Tag: Sessions

Week 131 in Trump

Posted on July 31, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Best Image of the week. Victory is sometimes slow, but it is always sweet. Way to get 'er done, Jon.

In response to SCOTUS shutting down a lawsuit over the use of Pentagon funds to build a wall, Jon Zal has the most appropriate tweet for the week:

“JUST IN: Man who won election by promising voters he’d strengthen the military and force Mexico to pay for his border wall wins court battle that allows him to deplete the military and force his voters to pay for the border wall. #MAGA”

So much winning.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending July 27…

Russia:

  1. Ahead of Mueller’s testimony before Congress, the DOJ tells him he must limit his testimony to the public findings in his 448-page report. He said previously he would do this anyway.
  2. Mueller testifies to Congress, coming across a little feeble and off-guard. In fairness, he wears hearing aids (which don’t work well where he was sitting), he wasn’t presented with a portfolio highlighting the sections in his report that were referenced (so he had to search through the doc for every question), and he’s naturally curt and concise. But still, not compelling TV.
    • Probably no minds were changed, but I outlined a few highlights and some conspiracy theories that were new to me.
    • If you’ve read the report, the only thing new in the hearings was the astounding number of conspiracy theories that you would only know about if you watch Fox News.
    • Republicans on the committees didn’t challenge the facts stated in Mueller’s report, but did try to establish bias in the investigation.
    • Mueller definitely sticks to his promise to only testify about what’s in the report.
    • Following Mueller’s testimony, the number of House members endorsing the start of impeachment hearings increases to 107.
    • Also following Mueller’s testimony, House committees step up their requests and subpoenas for evidence. They also plan to petition a judge to unseal the grand jury evidence from Mueller’s investigation.
    • Meanwhile, Trump says the Russia investigations are finally over.
  1. One America News, which Trump promotes in his tweets, hires an anchor who’s still working for Sputnik (Russia’s state-owned media outlet).
  2. Several thousand people protest in Moscow, demanding that opposition candidates be allowed on the ballots for city council races. Around 300 people are arrested, including Putin opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who gets a 30-day sentence for organizing the protests.
  3. The Senate Intelligence Committee releases a (highly redacted) report concluding that Russian cyberactors hacked into election databases in all 50 states in 2016, and that they were in a position to change data in an Illinois database (and also in one other state, which isn’t named). There’s no evidence they did so, though. Here are some highlights:
    • Russia began the attacks as far back as 2014.
    • The committee couldn’t figure out what Russia’s intentions were.
    • Russian diplomats were planning to undermine the results of the election, anticipating that Clinton would win. The committee thinks it’s possible that Russia purposefully left their fingerprints on the databases in order to cast doubt on the validity of the elections.
    • There’s no evidence that any votes or voter tallies were changed.
  1. Following the release of the report and Mueller’s testimony, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans block three bills passed by the Democrat-led House to increase election security and help prevent attacks such as those described in the report. The bills would:
    • Require internet companies to disclose political ad buyers by internet companies in order to identify foreign influence.
    • Place sanctions on any entity that attacks a U.S. election.
    • Sanction Russia for its cyberattacks.
  1. Full disclosure: McConnell has received donations from lobbyists for four of the major makers of voting equipment, though their donations amount to less than $10,000.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump files a lawsuit to block the House Ways and Means Committee from obtaining his tax returns.
    • Trump claims the request from the House Ways and Means Committee for his tax returns is unprecedented. But documents show that when the same committee requested Richard Nixon’s tax returns, they got them within a day.
  1. A federal judge blocks subpoenas issued by Congress to obtain Trump organization financial records in their emoluments lawsuit against Trump. The judge says the suit should make its way through the appeals court first.
  2. And then, ironically, Trump’s Doral country club is listed among the finalists to hold next year’s G7 summit.
  3. Jeffrey Epstein is served court papers in jail in relation to a child rape lawsuit. A few days later, he’s found injured in his cell, semiconscious with marks on his neck.
  4. A judge rules that a class action suit against Trump, Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka for fraud, false advertising, and unfair competition in multilevel marketing companies they promoted can move forward. The judge dismisses allegations of conspiracy and racketeering.
  5. Michael Flynn’s former business partner Bijan Kian faces up to 15 years in prison after being convicted on foreign-agent felony charges.
  6. The DOJ declines to follow up on contempt of Congress charges against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Justice Department announces they’ll resume the federal death penalty, and selects five inmates for whom they’ll schedule executions. Federal executions were largely ended in 1972, when the Supreme Court ruling found that the death penalty was imposed on blacks at a far higher rate than whites. Congress expanded the federal death penalty again in 1988, but there have only been three executions since then.
  2. At the same time, a Philadelphia DA asks the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to rule that the death penalty goes against the state constitution. He cites the inequity and prejudice with which the death penalty is served.
    • There are 45 people on death row in Philadelphia, 41 of whom are minorities.
    • Post-conviction reviews overturned 72% of Philadelphia’s death sentences.

Healthcare:

  1. The Senate finally passes a bill that funds the 9/11 victims fund in perpetuity. First responders no longer have to come back to Congress to plead their case every time funding comes up for a vote.
    • Comedian John Stewart has been fighting for this for nearly a decade.
    • A quick look back at votes and bill sponsorship indicates that this has largely been blocked by Republicans over the past 18 years. I don’t understand why this is.
  1. The Trump administration tells Utah legislators that it won’t approve their request for funding for Medicaid expansion under ACA because their plan leaves out certain income brackets covered by the ACA. The administration would fund full Medicaid expansion.

International:

  1. The Navy warship that brought down an Iranian drone last week brought down a second one in the process, according to CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie….
  2. Trump says he could easily wipe Afghanistan off the face of the earth, but he doesn’t want to kill 10 million people. Afghanistan requests clarification.
  3. Trump vetos three bills that would’ve prevented the administration from selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Both the House and the Senate passed the bans largely over human rights issues.
  4. The UK selects Boris Johnson to be their next prime minister. Johnson is a populist who led the original Brexit movement and is OK with a no-deal Brexit. Oh how did we get here?
    • Johnson was a journalist who created sensationalist and inaccurate stories. He was an EU skeptic even back in the early 90s.
    • He was fired from the Times of London for making up quotes.
    • He meticulously creates his persona of a bumbling, unkempt buffoon.
    • He was fired from the Parliament before he became the mayor of London.
    • He’s long wanted to be Prime Minister, but he didn’t really want it under the current circumstances and he didn’t really think the Brexit referendum would pass. Now we’ll see what he does with it.
    • His first week in office, he ramps up the Brexit rhetoric and causes the pound to fall.
  1. The Senate confirms Mark Esper as Secretary of Defense, a position that’s been open more than half a year. Esper is a former Raytheon lobbyist. He replaces James Mattis.
  2. After France passes a law taxing big tech companies like Amazon and Google, Trump says he’ll take “substantial reciprocal action.” Ironically, Trump says if anyone’s going to tax American companies it should be America. These companies barely pay any taxes in the U.S., thanks in large part to the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts. France is only taxing the amount these companies make in France.
  3. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates resigns, and Trump nominates Representative John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to replace him. You might have noticed several GOP Members of Congress auditioning for this role during the Mueller hearing, including Ratcliffe.
  4. It’s been a month since North Korea and the U.S. agreed to start up denuclearization negotiations again, but so far Kim Jong Un hasn’t even named a negotiator.
  5. Speaking of North Korea, they just launched two unidentified objects into the Sea of Japan.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. South Dakota passes a law requiring schools to display the country’s motto, “In God we trust.” State Republicans say it’s about history, but it only became the country’s motto in 1956, when Eisenhower signed it into law.
    • That was around the same time “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance, and the same time that “In God we trust” was added to currency.
    • The author of the bill says it’s based on religion (Judeo-Christian principles).
    • Over a dozen other states have either passed a similar law or have proposed one.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The Supreme Court finds that the plaintiffs in a lawsuit attempting to block Trump from using Pentagon money to build his wall don’t have a legal right to bring the case. They didn’t rule that Trump’s use of these funds is constitutional, but the ruling allows him to start using the funds.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration announces a deportation process that bypasses immigration judges and allows them to quickly deport undocumented immigrants who’ve been here less than two years. Before, this expedited process was reserved for undocumented migrants caught within 100 miles of the border and who had only been in the country two weeks.
  2. A district judge blocks Trump’s new “third-country” asylum rule that prevents refugees from seeking asylum in the U.S. if they pass through a third country and don’t seek asylum there first. The administration says they’ll fight the decision.
    • The judge says the rule could put people in imminent danger.
    • This could affect refugees who’ve been trying to do this the right way by waiting their turn at ports of entry. They’ve been waiting in Mexico for months, but if this rule goes into effect, they might be required to seek asylum in Mexico first.
    • Trump threatens Guatemala with tariffs if they don’t enter a safe country agreement for asylum seekers. He also threatens a travel ban against Guatemala.
  1. ICE releases a 16-year-old U.S. citizen after 23 days of detention in an immigration center. He says he lost 26 pounds, and described awful conditions there. There were extenuating circumstances, but in the end, a U.S. citizen was unlawfully detained by U.S. officials who refused to accept his birth certificate.
    • In March, ICE detained a nine-year-old girl and her 14-year-old brother, both of whom are U.S. citizens, for 32 hours. Even though they had U.S. passports, officials accused the brother of human trafficking. Their mother had to go through the Mexican consulate to free them.
  1. Remember the high school student made famous for staring down a Native American elder after a March for Life rally in DC last year? He sued the Washington Post for defamation, and a judge just dismissed the case with prejudice (meaning the suit can’t be brought up again). The family still has lawsuits pending against CNN and NBC.
  2. FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before Congress, and he says that domestic terrorism from white hate groups is on the rise. He also says, “A majority of the domestic terrorism cases we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”
  3. Shit rolls downhill… Trump’s racist attacks against The Squad have trickled down.
    • Two New Jersey GOP officials call to eradicate Islam and call a sitting Member of Congress a terrorist on social media. They refuse to apologize.
    • The Republican County Chairmen’s association of Illinois posts and then removes a meme on Facebook that calls the squad “The Jihad Squad.” The meme also has the slogan, “Political Jihad Is Their Game,” and it shows Rep. Ayanna Pressley aiming a gun. The president of the association doesn’t apologize for the content.
  1. Trump’s mad at Elijah Cummings. He tweets that Cummings’ Baltimore district is “far worse and more dangerous” than the border, is the worst district in the U.S., and is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess—a “dangerous and filthy” place.
    • Even members of the GOP think this one went too far, and the Baltimore Sun publishes a scathing retort.
    • And, surprise! It appears that Kushner is a slumlord in that very district. Kushner Companies owns thousands of apartments in the district, which have accrued over 200 code violations in a single year, including mice infestation.
    • If you’re not clear on why these tweets are racist and hurtful, give this a listen.
  1. Active troops are now monitoring migrants at a detention center in Texas.
  2. After ICE traps a man and his 12-year-old son in their van for hours (threatening them with arrest), people in the Tennessee neighborhood provide the two with food and water. After four hours, the neighbors form a human chain around the van to help them get back into their house and prevent ICE agents from taking them into custody.
  3. A federal judge rules against North Carolina’s notorious bathroom bill, saying that the state can’t ban people from using bathrooms that match their identity. Also, the guy who authored that bill is running for the House of Representatives in a special election. Why is there a special election? Because the campaign of the Republican who ran last time committed voter fraud.
  4. Several U.S. Marines are arrested in Southern California for transporting undocumented migrants.

