’s accusations of lies and deceit.
  5. The State Department also places Pakistan on a watch list of countries that don’t protect religious freedom.
  6. In response to Kim Jung Un tweeting that he has a nuclear button, Trump tweets that his button is bigger. Which only serves to work up more fear of a nuclear war.
  7. The CDC plans a briefing for how to prepare for a nuclear war.
  8. North and South Korea plan to sit down for formal talks to find ways to improve their relations and to cooperate on the Winter Olympics.
  9. The U.S. fails to make its scheduled payment of $125 million to the United National Relief and Works Agency. Some think it’s a ploy to get leverage on Israel/Palestine talks, but the U.S. says we’re just working out the details.
  10. The National Security Agency joins the State Department in losing its top talent under the Trump administration.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. New Senators Doug Jones (D-Ala.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) are sworn in. Smith replaces Al Franken, who stepped down at the urging of his colleagues over allegations of harassment.
  2. Congress comes back to a full schedule this year. Here are a few things on their plate:
    • Budget: Congress has until January 19 to sign a budget to avoid a government shutdown.
    • DACA: Congress technically has until March to prevent DACA recipients from potentially being deported (but in reality, this needs to be done sooner).
    • Disaster recovery: Last year was the most expensive year for U.S. emergency relief, coming in at around $306 billion, not all of which has been authorized.
    • FISA reauthorization: Constituents are asking for this to be reformed rather than simply reauthorized. This allows the NSA to collect communications information about U.S. citizens who communicate with foreigners suspected of spying or terrorism.
  3. Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) releases a video defending the freedom of the press. Here are a few key quotes:
    • “A republic will not work if we don’t have shared facts.”
    • “The only way the republic can work is if we come together and defend each other’s rights to say things that we differ about.”
    • “And it’s not helpful to call the press the enemy of the American people.”

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. There were nearly 100 immigration-related retaliation claims to the California Labor Commissioner last year, up from 20 in 2016. Most say their bosses threatened to deport them. This largely occurs around workers contract to do work (like construction and odd jobs) and often when the worker asks for his agreed upon payment. People say they won’t pay and if the worker complains, they’ll report them to ICE.
  2. Washington’s attorney general files a suit against Motel 6 for sharing their guests’ personal information with ICE officials without warrants and without reasonable cause other than Hispanic sounding names.
  3. Democrats in Congress want a clean DREAM Act as part of any negotiations for a spending bill. Trump set a deadline of March 5, at which time DACA recipients could start being deported. Congress now has only two months to fix it. Even if they pass something now, it will take weeks if not months for the DHS to accommodate the changes.
  4. The FBI charges an armed man who stopped an Amtrak train in Nebraska with terrorism after finding the man has ties to a Neo-Nazi group and that he talked about killing black people.
  5. Trump’s pick to run ICE says that politicians in sanctuary cities should be charged with a crime and have their funding withheld, something courts have already called unconstitutional.
  6. Two Republican legislators are trying to put up monuments to African-Americans who fought with the Confederacy. They’re getting pushback from historians, who say no African-Americans chose to fight for the Confederacy, and from white supremacists, who want the Confederacy remembered as white supremacy.
  7. The price tag for Trump’s wall is expected to start at $18 billion, but to actually be closer to $33 billion. And since he’s asking Congress to fund it, the taxpayers will pay for it.
  8. And here’s why marijuana laws fall under discrimination: Police found less than an ounce of marijuana at a party in Cartersville, GA. They arrested all 65 people at the house, ranging in age from 15-31 and all black, and charged them with drug possession. Many who couldn’t afford bail were fired from their jobs because they couldn’t get out of jail, and their mug shots were publicly released. All of these people could end up with a police record. This is about 45 minutes from Atlanta, where if one person has that much pot, they might get a ticket.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump’s administration announces plans to allow offshore drilling in the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans, opening up about 90% of U.S. waters for exploration. This is opposed by both Democrats and Republicans in almost all east and west coast states, which have some control over certain portions of their coasts.
  2. Of note, part of the reason Obama didn’t approve this was because of objections from the military (along with the states).
  3. The governors from all three western states—Washington, Oregon, and California—promise they’ll do everything they can to prevent drilling off their coasts. Santa Barbara, CA, had an oil spill in 1969 and another in 2015, and no one wants to increase the odds of that. There’s already oil in the waters around Santa Barbara, and tar balls constantly wash up on the beaches.
  4. While northeastern U.S. gets hit by a frigid bomb cyclone, Australia is suffering a great heat wave that’s melting asphalt and causing wildfires.
  5. Scott Pruitt bragged that they’re cleaning up Superfund sites faster than ever, but the sites they removed from the contaminated list were actually cleaned up years ago. The only reason they were still on the list was because they required follow-up testing to evaluate the success of the cleanup.
  6. Trump rescinds rules requiring that companies disclose the chemicals they use when fracking.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Republicans on the hill are suddenly deficit hawks again, saying we need to cut spending. This is a shift from the tax bill passed in December, in which they added as much as they could to the deficit in a finance bill and still comply with parliamentarian rules on reconciliation.
  2. Fox News research reports the average monthly job gain by year, showing 2017 to be the lowest since 2010 (though it’s possible these numbers will be adjusted):
    • 2017: 171,000
    • 2016: 187,000
    • 2015: 226,000
    • 2014: 250,000
    • 2013: 192,000
    • 2012: 179,000
    • 2011: 174,000
    • 2010: 88,000
  3. 2017 was the strongest year for manufacturing in the U.S. since 2004.
  4. Following in the steps of AT&T, Comcast fired 500 salespeople after saying how they’d create thousands of new jobs with the recent tax cuts.
  5. The DOW passes 25,000 for the first time.
  6. California legislators propose a bill that would allow Californians to get around the tax bill by giving to the California Excellence Fund instead of paying certain taxes that are no longer deductible. Donations to the fund are deductible.

Elections:

  1. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Senator in Utah history, announces his plans to retire, opening the door for Mitt Romney to run. Hatch says he’ll throw his support behind Romney.
  2. Trump dissolves his voter fraud commission because states weren’t cooperating and the commission was the target of several lawsuits. He still maintains that there’s a high level of voter fraud, but he’s throwing the issue over to the Department of Homeland Security (which indicates that he thinks most voter fraud is committed by illegal immigrants).
  3. Kris Kobach, the head of the voter fraud committee, dismisses the lawsuits as baseless, though he lost most of the lawsuits against him in Kansas for his similar efforts so doesn’t have the greatest track record.
  4. Postscript: Studies since 2000, including George Bush’s own voter fraud task force, have found that voter fraud is minuscule…extremely rare.
  5. Virginia drew Republican David Yancy’s name out of a bowl to push the GOP into the majority in the Virginia House of Delegates, 51-49. State law says the loser of the draw can demand a second recount, so this still might not be over.
  6. And speaking of Virginia, there’s still a challenge to the results of one House of Delegates race because nearly 200 homes were reassigned to the wrong district and given the wrong ballots. The race was won by less than 75 votes, and the voters are the ones challenging the results.
  7. The Trump administration puts Republican candidates on rocky ground with his expansion of oil drilling off our beaches and with the crackdown on state-legalized marijuana. Many politicians whose seats are up for grabs this year worked fast to distance themselves.

Miscellaneous:

  1. In his new book, Michael Wolff quotes Bannon criticizing and insulting Trump, and then Trump goes after Bannon in return. Trump’s lawyers send Bannon a cease and desist letter, saying legal action is imminent.
  2. After excerpts from the book start coming out, Chief of staff John Kelly bans the use of personal devices, like personal cell phones, in the West Wing. Wolff was allowed pretty open access during his time there, and even hosted dinner parties for White House staff.
  3. Trump’s legal team demands that Wolff and his publisher stop the release of the book and apologize. Which resulted in the publisher moving the publish date up.
    • If Obama and Clinton sued every author who lied about them, there wouldn’t be any books out there about them at all.
    • If the Trump legal team ends up suing, we’ll find out if there really are recordings.
  4. Of note, Trump had campaign staffers sign a non-disclosure agreement that said they couldn’t make any disparaging comments about Trump, his family, or the campaign.
  5. White House officials discuss whether to fire Katie Walsh for her statements in Wolff’s book (she said working with Trump is like trying to figure out what a child wants).
  6. Breitbart board members debate whether to fire Steve Bannon after excerpts from the book are published. His financier, Rebekah Mercer, says she won’t finance him any longer.
  7. Trump takes credit for a very safe year in airline travel, though there’s been no fatal commercial passenger airline incident since 2009.
  8. Several legislators meet with a psychiatry professor to discuss Trump’s mental state and fitness for office. The prognosis isn’t good, but you can’t really analyze someone without meeting with them.
  9. Trump nominates Marie Royce to a senior position in the State Department. Marie is the wife of Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, creating a conflict of interest since Ed’s committee is responsible for State Department oversight.
  10. Trump finally makes an appearance in the press briefing room, but it’s not in person. He pre-taped a message for the press briefing even though he was right there in the same building at the time.
  11. One of the women who accused Roy Moore of sexual misconduct loses everything she owns when her house burns down as a result of arson.
  12. Another of the women accusing Roy Moore’s of sexual misconduct is now suing him for defamation.
  13. Trump brings a bunch of his cabinet and top legislators to Camp David for a Republican leadership retreat.
  14. Big tech puts its weight behind opposing the repeal of net neutrality. A group called the Internet Association, which includes Facebook, Google, Netflix, and other large tech firms, is joining the lawsuit against the FCC.
  15. The FBI is investigating whether donations were made to the Clinton Foundation in return for political favors while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Previous investigations have shown such allegations to be false, but we’ll have to wait and see if they turn up anything new.
  16. The chairman of Alaska’s Marijuana Control Board resigns when the DOJ announces its crackdown on marijuana use.

Polls:

  1. 61% of Americans support the legalization of marijuana.

Week 49 in Trump

Posted on January 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Here’s my last weekly recap for 2017, and I’m finally caught up from the holidays. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty happy to see 2017 circling the drain. It was an exhausting, emotional, and stressful year. In the words of Gin and Tacos and my husband Mohi:

But this year was such a thrill ride down Fuck Everything Boulevard… in a clown car.

So here’s hoping for a brighter, happier, lighter, easier, and more prosperous and joyful 2018.

And here’s what happened in week 49…

Russia:

  1. A small group of Republicans headed by Devin Nunes is investigating the FBI over its use of the Steele dossier to launch the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia. But then…
    • It turns out that it wasn’t the Steele dossier that launched the investigation.
    • Instead, it was George Papadopoulos’s drunken revelation to a top Australian diplomat that he knew the Russians had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
    • Australian officials then reported that info to their American counterparts.
    • George spilled the beans in May 2016, the Australians reported it two months later (why the wait?), and the FBI opened the investigation in July 2016.
  1. Both Democrats and Republicans criticize Nunes over the tactics he’s using to attack federal law enforcement. Most think if there’s any corruption in the FBI, the DOJ should investigate it and that all Nunes will do is cause damage to law enforcement.
  2. On top of that, it turns out that Nunes never fully recused himself from the Russia investigation after his strange White House antics last year. While he handed over the day to day activities of the committee chair, he retained sole power to sign subpoenas, restricting committee Democrats‘ ability to do their jobs.
  3. There’s increased Russian submarine activity around undersea trans-Atlantic data cables. This is the most Russian sub activity we’ve seen since the Cold War. These cables provide internet to North American and Europe, so it’s possible Russia’s looking for ways to tap into the data.
  4. NATO responds to the activity by announcing plans to re-open a Cold War command post to secure the north Atlantic.
  5. Part of Robert Mueller’s investigation includes looking at whether the Trump campaign and RNC used voter information that was obtained through Russian hackers. We know that Russian hackers stole data from several states’ election databases in 2016. Jared Kushner was in charge of the campaign’s digital operations.
  6. A Russian who earlier admitted to hacking the DNC servers for the Russian government says he left a data signature that proves he’s telling the truth.
  7. Trump’s legal team, along with other Trump supporters in D.C. and in the media, start to paint Michael Flynn as a liar in order to discredit him before his testimony comes up in the Russia investigation.
  8. Putin expresses disappointment in the deteriorating relationship between Russia and the U.S.
  9. A Russian court upholds a ruling that bans Putin’s opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, from running against him in the next elections.
  10. Facebook announces it won’t use red flags to indicate fake news articles anymore. Apparently the flags just enticed more people to click on the stories. They found that showing related articles is more effective to combat fake stories.

Courts/Justice:

  1. An appeals court upheld its previous ruling that basically upheld an Obama-era fracking rule for federal lands. The Department of Interior is working to repeal the regulation anyway, but the rule could go back into effect on January 12.

Healthcare:

  1. Despite government outreach being cut by 90%, the sign-up window being cut in half, and Trump’s declaration that Obamacare is dead, enrollment in the ACA was surprisingly strong with nearly 9 million enrollees so far. That’s down from 12.2 million who signed up last year, but there are still more to be counted and not all markets are closed.
  2. Over 80% of people who enrolled in the ACA live in states where Trump won, with the top four states being Texas, George, North Carolina, and Florida.