Climate:

  1. A new report shows that temperature variations at the end of the last century were more extreme than any variations over the past 2,000 years. Previous variations were contained to specific areas as opposed to the global variations we see now.
  2. India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are in monsoon season, and have seen over 650 people die so far from the extreme weather and flooding.
  3. Europe is continuing its hot streak, with Paris hitting 108.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature ever recorded there. Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium also hit record highs.
  4. Four of the biggest auto manufacturers side with California in the state’s fight against Trump’s regulatory rollbacks on fuel efficiency. They strike a deal that‘s slightly looser than Obama‘s regulations, but much tougher than Trump’s. They‘ll reach 51 mpg by 2026 instead of 54.5 mpg by 2025. Trump lowered it to 37 mpg.
    • Trump is still likely to revoke California’s right to create its own emissions guidelines, but there are 13 other states who promise to uphold Obama’s tighter standards.
    • Additional automakers are interested in signing on to the deal.
  1. Tidewater glaciers are experiencing underwater melt at a rate 100 times faster than previously thought. Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that end in the ocean.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The White House and Congress reach a two-year budget deal that increases the spending cap by $320 billion and that suspends the debt ceiling until after the next presidential election (because who wants that hanging over an election?).
    • The Freedom Caucus (Tea Party wing) urges Trump to reject the deal.
    • A few months ago, the White House said they would force spending cuts in the budget, but they approved this increase anyway.
    • The deal puts us on track to add another $1 trillion to the deficit this year. Candidate Trump said he’d balance the budget within 5 years. He has an perplexing strategy…
  1. And then the next day, the Trump administration announces a proposed rule that will drop over 3 million Americans off of SNAP.
    • An interesting side effect of that is that share prices for major discount grocery stores dropped.
  1. Bernie Madoff asks Trump to reduce his prison sentence. Madoff is 81, and has about 140 years out of 150 to serve for cheating hundred of people out of their money (for an estimated $64.8 billion in total).
  2. Economic growth in the U.S. slowed to 2.1% last quarter.
  3. 2018’s newly revised economic growth is now 2.5%.
  4. China, which is hardly importing any U.S. soybeans at this point, approves imports of soybeans and wheat from Russia.
  5. The government announces another round of assistance to farmers hurt by the tariffs. Farmers will receive from $15 to $150 per acre, totaling $16 billion.
  6. The DOJ approves the T-Mobile/Sprint merger. States Attorneys Generals launch an antitrust lawsuit.

Elections:

  1. Three House Republicans announce they won’t be running again in 2020. They are: Pete Olson (Texas), Martha Roby (Alabama), and Paul Mitchell (Michigan). Three House Republicans and two House Democrats announced earlier this year that they won’t be running.
  2. Lawyers in Miami-Dade County, FL, say they’ve found a loophole in the state’s recently passed bill that requires ex-felons to pay any fees and fines before they can be eligible to vote. This bill overrode a measure passed overwhelmingly by the voters. The loophole is that fees and fines are not usually listed in the sentencing documents.

Miscellaneous:

  1. In a speech to conservative teens, Trump works them up by repeating his debunked story that undocumented immigrants are voting illegally. They just aren’t. There are so many procedures in place to prevent this. He also tells the kids that Article II of the Constitution gives him the right to do whatever he wants, among other fish tales.
  2. The governor of Puerto Rico finally resigns after weeks of protests.
  3. Trump’s nominee for Ambassador to the UN has spent 7 out of 20 months of her time as Ambassador to Canada at homes she owns in the U.S.
  4. Lawyers for Cesar Sayoc, the MAGA Bomber, claim that Sayoc was influenced by Fox News, Trump’s tweets, and Facebook. His favorites were Fox & Friends and Hannity. Sayoc mailed 16 pipe bombs to Trump’s perceived enemies.
  5. A Pennsylvania school that sent out letters to parents threatening to call child services if they don’t pay their lunch debt rejects a local businessman’s offer to pay off those debts.
  6. Illustrating why Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal responsibility, Mitch McConnell tells Trump that no politician ever lost his seat by approving higher government spending.
  7. A police officer in Louisiana posts on social media that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez needs a round.
  8. Trump calls for opening investigations into Obama’s book deal and reopening investigations into Hillary’s emails and the Clinton Foundation. He later complains about the air conditioning in the White House installed by the Obama’s saying that it worked fine before. Not sure how he’d know.
  9. There are eight mass shootings over the weekend. EIGHT.
    • A shooter kills three people and injures 15 more at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. The shooter is also killed. He had previously posted a recommendation to read Might is Right, a white supremacist manifesto from the 1800s.
    • That same night, two shooters kill one person and injure 11 at a festival in a Brooklyn, NY, park.
    • The other mass shootings occur in DC, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Washington State,
  1. Dozens of links from major news media outlets online are now being redirected (without their knowledge) to advertising sites. I’m talking major media, like the New York Times, Forbes, BBC, and more.
  2. Brazil’s president threatens journalist Glenn Simpson of the Intercept with jail time over reporting hacked phone conversations involving the justice minister. Greenwald has generated his share of controversy, but he’s still protected by due process.

Week 82 in Trump

Posted on August 20, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Rudy Giuliani makes Chuck Todd crack up on air when he says (true quote) “truth isn’t truth.” This is just an example of why hundreds of newspapers across the country issue op-eds this week in support of a free press. The op-eds defend the role of the press while denouncing attacks on the press, specifically the “fake news” attacks. Upon the release of the editorials, Trump accuses the papers of collusion (collusion to defend a free press, I guess?). So the senate unanimously votes to “reaffirm the vital and indispensable role the free press serves.” You can’t make this Orwellian shit up.

Anyway, here’s what happened last week in politics…

Missed From Last Week:

  1. At DEFCON, an 11-year-old hacked into a replica of Florida’s election website and changed the voting results. In less than 10 minutes. Yep, we’re safe.

Russia:

  1. Here are some highlights from the Manafort Trial:
    • After delays from the previous week, the prosecution produces email evidence that Manafort participated in the alleged bank and tax fraud that Rick Gates admitted to being party to.
    • One email implicates Jared Kushner in bribing a bank CEO with the promise of a cabinet position.
    • The prosecution rests.
    • The defense requests that Manafort be acquitted, which the judge denies (duh).
    • The defense rests its case without calling a single witness to refute the prosecution’s case.
    • Manafort’s defense is basically that it doesn’t matter that he lied on his loan applications because the bank was going to give him the money anyway because he was bribing the CEO of said bank with a cabinet position in return for the loans. So we’re all good, right?
    • Trump says Manafort is a very good man and that his trial is a sad day for our country. Which hopefully won’t influence the non-sequestered jury. The judge himself is under U.S. Marshall protection due to death threats.
    • Just a heads up for the next Manafort trial, Mueller reportedly has three times the evidence against Manafort for that trial.
  1. White House counsel Don McGahn has had at least three interviews with investigators in Mueller’s Russia probe, and is reportedly being very forthcoming.
  2. A federal judge once again upholds the constitutionality of Mueller’s investigation, this time as part of an effort by Russian company Concord Management to invalidate the investigation. This is the fourth time a federal judge has ruled for the legitimacy of the investigation.
  3. Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly said that Mueller has to wrap things up by September in order to avoid violations of a Justice Department rule regarding elections. Both current and former officials disagree, however, and say Mueller can still continue his closed-door investigation and issue subpoenas. Trump wasn’t singing this tune when Comey openly announced an investigation into his opponent 11 days before the 2016 election.
  4. FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich fires Peter Strzok, despite the office that handles disciplinary actions recommending a demotion and suspension. Trump takes credit for firing him in a tweet.
  5. So far, the following notable intelligence or law enforcement agency members have been fired under Trump: Sally Yates, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, H.R. McMaster, Michael Anton, Tom Bossert, Derek Harvey, and Nadia Schadlow. Trump has also repeatedly threatened Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein, and Robert Mueller. That pretty much covers most of the senior officials involved in the Russia investigation.
  6. In a move that seems more petty than strategic, Trump revokes John Brennan’s security clearance, likely because Brennan has been very outspoken about the dangers of Russian interference and critical of the administration’s lack of handling it. Trump is also looking at revoking security clearance for James Clapper, James Comey, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr. This is highly irregular since intelligence agencies rely on consultations with previous employees who require clearance in order to consult, and sometimes they need to review their old work for testimony.
  7. Just a few weeks before Trump announced Brennan’s clearance being revoked, Russian Artem Klyushin tweeted: “Ex-CIA directors John Brennan and Michael Hayden, ex-FBI director James Komi and his deputy Andrew McCabe, ex-director of the National Intelligence Service James Clapper, ex-national security adviser Susan Rice say goodbye to access to classified materials.” Who told him whose security clearance Trump is reviewing? Or did Russia tell Trump who’s clearance to revoke? So sketchy.
  8. In a scathing op-ed, retired Navy admiral William McRaven, who led the raid on Osama bin Laden, asks Trump to revoke his security clearance, too.
  9. The Treasury hasn’t been forthcoming with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s requests for information that would allow them to follow the money trail in the Russia investigation.
  10. Thirteen former U.S. intelligence heads write a letter in support of Brennan, rebuking Trump for revoking his security clearance. They call it inappropriate and deeply regrettable. By the end of the week, 70 former intelligence officers sign on.
    UPDATE: By Monday, over 175 members of the intelligence community have signed on.
  11. And in case you’re wondering why all this security clearance info is in the “Russia” category, it’s because Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders both connect revoking the security clearance to the Russia investigation. Trump said it in a quick Q&A on the way to his helicopter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it in her White House press briefing, Trump again said it in a Wall Street Journal interview, and then he implied it in a tweet. He also said he’s doing it because they’re “bad people.”
  12. Mueller recommends a jail sentence of 0-6 months for George Papadopoulos.
  13. Rand Paul plans to ask Trump to lift sanctions against certain Russian officials so they can come visit the U.S. later this year.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions says the Justice Department will “vigorously enforce” the law against creating 3D-printed guns “to the fullest extent.”
  2. The West Virginia GOP takes over the state’s Supreme Court by impeaching four justices just after a deadline that would’ve required the justices to be replaced by election in November. Waiting until after that deadline lets the GOP governor appoint all new (presumably GOP) justices. One judge resigned before the deadline, to be replaced by a judge to be elected in November. Not that the judges were behaving, though; they are accused of lavish spending on their offices.
  3. Brett Kavanaugh has the lowest public support of nearly any nominee from the last four administrations. Only 37% support him, while 40% don’t think he should be confirmed.

Healthcare:

  1. Three Arkansas residents file a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the new work requirements for Medicaid in Arkansas.
  2. The CDC is monitoring a measles outbreak across 21 states. With 107 cases reported so far this year, it’s on track to be the worst measles outbreak in a decade. Vaccinate your kids and help save those who are can’t be vaccinated (like infants, the elderly, and people with cancer).
  3. One in six hospital patients is now treated at a Catholic-run hospital, where certain procedures might be limited or prohibited based on religious beliefs. So one in six patients isn’t getting complete care, and I’m not just talking abortions here either.

International:

  1. ISIS is rebounding in Syria and Iraq, with more than 30,000 fighters in those areas.
  2. A 29-year-old Sudanese immigrant in the UK hits pedestrians with his vehicle before ramming it into the barriers at the Palace of Westminster. He didn’t kill anyone, but they’re looking at it as a terrorist incident.
  3. After a bridge collapses in Genoa, Italy, killing at over 40 people, Italy’s deputy prime minister blames the European Union’s budget rules for the lack of maintenance. Even so, Italy’s European allies offer assistance.
  4. Blackwater founder Erik Prince has long been proposing that we privatize military operations in Afghanistan, which both Trump and John Bolton are now considering. Military contractors would report directly to Trump. So we’re looking at a group of mercenaries accountable only to Trump. What could go wrong?
    Background: You might remember Blackwater from the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Iraq where their mercenaries killed innocent civilians and then lied about being fired on first. Even one of their own allegedly pointed his gun at his fellow mercenaries in an attempt to get them to stop shooting. Five of these operatives have since been convicted or pleaded guilty, and just recently got their charges reduced.
  5. The White House is trying to use an obscure budget rule to cancel $3 billion in foreign aid.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The DHS Inspector General opens an investigation into the department’s Quiet Skies program. Under this 2010 TSA program, DHS surveils travelers in airports whether or not they’re suspected of a crime or on a watch list.
  2. A class-action lawsuit brought by the ACLU reveals that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has been conspiring with ICE in bait-and-switch stings. At least 17 people thought they were going to routine green-card interviews at CIS, but were instead greeted by, and subsequently arrested by, ICE.
  3. Los Angeles turns down hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from the Department of Homeland Security that would’ve helped target extremism. The problem with the money is that DHS wants the funds to go toward fighting Muslim extremism, which isn’t a problem in Los Angeles. Los Angeles wants to target white supremacist extremism, which actually is a problem.
  4. The White House fires Darren Beattie, a speech writer, for his connections with white supremacists and his writings in support of white supremacy.
  5. Steven Miller’s uncle writes an op-ed denouncing Miller’s views on race and immigration, calling him a hypocrite because their family came to the U.S. using family-based immigration. Miller is the architect behind some of Trump’s most restrictive and cruel immigration policies.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump plans to further weaken Obama’s Clean Power Plan by allowing states to set their own standards for coal-burning power plants. More to come on this next week.
  2. A federal court orders a full environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline project before the project can continue across Nebraska. Nebraskan landowners and tribal members have joined together to fight the pipeline.
  3. Despite scientific evidence otherwise, Ryan Zinke says that the role of humans in climate change is unknown. In a separate interview, Zinke blames California’s wildfires on environmental terrorist groups and says climate change isn’t to blame.
  4. And speaking of Zinke, he’s hired one of his high-school football teammates, Steve Howke, to oversee the review process for climate change research funding. Howke has been holding up funding, forcing these projects to undergo unprecedented review processes. He also has no background in science or climate issues, and holds only a degree in business administration.
  5. The Fish and Wildlife Service adds the once-common rusty patched bumblebee to the endangered species list. It’s the first bumblebee species to officially be endangered.
  6. A judge orders the Trump administration to immediately implement the Obama-era Chemical Disaster Rule, which was created in response to an explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas.
  7. Newly released documents show that the EPA ignored its own scientific research when the agency claimed that freezing fuel efficiency standards in automobiles would save lives. Their reasoning was based on flawed models, which will help states when they fight back against freezing standards.

Budget/Economy:

  1. After making a BFD of his signing of the defense authorization bill this week, Trump signs a statement saying several (around 50) of the statutes in the bill are unconstitutional limits on his presidential powers. One of those statutes bans military funding for anything supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
  2. Turkey raises tariffs on U.S. imports.
  3. Trump asks the SEC to look into reducing companies’ required reporting from quarterly to half-yearly. He says business leaders told him that would reduce pressure on them and give them more flexibility. Economists say maybe, but less transparency into business operations is not good for consumers or investors.
  4. Over the past 40 years, CEO compensation for major corporations has grown 1070%. Average worker compensation, by comparison, has grown 11%.
  5. The U.S. and Mexico are reportedly close to an agreement on NAFTA. Maybe.
  6. The U.S. and China plan to come back to the negotiating table after walking away amid trade wars. However, the U.S. delegation doesn’t have a unified message or goal, and there’s doubt that Trump has a specific goal in mind. There is no one point person who has the authorization to speak for Trump even if he did have a goal.
    Background: Trump fixates on trade deficits, which he doesn’t seem to fully grasp. Trade deficits are a reflection of countries’ growth rates, currency values, and investments, among other things. It’s not a straight-up win/lose equation, but sometimes a trade deficit means you’re winning.
  7. Sarah Huckabee Sanders apologizes for saying that Trump has created three times as many jobs for African Americans in 20 months as Obama did in eight years. She said 195,000 black workers found employment under Obama when it was actually 3 million. 700,000 black workers found work in the first 20 months under Trump.