International:

  1. Just days before Trump’s inauguration (between January 9 and 12, 2016) Romanian hackers took control of nearly two-thirds of D.C.’s surveillance cameras. The cameras were unable to record for several days. This doesn’t seem to be related to Trump—it was a ransomware scheme and the hackers have been arrested.
  2. At least four times in the past week, the Trump administration threatens the UN with dropping financial support if they don’t comply with U.S. demands.
  3. A Gunman attacks a Coptic Christian church in Egypt, killing nine. The police are criticized for their slow response.
  4. Anti-government protests erupt across Iran, largely spurred by a stagnant economy and a repressive regime. Twelve have died so far in the protests, and this is the largest uprising since the 2009 protests that were violently stamped out.
  5. Trump tweets support for the protesters, saying the Iranian government should listen to them. “Iranian govt should respect their people’s rights, including right to express themselves.” So protests against the government are a good thing in Iran, but not in the U.S.?
  6. Iranian President Rouhani walks a fine line between the protesters and the Ayatollah, saying that people have a right to criticize the government and protest, and that this could be an opportunity. But he also says he’ll crack down on lawbreakers. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the other hand, blames the protests on Iran’s enemies.
  7. Both Russia and China sneak around the sanctions on North Korea and trade goods.
  8. There are two bombings in Kabul this week—one on Christmas day and the other in the middle of a funeral for a government official.
  9. A defecting soldier from North Korea had traces of anthrax in his lungs, and others showed signs of exposure to radiation. This raises concerns that North Korea is working on biological weapons.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. While Trump says he’s signed more legislation than any other president in their first year, he’s actually signed the fewest since Eisenhower. In fairness, he got off to a strong start with all the Congressional Review signings that merely undid rules made by federal agencies under Obama.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A federal judge rules that Arizona’s law banning classes on ethnic studies is unconstitutional, saying it was motivated by racial animus. Ya think?
  2. Trump holds Dreamers hostage and says there will be no clean DREAM Act without funding for the wall between us and Mexico.
  3. Trump fires the remaining HIV/AIDS advisory council members via FedEx with no explanation. He does say they can reapply. If you remember, several members resigned together earlier in 2017.
  4. The Trump administration drops its appeal of the court decision blocking the transgender ban in the military after not just one, but two courts reject the ban.
  5. In a June meeting, Trump reportedly said that all Haitians have AIDS and that Nigerians would never go back to their huts. It’s no surprise that Trump uses fear tactics to stoke hatred of immigrants.
  6. At the same meeting, Trump was visibly upset over the number of foreign visitors to the U.S. during his first 6 months and he couldn’t understand that some were here temporarily—one-time visitors just here on vacation.
  7. A federal judge blocks Trump’s restrictions on “follow-to-join” refugees, which are spouses and children of refugees who are already settled here.
  8. The same federal judge partially suspends Trump’s ban on refugees from 11 largely Muslim countries, allowing refugees with bona fide relationships and granting bona fide relationship status to refugees who have agreements with humanitarian and relocation agencies.
  9. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules that Trump exceeded his authority in the latest travel ban and that it violates federal law. The law remains in effect, though, per the Supreme Court, while challenges move through the courts.
  10. Bitcoin is the currency of choice for far-right extremists and white nationalists because PayPal and other payment platforms have banned racists and extremists.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Proving once again that he doesn’t understand the difference between climate and weather or the effect of climate change on weather, Trump makes fun of global warming in a tweet because it’s so cold in the eastern U.S.
  2. Trump rolls back the safety rules for offshore drilling that were created after the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Puerto Rico:

Here’s where Puerto Rico stands more than three months after the hurricane:

  • 96% of the island has water.
  • Almost 70% of the island has electricity.
  • 88% of gas stations are open.
  • 8% of supermarkets are still closed.
  • 392 people still need shelter; 24 shelters are open.
  • 3,039 FEMA personnel, along with 15,000 civilian and military personnel, are on the ground there.
  • All airports and federally maintained ports are open.
  • All hospitals are open.
  • More than 168,000 Puerto Ricans have gone to Florida.

Budget/Economy:

  1. While praising the new tax plan and saying they’ll give everyone $1,000 bonuses, AT&T also announces that they’ll lay off over 1,000 employees.
  2. After signing the tax bill into law, Trump tells his friends at Mar-a-Lago, “You all just got a lot richer.” And for once he was telling the truth.
  3. Goldman Sachs expects that banks will take a hit to their profits this year because of taxes on money held overseas. But after taking that hit, banks will be the biggest winners of the new tax plan.
  4. Senator Marco Rubio says Republicans “went too far” in cutting taxes for corporations. He thinks companies will either buy back shares or increase dividends to shareholders, neither of which will create any great economic growth.
  5. Trump goes after the USPS about undercharging Amazon even though Amazon uses UPS and is working on delivering their own stuff.
  6. Despite being a cheerleader for infrastructure during the campaign, Trump stops funding for an Obama-era project to fix damaged railroad tunnels, tracks, and bridges in New York and New Jersey. This is an area where 9 of 10 workers commute.
  7. The Centre for Economics and Business Research projects that China will overtake the U.S. economy by 2032, and that India will move into the top 5 economies around the same time.

Elections:

  1. Roy Moore sues to block Alabama’s election results citing systematic voter fraud. The court dismisses Moore’s case and certifies Doug Jones, who is later sworn in.
  2. If you remember a while back, a Democrat on Trump’s voter fraud commission sued to get access to committee records from Kris Kobach and other Republicans on the commission. This week, a federal judge rules that they must share records with ALL members of the panel.
  3. The one remaining seat in the Virginia House of Delegates won’t be decided soon. The name-drawing to decide the tie vote is postponed, pending a court challenge over whether the election was actually a tie. If the Democrat wins, Democrats will have a 51-49 lead. If the Republican wins, the House will be tied.
  4. While the Department of Homeland Security has warned states about election-hacking threats in the 2018 elections, they might not be able to perform security screenings on all election servers in time for the elections.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump is the first to president not to win the most admired man of the year in the annual Gallup survey. President Obama wins that distinction for the 10th time. Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman for the 16th year in a row. Color me confused.
  2. The Trump foundation is being investigated for inappropriate use of funds, and cannot raise any funds until the probe is over. One of Trump’s golf courses has already had to pay back the Trump foundation for using foundation funds to pay the golf course’s legal fees.
  3. Trump is the first president not to host a state dinner in his first year.
  4. Trump says he’ll be back to work the day after Christmas. The day after Christmas, Trump goes golfing. Who really cares, right? Except that he made a big deal out of Obama golfing. Trump has definitely golfed at least 50% more than Obama in his first year and has likely golfed even more than that. He’s visited a golf course at least 88 times.
  5. Trump’s cabinet is unusually secretive, hiding their schedules, travel plans, and the people or groups they’re meeting with. At least six agencies don’t release appointment calendars, in potential violation of the Freedom of Information Act. This is a thing because department heads have been meeting with leaders from the industries that they’re supposed to be regulating.
  6. Trump gives an impromptu interview to a New York Times reporter. I won’t fact-check the whole thing, but here are a few tidbits:
    • He denies 16 times that his campaign colluded with Russia, but then says that even if there was collusion, it’s not a crime.
    • He says Democrats say there’s no collusion (they don’t).
    • However, he says there was collusion between the Russians and Democrats.
    • He thinks Mueller will treat him fairly.
    • He thinks he can do whatever he wants with the Department of Justice (he can’t). This was about reopening the investigation into Hillary’s emails.
    • He says he’ll win in 2020 because the media needs him and will tank without him. He says the media HAS TO LET HIM WIN. Wow.
    • He says he knows more about big bills than any other president. (Remember, it was a huge surprise to him that healthcare was so hard. Who knew?)
    • He also knows more about taxes than the greatest CPA, he says (lawmakers who worked with him on healthcare and taxes were shocked by how little he knew about both).
    • He thinks China’s hurting us on trade, but he hasn’t dealt with it yet because war is more important right now (I assume he’s talking about North Korea here).

    • He says he saved coal and that West Virginia is doing fantastically now (only 900 new coal jobs have been created since he became president).
    • He brings up the conspiracy theory around Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and a Pakistani IT staffer.
    • He says he boosted Luther Strange’s rating, and that before his endorsement Strange was in 5th place (in a race with only 3 people).
    • He says the reason the Alabama race was so close was because he endorsed Roy Moore (an accused child molester).
    • He says we’ve spent $7 trillion on the MidEast and it’s a bigger mess than ever (the actual number is $1.6 trillion, if he’s talking about the wars).
    • He says he’s created healthcare associations and that millions of people are joining—people who formerly had Obamacare or no insurance (the rules for the associations haven’t yet been issued and no one has joined).
    • He says the wall will stop the smuggling of drugs from Mexico (most drugs come in through legal ports of entry or from tunnels).
  1. The Trump administration has the highest first-year departure rate of any administration in the past four decades with 34% of senior officials having resigned, been fired, or been reassigned. Ronald Reagan’s was the second highest with half the departure rate.
  2. New York City, San Francisco, and Philadelphia file a lawsuit against the Department of Defense for inadequate reporting of service members who are not allowed to own guns. This stems from the shooter in a small town in Texas who should have been flagged in the background check database but wasn’t.
  3. Christmas couldn’t keep Trump satisfied for long. The day after, he goes after the FBI and Hillary on Twitter. Tip: Let it go, dude. You won.

Polls:

  1. 52% of us say the U.S. is less respected around the world than it was one year ago. 21% say we’re more respected than before.

Week 48 in Trump

Posted on January 1, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Sorry for the late post. This is a week behind because I got caught up in holiday merriment. I hope you all did too. And speaking of holidays, Trump declares victory in the war on Christmas, tweeting:

“People are proud to be saying Merry Christmas again… I am proud to have led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!”

90% of Americans celebrate Christmas, so if there’s a war around it, it’s pretty one-sided.

Russia:

  1. We learn that last summer, after Russians had already reached out to the Trump campaign, U.S. intelligence agencies warned both Trump and Clinton that foreign agents would try to infiltrate their campaigns and to be aware of any suspicious overtures. Both campaigns were told to alert the FBI immediately if any such overtures occurred.
  2. In January 2017, White House counsel knew Michael Flynn had likely broken two federal laws. And then:
    • 1/24/17: Flynn lies to the FBI
    • 1/27/17: Sally Yates warns White House counsel that Flynn could be compromised
    • 1/27/17: Trump asks Comey for his loyalty
    • 2/13/17: Trump fires Flynn
    • 2/14/17: Trump asks Comey to see a way to let the Flynn thing go
    • 5/09/17: Trump fires Comey
  1. The Senate Intelligence Committee brings Jill Stein into their Russia investigation with a request for documents about a trip to Russia in honor of Russian state media RT.
  2. Kaspersky Labs sues the US government for banning its software on government computers.
  3. The House Intelligence Committee interviews Andy McCabe, acting head of the FBI.
  4. Andy McCabe says he’ll retire as soon as he’s eligible for full pension in March. He’s been fielding much criticism from Trump’s administration and congressional Republicans.
  5. A small group of Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee, led by Devin Nunes, have been working in secret for weeks to build a case of corruption and conspiracy against senior officials in the DOJ and FBI. They think the Steele dossier was mishandled.
    • This small group thinks that the DOJ and FBI are working against Trump and for Hillary, even though actions by the FBI contributed to Clinton’s loss in 2016.
    • The group is expected to use their findings to discredit the investigation into Russian meddling in our election, and to discredit Mueller.
    • The group has kept Democrats on the committee in the dark about what they’re doing.
  1. The House Intelligence Committee requests interviews with both Steve Bannon and Corey Lewandowsky.
  2. Republicans in the House Intelligence Committee want to wrap up their investigation by the end of the year, though Democrats have several unanswered requests for more interviews. Also there are still interviews scheduled for January.
  3. Carter Page blamed his failure to complete his Ph.D. on “anti-Russian bias.” He failed it twice and finally obtained it on the third try. His advisors said his thesis was verbose and vague.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions asks the FBI to look into the Uranium One deal again, likely at congressional Republicans’ behest.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump admits that the tax plan is basically a repeal of the ACA. The GOP couldn’t get rid of the ACA on its own, but after the ANWR bribe to Lisa Murkowski, the false promises to Susan Collins, and the major windfall for Bob Corker, they managed to slip it by in the tax bill.
  2. Bragging that he managed to get tax reform passed and the ACA repealed, Trump says that repealing the mandate in the tax bill is essentially the same as repealing the ACA. But he told Republicans not to talk about that part of the bill before it was passed. He didn’t want the “fake media” talking about it too much.
  3. The day after the tax bill passes, Susan Collins concedes that she won’t be getting the healthcare fixes she demanded in return for her yes vote on the tax bill this year.
  4. More and more states warn that some of their children’s health programs will be terminated soon if CHIP is not fully funded.

International:

  1. The U.S. blocks a UN Security Council vote calling on nations to not build diplomatic offices in Jerusalem. Nikki Haley uses our veto power for the first time in over six years.
  2. Trump threatens to cut off U.S. aid to any country that voted for the above resolution.
  3. And then, in a largely symbolic vote and an act of defiance, a vast majority of countries rebuke Trump and denounce his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. 128 nations vote for a resolution demanding that Trump reverse the Jerusalem decision, 9 vote against it, and 35 abstain.
  4. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says Palestinians will never accept a peace plan from America because of Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
  5. Trump reveals his “America First” foreign policy and security strategy. He paints Russia and China as powers who want to reshape the world in a way that goes against our interests and values (they’re our rivals).
  6. The strategy focuses on regaining economic competitiveness across the globe.
  7. Despite agreement among top brass in the military that climate change remains one of our biggest global security threats, Trump drops it from the list of global threats.
  8. The top threats according to the strategy are rogue regimes, terrorism, and cyber attacks.
  9. The strategy has four main principles:
    • Protect the U.S. homeland
    • Protect U.S. prosperity
    • Preserve peace through strength
    • Advance U.S. influence around the world
  1. The strategy calls for a wall between us and our neighbors to the south.
  2. Mike Pence pays a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
  3. North Korea says the latest UN sanctions, written by the U.S., are an act of war.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Four Senators say the calls for Al Franken to resign were premature and they urge him to reconsider. Franken has said he’ll officially resign in January.
  2. As a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Elijah Cummings calls on Trump to release his downsizing plans for the government’s workforce. Trump is overseeing the biggest government reorganization in decades with no Congressional oversight and very little transparency.
  3. Rumors swirl around that Paul Ryan will retire in 2018.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A jury in Washington D.C. dismiss charges against the first six inauguration day protestors to be tried. A journalist was among those defendants. There are still 188 people facing trial, and this initial court result could affect how or if these cases move forward.

Climate/EPA:

  1. After they spoke out or raised concerns about the EPA, at least three EPA employees found themselves being investigated. Specifically they were requested to turn over any emails they wrote that mention Scott Pruitt or Trump along with any communications with Congress that are critical of the EPA.
  2. Scott Pruitt puts his red-team/blue-team debate on climate change on hold the same week that a slew of scientific data confirms anthropomorphic climate change. (Of note, the red-team/blue-team idea comes from the Heartland Institute.)
  3. The latest climate change reports show that the question is no longer how much people affect the climate. The questions scientists are interested in now are how much the climate has changed and what we can do at this point to mitigate it.
  4. Some key findings in the reports include:
    • Climate change set the stage for the extreme weather events we’ve seen in recent years.
    • The Arctic permafrost is melting at a faster rate than originally thought.
    • There is still time to prevent the worst impacts of climate change if we act now.
    • But we don’t have time to continue debating this.
  1. China announces the creation of a carbon market to help curb greenhouse gas emissions.
  2. A federal court upholds a 20-year ban on new uranium mining claims on a million acres of public land next to the Grand Canyon. The ban was put in place by the Department of the Interior, and the court rules that the ban is constitutional. The ban protects waterways to the Colorado River.
  3. On the flip side, the court says that Energy Fuels Inc. can operate a uranium mine in Kaibab National Forest without consulting with the affected Indian tribe.
  4. One of the worlds largest coal companies, B.H.P. Billiton, plans to withdraw from the World Coal Association over differences in climate policies. They’ll also review their association with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.
  5. Since Trump took office, over 200 scientists have left the EPA. Over 700 people have left the EPA overall.
  6. Last week we learned that Scott Pruitt had hired a right-leaning opposition research and media monitoring group for the EPA. This week, depending on who you believe, either the group quits or Pruitt fires them.
  7. France passes a law banning gas and oil production by 2040.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The House passes the reconciled tax plan on Tuesday, but then the Senate parliamentarian rejects it which means they have to vote again on Wednesday.
  2. Here’s a simple calculator showing what the tax plan means for you.
  3. Experts in the Treasury Office of Tax Policy say they were mostly shut out of the process for analyzing the tax bill, though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin previously said he had 100 experts working on it. 100 experts to deliver a 1-page analysis.
  4. After criticizing constituent and media reactions to her healthcare deal with Mitch McConnell in return for her yes vote on the tax bill, Susan Collins concedes that there will be no vote this year to fix healthcare, as McConnell promised.
  5. In fairness, the Senate puts forth two measures to help stabilize the ACA, but not enough Republicans in the House support it, so they get pushed to next year.
  6. The GOP rushed the bill through quickly and didn’t include a standard delay, which is typically included in bills like this in order to give agencies, businesses, and people who provide financial services time to figure things out. For example, the IRS (which is being cut, BTW) has to figure out new withholding amounts for people’s paychecks and reconfigure their tax forms, and ADP has to reprogram their paycheck system.
  7. There’s talk that Trump will wait until January to sign the tax bill into law to put off triggering automatic cuts to Medicare and other programs until 2019. To work around this, the GOP adds last-minute wording to the spending bill. Otherwise, they would’ve had to explain these cuts during an election year. I hope they put more and better planning into the rest of the bill.
  8. Trump signs the tax bill into law; his first major piece of legislation in his first year in office.
  9. Trump says that the biggest part of the tax bill is corporate tax savings, not middle-class tax breaks as promised.
  10. Trump’s been asking people how their 401k is doing as a selling point for his policies, but most Americans don’t have a 401k.
  11. The Koch brothers plan to launch a multi-million dollar campaign through their super PAC in 2018 to help make the tax plan more popular.
  12. The House passes a temporary funding bill to prevent a government shutdown. The bill is not associated with a clean Dream Act and CHIP is only extended to March. The bill passes in the Senate as well.
  13. Congressional Democrats back off their promises not to sign a funding bill without a clean Dream Act.
  14. Trump signs the temporary funding bill, keeping the government running through January 19, 2018.
  15. Carrier Corp. lays off more than 600 employees from their Indianapolis factory just before Christmas. Trump got lots of kudos earlier this year for supposedly working out a deal where Carrier would keep jobs in the U.S.
  16. Analyses of the tax plans show that four states—New York, New Jersey, California, and Maryland—will subsidize most of the tax breaks for the rest of the states.
  17. The number of people who itemize their deductions on their taxes is expected to drop from 30% to 10%.
  18. The House proposes another $80 billion in disaster relief.
  19. The Senate Banking Committee rejects Trump’s pick to head the Import-Export Bank, Scott Garret, mostly because of his previous efforts to get the bank shut down.

Elections:

  1. The Virginia elections are still up in the air after weeks of recounts. For a moment it looked like the House of Delegates was going to change from Republican control to Democrat, but a court challenge to one ballot leaves two candidates tied and the balance left up to a coin toss. But then the Democratic candidate challenges the Republican’s court challenge.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Trump administration takes down the ‘We The People’ petition site (they say it’s just temporary). The site was instituted under Obama as a way for all Americans to make their voices heard. The White House under Obama would respond to every petition that got 100,000 signatures.
  2. Trump’s new presidential coin replaces the phrase “E pluribus unum” with “Make America Great Again” – his campaign slogan. Trump includes his name three times on the coin, removes the presidential seal, and removes the 13 arrows that represented the 13 original states. Also, the coin is very gold.

Polls:

  1. A CNN poll has Trump’s approval at 35%, a historic low in that poll for a president in their first year.
  2. 55% of Americans oppose the tax bill. 66% say it helps the wealthy more than the middle class.

Week 47 in Trump

Posted on December 18, 2017 in Politics, Trump

It’s looking more and more likely that we’ll have tax reform by the end of the year. It doesn’t look like it will actually simplify the tax code at all, and it might add a few layers of complexity on top of our 75,000 pages of tax code. As usual, some will win and some will lose, but the ultra-wealthy and corporations won’t be on the losing side.

Here’s what happened this week…

Russia:

  1. Republicans make much ado about Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who was released from the Russia investigation last summer after texts were uncovered where he was critical of Trump and supportive of Clinton. However, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in his testimony to Congress, says that all federal employees are entitled to their political views and that political leanings do not disqualify them from doing their jobs. It’s actually a violation of federal practices to take political leanings into account for any applicant.
  2. Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky confesses in court to being hired by the FSB (Russian intelligence) to hack the DNC’s computer systems in 2016.
  3. Mueller’s team requests emails from all Cambridge Analytica employees who worked on the Trump campaign. Cambridge Analytica is the data, polling, and research firm that helped target Trump’s social media campaign.
  4. Putin considers Trump’s tweets to be official statements from the White House, and he gets reports of the tweets along with reports of other leaders’ official statements.
  5. Trump has never held a cabinet meeting about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, and it’s not talked about in the White House.
  6. Citizens United opened the door to all sorts of donor manipulation around our elections. Mueller is investigating Russian donors and donors with Russian ties in the 2016 elections. Here’s an in-depth piece on the people involved.

  7. Rumors abound on the left that Trump plans to fire Mueller on December 22. Trump denies this, saying that the investigation is almost wrapped up and that he’ll be cleared soon.
  8. Trump’s lawyers say Mueller obtained Trump’s transition team documents using inappropriate methods. But according to lawyers for the Government Services Administration (GSA), it went like this:
    • The GSA told Trump’s transition team during the transition that materials “would not be held back in any law enforcement” requests.
    • Mueller’s team requested the materials.
    • The GSA turned over the materials.
  1. Jared Kushner’s legal team is working on hiring a crisis PR agency.
  2. Internet traffic for four major corporations—Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft—is briefly rerouted through a Russian ISP.
  3. Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, says, “The Russians offered help. The campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help. And the president made full use of that help.” He calls the evidence pretty damning, though he wouldn’t say whether it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Two of Trump’s nominees for judge will not move forward for confirmation. Brett Talley is rated as unqualified by the ABA, and Jeff Mateer admits he discriminates against the LGBTQ community.
  2. However, Congress approves Leonard Steven Grasz, who couldn’t answer even the most basic of law questions during his confirmation hearing.
    UPDATE: My bad! I had Grasz (who was confirmed) confused with Matthew Peterson (who withdrew his nomination after his truly bad confirmation hearing).

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge temporarily blocks Trump’s rule that let employers and universities opt out of providing healthcare coverage for contraception. Trump tried to rescind the ACA rule that mandated contraceptive coverage, but the Pennsylvania judge says that contradicts the text of the ACA.
  2. Legislators in Ohio pass a law criminalizing abortions that doctors think might be due to finding out the child will be born with Down Syndrome. North Dakota and Indiana have similar laws.
  3. The Trump administration issues a list of terms the CDC cannot use in budget documents. They include: vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based, and science-based.
  4. Instead of the last two, the recommended wording is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes.” Wishes, huh? Well then I wish there was a cure for every single disease and bigotry so we wouldn’t have to censor like this.
  5. Several documents have been sent back to the CDC for correction of the above terms.
  6. The Mine Safety and Health Administration asks for public comments on regulations around coal and rock dust (responsible for black lung in miners) and around diesel (known to cause cancer). This indicates that the administration is looking at loosening these protections, too.
  7. The Trump administration sends some emergency funding to keep the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) running.

International:

  1. The deadline for Congress to re-implement sanctions against Iran after Trump decertified the Iran nuclear deal passes with no action from Congress. This despite Republicans calling the deal the worst deal ever and pushing to overrule it. Perhaps that was all talk.
  2. A resigning State Department official says Trump and Tillerson put Americans at risk because they don’t understand the role of the State Department. Diplomats and officials across the globe are leaving the department, which helps shape foreign policy and gets Americans overseas out of harms way. It also develops strategic relationships around the globe so the U.S. can come in when needed to help solve problems. You can’t do that without established people on the ground.
  3. In response to Trump declaring that the U.S. will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, leaders of Muslim nations declare East Jerusalem the capital of Palestine.
  4. Republicans are pushing a bill through the House that would require the Treasury to report on assets held by Iranian leaders, whether or not they are subject to sanctions.
  5. Nikki Haley claims that there is undeniable evidence that Iran supplied weapons to insurgents in Yemen. The UN Secretary-General says the evidence does not support this claim. It sounds like another administration creating a reason to go to war with a Middle Eastern country.
  6. Trump changes the U.S. stance on Syria and says Assad should remain as president until the next elections.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. After Senator Kirstin Gillibrand calls for Trump to step down because of accusations of sexual misconduct, Trump tweets that there was a time Gillibrand would do anything for his donations back in the day. Anything.
  2. Rumors abound that Paul Ryan is considering retiring after this term.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Republican Representative Blake Farenthold says he won’t run again because of sexual harassment accusations. He should step down now, like Conyers, Trent, and Franken.
  2. Women sue a congressional ethics official for physical and verbal assault. Ironically, the official was investigating sexual harassment claims into Members of Congress.
  3. A Kentucky lawmaker apparently commits suicide over sexual misconduct claims.
  4. Three of Trump’s accusers call on Congress to investigate the accusations of sexual assault against him.
  5. 56 female Democrats in Congress request the House Oversight Committee investigate Trump for the accusations of sexual assault. 17 women have accused Trump, though he says the accusations are false and that he doesn’t even know these women or has never met them. Videos and pictures contradict those claims.
  6. Trump speaks to graduates at the FBI National Academy in Quantico and says that immigrants who come to the U.S. through visa lotteries are the worst of the worst. He apparently doesn’t understand how the system works, because foreign leaders can’t pick who wins the lottery nor how they’re vetted. And reading through a few stories, many are professionals, doctors, engineers, etc.

Climate/EPA:

  1. World leaders and investors meet in Paris to discuss climate change, and they announce over $1 billion in investments to help countries and industries transition from coal and oil. Trump isn’t invited, but current and former U.S. officials represent, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Bloomberg, John Kerry, and Jerry Brown.
  2. During the meeting, state and local leaders from the U.S. affirmed their commitment to adhering to the Paris Agreement targets, with or without the federal government.
  3. French President Macron announces research grants to U.S. climate scientists who might be losing grants (not to mention the will to go on) under Trump. He’ll grant $70 million to 50 climate research projects to help “Make America Great Again!”
  4. Michael Dourson, Trump’s nominee to head the chemical safety division of the EPA, withdraws from consideration. His support in Congress was weak due to a career spent pushing for fewer safety measures around hazardous chemicals.
  5. Because he can’t leave an Obama rule untouched, Trump plans to rescind regulations requiring organic egg farmers to make sure their hens can graze outdoors.
  6. Federal records show that Scott Pruitt hired a contractor at the EPA to for the purpose of finding employees who are critical of the Trump administration.
  7. Barrows, Alaska is warming up so fast that the computer algorithm used by NOAA to compile global temperature changes flagged the measurement there as not being real. The algorithm removes outliers in temperatures to make sure no fake data gets into their research.
  8. Oklahomans are fighting for the findings of an audit of the Tar Creek Superfund site to be released. When he was Oklahoma’s Secretary of State, Scott Pruitt used his power to keep the audit from the public. After the EPA worked to clean up the site, Senator Jim Inhofe, along with Pruitt, endorsed a plan to use federal funds along with local citizens to clean up the site, which is now deserted and still polluted. Tar Creek holds a reservoir of lead-zinc ore, the mining of which resulted in levels of lead far above the acceptable limits, causing things like learning disabilities and memory loss.
  9. We learn that Ryan Zinke flew a national park leader to Washington D.C. to reprimand him for tweeting about climate change. Regardless of whether or not you think climate change is manmade, its effects on our national parks are visible and important.
  10. Scott Pruitt hires an opposition research team to help shape press coverage of the EPA.

Budget/Economy:

Lemme just say that tax reform has been an interesting process to me because it’s the first time I can recall really seeing how the sausage is made in Washington, and it’s not pretty. Politicians have been pretty outspoken about the backroom deals and about the fear and threats of losing big donors.