Elections:

  1. Bobby Goodlatte, the son of House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), is working to get a Democrat elected to his father’s seat. Bobby tweets, “I’m deeply embarrassed that Peter Strzok’s career was ruined by my father’s political grandstanding. That committee hearing was a low point for Congress.”
  2. Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer concedes the GOP gubernatorial primary to Kris Kobach. Kobach has instituted several voter ID laws that were struck down by the court. In fact, his court showing is so poor that a judge ordered him to go back to lawyer school.
  3. Voting rights organizations sue Arizona’s secretary of state over violations of the National Voter Registration Act. The secretary hasn’t been updating addresses in accordance with the federal “motor voter” requirements, which say each state must update a voter’s address information whenever their address on their driver’s license changes. This has resulted in thousands of votes being discarded.
  4. Whoopsies! The Treasury accidentally violates federal campaign laws by retweeting Trump’s tweet predicting a “red wave” for November’s midterms. It’s a violation of the Hatch Act, which says federal employees can’t engage in political activity while serving in an official capacity. I’m not clear, then, why it’s OK for Trump to tweet about it.
  5. A Georgia county plans to close 3/4 of their polling locations, mostly in black communities. The same thing happened in Alabama just before last year’s Senate elections, and it took a huge effort to make sure black voters were able get to the polls.
  6. Dr. Hans Keirstead, one of the democratic candidates running against Dana Rohrabacher for Congress, was hacked during the primaries. Keirstead lost out on the second position in the top-two primary to another democratic candidate by 125 votes. Law enforcement doesn’t know where the hacks came from.
  7. And the political ads are back. GOP super PACs are gearing up for the November midterms by unleashing a series of ads against several Democrats in tight districts. I’m sure it won’t be long before Democratic PACs do the same, so now’s a good time for my reminder that ALL POLITICAL ADS ARE LIES DESIGNED TO MANIPULATE YOU. DO NOT BASE YOUR VOTE ON ADS.
  8. And speaking of ads, Google posts a searchable library of political ads along with information about who funded the ads and who the ads target. They’ll update this weekly so you’ll have ready information about who is saying what.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Omarosa Manigault-Newman releases another taped conversation about her firing, this one with Trump where he professes to not know she was being fired and where he sounds perplexed that she might be leaving.
  2. Omarosa releases a taped conversation where Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, offered her hush money after she left the White House. Lara told her the money would come from political donations.
  3. Trump sues Omarosa for violating her nondisclosure agreement, which many legal experts say isn’t enforceable in this case anyway. Oh. And he also calls her a dog.
  4. Omarosa claims to have over 200 recorded conversations, and she’s trickling them out one at a time (to sell her book of course).
  5. Trump has forced several of his White House staff into signing non-disclosure agreements, but most legal experts say they can’t be enforced.
  6. Trump signs a defense bill named in honor of John McCain and refuses to mention McCain’s name during the signing. But he criticizes McCain just hours later at a fundraiser.
  7. This isn’t political, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. Over 300 Catholic clergy in Pennsylvania are accused of molesting over 1,000 child victims. The church has been involved in a massive coverup of the whole thing for 70 years. There’s another scandal like this bubbling up in Chile as well.
  8. Twitter still won’t go all in with a ban on Alex Jones, but it did suspend him for a week over a recent post.
  9. The FCC shuts down Alex Jones‘ radio station and fines it $15,000. I wish they could shut him down for being a liar, conspiracy nut, and provoker of violence, but they shut him down for operating without a license.
  10. In their first execution in over 20 years, Nebraska becomes the first state to use fentanyl for a death penalty lethal injection.
  11. Trump cancels his military parade due to the high costs. Even though local officials have been trying to explain the costs to him, he blames them for inflating costs.
  12. The National Park Service, under Ryan Zinke’s direction, wants to charge protestors for demonstrating in our capital. AFAIK, cities don’t charge demonstrators because it’s a violation of their first amendment rights. If you have an opinion on this, you can comment here: https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=NPS-2018-0007

Week 79 in Trump

Posted on July 30, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Credit: gguy/Shutterstock

Despite Trump’s spectacular tweet storm on Sunday, it was a relatively quiet week as far as political news. Maybe we’ll get a little summer break from political chaos for the next few weeks. Here’s what happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Four members of the Homeland Security Advisory Committee resign, saying that they can no longer be associated with Trump’s immigration policies and calling the practice of family separation “morally repugnant.”

Russia:

  1. Even though Robert Mueller’s investigation has so far resulted in 32 indictments, 5 guilty pleas, and over 100 charges, this happens:
    • Sarah Huckabee Sanders calls Robert Mueller’s investigation a “hoax and a waste or time.”
    • Trump tweets that Russia’s interference in the election was “all a big hoax” (though last week he said that he concurs with our intelligence community’s assessment of Russian interference in our election).
    • Then, even though it’s all a big hoax, Trump blames Obama for letting Russian interference in our election happen. He also wonders why Obama didn’t tell his campaign, though both the Clinton and Trump campaigns were warned about it.
  1. Carter Page has been downplaying his ties with Russian officials, but in a 2013 letter, he says he worked as an informal advisor to Kremlin staff.
  2. The judge in Paul Manafort’s trial grants immunity to five witnesses as requested by Mueller. The judge also orders that all witness names be made public (there are 30 prospective witnesses). The trial begins at the end of the month.
  3. Trump says that he thinks Russia will meddle in our midterm elections, but this time to help get Democrats elected because Trump’s been so tough on Russia. Despite his soft stance toward Putin, he has taken more actions against Russia than previous administrations (albeit grudgingly in many cases).
  4. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo testifies to a senate committee about our Russia policy, including the actions taken by the administration (213 sanctions, weapons sales to Ukraine, 60 diplomats expelled, and Russian facilities closed). Pompeo refuses to discuss what was said in Trump’s meeting with Putin.
  5. Just before Pompeo’s testimony, the State Department restated their non-recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
  6. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Banking Committee schedule hearings to find out what was agreed upon in the Trump and Putin summit.
  7. Trump postpones Putin’s visit in the fall, blaming the Russia “witch hunt.” Soon after, Putin invites Trump to Moscow.
  8. The White House releases an edited transcript of the summit, omitting key questions. The Kremlin releases yet a different edited version that also omits key information. The White House later corrects their record.
  9. Eleven GOP members of the House, including Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, bring articles of impeachment against Rod Rosenstein, demanding a vote. House leadership and other members criticize this action, and the sponsors end up pulling their demand for a vote.
  10. According to “sources,” Michael Cohen says that Trump knew about the Russian offer that led to the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower before the 2016 elections. Cohen also says that Trump approved the meeting. Steve Bannon and Sam Nunberg have both said they think Trump knew about the meeting.
  11. Trump says he did not know about the meeting; Cohen says he’s willing to testify otherwise.
  12. Newly surfaced emails show that the Russian lawyer from the above meeting, Natalia Veselnitskaya, is more closely linked to Russian government officials than she has let on.
  13. Russian hackers have been hacking into electric utility companies in the U.S.
  14. Elliot Broidy and Tom Barrack (a Trump friend and business associate) paid Rick Gates over $300,000 for help navigating Trump’s administration. Gates has plead guilty to fraud and lying to investigators.
  15. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Richard Burr (R-NC) contradicts his counterpart in the House, Devin Nunes, saying that the Carter Page warrant was based on solid intel.
  16. After Maria Butina’s arrest for espionage, Democratic senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee request an investigation into whether the NRA knew Russia was trying to funnel money through them to Trump’s campaign.
  17. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (D-Calif.) had dinner last year with Butina. Two years before that, Butina arranged a meeting between Rohrabacher and Alexander Torshin.
  18. Russian hackers are already at work in the 2018 midterm election. In August 2017, they attempted to hack into Claire McCaskill’s servers after Trump visited her state and encouraged crowds to vote her out of office.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions addresses a high school leadership summit, and joins in with the students in chanting “Lock her up!” He later says that in retrospect, he should’ve taken that moment to talk to the students about due process instead.
  2. A circuit court rules that the 2nd amendment does give us the right to open carry firearms for self defense. A previous ruling found that the 2nd amendment does NOT protect concealed carry.
  3. For the second time, a federal judge refuses to dismiss an emoluments lawsuit against Trump.

Healthcare:

  1. Kentucky reinstates the dental and vision benefits that the state took away from a half million Medicaid recipients several weeks ago. Outrage from local Democrats and local media pushed them to reverse their decision.
  2. Two things this week will affect privatization of veterans’ healthcare:
    • Trump creates a commission to review Veterans Administration facilities with the possible end goal of shutting down several. The commission will be able to make final decisions on this without congressional approval.
    • Congress provides more funding for the Veteran’s Choice Program, which is a vehicle to privatized healthcare. Putting more money there takes it away from the VA and starts a vicious cycle of underfunding VA facilities which could lead the above commission to shut them down.
  1. On rumors of pretty massive increases in premiums next year, the Trump administration will resume paying the risk adjustment payments to health insurers that he canceled just a few weeks ago.