  1. The tax bill gets reconciled between the House and Senate. I could sum it up here, but the New York Times does a great job of it here.
  2. Here’s a good chart to see how the bill affects your income bracket. It looks like some will go up and some will go down.
  3. A few things the final bill does:
    • Removes the wording that would’ve rescinded the Johnson Act (so non-profits and religious organizations still can’t tell you how to vote)
    • Keeps and expands education deductions that the House wanted to get rid of
    • Limits mortgage interest, state and local tax, and property tax deductions, but at a higher level than the original House bill
    • Adds more deductions for pass-through entities than either original bill
    • Removes the wording giving personhood status to fetuses
    • Keeps the estate tax, but doubles the unified tax credit (the amount above which estates are taxed)
    • Eliminates the deduction of losses due to earthquakes and wildfires, but not for floods and hurricanes (obviously targeting a specific state where I live)
    • Keeps deductions for high medical costs, and actually lets you deduct more
    • Removes the ACA mandate, which could finally give the Republicans the victory they want by bringing the ACA to its knees
    • Opens up ANWR for drilling
  1. Even the Treasury Department says the tax plan won’t increase economic growth enough to pay for itself, saying we’ll also need regulatory reform, infrastructure development, and welfare reform.
  2. Mike Pence delays his trip to Israel in the likely case his vote is needed to break a tie on this pretty unpopular tax bill.
  3. John McCain is in the hospital and might not be available for the tax plan vote.
  4. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who last week said he was a yes on the tax bill, sends a letter to Orrin Hatch to find out how an additional 20% deduction for pass-through companies that own income-producing real estate got into the tax bill. Apparently, they still all don’t know what’s in this bill.
  5. Paul Ryan says Americans need to have more babies to save the economy. Economists say we need to allow in more immigrants to save the economy.
  6. The Fed raises the interest rate again (likely to guard against inflation).
  7. In a lawsuit, a group of small farmers charge the administration with “arbitrary and capricious” behavior over rolling back two protections for small farms. One of the rules made it easier for small farmers to sue for anti-competitive behavior (mostly by meat-packers). Obama’s administration negotiated for almost 8 years to create protections for small farmers and ranchers, but the Trump administration never implemented any of them.
  8. As a result of a study by Michigan State University scholars, the Defense Departments starts its first agency-wide financial audit ever. First EVER. The study found $21 trillion in unauthorized spending between 1998 and 2015.
  9. Canada cancels plans to buy fighter jets from Boeing due to a trade dispute between Boeing and Canada’s Bombadier. Canada will get their planes from Australia instead, costing Boeing $5.23 billion.
  10. A U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights is touring the U.S. to examine our own areas of extreme poverty. You can read the full report here – a long but fascinating read.
  11. Trump calls Rupert Murdoch to congratulate him on his $52.4 billion deal with Disney and to make sure he didn’t sell Fox News as part of the deal.

Elections:

  1. An RNC member from Nebraska resigns over the party’s support for Roy Moore after he was accused of pursuing teenage girls and molesting one.
  2. Doug Jones wins the Senate seat in Alabama. Roy Moore refuses to concede because, as explained by one Alabamian, he can’t believe God would will a Democrat to win.
  3. The African American vote goes to Doug Jones 96% to 4%.
  4. Trump somehow claims victory in Moore’s loss, saying he knew he couldn’t win. After endorsing him for the past several weeks.
  5. Trump plans to travel extensively campaigning and holding rallies for down-ticket Republicans for much of 2018. Who will be presidenting during that time, I wonder?
  6. In polling neither Democrat nor Republican voters see Trump as the leader of the GOP, though there are districts where Trump could be helpful.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The FCC votes to rescind net neutrality rules, despite public protest and majority support in favor of the rules (83% of Americans favor net neutrality). Also despite many irregularities in the public comment process, which appears to have been dominated by bots.
  2. The FCC’s new plan would require ISPs to disclose whether they might violate the rules that were just rescinded, which shifts enforcement from the FCC to the FTC. So for example, your cable company will have to tell you that they might throttle Netflix or charge more for Hulu. Be sure to read the fine print!
  3. In response, several state leaders announce plans to protect net neutrality in their own states, and 17 states sue the FCC over the changes.
  4. Senator Schumer says Senate Democrats will force a vote on a bill to repeal the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules. He’ll use the Congressional Review Act, which Republicans have used nearly 20 times this year to rescind regulatory agency decisions.
  5. The Wall Street Journal publishes an op-ed intended to calm people down about net neutrality, but it turns out to be authored by a former Comcast lawyer.
  6. Just a little reminder of what Ajit Pai has done this year as head of the FCC:
    • Loosened limits on media ownership that were in place to prevent information monopolies
    • Increased the amount broadband providers can charge businesses
    • Scaled back a program to provide internet to low-income areas (a program that was supposed to be expanded)
    • Reversed net neutrality
  1. Someone sends reporters a forged document they say is a court filing charging Chuck Schumer with sexual harassment. Both Schumer and the alleged accuser report the document as a forgery to the police. Just before the news broke, two conservative provocateurs bragged about documents that would bring down a U.S. Senator. Leaving us all with the implication that they were the ones behind it?
  2. Omarosa is out. And it sounds weird.
  3. Trump directs NASA to make another moon landing.
  4. Trump solicits advice from Janine Pirro. Not just this week, but all the time.
  5. NRA president Wayne LaPierre attends a White House party on the fifth anniversary of the Sand Hook shooting. Really bad optics.
  6. Just before going in and telling FBI graduates at Quantico that he has their back 100%, Trump calls the FBI a “shame.”
  7. Sean Spicer is writing a book about the 2016 elections.
  8. There was a botched terrorist attack in a New York subway where the only one seriously hurt was the bomber himself.
  9. Trump takes credit for getting rid of 469 regulations, 42% of which were either never implemented or already shelved.

Week 46 in Trump

Posted on December 14, 2017 in Politics, Trump

After over half the Democrats in the Senate push for his resignation over accusations of sexual misconduct, Al Franken resigns from the Senate, saying:

“I of all people am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party.”

Come on Republicans. The moral high ground has a very slippery slope, and you might be at a point where you can never make it back to the top. You need to oust your own members who are accused of misconduct, whether or not they cop to it. If you don’t like the RNC supporting an alleged child molester, you need to stand up and tell them so.

Russia:

  1. The chief lawyer at the White House told Trump in January that Michael Flynn had likely lied to the FBI and Mike Pence. This was before Trump asked Comey to “see his way to letting it go.”
  2. In his December meeting with Russian officials, Mike Flynn told them the sanctions Obama was imposing at the time would be ripped up.
  3. Mueller asks a judge to deny Manafort’s request to be released from house arrest after learning the Manafort wrote an op-ed with a Russian operative in order to sway public opinion about his dealings with the Ukraine. Some people never learn.
  4. Mueller subpoenas Deutsche Bank for information about Trump’s accounts. Deutsche Bank has loaned millions to the Trump Organization. The White House denies that there are any subpoenas.
  5. Donald Trump Jr. spends eight hours in front of the House Intelligence Committee. He says he talked to Hope Hicks, and not his father, about how to respond to revelations of his meeting with a Russian lawyer.
  6. He also claims attorney-client privilege as a reason to not talk about the phone call with Trump Sr. where they discussed how they should handle the issue of Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer (because a lawyer was in the room when he called).
  7. Newly uncovered emails show there was follow-up within the Trump campaign to Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russian lawyer.
  8. In his meeting with the Russian lawyer, Trump Jr. asked for information proving illegal donations to the Clinton campaign.
  9. Erik Prince testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, and says he met with Devin Nunes earlier this year to discuss the unmasking of names of Americans being investigated (after Nunes recused himself). He also discusses meetings with Emirati officials and a Russian banker in the Seychelles.
  10. The judge in the Flynn case recuses himself.
  11. Senate Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee hold up K.T. McFarland’s nomination based on questions around what she knew about contact between Michael Flynn and Russian ambassador Kislyak.
  12. Hope Hicks meets with Mueller’s team, and we learn that the FBI warned her that Russian operatives had tried to contact her at least twice this year.

Healthcare:

  1. The DOJ picks up the investigations into abortion providers about the transfer of fetal tissue, taking over from the congressional inquiries held last year.
  2. The USDA rolls back Michelle Obama’s school lunch program. Because why should kids have to eat healthy food?

International:

  1. Apparently urged by Jared Kushner, Trump announces that he recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and that he plans to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. This is a new tactic for Middle East peace, and protests erupt abroad.
  2. Palestinian leader Abbas says maybe a one-state solution is the way to go because it would force Israel to choose whether they’ll be a true democracy, in which case Palestinians could have the majority voice.
  3. Hamas leaders push for a new uprising against Israel because of the announcement.
  4. Several advisers say Trump didn’t fully understand the ramifications of the Jerusalem move and that his focus is “seeming pro-Israel” and “making a deal.”
  5. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) bans Russia from the 2018 Olympics as punishment for their “systemic manipulation of the anti-doping system”. The IOC also creates a way for drug-free Russian athletes to compete under the Olympic flag.
  6. The Senate confirms Kirstjen Nielsen as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She was previously Kelly’s chief of staff there.
  7. Germany’s acting foreign minister says that relations between Germany and the U.S. will never be the same, complaining that Trump looks at Europe as a rival instead of an ally.
  8. Tillerson gets a chilly reception from European leaders, who cite Trump’s nationalistic rhetoric, his tweets, and his announcement that the U.S. will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as reasons for the tension.
  9. The State Department issues a worldwide caution for U.S. travelers abroad. The last time this happened was at the start of the Iraq war.
  10. North Korea says war is inevitable.
  11. Remember when we brought back our diplomats from Cuba because they were experiencing mysterious symptoms? Well doctors find brain damage in the victims, which makes the sonic weapon explanation a little less believable.
  12. Iraq says that ISIS no longer controls any land in the country and declares an end to their war on ISIS.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House passes the concealed carry reciprocity bill, which would let people who live in concealed carry states carry weapons in states that don’t have concealed carry. I guess states right are only right when you agree with them.
  2. So far, 44 U.S. Representatives and 2 Senators have announced they’ll retire, resign, or run for a different office. 30 of the 44 are Republicans and both Senators are. Some feel they can’t get anything done anymore, and some point to Trump.
  3. Senator Al Franken announces he’ll step down over sexual misconduct allegations. Representative Trent Frank (R-AZ) also steps down from complaints that he suggested members of his staff should be surrogate mothers for him and his wife.
  4. Democratic Representative John Conyers resigns after more accusations of sexual harassment. Still waiting for Trump to come clean here.
  5. A House vote to impeach Trump fails bigly.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Supreme Court allows Trump’s third iteration of the travel ban to take effect while arguments are heard in the court challenge.
  2. Despite Trump’s push to bolster staff at Customs and Border Patrol, the CPB hasn’t been able to hire enough people to make up for attrition.
  3. In a rally in Florida… Wait, really? Why is he still holding rallies? Anyway, at a rally In Florida, Trump stumps for Roy Moore and goes after one of Moore’s accusers (she had added notes to the one Moore wrote in her yearbook oh my). Trump has attacked his own accusers and Moore’s, but somehow all the other women coming forward are legit. WTF?
  4. 92 Somalis are taken back to Somalia on a deportation plane, but they have to land in Senegal, and end up returning to the U.S. because of logistical issues.
  5. Trump was originally scheduled to speak at the opening of the Civil Rights Museum in Mississippi, but due to threatened boycotts by civil rights leaders, Trump speaks at a private event and not the opening.
    UPDATE: I recant that. Despite protests, Trump spoke at the opening anyway.
  6. Trump holds the traditional Hanukkah party but doesn’t invite Democrats or Reformist Jews.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump shrinks Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, as promised. The first of many lawsuits is filed on the same day.
  2. The EPA inspector general announces an investigation into Scott Pruitt’s meeting with the National Mining Association earlier this year where Pruitt apparently asked industry members to urge Trump to exit the Paris agreement.
  3. The Trump administration auctions off drilling rights for 900 tracts in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, totaling 10.3 million acres. Only two companies bid and only on seven tracts, totaling only about $1.16 million. This was supposed to be the biggest lease sale ever.
  4. Trump approves a state of emergency for Southern California due to the rampant wildfires.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Congress pushes back a potential government shutdown by extending spending for two weeks. So now they have to sign a funding bill by the end of next week.
  2. Trump says a government shutdown could still happen, and it would benefit him because he’ll blame Democrats for obstructing. Democrats are withholding support for a spending bill because they want a clean DACA bill. They also want comparable increases for non-defense spending as for defense spending. The Freedom Caucus says they won’t support a bill that includes either of those things.
  3. The tax bills being reconciled include a boon to private schools by allowing tax-free 529 accounts to be used for private K-12 schools. Currently they are only allowed for college savings.
  4. The Senate forgot to reduce the ATM, one of many oversights in their tax plan. Experts find many loopholes and potential problems.
  5. The Senate removes the anti-abortion text that was inserted into the tax bill (personhood for fetuses). The parliamentarian says it violates the Byrd rule, which governs what can be included in finance bills.
  6. 13 GOP governors refuse to sign a letter of support for the proposed tax plans.
  7. Susan Collins’ vote on the bill is back in question as the planned fix won’t work for the problems that would be caused by getting rid of the ACA’s individual mandate.
  8. Economists wonder if this is the wrong time for a tax cut, usually a tool to stimulate the economy which is currently on an 86-month winning streak. It could backfire and push us into inflation.
  9. Hiring is still strong 8 years into the recovery. 228,000 jobs were added in November.
  10. But GE announces they’ll layoff 12,000 employees (globally, though they didn’t say how many in what countries).
  11. The repeal of the Johnson amendment in the tax bill could open the door to allowing large donations to 501(c)(3) charities, meaning you can donate as much as you want to political candidates and write it off as a tax deduction.
  12. Attorneys general from 17 states and D.C. file a brief challenging Trump’s right to appoint Mick Mulvaney to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
  13. Hours after Mulvaney becomes acting director of the CFPB, the bureau reverses its position on a case that was nearly over, so bureau will no longer take a position on whether Nationwide will pay $8 million for misleading over 100,000 customers on their mortgages. They also stopped payments to some victims of financial crimes. This after Mulvaney says he won’t blow up the bureau.
  14. Trump rescinds another Obama-era proposal that makes airlines disclose baggage fees up front. Because why should we get to know exactly how much we have to pay?
  15. The Department of Labor delays implementation of the fiduciary rule, which would protect consumers from financial advisors lining their own pockets instead of looking out for consumers’ best interests.

Elections:

  1. Trump calls Roy Moore to offer his endorsement, and stumps for Moore at Trump’s rally in Florida.
  2. And then the Republican National Committee (RNC) throws its support behind Moore once again, after distancing themselves just a few weeks ago. But no one in the RNC defends the move publicly. This is no longer the party of the moral majority.
  3. Republican Representative Ben Sasse criticizes the RNC for funding Roy Moore once more, and says he’ll pull out of the fundraising arm of the committee if they keep it up.
  4. Paul Ryan says Roy Moore should drop out of the race, while Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump has the highest level respect for women (after Trump voiced support for Moore).
  5. Coordination between the RNC and the president is at a low, with Trump not realizing he is the leader of the party.
  6. Trump’s voter fraud commission, headed by Kris Kobach, wants to create a centralized database that pulls together names, addresses, party affiliations, and partial security numbers for all voters in all states. Security and access to the database hasn’t been defined yet. This is similar to Kobach’s Crosscheck database, which has caused millions of voters to be accidentally dropped from the roles. States have tried to drop out but are finding it impossible.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Erik Prince and Oliver North (!) are trying to sell the administration on the idea of creating a secret spy network to protect us against our own government intelligence agencies.
  2. After the Access Hollywood tape was released, GOP donors reportedly asked the RNC how much they would have to pay Trump for him to drop out of the election. Mike Pence and Reince Priebus also reportedly made a plan for succession, with Pence running for president and Condoleeza Rice being his running mate.
  3. Trump’s lawyers argue that the defamation suit brought against him by one of his sexual harassment accusers should be thrown out because Trump’s attacks against his accusers falls under protected speech.
  4. The Veterans Affairs Secretary, David Shulkin, holds a DC event touting Trump’s promise to house homeless vets. Then four days later, the Veterans Affairs agency cut resources from a program that dramatically reduced homelessness for sick and vulnerable vets. After some blowback, Trump reverses this decision.
  5. There are protests across the country in support of net neutrality and against FCC chair Ajit Pai’s attempt to get rid of it.
  6. Trump rolls back another Obama administration safety rule, this one requiring that trains shipping highly explosive liquids be equipped with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes by 2021. This rule was put in place to prevent the explosive train wrecks we’ve seen in recent years.
  7. Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, defends the FBIs integrity to the House Judiciary Committee after Trump tweeted that the agency is in tatters.

Polls:

  1. Trump hits a new all-time low in the Pew Research poll, with an approval rating of 32%.
  2. 70% of Americans think Congress should investigate Trump for sexual harassment accusations.
  3. 59% of Americans think Trump’s team had improper contacts with Russia during the campaign.
  4. 57% think Mueller is fair in his handling of the investigation.

Week 45 in Trump

Posted on December 4, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Trump says Merry Christmas and then claims that the war on Christmas is over. Finally… I thought that war would never end. Or was it ever a war in the first place?

Russia:

  1. We find out that Mueller has interviewed Jared Kushner about meetings with Michael Flynn in December.
  2. Legislators and their aides say that over the summer, Trump pressured committee members to wrap up their investigations into Russian interference in our elections. The people he pressured include Richard Burr, Mitch McConnell, and Roy Blunt, among others.
  3. Mueller brings the fourth indictment in the Russia probe, this time against former national security advisor Michael Flynn. Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about discussing sanctions with Russian officials last December.
  4. Flynn is the second person to enter a guilty plea in the investigation, causing speculation that he is cooperating with Mueller.
  5. Lying might seem like a small crime but he lied about negotiating with the Russians against U.S. policy and U.S. interests before Trump took office and after we knew that Russia interfered in our election.
  6. Flynn’s admission brings other campaign officials into question. After he spoke with the Russian ambassador about sanctions, Flynn called one or more senior members of the transition team while they were at Mar-a-Lago with Trump. They discussed his meeting with Ambassador Kislyak and sanctions Obama imposed on Russia.
  7. While she was on Trump’s transition team, K.T. McFarland emailed a friend saying that Russia threw the election to Trump. McFarland went on to become deputy national security advisor for a bit.
  8. Trump responds to Flynn’s guilty plea in a number of ways… in tweets, of course. He attacks the FBI, saying they’re in tatters. He attacks the FBI and DOJ for not investigating Clinton thoroughly enough. He also says he fired Flynn because Flynn lied to the vice-president, which implies that Trump knew about Flynn’s interactions with Russians, knew that he lied to Pence, and then he asked James Comey to let the Flynn thing go AFTER he knew about the lies.
  9. Trump’s lawyer says he composed that tweet, and then goes on to say that a president cannot be guilty of obstruction because he’s the chief law enforcement officer. Apparently forgetting that both Nixon and Clinton had articles of impeachment against them for exactly that.
  10. Among the documents turned over to investigators is an email from an operative with ties to the NRA who said during the campaign that he could arrange a back-channel meeting with Trump and Putin. He said Russia was “quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S.” and wanted to make contact at the N.R.A.’s annual convention.
  11. Even though he “recused” himself from the Russia investigation, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is pulling together contempt charges against the FBI and DOJ for not cooperating with requests for information by congressional committees. Both the FBI and DOJ say they’re complying fully.
  12. Paul Manafort reaches an $11 billion bail agreement with Mueller, getting rid of his ankle bracelet and putting up several real estate properties as collateral.
  13. We learn that Mueller got rid of one of his investigators last summer over anti-Trump texts. The right uses the firing of Peter Strzok to “prove” that Mueller’s investigation is tainted. The left says it shows he’s keeping bias out of the picture.
  14. The Senate Judiciary Committee is building an obstruction of justice case against Trump.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Subpoenas go out to 23 Trump businesses over the emoluments clause.
  2. Jeff Sessions picks Kellyanne Conway to head up the White House response to the opioid crisis.

Healthcare:

  1. Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) resign. They say they can’t effectively work under a president who just doesn’t care about addressing AIDS or HIV.

International:

  1. North Korea tests an ICBM that it says can reach the U.S. mainland.
  2. Ivanka takes a trip to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. Tillerson declines to send a high-level State Department delegation along with her.
  3. Rumors abound that Trump plans to replace Tillerson with CIA director Mike Pompeo, and then to appoint Senator Tom Cotton to the position of CIA director. Trump denies all this.
  4. The board of the UK’s Social Mobility Commission resign, saying it’s impossible to work on issues around social mobility as long as the government is focused on Brexit. The board members accuse the government of abandoning the people who voted for Brexit and of not doing anything to change the conditions that led to the vote.
  5. The U.S. pulls out of the UN’s global compact on migration, saying it undermines our sovereignty, but the likely reason is that it was created under Obama. The compact helps refugees migrate in an orderly way instead of the haphazard way that occurred over the past several years.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. After Trump tweets that there will be no deal in their scheduled meeting, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer skip a meeting with Trump and Republican leaders about government funding. Pelosi and Schumer say they’ll work directly with Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan instead.
  2. After they skip the meeting, Trump accuses them of pettiness, though one could easily say his tweet was pretty petty.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump shares inflammatory posts from a member of the far-right group Britain First (you might remember the group from the guy who killed an MP last year shouting “Britain First!”). The posts are anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant videos, one of which turns out to be ISIS propaganda and the other two of which didn’t reflect the message that went along with them.
  2. Britain First is labeled an extremist group that targets Muslims and mosques. IMO, our president shouldn’t be spreading dangerous, extremist propaganda. Our president should be better than that.
  3. His tweets draw a quick rebuke from British politicians, including Theresa May. Which starts a brief war of words between the two leaders. Trump responds by implying May isn’t taking care of “Radical Islamic Terrorism.”
  4. Of note, the woman who originally posted these videos is on trial for hate crimes.
  5. In response to criticism of the videos, Sarah Huckabee Sanders says it doesn’t matter if the videos are real because the threat is real and we need to strengthen our borders. Soooo we should be making policy based on ISIS propaganda and falsified events. Great.
  6. And props to Trump. Britain First gets an increase in supporters. Good job.
  7. The British parliament holds an animated discussion about whether Trump should be allowed to visit and about his fitness. One member suggests that Trump should delete his Twitter account.
  8. In his World AIDS day statement, Trump fails to mention the LGBTQ community, even though they are disproportionately affected.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Barry Meyers, Trump’s pick to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), breaks from the administration’s party line and says that he agrees climate change is caused primarily by humans.
  2. Trump announces plans to reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument by 85% and the Grand Staircase-Escalante by more than previously announced. These were designated by Obama and Bill Clinton, respectively. He plans to:
    • Split the Grand Staircase-Escalante into three different areas – Grand Staircase National Monument, Kaiparowits National Monument, and Escalante Canyons National Monument.
    • Split Bears Ears into two areas – Indian Creek National Monument and the Shash Jaa National Monument.
  3. The EPA holds its only listening session about repealing the Clean Power Plan in Charleston, West Virginia. Coal Country. Around 230 people attend and only about 30 of them support the repeal. The Clean Power Plan regulates coal plan emissions.
  4. Moody’s is about to make climate change very relevant to coastal and low elevation cities, including in some red states (specifically George, Florida, Mississippi, and Texas). Moody’s says they’ll rate municipal bonds in at-risk areas based on how prepared they are to mitigate the effects of climate change. This could hurt those areas economically unless they comply.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Two people show up on Monday to run the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFBB). One is Trump’s pick to head the agency, OMB director Mick Mulvaney, and the other is Leandra English, who is next in succession according to the CPFB bylaws. A Trump-appointed federal judge rules in favor of the presidential power to fill vacancies and Mulvaney becomes the acting director in the end.
  2. Of note, Mulvaney has sharply criticized this bureau and thinks it stifles financial institutions. Because how can banks make money if they can’t fuck over the populace, amiright?
  3. On top of the cost of recovering from hurricane Maria, Puerto Rican manufacturers could be hit with another economic problem The House tax bill includes a 20% tax on Puerto Rican goods shipped to the mainland. This could decimate their manufacturing sector.
  4. Trump gives a pro-tax reform speech in Missouri. Here are some Tax Policy Center findings disputing some of the points he made:
    • Only 20% of the tax savings would go to the 60% of people making $87,000 or less.
    • 63% of the savings would go to the 20% of people making 150,000 or more.
    • 25% of the savings would go to the 5% of people making $303,000 or more.
    • Despite the good job reports, job growth this year has been slightly less than last year.
    • Trump is right that economic growth has been strong over the last two quarters.
  1. The Senate Budget Committee votes to advance the Senate tax plan to the floor on a party-line vote. In a no-debate, no-hearing process. While looking protesters with disabilities in the eye.
  2. Several Republican Senators express concerns about the Senate bill for varying reasons. Bob Corker thinks it adds too much to the deficit, Ron Johnson worries it doesn’t do enough for small businesses, others worry that their constituents will lose their healthcare coverage, and yet others worry that it will raise taxes on the middle class.
  3. The first vote, on Thursday, is halted when the Senate parliamentarian finds it doesn’t pass requirements. The bill had a clause that said if the tax cuts caused the deficit to increase too much, it would trigger an increase in individual taxes. Not good enough to get past the $1 trillion it was predicted to add to the deficit.
  4. On Friday, Senate Republicans scramble to make deals and get in last-minute changes, and ultimately deliver nearly 500 pages, giving Senators a few hours to read it before the vote. Some of the pages are so fresh, the changes are written in cursive in the margins and some of the words get cut off by the copy machine.
  5. Lobbyists get copies of the marked up bill before the Senators who have to vote on it.
  6. After much deal-making, the bill passes the full Senate in the wee hours Saturday morning. Here’s how they brought in some hold-outs:
    • Susan Collins gets promises of future bills to make sure people don’t lose healthcare and to reduce premiums.
    • Jeff Flake gets a promise that the situation of the Dreamers will be taken care of with a clean bill.
    • Steve Daines and Ron Johnson got a deeper tax break for pass-through corporations.
    • Lisa Murkowski gets to exploit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) by opening it up to drilling and mining.
  1. THE AARP releases a report showing that millions of seniors’ taxes will go up under the Senate tax plan.
  2. Despite Steve Mnuchin’s repeated assurances that he had a hundred analysts working on the tax bill ramifications, there is no report from the Treasury Department. Normally, the administration would release a report supporting their economic assertions, especially given that most independent analysts have refuted the claims made by the GOP.
  3. The Treasury Department’s inspector general launches an inquiry into what happened at Treasury. Did they create a report and hide it? Did they even create a report? Did they do any analytics?
  4. Here’s a couple random things the bill includes:
    • A repeal of the Johnson amendment, so your priest can tell you who to vote for.
    • Wording that gives personhood to fetuses.
    • Opening ANWR to drilling and mining.
    • A tax on private university endowments except for Hillsdale College, which is funded by the DeVos family.
  1. Marco Rubio says we’ll make up the deficit by cutting Medicare and Social Security down the road.
  2. Republicans have been very candid about the fact that their largest donors have threatened to stop funding the party if they don’t get tax reform through. Some continue to say this is for the people, but big donors get the biggest tax breaks. See the quotes at the end of this recap.
  3. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation releases their report on the cost of the tax bill an hour after the vote, which means they passed the bill without knowing the economic ramifications.
  4. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities publishes a new report finding that 27% of the Bush tax cuts benefited the wealthiest 1%.
  5. Trump thinks a government shutdown would benefit him politically, saying he’ll just blame it on the Democrats and use it as leverage to get funding for his wall.