International:

  1. After Iran’s President Rouhani warns the U.S. about starting any conflict, Trump threatens Iran in a tweet with “CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED.”
  2. The Pentagon plans to send another $200 million to help the Ukraine fight off pro-Russian separatists. This is seen as a reaction to the Trump/Putin press conference in Helsinki.
  3. A recent review of international agreements concludes that countries are in compliance with these agreements about 77% of the time. So it seems these agreements do actually work.
  4. Keeping Kim Jong Un’s word to Trump, North Korea returns the remains of 55 people believed to be American soldiers from the Korean War. The country still hasn’t slowed down it’s nuclear activity though.
  5. The White House says they won’t publish conversations between Trump and other world leaders anymore.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Four Republican representatives accuse Twitter of “shadow banning” them, which is when either their posts don’t show up on other people’s newsfeeds or don’t show up in searches. Twitter says they don’t do that. Note that all four have posted incendiary or false stories.

Family Separation:

  1. While the administration scrambles to meet their court-ordered deadline to reunite families they separated at the border, they say over 700 families can’t be reunited. They also say that 463 of the parents were likely deported without their children.
  2. For these 463, the administration failed to document consent for most of them, so there’s no way that they can prove that any documents were signed consenting to being deported without their children.
  3. And as an example of what makes a family ineligible to be reunited, the administration refuses to reunite a child with her grandmother because the grandmother isn’t the child’s parent. Please.
  4. United Airlines donates flights to help reunite families that were separated at the border and who are now being forced to pay reunification costs incurred by the administration.
  5. A judge orders the Trump administration to provide assistance and information to lawyers who are working to reunite these families.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Documents released as part of a lawsuit show that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross lied about the origin of the new citizenship question on the 2020 census. Ross says the DOJ initially requested the question, but the documents show that it was Ross who was pushing for it.
  2. A judge rules that a lawsuit against the administration for adding the citizenship question to the census can move forward.
  3. A group of 36 people sue the Trump administration over the recently upheld Muslim ban saying that the waiver process is a sham. The 36 people represent all five of the Muslim-majority countries included in the ban.

Climate/EPA:

  1. While working to decrease the size of our national monuments, the Trump administration suppressed research that shows that national monuments boost both tourism and archaeological finds. Instead, Ryan Zinke emphasized ranch, logging, and energy development.
  2. A federal appeals court blocks the administration’s second try at stopping a climate change lawsuit. This lawsuit was brought by a group of children who say that the government is endangering their future by not doing enough about climate change.
  3. A federal appeals court also blocks one of Scott Pruitt’s last policy changes that would have lifted limits of sales of so-called super-polluting semi trucks.
  4. Democrats and conservationists in the House block the GOP’s attempt to suspend endangered species protections for certain birds and insects.

Budget/Economy:

  1. It sounds like Russia is giving up on the American economy. They’ve been buying gold and selling off U.S. Treasury bonds. Their bond ownership is around 1/6 what it used to be.
  2. Unexplainable, right? Whirlpool’s stock takes a dive. Whirlpool initially pushed Trump into harsher tariffs, but they’re blaming their stock drop on the resulting high prices of aluminum and steel. Their CEO says the high prices are unexplainable.
  3. According to the North Dakota Trade office, all of China’s firm orders for food-grade soybeans have been cancelled due to tariffs. Farmers won’t see effects from this immediately, but future harvests will be hit.
  4. The economy grew 4.1% in the second quarter of this year, the highest rate of growth since 2014 when it hit 5.2% under Obama. Economists think that the growth is due in part to the tax stimulus and in part to increased spending before the tariffs went into effect. (And in case you think this proves Trump is better for the economy, growth hit 4% under Obama four times.)
  5. Don Jr. says economic growth never passed 2% under Obama. Except that it did. 15 times.
  6. Facebook stock tanks on the low number of active users, and Twitter stock tanks after they purge thousands of fake accounts.
  7. Trump considers 25% tariffs on $200 billion of foreign-made cars, and when even Republicans criticize the idea, he says we just need to trust his business acumen.
  8. Trump meets with European Commission President Juncker where they agree to work toward zero tariffs on trade, reduce barriers to trade, and increase trade in certain sectors. They also agree to establish a working group to figure out the details.
  9. Trump backs away from this tariff threats against the EU, and the EU backs down from threats of retaliatory tariffs.
  10. There are reports that Juncker used colorful flashcards as a way to simplify complex issues and to explain global trade policy to Trump.
  11. Trump says he’s willing to force a government shutdown ahead of the September spending bill deadline if he doesn’t get what he wants on immigration, including funding for the border wall.
  12. Right after tweeting that tariffs are the greatest, the Trump administration announces a $12 billion assistance package to help farmers who might be hurt by the tariffs. Trump tells farmers to be patient, and not to believe what they see and hear right now.
  13. Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) says this bailout shows that Trump has too much power and that Congress needs to reassert its power. He also says that tariffs are a tax paid by the American people, and Trump is using that tax to bail out farmers.
  14. Coca-Cola says they’ll increase prices due to rising costs from the tariffs.
  15. Current measures indicate that the price changes caused by the trade war are temporary and should return to close to normal in a year or two.

Elections:

  1. Here’s an illustration of why we need to end gerrymandering. In emails disclosed as part of a lawsuit, Republican officials in Michigan brag about gerrymandering and celebrate sticking it to Democrats. The emails talk about concentrating “Dem garbage” into certain Democrat controlled districts, and about concentrating African Americans into a specific House district in Detroit. They even describe one of the oddly shaped districts as being like a finger, essentially flipping off that district’s Democratic representative.
  2. States purged 16 million voters from their rolls from 2014 to 2016, an increase from previous periods. The greatest rates of increase were in areas that were under federal watch for having previously violated the Voting Rights Act. In at least eight states, the purges violated the Voting Rights Act or were otherwise not legal.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump weighs stripping former officials who criticize him of their security clearances. This is an unusual move by any administration, and could hamper their ability to do consulting work on classified projects. It seems Rand Paul pushed him on this one.
  2. The Senate confirms Robert Wilkes to head the VA.
  3. Someone leaks a tape of a conversation between Michael Cohen and Trump where they discuss purchasing Karen McDougal’s story about her affair with Trump from American Media to prevent the story from getting out before the 2016 election.
  4. New York’s Department of Taxation and Finance opens an investigation into Trump’s foundation over whether it violated state tax laws.
  5. Ivanka shuts down her clothing line to focus on her work in Washington and also because conflicts of interest between her business and her government work are getting in the way.
  6. Apparently there’s a standing rule on Air Force One that all TVs be tuned to Fox News while Trump’s on board. He has a little tantrum when Melania’s TV is on CNN.
  7. Betsy DeVos eliminates Obama-era regulations that required for-profit colleges to be able to show proof that their claims of graduate employment are accurate. This rule protected students from being tricked into thinking that graduates of a school are more employable than they actually are.
  8. Vandals untie one of DeVos’s 10 yachts, releasing it from it’s dock in Ohio. Which is how we learn that her yacht is registered under the Cayman Island flag. Why is that?
  9. Trump criticizes the FCC for slowing down the merge between Sinclair Broadcasting and Tribune Media.
  10. Someone vandalizes Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a pickaxe for the second time.
  11. Fox News fires The Five host Kimberly Guilfoyle for sexual misconduct and abusive conduct. Side note: Guilfoyle is dating Don Jr.
  12. Karma bitches. Facebook suspends Alex Jones for bullying and hate speech.YouTube removes four of his videos and suspends him from live-streaming for three months.
  13. Emails surface that show that police in Ohio had been planning to arrest Stormy Daniels for months before her scheduled performance.
  14. After a meeting with the publisher of the New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger, Trump tweets that they had a very good meeting and talked about the high volume of fake news put out by the mainstream media. Sulzberger’s response: “I told the president directly that I thought that his language was not just divisive but increasingly dangerous.” “
  15. So then Trump accuses the media of having “Trump derangement syndrome.”

Polls:

  1. 71% of voters think Roe v. Wade should not be overturned.
  2. 51% think Russia has something on Trump, with Republicans being the only category of voter that doesn’t think so (categories include things like gender, party, education, age, race, and so on).
  3. 52% say Trump’s summit with Putin was a failure for Trump; 27% say it was a success.
  4. 73% say the summit was a success for Putin.
  5. 78% say Trump should defend all our NATO allies.
  6. 68% are concerned about Trump’s relationship with Russia.
  7. Trump’s approval rating fell to 38% after the Russia summit.
  8. Two groups give Trump clear support: Republicans at 82%, and white evangelical Christians at 71%.
  9. 58% of voters disapprove of Trump’s foreign policy, with 51% saying that he‘s weakened our position as leader of the free world.

 

Week 78 in Trump

Posted on July 23, 2018 in Politics, Trump

At least one of these guys looks happy.

Confused about all the Russia kerfuffle and whether Trump believes our intelligence agencies over Putin? John Hartzell’s tweet pretty much sums up the cleanup process after the joint press conference:

“Today, Trump lied, lied about lying, changed his mind, lied about changing his mind, changed his mind about lying, blamed someone else for something he did, lied about blaming someone else, took a breath, and lied.”

Even though intelligence agencies presented Trump with proof of Russian interference from the start, he has always muddied the waters to make sure that people continue to question the findings of our own intelligence agencies. It’s the reason he can never come up with a clear and cogent response to questions about it.