Elections:

  1. A 1982 federal consent decree in New Jersey on voter rights expires, though the judge says it can be re-opened if violations against voters come up again. The decree was put in place when the Republican National Party was found guilty of voter intimidation and harassment and the RNC was barred from any activity that suppressed the vote. Yes, folks, the Republican party has been trying to suppress minority votes for at least 36 years.
  2. Senator Lindsey Graham says his party should learn something from nominating someone like Roy Moore.
  3. A retired Marine starts a write-in campaign to oppose Roy Moore in Alabama. Apparently there have been a large number of requests on how to write-in a new candidate.
  4. Trump endorses alleged child molester Roy Moore for Senate. Other Republicans who had come out against Moore because of the accusations (like Mitch McConnell) soften their stance and say they’ll let the people of Alabama decide.
  5. The Office of the Special Counsel begins investigating Kellyanne Conway over violations of the Hatch Act for using her office to campaign for alleged pedophile Roy Moore.
  6. Trump pushes Orrin Hatch to run again, likely because he wants to keep Mitt Romney out of the Senate.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump’s ethics lawyer resigns.
  2. Trump continues to bring up conspiracy theories in private, to name a few:
    • He questions the legitimacy of Obama’s birth certificate.
    • He says millions of undocumented immigrants voted for Hillary.
    • He says that the Russian investigation will exonerate him by Christmas.
    • He says that the Access Hollywood tape isn’t his voice despite previously saying it was. People around him say he’s convinced it isn’t his voice.
  1. Jeff Flake is the only GOP member of Congress calling him out on these things, while others shake their head and chuckle or refuse to go on record.
  2. Fox News goes off the air for good in the United Kingdom.
  3. Trump arrives in New York City for some fundraisers and is greeted by chants of “Lock him up!” Ah, Mike Flynn’s favorite campaign chant. Look who’s getting locked up now, Mike.

Polls:

  1. One of our parties needs a little more introspection, IMO. Despite the fact that sexual harassment is apolitical (and despite the fact that Republicans have been involved in nearly twice as many (known) sex scandals since 1980):
    • 76% of Republicans think Democrats have a serious problem with sexual harassment.
    • 40% of Republicans think Republicans have a serious problem with sexual harassment.
    • 43% of Republicans think it’s not an issue within their own party.
    • 60% of Democrats think Democrats have a serious problem with sexual harassment.
    • 75% of Democrats think Republicans have a serious problem with sexual harassment.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

With the passage of the tax bill, members of Congress have just given up on any pretense they’re looking out for our best interests. Here are a few quotes:

  1. Senator Chuck Grassley: “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.” (Even if he’s right, one group is hoarding and one group is putting their money back into the economy.)
  2. Representative Chris Collins: “My donors are basically saying: ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.’”
  3. Senator Cory Gardner: “Donors are furious.”
  4. Senator Lindsey Graham: “The financial contributions will stop [if we don’t pass tax reform].”
  5. Senator Orrin Hatch, on why we can’t fund CHIP yet, says CHIP has done a “terrific job for people who really need the help” and then “I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything.” (Yes, those lazy-ass 8-year-olds who won’t help themselves…)
  6. Representative Steve Scalise: “Every time we’ve cut taxes you’ve seen the economy take off.” (Conveniently overlooking the tax cuts during George W. Bush’s entire presidency.)
  7. Donald Trump: “You know, for years they have not been able to get tax cuts, many, many years since Reagan.” (Except for that one time under Clinton, and all those times under Bush, and that time under Obama, I guess.)

Week 44 in Trump

Posted on November 28, 2017 in Politics, Trump

This week, I’m thankful for much-needed vacations. Which means this week’s recap is short and sweet. I do want to highlight my favorite story of the week though…

In a meeting with Democratic Senators on tax reform, Gary Cohn fakes a bad connection to get Trump off the call. Senator Tom Carper said “We’re not going to have a real conversation here – can’t you just tell the president that he is brilliant and say we’re losing … the connection and then hang up?” So Cohn did just that.

If this is how advisors and members of Congress have to work with the president, what does it say about him? Anyway, here’s what else happened in week 44…

Russia:

  1. Mueller is now interested in Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) over meetings he had with Julian Assange in August. The Kremlin regards Rohrabacher as an intelligence source, and values him enough to give him a secret code name.
  2. In a sign he might be negotiating a deal with Mueller, Michael Flynn cuts ties with Trump’s lawyers.
  3. Mueller adds Michael Flynn’s business partner to the list of people he’s investigating.
  4. Jared Kushner’s role in the white house diminishes as he becomes further involved in the Russia investigation. Kushner says he’s just focusing on the important things and that there’s nothing to worry about.
  5. The FBI knew for at least a year that Russian hackers were trying to break into many U.S. officials’ gmail accounts, but the FBI never bothered to warn the targeted officials about it.

Courts/Justice:

  1. In yet another instance where state abortion laws ignore the the actual law, a federal court overturns Texas’s latest anti-abortion law.
  2. Police chiefs in several cities are frustrated by the DOJ’S hands-off approach to the consent decrees agreed to under Obama. These decrees were put in place to help police departments deal with problems of injustice and systemic prejudice.

International:

  1. Trump adds North Korea back to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
  2. In the midst of impeachment hearings, Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe resigns after 37 years in power.
  3. About a dozen State Department officials formally accuse Secretary of State Tillerson of violating a federal law, in this case one to prevent enlisting child soldiers. He did this by excluding Iraq, Afghanistan, and Myanmar from a list of offenders.
  4. A few weeks ago, the prime minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, resigned suddenly citing issues with Iran and Hezbollah. Now he says he’s not resigning yet. Apparently the Iran-backed president of Lebanon urged him to rethink it.
  5. Despite coming out tough on Syria at the start of his term, Trump has pretty much ceded leadership on post-war planning to Putin. Putin hosts the leaders of Iran and Turkey in a planning meeting, and experts say Putin has won in Syria.
  6. Terrorists bomb a Sufi Mosque in Egypt, killing at least 305 people. Trump responds by saying we need to build that wall.
  7. Despite Clinton being criticized as Secretary of state for security issues, Tillerson not only refused to meet with his security director for most of this year, but he dismissed the director after one 5-minute meeting, leaving the security position empty.
  8. The Trump administration announces that the Palestinian diplomatic delegation in D.C. will be shut down, but then changes its mind and says it can stay open for at least 90 more days. After the initial decision, Abbas refuses a call from Kushner, referring him instead to the Palestinian Authority’s representative in Washington.
  9. Air Force General John Hyten, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), says if Trump made an illegal nuclear launch request, he would push back against it.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Even Congress gets a break over Thanksgiving…

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. While House Republicans oblige Trump’s request for hiring a large number of ICE officers, Senate Republicans don’t include funding for it in their version of the appropriations bill. Both houses included extra funding for Customs and Border Patrol though.
  2. The U.S. votes against a UN resolution that condemns the glorification of Nazism, basically saying that the U.S. values freedom of speech over condemning hate speech. The only two other countries to vote against it are Ukraine and Palau.
  3. Trump says what a great thing it is that women are speaking out about sexual misconduct (that is, except for those coming out against Roy Moore and those who came out against Trump himself).
  4. For the second time, a federal judge blocks Trump’s ban on transgender troops. This judge says that Trump’s tweets on the ban were “capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified.”
  5. Customs and Border Patrol confirms they were taken completely by surprise with Trump’s first executive order demanding a travel ban. It turns out that the Trump administration disobeyed a court order in its implementation of the initial travel ban.
  6. The DHS apparently tried to hide a damning report from its inspector general and hasn’t been complying with oversight efforts.
  7. A district court judge blocks an executive order that would cut funding to sanctuary cities, saying that Trump can’t change the conditions for funding that’s already approved by Congress.
  8. Trump speaks at an event to honor the Native American Code Talkers who served in WWII, and in doing so repeats his standard attack on Elizabeth Warren by calling her Pocahontas. He’s roundly criticized for using a racial slur at this event.

Puerto Rico:

  1. Trump withdraws the USNS Comfort hospital ship from Puerto Rico, even though the island is still largely without power.

Budget/Economy:

  1. 37 out of 38 economists say that the GOP House and Senate tax plans would increase the debt substantially faster than they would improve the economy. The sole economist who disagreed says he misread the question.
  2. According to the Tax Policy Center, 50% of Americans would see higher taxes by 2027 in the Senate tax plan.
  3. The house tax plan removes the $250 deduction teachers receive in order to buy school supplies; the Senate version doubles the deduction. (Remember that even with the deduction, teachers still pay most of this out of their own pockets.)
  4. A CBO analysis finds that the Senate tax plan hurts the poor. Here are some highlights:
    • People making $30,000 or less would pay more in taxes starting in 2019.
    • Starting in 2021, people making $40,000 or less would pay more.
    • After a decade, most people making $75,000 or less would pay more.
    • Millionaires and people making $100,000 to $500,000 get tax cuts all around.
    • The healthcare changes in the Senate bill would disproportionately affect the poor.
  5. The DOJ plans to sue to prevent the merger between AT&T and Time Warner. The DOJ requested that AT&T sell CNN as a precondition, but AT&T says no thanks.
  6. After the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) steps down, his deputy director becomes the acting director. But Trump uses a presidential power that lets him fill vacancies and appoints Mick Mulvaney, who is also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. So now the courts will have to decide who will lead the agency.
  7. The FCC announces plans to end net neutrality. This means that your internet service providers will be able to tier services much like your cable company, and this means you might have to pay to access your favorite sites. In response to states promising to protect net neutrality locally, the FCC also plans to prevent states from implementing their own net neutrality rules.
  8. The legalization of marijuana in the U.S. has brought the price down by two-thirds. You’d think that would discourage the Mexican cartels, but they just moved over to shipping us more heroin instead.

Elections:

  1. Trump pretty much endorses Roy Moore for Senate. He says, “We don’t need a liberal Democrat in that seat. He totally denies [the accusations], you have to listen to him also … we don’t need somebody soft on crime like [Doug] Jones.” Except that Doug Jones IS tough on crime. He prosecuted the KKK members who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church and he indicted the Atlanta Olympic bomber, for starters.
  2. Kellyanne Conway’s comments get her in trouble again with the Office of Government Ethics. The office accuses Conway of violating the Hatch Act when she attacked Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones.
  3. There have so far been at least three different efforts to discredit Roy Moore’s accusers and the press covering the story:
    • A Twitter account, which has since been deleted, started a false story about a Washington Post reporter offering money for dirt on Moore.
    • A group sent out robocalls pretending to be WaPo reporters and again offering bribes for dirt on Moore.
    • A woman associated with Project Veritas contacted a WaPo reporter saying Moore had impregnated her when she was 15 and helped her get an abortion. Her facts didn’t check out though, and reporters later saw her entering Veritas’ offices. (Fun fact: Trump has made donations to Project Veritas.)

These all show an incredible lack of understanding of how real journalism works, and should show everyone how vigorously major newspapers research their stories.

Miscellaneous:

  1. One border patrol agent is killed and one badly wounded on the job, both apparently hit over the head and beaten.
  2. Trump’s current pick to lead the 2020 census is a professor who wrote a book on why competitive elections are a bad thing, which signals an effort to politicize the census.
  3. Representative Dave Trott (R-MI), who already announced he wouldn’t run for re-election, cites Trump as a factor in his decision.
  4. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman is investigating the FCC for a scheme to corrupt the comment process on net neutrality, saying public commenters impersonated 100,000s of Americans.
  5. Trump spends Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago. Trump and the White House both say he’s working and very busy just an hour before he ends up on a golf course. Trump has golfed every 5.1 days of his presidency, even though he said he wouldn’t have time for that because he’d be busy working for us.
  6. Trump’s charitable foundation is in the process of shutting down. He agreed to do this last year to avoid conflicts of interest, but the foundation has also admitted to self-dealing (which means funneling charity funds to yourself, your business, or your family). For example, Trump’s golf club in Westchester County used Trump Foundation money to settle a lawsuit.
  7. Florida Democrat John Morgan says he’s leaving the party to be an independent, but also encourages Democrat Bill Nelson to leave Congress and run for governor.
  8. And in completely non-political news, Charles Manson dies. This is huge for people my age (or at least for me), because we grew up with him as the boogeyman and got scared out of our wits by Helter Skelter. Good riddance, Chuck.

Week 43 in Trump

Posted on November 21, 2017 in Politics, Trump

I’m a little late with this week’s recap; I had a busy week of my own last week! Here’s what happened in week 43. Let me know what I missed.

Russia:

  1. Documents turned over by George Papadopoulos show that Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s top advisors, knew about conversations and potential meetings between campaign members and Russian officials.

  2. Records show that Wikileaks was in contact with Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 campaign, and that he let Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway know about it.

  3. After Wikileaks contacted Don Jr. about leaks, Roger Stone tweets about upcoming leaks.

  4. Fifteen minutes after Wikileaks contacts Don Jr. about dumping more Podesta emails (along with a link to said dump), Trump Sr. tweets praise for Wikileaks, and two days later Don Jr. tweets the link to the email dump.

  5. Roger Stone claims ties to Wikileaks.

  6. Mike Pence denies any ties to Wikileaks.

  7. A House Republican produces a very complex chart linking Clinton and Obama and Uranium One and the Clinton Foundation, etc., etc. However, if you follow all the links, it’s pretty meaningless. Shep Smith does a pretty good breakdown debunking this story.

  8. Sessions says there isn’t enough basis to assign a new special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton.

  9. The Senate Judiciary Committee says that Jared Kushner didn’t turn over a documents he has about a Russian backdoor overture, Wikileaks communications, and communications with a Russian businessman.

  10. A worker at a Russian troll farm says their job was to turn out a “merry-go-round” of lies, and that trolls worked 24/7 shifts churning out misinformation. He also thinks they were connected to the Kremlin. They worked in different departments and different floors, so they were often commenting on each other’s posts and responding to each other’s comments, which just served to generate discord and start fights on social media. NBC has a pretty interesting piece on it.

  11. As a result of the Manafort charges (and potential charges against Flynn), lobbyists in D.C. scramble to get lawyers and inform the government of any actions they took on behalf of foreign governments that fall under FARA regulations. Before now, prosecutors pretty much looked the other way.

  12. A former CIA director says that Putin outsmarts Trump and that Trump doesn’t understand that it’s OK to tell Putin that you know he’s lying. In fact, Putin expects you to do that.

  13. Members of the Russia elite have invested almost $100 million in Trump properties in the U.S.

  14. Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak says it would take him too long to name all the Trump officials he met with.

  15. Jared Kushner’s security clearance is still only temporary after 10 months in office.

  16. Trump starts paying his own and some staff’s legal bills. Previously the RNC had been paying.

  17. Christopher Steele, author of the Steele dossier, thinks the report is mostly accurate (70-90%).

  18. Jeff Sessions appears before the House Judiciary Committee again, saying he didn’t lie under oath about knowledge of any Russia meetings and that he just doesn’t remember. He later says he might have pushed back against the idea of meeting with Russian officials.

  19. The U.S. hires a security firm owned by a previous KGB director to guard its embassy in Moscow. That’s almost like the time we agreed to let them build parts of our Moscow embassy offsite… where they placed bugs all over the walls… and then we had to tear it down and build a new one.

  20. It looks like the Russian foreign ministry paid almost $400,000 to embassies around the world for the purpose of financing the 2016 campaign.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Trump’s nominee for a federal court seat fails to disclose that he’s married to senior lawyer in the White House. Brett Talley has also never tried a case and the ABA committee that evaluates appointees unanimously deemed him unqualified. Standard process is to have the ABA evaluate candidates before making an official nomination, and to pass over any candidates deemed to be unqualified.

  2. Trump adds five more names to his list of potential supreme court nominees even though there’s no vacant seat.

  3. Trump’s nominees to the courts are largely white men, with 91% being white and 81% being men (and 74% being both).

  4. The above will move the courts away from the trend of becoming more reflective of our national demographics and back toward the standard white male dominance of the past.

  5. Less than two weeks after Trump expresses frustration with the DOJ for not investigating Hillary Clinton, Jeff Sessions says they’ll look into a special prosecutor. Sessions later says there is no cause for a special investigation against Hillary.

  6. Just a reminder, in Sessions’ confirmation hearing, he said he’d recuse himself from any matters surrounding Clinton’s emails and the Clinton Foundation.

  7. The government legal team, funded by us taxpayers, defends Trump in four lawsuits around him not divesting from companies that could lead to conflict of interest, especially around foreign governments. The case they’re making is not that Trump didn’t do anything wrong, it’s that it isn’t unconstitutional for the president to earn money from foreign governments and officials while he’s in office.

  8. Chuck Grassley has decided to ignore the traditional blue slip rule around judiciary nominations. By bypassing this tradition, he’s able to load the courts with conservative judges without any input from a state’s Senators.

Healthcare:

  1. The Senate includes a repeal of the ACA mandate in their tax plan. It could save around $300 billion, but will also cost around 13 million people their healthcare coverage. We’d also see a drastic premium hike.

  2. Despite administration efforts to starve the ACA, almost 1.5 million people signed up in the first two weeks.

International:

  1. A sampling of what Asia thinks of us after Trump’s Asia trip:

    • “The U.S. has lost its leadership role,” said Jayant Menon, an economist at the Asian Development Bank. “And China is quickly replacing it.”

    • “At some point, the administration may begin to see that this was a strategic mistake and that dropping out of trade is not in the interest of American workers,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, a lobbying group that represents companies like Wal-Mart, Ford and Microsoft.

  1. Trump says that Air Force One once wasn’t allowed to land in the Philippines while Obama was traveling there because relations between the two countries were so bad. That never happened.

  2. European countries detect a waft of radiation in their airspace. It’s suspected to have originated in Russia.

  3. Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping disagree about North Korea. Trump wants denuclearization, but China wants to freeze North Korea’s nuclear program and for the U.S. in return to freeze military drills with South Korea.

  4. Some nations that are frustrated by trying to work with Trump’s administration are now working directly with some of our largest states and cities instead. They feel that no one in the White House knows anything about international issues.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Five House Democrats introduce articles of impeachment against Trump. The articles include obstruction of justice, violations of the emoluments clauses, undermining the federal judiciary, and undermining freedom of the press.

  2. The bribery trial for Senator Bob Menendez ends in a mistrial, leaving open the possibility of a retrial.

  3. A bipartisan group of Senators introduce gun legislation to improve the background check system.

  4. Several members of Congress raise concerns about Trump’s nuclear powers. The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee is working on oversight measures over concerns about Trump’s stability.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration begins taking steps to make it easier to seize private property around border lands to build the wall. Even though Congress hasn’t approved any funds for a wall.

  2. Cards Against Humanity buys border land in order to block the wall, and opens it up for their customers to contribute to the project in return for surprise holiday gifts. The program sells out in just a few hours.

  3. The number of new international students coming to the U.S. declined 7% this fall. 45% of campuses report a drop.

  4. A federal court allows part of the travel ban to take effect, banning certain refugees from coming to the U.S. All three of the attempted travel bans have been blocked at least in part.

  5. Australia votes overwhelmingly to legalize gay marriage.

  6. Kentucky tries to shut down their last remaining medical facility that provides abortions.

  7. Did you know? Taxpayers pay for sexual harassment settlements against members of Congress. So far we’ve paid $15 million to hide their sexual misconduct.

  8. Trump has threatened to withhold money from sanctuary cities, but a federal judge rules that the administration can’t do that.

  9. The DNC says they’ll accept the DACA applications that were delayed by the US Postal Service and thus missed the deadline.

  10. Elaine Duke capitulates to John Kelly’s request and agrees to give Haitians here with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) 18 months to leave the country. There are over 60,000 Haitians here on the program, many of whom now own homes and have children who were born here.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump sends a coalition of fossil fuel industry experts to the UN’s climate change summit in Bonn. They’re greeted with protests and are heckled during their presentation.

  2. Our only appearance at this summit was a presentation on how fossil fuels are vital to reduce poverty and save jobs. They basically say the economy is more important than the environment or climate, and don’t provide any leadership on climate-related issues. The U.S. used to be a leader at this summit.

  3. At the same summit, Canada and Mexico announce a new partnership with 15 U.S. states on climate issues, bypassing the Trump administration entirely.

  4. French President Macron says that with the U.S. refusing to finance the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), France will pay the U.S.’s share.

  5. As part of his ongoing efforts to reverse everything Obama did, Trump reverses Obama’s ban on importing elephant trophies, otherwise known as “body parts.” Elephants are endangered species, and Obama enacted the ban to discourage hunters from killing them. In addition, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has already started allowing hunters to import lion body parts.

  6. After a huge public outcry, which seems to come as a big surprise to Trump, he puts this decision on hold.

  7. Trump plans to shrink Grand Staircase – Escalante by half and also plans to shrink Bears Ears. This will make him the first president to ever shrink a national monument designated by a previous president.

  8. The Keystone pipeline springs a leak in South Dakota, dumping 210,000 gallons of oil. Note that this is not the same Keystone XL pipeline that was delayed under Obama.

  9. After chemical companies ask the Trump administration to ignore the conclusions of studies over the past several years, the administration files a motion to extend the evaluation period by two years. Two years during which the use of three pesticides found to cause health issues will be continue.

  10. Puerto Rico update: Troops begin to pull out of Puerto Rico, along with supply helicopters that served communities that are cut off. More than half of homes still don’t have power and over 10% of homes still don’t have clean drinking water.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Paul Ryan puts Republican Representatives in blue states with high rates of state income tax in a tight spot. If they approve a tax bill that removes the state and local at deductions, it could put their reelection in jeopardy. If they don’t pass the bill, they’ll be ostracized by Republican leadership and Trump.

  2. But the bill passes the House anyway.

  3. The Senate version of the tax bill passes through committee and is expected to go to the floor for a vote in a few weeks. Here’s a summary of the two bills: http://cjrules.com/gop-tax-plan-fall-2017/

  4. The Senate doesn’t have Republican consensus on their version of the tax bill yet.

  5. Steve Louro resigns as regional finance director for New York’s Republican Party saying the tax bill will hurt the middle class and will hurt Republicans.

  6. At an event where Gary Cohn is interviewed in front of a gathering of CEOs, Cohn is surprised to find that very few CEOs plan to increase investment in their company or employees if they receive a tax cut. Billionaire Mark Cuban agrees that tax rates have almost no impact on investment.

  7. The House passes a defense policy bill to the tune of $700 billion, more than what Trump asked for and about $150 billion over their spending cap.

  8. The Wall Street Journal reports that manufacturing is up in the U.S. due to global growth and optimism, even though none of Trump’s promises have been implemented yet.

  9. Richard Cordray steps down as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), leaving the agency’s future in question. The agency was created under Obama in response to the financial crisis with the purpose of protecting consumers from unscrupulous actions by financial institutions. Republicans have long criticized the agency.

  10. Trump asks for another $44 billion in disaster relief, and it’s criticized by leaders from all affected states for not being adequate. Relief for the victims of California’s wildfires isn’t even mentioned.

Elections:

  1. A fifth woman comes forward accusing Roy Moore of sexual misconduct, this time including assault. By the end of the week, eight women have accused him of sexual misconduct.

  2. Mitch McConnell urges Roy Moore to step down from the Alabama senatorial race, saying he believes the women who accused Moore of molesting minors.

  3. The Alabama GOP sticks with Roy Moore, though support is dropping.

  4. Senate Republicans continue to look at their options in Alabama, including having Luther Strange resign which would trigger a new special election. Sorry, but this just shows a lack of interest in the democratic process, IMO.

  5. Mitch McConnell suggests that Jeff Sessions could step down and run as a write-in candidate to replace Roy Moore.

  6. Pastors and party leaders in Alabama continue to support Moore and rationalize his actions.

  7. FoxNews fans break their Keurigs online after the company pulls its ads from the Hannity show as a result of Hannity continuing to support Roy Moore.

  8. Rush Limbaugh excuses Roy Moore’s conduct with teenagers by saying Moore was a Democrat at the time he engaged in the sexual misconduct.

  9. Alabamans receive robocalls from someone pretending to be a Washington Post reporter offering people money to lie about child molestation in order to frame Roy Moore.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump nominates a new HHS secretary to replace Tom Price. This time he nominates a former pharmaceutical executive, Alex Azar, who stepped down as president of Eli Lilly earlier this year.

  2. There’s another mass shooting, this time in California, after which Trump accidentally tweets condolences about the mass shooting that happened in Texas.

  3. In a break with tradition, Trump won’t personally greet the American Nobel laureates before they go to Sweden to receive their prizes.

  4. The administration will also break with tradition by discontinuing the White House Science Fair.

  5. The Trump Organization reported income of $9.5 billion last year to Crain’s, but federal filings indicate the number to be closer to $600 or $700 million.

  6. H.R. McMaster reportedly calls Trump a dope with the smarts of a kindergartener.

  7. In a 3-2 vote, the FCC loosens media ownership rules in order to pave the way for the merger between Sinclair and Tribune. Critics say this will lead to less diversity in media, but others say the existing rules are too strict for the new kinds of media.

  8. The FCC also votes to restrict and cap the Lifeline program introduced by Ronald Reagan. The program subsidizes phone services for the poor, so this could cut people off from society and employment. The program came under attack under Obama when the program was misattributed to him and labelled “Obamaphones”.  Seemed like a good idea under Reagan…

  9. Sexual misconduct accusations keep coming. Al Franken is the latest to be accused. A fellow USO performer says he groped and forcibly kissed her, and a woman who took a picture with him 10 years ago says he grabbed her butt. Franken apologizes to the first accuser both publicly and privately, and says he supports an ethics investigation.

Polls:

  1. The U.S. drops from number 1 to number 6 this year in the Anholt-GfK nation brand index study. This study reflects the global perception of different countries. We were the only top-10 country to see a decline. Our previous low was after George Bush was reelected in 2004 and we hit number 7.

  2. 52% of voters don’t like the Republican tax plans, and 25% approve of the plans. 61% think the wealthy will mostly benefit.

Week 42 in Trump

Posted on November 13, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Here’s my plug for the week:

We all hate money in politics. We all think it’s corrupt. Maybe we can come together to force Congress to do something about it. The Citizens United decision makes sure that elected officials spend more time fundraising than they do legislating. A recent poll shows we agree:

  • 81% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans think Congress needs to get money out of politics.
  • 78% think we need “sweeping new laws to reduce the influence of money in politics.”
  • 80% think that money in politics is a bigger problem now than ever before.
  • 93% think their elected officials listen to donors more than to voters.

I recently used OpenSecrets.org to look into the founder of a company I do business with. He gives millions every year to candidates and causes I oppose. Millions. I can’t match that. Not even close. The bottom 95% of us can’t match the top 5%. So let’s put a stop to it. Here are some (mostly bipartisan) places to start if you want to help get this done:

Thanks for indulging me. Here’s what happened this week in politics…

Russia:

Update: I learned belatedly that Russian Lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya told NBC this week that she got some of the information she brought to the Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr. from Glenn Simpson. She received this information part of a case alleging money laundering against Russian company Prevezon in which Fusion GPS had been hired to do research.