Russia:

There’s so much Russia news this week that I have to break it out into sub-sections. So here goes.

Trump/Putin Summit:

  1. Trump and Putin hold a two-hour summit, followed by a controversial press conference that sets off a worldwide firestorm. I’ll just start by saying that Russian officials call the summit and press conference major success for Putin, while Trump receives massive criticism back at home.
  2. What did they discuss at the summit? Trump says war and peace, Syria, Ukraine, and Israel (Putin loves Bibi, apparently). But no one really knows for sure.
  3. There was no one in attendance in the Trump/Putin summit except translators, so we have no official record of what happened. There was no joint statement so we don’t know what they agreed on.
  4. Here are some press conference highlights of what Trump says (remember this is just days after the indictment of 12 Russian intelligence agents for hacking the DNC and after Dan Coates told us that there are warning signs of more hacking):
    • When asked about Russian interference in the 2016 elections, Trump refuses to support our own intelligence agencies, and instead says Putin’s denials were forceful and credible.
    • He denies collusion and calls the Russia investigation a disaster for the U.S. Even though the Russia investigation has spawned state investigations and resulted in 32 indictments, 5 guilty pleas, and over 100 charges.
    • Trump suggests that our intelligence agencies (specifically Dan Coates) are not credible and are conspiring against him. Even though Coates told him that Russia was behind the hacking of the DNC servers, Trump doesn’t see any reason why Russia would do that and it could be anybody else.
    • Trump blames the U.S. for our current relationship with Russia, calling the U.S. foolish (and ignoring Russia’s attacks on Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine; their actions in Syria; the poisonings in England; and the downing of the Malaysian passenger jet). Trump sees the U.S. and Russia as morally equivalent.
    • Trump brings up his electoral win, claiming incorrectly that it’s harder for a Republican to win the electoral college than a Democrat. In reality, Democrats need an extra margin of about 11% of the popular vote.
    • He brings up Hillary’s emails again, along with a debunked conspiracy theory about a Pakistani DNC staffer who was arrested. He adds that Russia would never let this happen in their country.
    • Trump calls Putin a good competitor, not an adversary… just after he called the EU one of our biggest foes.
    • He is impressed by Putin’s offer to have Mueller share his evidence on the 12 indicted Russian officials if we allow Russia to interrogate U.S. officials. This would give Russia a view into how our intelligence agencies work and what their capabilities are.
    • Trump also considers handing over Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, and Bill Browder for questioning. Putin has long wanted Bill Browder, who exposed the corruption in the Russian government that led to the Magnitsky Act. Side note: Browder is no longer a U.S. citizen, so we can’t really hand him over anyway.
  1. Here‘s some of what Putin says:
    • Russia has never interfered in a U.S. election and they never will.
    • Putin supports Trump in his assertion that there was no collusion.
    • Putin says he knows nothing about any kompromat, claiming he didn’t even know Trump was in town during the Miss Universe pageant. Uh-huh. Even though he cancelled a meeting with Trump during that time.
  1. Later, in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Putin says that our efforts to isolate Russia have failed.
  2. Putin also says he misspoke when he said that Clinton received $400 million from associates of Bill Browder and that it was $400,000 (the actual number is closer to $18,000).
  3. A member of Russia’s parliament says that Russian intelligence stole the 2016 presidential election right out from under the noses of U.S. intelligence.
  4. In a follow-up interview with Sean Hannity, Trump reiterates that Putin says there’s no collusion and that Putin is very, very strong on that. Trump also says Mueller’s Russia investigation is a “phony, witch hunt deal” and that Putin thinks it’s a shame.

Press Conference Fallout:

  1. Reaction is swift, harsh, and bipartisan. Politicians from both sides reiterate that Russia isn’t our friend, there‘s no doubt that Russia interfered in our 2016 elections, and the interference campaign was organized by the Russian government.
  2. Even Fox News is highly critical, with the exception of Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.
  3. GOP critics use these words to describe the conference: tragic, disgraceful, bizarre, flat-out wrong, shameful, a propaganda win for Putin, and a missed opportunity to hold Russia accountable. Critics on the left call Trump’s response dangerous and weak.
  4. So Trump and the White House attempt some backpedaling… and then forward pedaling… and then backpedaling again:
    • Trump says he misspoke when he said he couldn’t see why Russia WOULD interfere, and says he meant to say WOULDN’T.
    • He accepts intelligence assessments that Russia interfered in our 2016 elections, but then adds that it could also be other people.
    • The next day Trump responds “no” to questions of whether Russia is still interfering, contradicting all of our intelligence agencies and the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee.
    • The White House tries to clarify by saying that Trump was saying “no” to answering any more questions, not “no” to whether Russia is still meddling. This could actually be true; it’s hard to tell.
    • Trump says he was very strong when admonishing Putin that he can’t interfere in our elections.
    • On Monday, Trump thinks Putin made an incredible offer to collaborate on investigations. On Wednesday, Trump says he’ll meet with his advisors to discuss handing over Browder, McFaul, and other government agents to Russia for questioning. And then on Thursday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump disagrees with the offer.
    • Trump says he believes Putin when he says he didn’t interfere, but then he says Putin must have known about the interference because he’s in charge of the country.
  1. Even Paul Ryan, who just the week before said we shouldn’t criticize Trump while he’s overseas (in reference to his NATO meetings), criticizes Trump’s words. Mitch McConnell reiterates that Russia is not our friend.
  2. European officials call Trump weak and say he can’t be counted on, though some NATO members do try to smooth things over.
  3. Democrats demand that Republican leaders (like they’re in a position to demand anything):
    • Strengthen sanctions against Russia
    • Force the security team that went to Helsinki with Trump to testify before Congress so we can learn about what was agreed
    • End their attacks on our intelligence agencies and Mueller
    • Extradite the 12 indicted Russian hackers.
  1. McConnell and Ryan consider additional Russia sanctions.
  2. The Russian Ambassador to the U.S. says the summit produced important verbal agreements. Russian officials and the Russian press start talking about all the agreements that were made, yet the American people have no idea what those are.
  3. The Russian Ministry of Defense says that they’re ready to implement all the summit agreements around global security.
  4. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says the summit was fabulous, “better than super.”
  5. In contrast, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refuses to talk to the press about it.
  6. House Intelligence Committee Democrats request a subpoena for the American interpreter, who was the only other American in the room at the meeting between Trump and Putin. The GOP leadership rejects that request.
  7. The whole thing incites protests in Washington, DC, including at the White House. These have been ongoing for a week now.
  8. Weeks before Trump’s inauguration, intelligence agencies presented him with proof that Putin personally directed the 2016 election interference. This proof included emails and texts from Russian military officers. Sources say Trump was “grudgingly” convinced.
  9. While Dan Coates is being interviewed by Andrea Mitchell, he finds out by tweet that Trump is inviting Putin to the White House in the fall. He appears to laugh at Trump at this point.
  10. At the same forum, Kirstjen Nielsen refuses to say she agrees with our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia, specifically Putin, was behind the election interference. She’s the Secretary of HOMELAND SECURITY. Come on!
  11. Trump tries to blame Obama for Russian interference. Obama probably could’ve done more but in reality he was blocked by Mitch McConnell.
    • McConnell received the same intelligence briefing, so he knew what was going on leading up to the 2016 elections.
    • When Obama asked him to sign on to a bipartisan public statement about it, McConnell refused.
    • McConnell told Obama not to release the information and that he [McConnell] would consider any efforts to publicly challenge Russia “an act of partisan politics.”
    • Well played, Mitch; well played.

Other Russia News:

  1. The head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command says he’s directed both agencies to coordinate to fight any future interference in our elections by foreign powers. But they’re on their own; he hasn’t received any White House guidance on this.
  2. Federal agents arrest Maria Butina, a gun rights advocate who is charged with being an unregistered foreign agent (aka “spy”). She allegedly infiltrated the NRA and cozied up to GOP politicians to influence U.S. politics in the interest of Russia.
    • According to prosecutors, Butina tried to exchange sex for influence. She’s been living with Paul Erickson, a conservative political operative from South Dakota who is under investigation for fraud.
    • Her alleged co-conspirator in Russia is Alexander Torshin, who is currently under U.S. sanctions. They were trying to develop back-channel lines of communication between Russian and American officials.
    • Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif) calls the indictment against Butina bogus. Does he protest too much? The affidavit implies that Butina was setting up a meeting between Rohrabacher and Torshin when Rohrabacher visited Russia in 2015.
    • The FBI has a proposal authored by Butina talking about how they can take power away from the Democrats in 2016 and give it to a (not named) party that will be more friendly to Russian interests. The influence campaign started with the NRA and CPAC.
    • It was Butina who secured invitations for Russian officials to attend the National Prayer Breakfast.
    • The affidavit also suggests that Russia had some influence on Trump’s selection for Secretary of State.
    • Butina was arrested when it appeared she was preparing to leave the country. She’s deemed a flight risk, so is being held without bail.
    • Russia’s foreign minister demands Butina’s immediate release.
  1. Twitter suspends the accounts of Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks after last week’s indictment of the Russian hackers.
  2. Trey Gowdy says there’s no good reason to impeach Rod Rosenstein.
  3. Mueller requests immunity for five witnesses in the Paul Manafort trial. He also releases over 500 pieces of evidence being used in the trial.
  4. Remember those Macedonian trolls who pushed pro-Trump, anti-Hillary, and conservative fake stories and conspiracy theories before the 2016 elections? It turns out the effort was started by a Macedonian attorney with the assistance of two American conservatives, Ben Goldman and Paris Wade (you might remember a profile done on them in 2016 describing them writing fake news stories out of their Long Beach apartment). Paris Wade is running for Nevada State Assembly.
  5. The data that Cambridge Analytica mined off Facebook was accessed by a server in Russia.
  6. Christopher Wray, head of the FBI, says Russia is very aggressive in election interference and that they’re actively creating discord and divisiveness in the U.S. right now.
  7. The DOJ releases highly redacted documents that were used to support the Carter Page FISA warrant application. This type of information is typically not made public.
  8. Trump claims that the redacted documents show that his campaign really was being illegally spied on, even though there’s nothing in the released documents that imply that.

Courts/Justice:

  1. I guess we’re cool with the FBI again? Jeff Sessions delivers an address to students at Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC). These are members of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. Sessions says, “You and your brothers and sisters are in every corner of America, working 24 hours a day to courageously and faithfully protect this nation and our people. We are proud of you.”
  2. Republicans in the Senate pull Trump’s nomination for the 9th circuit court of appeals, Ryan Bounds, not because of Bounds’ racist writings, but because they don’t have enough votes to confirm him.
  3. Mitch McConnell says that if Democrats keep pushing for documentation around Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, he’ll delay the confirmation hearings until right before the midterms to hurt vulnerable Democrats in their re-election efforts.

Healthcare:

  1. A district court judge rules in Trump’s favor on changes to Title X regarding family planning grants. The changes move the emphasis from contraception and safe sex to abstinence and natural family planning (whatever that is). Because we all know that when you tell youngsters to abstain from sex, that’s what they do, right?

International:

  1. Trumps says that NATO members agreed to pony up way more money because he was so assertive. NATO members say, not. They’re just meeting the conditions of their 2014 agreement with the Obama administration.
  2. During the NATO summit, Trump reportedly praised authoritarian Turkish president Erdogan while criticizing our allies in Europe for needing to consult with their respective legislative branches before making policy decisions.
  3. Trump questions why we would come to the defense of a small country like NATO member Montenegro.
  4. While Trump meets with Putin, leaders from the EU and China meet and agree on a joint resolution as well as a commitment to keep the global system strong.
  5. Trump tells diplomats to initiate negotiations directly with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Previously, we’ve worked to include the Afghanistan government in these talks, but the Taliban only wants to talk to the U.S. government.
  6. Israel’s parliament passes a bill that defines Israel as the Jewish nation-state, where Hebrew is the official language and Jerusalem is the capital.
  7. And speaking of Israel, moving our embassy to Jerusalem will cost us $21.2 million instead of the $250,000 Trump said it would.
  8. So far Brexit is costing the UK Treasury 440 million pounds a week; more than the EU ever cost them. Brexit was sold as an economic boon for the country.
  9. North Korean officials have been cancelling meetings and demanded more money. They don’t seem to be slowing down their nuclear program any either. Trump is frustrated by the slow pace and obstacles.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Senate Democrats put forth a resolution to prevent the president from turning over American citizens to hostile foreign powers. It passes unanimously.
  2. The House passes the BUILD Act, which will encourage private investment in countries with lower income economies to help fight extreme poverty.
  3. The GOP blocks Democratic legislation to question the translator at the Trump/Putin summit, to investigate NRA ties to Russian money, and to back our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections.
  4. Democrats continue to request a vote on an amendment that would provide funding to states for election security, but the GOP leadership continues to refuse the vote.

Separating Families:

  1. A judge blocks the government from deporting newly reunited families to make sure none are improperly deported.
  2. A court orders counseling for children who are victims of family separation at the border. They court calls it a constitutional injury, and in some cases may require treatment for PTSD.
  3. So far, only 364 of the more than 2,500 children taken at the border have been reunited with their parents. Of 1,600 parents waiting to be reunited, almost half are slated for deportation.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. More than 100 elected officials from 20 states sign on to an open letter arguing that we should abolish ICE, the agency created after 9/11 to keep our borders secure. They say ICE is too broken to be reformed and should be abolished. They don’t have an alternative yet.
  2. A district judge in Pennsylvania rules that religious adoption agencies do not have the right to discriminate against prospective parents based on religious beliefs while at the same time accepting taxpayer money.
  3. The NFL puts its new kneeling-during-the-anthem policy on hold while they negotiate the terms with the teams. So Trump tweets a call for extreme punishments for players who kneel.
  4. A federal appeals court rejects the Trump administration’s efforts to reinstate the ban on transgender troops while the his original ban makes its way through the courts.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Department of the Interior issues a proposal to overhaul the endangered species act to make it more friendly to economic development (or as it’s better known, drilling and mining projects). This is the act that saved the Yellowstone grizzly and the BALD FREAKING EAGLE from extinction, among others.
  2. California just reached their goal of reducing their carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020—two years ahead of time.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The EU and Japan sign a major trade agreement that gets rid of most of the tariffs on goods imported between the two.
  2. Trump criticizes the Feds‘ decision to raise interest rates again, saying it’ll slow down our booming economy. Which is kind of the point of interest rate hikes.
  3. A group of major U.S. companies signs on to a new jobs training initiative by the Trump administration.
  4. China files a complaint with the World Trade Organization over Trump’s proposed tariffs, saying they fall under protectionism.
  5. The Congressional Budget Office updates its estimates, and now says our deficit will hit $1 trillion next year.
  6. Trump threatens even higher tariffs against China, saying he’ll go up to $500 billion if he has to.
  7. Republicans in Congress back off from making sure the sanctions against Chinese company ZTE stick, and instead allow Trump to make this a personal favor to China president Xi Jinping.

Elections:

  1. A lawyer for one of Roy Moore’s accusers has recorded conversations of two of Moore’s supporters offering him $10,000 to drop the case and discredit the victim before the Senate election that Democrat Doug Jones won.
  2. No dark money in politics, you say? The Trump administration ends IRS disclosure requirements for certain nonprofits, allowing donors to give money without any scrutiny. How many ways can we make Citizens United worse?
  3. Some states’ voter registration systems operate on systems owned by Russian-backed companies.
  4. A top voting machine manufacturer admits they issued a few of those servers with the remote sharing application pcAnywhere installed.
  5. The reason the FBI took so long to announce the reopening of Hillary Clinton’s email investigation (which is why it happened just nine days before the election) is that the bureau was so overwhelmed with the investigation into the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia.

Miscellaneous:

  1. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai pushes back on Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s merger with Tribune Media. There’s concern that even with the changes Sinclair is willing to make, they would still control too many stations.
  2. Also on the Sinclair front, the company recently announced that they’ll release a streaming app later this year to compete with other agencies, such as Fox News.
  3. A recent court filing indicates that the secret service has been blocking attempts to serve a subpoena to Jared Kushner.
  4. The inspector general for the Interior Department opens an investigation into a real estate deal between Ryan Zinke’s foundation and certain developers (including Halliburton).
  5. In the material seized from Michael Cohen, there’s a recorded conversation between him and Trump discussing payments to Karen McDougal, the Playboy model who says she had an affair with Trump. The conversation took place a few months before the election.
  6. Oddly enough, Trump’s lawyers waived attorney-client privilege around this recording.
  7. In the middle of a signing ceremony for work training and apprenticeships, Trump realizes that his reality show, The Apprentice, was about apprenticeships.
  8. Obama gives the 2018 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in South Africa, where he alludes to Trump without calling him out by name. He says these are strange and uncertain times, with the rise of strongman politics around the globe.
  9. Starting August 1, people can download plans for 3-D printable guns. None of which will be traceable because they don’t have a serial number. Yay us.

Polls:

The only thing I’ll say about polls is that Trump’s approval numbers should’ve changed this week, but they didn’t. ‘Nuff said.

Week 68 in Trump

Posted on May 14, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This week, House Democrats released some of the propaganda and ads posted by Russian trolls during the 2016 campaigns. If you want to see them yourselves, you can download them here. If you want to know if you actually liked one of those ads, Facebook has a tool that lets you check.

Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Seattle puts the wheels in motion to vacate all marijuana possession charges dating back to the 90s.
  2. Thomas Homan, Trump’s temporary appointee to head ICE, resigns. Trump finally nominated Homan to head the department permanently, but his confirmation has been held up in Congress over his aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.