  1. Here’s a recap of the Trump associates that we know had contacts with Russian officials during the campaign or transition: Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, J.D. Gordon, Michael Flynn (and his son), Wilbur Ross, and Jeff Sessions. There were 21 known meetings and at least 30 reported meetings. Additional associates knew about the meetings, including Corey Lewandowski and Trump himself. Might not have been such a big deal if they just ‘fessed up in the first place.
  2. Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya says that Trump Jr. asked for evidence that donations were made to Clinton’s campaign using money that had evaded U.S. taxes. She didn’t have any such evidence.
  3. Veselnitskaya also says that Trump Jr. said they’d look into rescinding the Magnitsky Act if Trump won the election.
  4. Robert Mueller interviews Stephen Miller, who attended the meeting in March of 2016 where Papadopoulos said he could arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin.
  5. Mueller questions witnesses about a meeting in September 2016 between Flynn and Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Cal), bringing a member of Congress into the probe for the first time. We don’t know what was discussed yet, but Kevin McCarthy (R-Cal), once said, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.”
  6. Corey Lewandowski, who previously had no recollection of conversations about Russia, now says Carter Page’s testimony has refreshed his memory and that he knew of Page’s trip to Russia in 2016 in which Page talked about the campaign with Russian officials.
  7. Trump’s bodyguard testifies that while Trump was in Russia, Trump’s hosts offered to send 5 women to his hotel room but Trump declined.
  8. Mueller requests documents relevant to the proposed Trump Tower in Moscow.
  9. Mueller has enough evidence on Flynn and his son to charge them both. Charges include money laundering, lying to federal agents, and what sounds like conspiracy to kidnap. Flynn allegedly agreed to forcibly remove a Turkish cleric from the U.S. to Turkey for $15 million.
  10. Jared Kushner didn’t disclose on his financial disclosure that a company he cofounded was partially funded by a Russian tech leader (Yuri Milner). Kushner said he never relied on Russian funding for his business ventures.
  11. Unrelated to Russia specifically, the DOJ seeks a plea agreement with Manafort’s son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, related to financial crimes involved with Manafort’s crimes.
  12. A federal judge places a gag order on the Manafort and Gates cases, forbidding them from making any public statements that could be prejudicial.
  13. Russian trolls made a final propaganda push as soon as our polls opened on Nov. 8, 2016. They used accounts that they had started years ago to build large followings on social media. These “sleeper” accounts issued very targeted and metered tweets with praise for Trump and contempt for Clinton. This lasted from the time the first polls opened to the time the last ones closed.
  14. Several of the Russian troll Twitter accounts that posted about our election also posted about Brexit, with a big push on voting day in Great Britain.
  15. On his Asia trip, Trump reiterates that he takes Putin at his word when he says Russia didn’t meddle in our elections, contradicting the findings of our intelligence agencies. He says again that there was no collusion.
  16. Trump then flip-flops and says that he believes Putin believes he didn’t meddle in the election, but that Trump himself is with our own intelligence agencies.
  17. Previous intelligence officials say they think Trump is being played by Putin.
  18. A group of House and Senate Republicans are working to discredit Mueller in order to force him out of the investigation. They say we’re in danger of a coup d’etat. They’re trying to tie Mueller to the 2010 Uranium One sale, Bill Clinton’s speeches in Russia, and the Steele dossier. The main players here are Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Louie Gohmert (R-TX).
  19. It’s reported that Trump asked CIA Director Pompeo to meet with a conspiracy theorist who claims that the DNC leaked their own emails instead of the Russians hacking and releasing them. Even Pompeo says that’s wrong, though he once testified that Russia was unsuccessful in its attempts to meddle in our elections. The CIA later walked that back.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A year after his election, Trump has filled eight appellate judges, more than any other president at this point in their term since Nixon. A ninth is in the midst of approval right now.
  2. Just before Trump took office, lawyers joining his administration came up with a plan to fill federal appeals courts with young and conservative judges in order to take advantage of this chance to reshape our judiciary. They started by filling open seats where Democrats in Trump-supporting states are up for re-election next year so they’d feel pressure to approve his nominees.
  3. The Senate Judiciary committee approves Brett Talley, nominated by Trump for a lifetime judgeship. Talley is a lawyer and far-right blogger who has never tried a case.

Healthcare:

  1. The White House prepares an executive order that would loosen the requirement that all Americans have health insurance.
  2. The attempts at discouraging people from signing up for the ACA aren’t working. A record number of people signed up in the first week, with 600,000 signing up in just the first four days. Enrollment this year lasts half as long as last year, though some states will allow signups into January.
  3. The Department of Health and Human Services says states can require Medicaid recipients to work in order to receive benefits even though over 70% of recipients are disabled and many of them can’t work.
  4. In a referendum, Maine voters vote to expand Medicaid under the ACA. Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, has refused the expansion ever since the ACA passed, and now says he’ll refuse to implement the voters’ referendum.
  5. Even though Notre Dame fought the ACA requirement to cover birth control in its insurance plans, the school announces they’ll continue coverage through a third party, just like they have ever since the ACA passed.
  6. Five states file a preliminary injunction against the rollback of the birth control mandate of the ACA, calling it unconstitutional and discriminatory.

International:

  1. Trumps spends the week in Asia, meeting with his counterparts in Japan, China, South Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
  2. Trump asks Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe if Japan could start making cars in the United States. Which they‘ve been doing for decades.
  3. Trump says Japan could shoot down North Korea’s missiles if they bought American military equipment.
  4. Trump says he doesn’t blame China for what he perceives as one-sided trade deals; he blames previous administrations pretty much for being spineless.
  5. Trump meets with the Philippines’ Duterte on the last days of his trip, ending his trip the way it started—amid protests.
  6. Last week, I missed reporting that the Prime Minister of Lebanon resigned, citing an inability to unify the different religious factions of his government. Now rumors abound that Saudi Arabia is behind this and that the prime minister is a prisoner there. There’s speculation that Saudi Arabia is making a bolder move against Iran.
  7. The Trump administration imposes new travel sanctions on Cuba, rolling back Obama’s opening up of travel to the country. Americans are once again restricted on why they can travel there, and on where they can stay and spend their money in Cuba.
  8. The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) leader says Trump is hurting diplomacy by cutting senior diplomats and officials in the State Department. The expertise and experience of the exiting officials will be hard (if not impossible) to replace.
  9. Interest in joining the Foreign Service has declined steeply this year.
  10. On top of all that, Tillerson announces plans to offer more buyouts to staff.
  11. A 7.3 earthquake shocks the Iraq/Iran border, killing more than 450.
  12. After spending 10 months learning about the Middle East, Trump’s team begins drafting their peace plan.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Paul Ryan sets a new record for the most closed rules in a session with a total of 49. A closed rule process prevents legislators from proposing amendments to a bill, and Ryan hasn’t let one bill go through the amendment process. He’s the only speaker in modern history to completely forego the open process. So enough already with the “Democrats are obstructing” complaint.
  2. Senate Democrats introduce the Assault Weapons Ban of 2017, a bill to “ban the sale, transfer, manufacture and importation of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.”
  3. Senators plan to draft a bill that would force all military branches to report domestic violence instances to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The system failed at many points to prevent the Sutherland Springs shooter from obtaining a weapon. The Air Force didn’t report the shooter’s domestic violence background, and the Pentagon says that military branches have failed to report the outcomes of criminal cases to the background check system for decades.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The DHS ends Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Nicaraguans who were allowed into the U.S. in 1998 after Nicaragua was hit by a hurricane. Their status has been routinely renewed for the 19 years they’ve been here, but now they either need to leave or apply for permanent status.
  2. Under the same review, the DHS allows Hondurans here under the same program to stay, with their status to be evaluated at a later time. There are also a number of Haitians and Salvadorans here under TPS.
  3. Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly, puts pressure on Elaine Duke of the DHS to expel the Hondurans who are in the U.S. under TPS, but she declines.
  4. There are around 300,000 immigrants here under TPS who could be deported if their status isn’t renewed. They’ve been here long enough to build lives, careers, and families, including around 275,000 children born in the U.S.
  5. Dozens of DACA applications were delayed by the Postal Service and arrived a day late, even though they were sent weeks in advance. So far, those applications have been rejected, but lawyers are suing to get them accepted.
  6. Under Trump, an estimated 1,400 veterans have been deported.
  7. Illustrating the growing white nationalist sentiment in Europe and the U.S., 60,000 white nationalists march on Poland’s independence day. They want to cleanse Poland of Jews, Muslims, and gay people.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Syria announces they’ll join the Paris climate agreement, leaving the U.S. as the sole climate change denier.
  2. Trump wasn’t invited to the climate change summit later this year in France.
  3. A proposal from the Trump administration would force markets to guarantee profits to coal-fired and nuclear power plants that aren’t doing well in competitive electricity markets. This is most interesting because the GOP has long complained about subsidies for renewable energies while at the same time fossil fuel subsidies have been through the roof.
  4. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) proposes legislation to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling. Because it’s part of the Budget Resolution, it only requires 51 votes to pass in the Senate.
  5. Senate Democrats call for an investigation into the EPA for their plan to remove independent scientists from advisory boards and replace them instead with scientists from the industries they’re supposed to oversee (fossil fuels and chemicals, mostly).
  6. Documents show that Duke Energy edited reports from professors they hired to study the impact of coal ash ponds on groundwater safety. The professors were supposed to work independently of the company, but emails show they coordinated their work.
  7. Despite last week’s report that manmade climate change is the real deal, the EPA’s Scott Pruitt continues to dismantle the Clean Power Plan. Pruitt says the report is part of the ongoing climate debate.
  8. Filling the void at the federal level, a group of U.S. businessmen and state and local government officials attend the Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, where they showcase their coalition’s plans to meet our commitments to mitigate climate change.

Budget/Economy:

  1. According to the Tax Policy Center’s corrected analysis of the tax plan:

In 2018, 76% of taxpayers would see a tax cut of $1,900 on average, and 7% would see an increase of around $2,100. The top 1% of earners would see the biggest increase. In 2027, 59% of taxpayers would see a tax cut of about $2,300, and 25% would see an increase of about $2,100. The lowest earning 25% would have the greatest percent decrease, while those earning in the 90-95th income percentile would see the greatest increase (largely due to the loss of deductions like state and local taxes). The number of people using itemized deductions would fall by 75% in 2018 and by 65% in 2027.

  1. The CBO says the tax plan will add $1.7 trillion to the debt over the next decade.
  2. The tax plan would discourage post-grad work for college students by taxing them on their tuition waivers.
  3. The Senate releases their tax package, which differs from the House version on some key issues:
    • Delays cutting the corporate tax from 35% to 20% until 2019.
    • Keeps seven brackets instead of reducing them to four.
    • Keeps the estate tax but also doubles the exemption amount.
    • Keeps the mortgage interest deduction.
    • Eliminates the state and local tax deduction.
  1. Trump says that the new tax plan would kill him.
  2. Over 400 of America’s wealthiest sign on to a letter to Congress urging them not to cut their taxes.
  3. In revealing the ways the wealthy save their money, the Paradise Papers also show that U.S. Universities send money overseas to avoid taxes, using offshore accounts to invest in things like oil, gas, and coal.
  4. After months of putting up with Trump’s efforts to renegotiate NAFTA, agricultural groups start fighting to save the agreement. NAFTA has been beneficial to the U.S. ag business, just as TPP would have been. According to one association leader, “The importance of trade to economic growth in the food and ag sector is so fundamental that there tends to be an assumption that everyone understands that.” Obviously, not everybody does.
  5. Hours after Trump says (on his Pacific Rim tour) that we won’t be “taken advantage of anymore” by poor trade agreements, 11 Pacific Rim nations announce key agreements on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement without us.
  6. China also moves ahead on a potential deal with 16 other Asian countries, and the European Union and Japan are working on trade deals with a group of South American countries that includes Brazil and Argentina.
  7. The Department of Education plans to offer buyouts to 255 employees after already cutting about 8% of its staff this year. Betsy DeVos’s budget cuts $9.2 billion from the education budget and gets rid of teacher training and college prep programs. Of course it invests in charter schools and vouchers. Congress will likely restore any cuts she makes.
  8. The DOJ tells AT&T and Time Warner that if they want their merger to go through, they have to sell off CNN.

Elections:

  1. Democrats make gains in state and local elections across the country, winning the top offices in New Jersey and Virginia, several mayoral elections, and turning one (possibly two) state houses Democrat (there are some recounts in VA). People of color, especially women of color, and openly LGBT people make big gains in elected office.
  2. Four women accuse Republican candidate for Alabama Senate, Roy Moore, of sexual misconduct that allegedly occurred when they were teenagers and Moore was in his 30s.
  3. Trump and Republicans continue to support Moore, using a variety of justifications: They call the accusations unproven; they cast doubt on the women’s reliability (though Moore’s colleagues also say he dated teenagers while in his 30s); and my favorite, a pastor says that Joseph and Mary had the same age difference.
  4. Republicans consider alternatives to Moore, like fielding a write-in candidate or pushing back the election date. They did stop fundraising for Moore, and Mitch McConnell says Moore needs to step down if the allegations are true.
  5. Remember Trump’s voter fraud commission? Committee member Matt Dunlap files a federal suit against the commission saying that Democrats on the committee aren’t being kept apprised of what’s going on.

Miscellaneous:

  1. It’s amazing how quickly rumors sped around that Rand Paul’s attacker was a deranged Democrat. Turns out they just had neighbor issues. But Paul is hurt pretty badly and won’t be back to work for a bit.
  2. The U.S. is one of only three countries that protects the right to bear arms in its constitution.
  3. Trump says the Texas shooting is a mental health issue. Of note, in February the GOP Congress and Trump rescinded a rule that would prevent some mentally disabled people from getting guns.
  4. Representative Ted Lieu (R-Cal) walks out of a moment of silence in the House for the victims of the Texas shooting. Lieu says he can no longer stay silent about gun violence and it’s time for Congress to take action. His short time in office has seen three of the worst mass shootings in the U.S.
  5. After a cooling off period, talks stall in Congress over banning bump stocks like the one used in the Las Vegas shootings. Bump stocks are also being sold again after a brief pause.
  6. Remember when Carl Icahn quietly left his role as Trump’s special advisor on regulatory reform? Well, this week New York state attorneys issue his company several subpoenas around his actions in the market during the time he was advising Trump.
  7. Trump ends the Warrior Canine Connection program, which trains service dogs for wounded veterans and their families. They’ve been partnering with military facilities since 2009. Trainers and puppy raisers at Fort Belvoir and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center were given less than a day to vacate their offices with no reason given.
  8. Mental health professional send a “duty to warn” letter to Congress about Trump’s fitness for office.
  9. The FBI database of gun buyers is missing millions of criminal and mental health records that would prevent some people from getting guns. Agencies responsible for sending the information simply haven’t been doing it.
  10. And now for a little good news, the DOJ is liquidating Bernie Madoff’s companies and distributing recovered funds to his victims. They’ll likely get back about 75% of their losses. It’s still a loss, but at least not a complete loss.

Polls:

  1. 8% of Trump voters say they’d vote for a generic Democrat in 2020.
  2. After Virginia’s elections, 51% of voters say their vote was partially because of Trump. 34% voted in opposition Trump; 17% voted in support of Trump.
  3. Only 32% of voters in counties that Trump won think the country is better off now; 41% say it’s worse off; and 53% don’t think Trump has a clear agenda.
  4. 65% of Americans don’t think Trump has accomplished much as president.
  5. The percentage of Americans who are very concerned about Trump-Russia contacts rises from 27% in July to 44% today.