Russia:

  1. We find out that Michael Cohen (Trump’s personal lawyer) used a shell company, Essential Consultants, for business activities. This in itself is not unusual… but then…
    • The shell company was created just before Trump was elected.
    • The shell company made the payment to keep Stormy Daniels quiet.
    • The shell company made the payments to keep Elliot Broidy’s affair with a playboy model quiet. He allegedly got the model pregnant.
    • And this is where the Stormy Daniels affair collides with the Russia investigation. The shell company received a half million dollars from Columbus Nova, whose biggest client is Renova Group, owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Their contract with Cohen was for $1 million.
    • Other clients of the shell company include AT&T, Novartis, and Korea Aerospace Industries, among others. Cohen also approached Ford Motor Cars, but they declined.
    • All of the above companies backpedal hard to distance themselves from Cohen as information changes over the week about how much they paid him and the reasons. Novartis has the best reason; they say they paid him $1.2 million for nothing.
    • Basically Cohen raked in millions of dollar for companies to have insider access to the Trump administration. Novartis was afraid to cancel their contract with Cohen because it might anger Trump.
    • Columbus Nova says Renova is their biggest client, but that they were never owned by a foreign company. However, Columbus Nova listed Renova on their website through 2017, and Renova listed Columbus Nova on theirs. That information is now gone. Also, SEC filings say it’s a U.S. affiliate of Renova.
    • In 2016 and 2017, Columbus Nova registered at least eight websites for white supremacists and alt-right groups. They also registered cnnjournal.com, which is a standard format for fake news sites (the URL looks like it comes from a real news source).
  1. Important notes here:
    • AT&T was lobbying for a merger with Time Warner. Trump opposed the merger during the campaign, and the DOJ blocked it in November.
    • Shortly after Novartis made their last payment to Cohen, Trump met with company leaders in Davos.
    • Korea Aerospace Industries is competing for a multi-billion dollar defense contract.
    • Renova Group is a target of U.S. sanctions.
    • Four years ago, the FBI warned that a foundation controlled by Vekselberg was working for Russian intelligence, spying to collect U.S. science and technology advances.
    • Vekselberg is one of the oligarchs the FBI detained and questioned at the airport as he entered the country.
  1. And as always, we’re four steps behind Mueller, who’s been aware of all this since last year.
  2. Here’s how the House fight against the Mueller investigation is going:
    • House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) has been subpoenaing documents from the DOJ that could potentially expose a top-secret intelligence source and put the Russia investigation at risk. The source is a U.S. citizen who has provided intelligence to the CIA and FBI. The White House backs the DOJ in withholding this information.
    • Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy meet with DOJ officials to go over the request for classified documents, which seems to quiet things down for now.
    • Paul Ryan backs Devin Nunes in his attempt to obtain the classified documents. Ryan says it’s in the scope of the committee’s investigation, though they ended their investigation last month so I’m not sure what investigation he’s talking about.
    • And also, Nunes is still supposed to be recused from the Russia investigation.
    • House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC) requests a financial audit of Mueller’s investigation.
  1. When asked whether the Senate findings would differ from the House findings released last month, the Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Richard Burr (R-NC), says “I’m not sure that the House was required to substantiate every conclusion with facts.”
  2. A Senate Intelligence Committee report says the election systems in at least 18, and maybe 21, states were targeted by Russian hackers in the 2016 elections. The report also says that Russia launched an unprecedented cyber campaign to make voters lose confidence in the elections, and provides recommendations for security.
  3. This report is the first of four planned to be released to address different aspects of the Russia investigation.
  4. The lawyers representing the Russian companies and trolls charged by Mueller in the Russia investigation try to bury Mueller’s team with an avalanche of discovery requests, including non-public information going back as far as the 1940s. A court denies Mueller’s request for a delay.
  5. Alex van der Zwaan begins his 30-day prison sentence for lying to federal agents, the first to serve time related to the Mueller investigation.
  6. House Democrats release 3,500 of the more than 200,000 Russian social media ads. The ads were aimed at creating divisiveness in the American electorate, and targeted issues like Black Lives Matter, immigration, gun rights, Muslims, Texas secession, and, of course, Hillary Clinton.
  7. These 3,500 ads alone reached over 33 million people.
  8. Mike Pence says it’s time for Mueller to start wrapping up his year-long investigation. Apparently he forgot that the special investigation into Bill Clinton went on for 5 years, despite not finding him guilty of anything except lying about an affair. Clinton’s investigation only resulted in the indictment of the McDougals. Mueller’s already obtained several guilty pleas.
  9. Mueller interviews Blackwater founder, Erik Prince.
  10. U.S. jets intercept two Russian bombers off the coast of Alaska.
  11. A public records request shows that Russian officials started courting conservatives in the U.S. as early as 2009, establishing and cultivating common political interests.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley urges any sitting supreme court justice who’s thinking of retiring to do it ASAP so he can rush through confirmation of a new Trump appointee. Seems he’s worried Democrats might take back the Senate and House in November and stall any new appointments kinda like the Republicans did to Merrick Garland. And Victoria Nourse. And Linda Walker. And Cassandra Butts. And…
  2. Senate Republicans once again ignore the blue slip tradition of allowing Senators to veto judicial nominees from their own state. They’re pushing through the nomination of Ryan Bounds, who as a student wrote about his racist views and recommended not expelling men accused of rape from school.
  3. The Senate votes along party lines to confirm Michael Brennan to a seat on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that Republicans prevented Obama from filling for SIX YEARS.

Healthcare:

  1. Anti-abortion violence is increasing again, doubling in 2017 over 2016. Instances of trespassing and obstruction have more than tripled.
  2. John Bolton disbands the global health security team, which was responsible for our response to deadly pandemics. Timothy Ziemer, the top official responsible for the group, resigned, leaving us with no one focused on global health security.
  3. Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security advisor, also left after Bolton started. Bossert advised that we need a comprehensive defense strategy for pandemics and biological attacks.
  4. Trump announces a strategy to reduce drug prices, including promoting generics, creating incentives, improving negotiations, and forcing companies to list prices. He stops short of his campaign promise to allow Medicare work directly with manufacturers to lower prices, which is something his HHS secretary (who also used to head Eli Lilly) opposes.
  5. Instead of raising taxes to make up for the state’s shortfall, the Louisiana state House votes largely along party lines to slash Medicaid eligibility by nearly two-thirds. They are currently planning for the evictions of over 30,000 elderly or disabled assisted living and group home residents.

International:

  1. Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Iran deal against the advice of the EU, Russia, China, hundreds of foreign relations experts and military leaders, and pretty much everyone except the GOP…
  2. Well, actually even members of Congress who voted against the Iran deal under Obama expressed disappointment in Trump’s decision. And I’m talking both Democrat and Republican members.
  3. All signatories on the deal vow to stay in and find a way to work around the U.S. withdrawal, which could weaken our position. They’ve all gone back to the bargaining table to discuss how to move forward without the U.S.
  4. Trump promises tougher sanctions on Iran that will be phased in over six months, which could possibly allow enough time to negotiate new terms.
  5. Trump is betting that Iran will be willing to renegotiate once they start to feel the sanctions, but he also admits he has no plan B, saying “But they’ll negotiate, or something will happen.” Who knows what that something is?
  6. By the way, the sanctions office in the State Department was closed by Rex Tillerson, and the head of the sanctions department at the Treasury quit.
  7. Estimates are that Iranian oil exports would be cut by 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day. As a comparison, Obama cut them by 1 million to 1.5 million barrels a day in the five-year lead-up that forced Iran to the negotiating table.
  8. John Bolton predicts that Iran will cave in under pressure, but Obama put them under pressure for five years and at five times the level that Trump plans to do
  9. As a result of us pulling out of the Iran deal, Boeing and Airbus each lose contracts worth $20 billion to sell jets to Iranian airlines.
  10. European leaders say they’ll work to protect their businesses from the sanctions, and will probably try to create a financial system that can circumvent around the U.S. dollar.
  11. China and Russia should have a fairly easy time getting around any sanctions we implement against Iran, but our European allies will have a harder time navigating around the finances.
  12. European oil companies will lose out if they can’t find a way to save the deal.
  13. Whaaat? Even though the U.S. has now violated the Iran deal, Trumps says that he expects Iran to continue to comply with it. If the deal falls apart, Iran has no reason not to start up their nuclear weapons program again.
  14. Iranian president Rouhani says they’ll decide in a few weeks whether to ramp up uranium enrichment. Rouhani is a moderating force who believes in diplomacy with the West.
  15. And then Saudi Arabia says that if Iran tries to make nuclear weapons, Saudi will as well.
  16. After Trump’s announcement, hardliners in the Iranian government burn American flags chanting “Death to America!” This could weaken the more moderate influences in the Iranian government as hardliners are already pushing to get out of the deal.
  17. Cyber warfare analysts at the Pentagon predict a new surge of cyber attacks out of Iran. Within 24 hours of Trump withdrawing from the Iran deal, they noticed a marked uptick in cyber activity from Iran.
  18. Oh, and also John Bolton wants to eliminate the top cybersecurity job at the White House.
  19. After Trump announces the withdrawal, Iran and Israel engage in military attacks against each other in Syria. The two have been fighting a shadow war in Syria that is coming out into the open with the heightened tensions there. Even Russia, which has close ties to both governments, calls for restraint.
  20. The U.S. finally sends an ambassador to Germany after leaving the post empty for a year. Within hours of assuming the post, he tweets that “German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately.” This draws rebukes from officials, one of whom says, “It’s not my task to teach people about the fine art of diplomacy, especially not the U.S. ambassador.” German businesses perceive it as a threat.
  21. Mike Pompeo meets with Kim Jong Un and sets a date for Trump to meet. They secure the release of the three U.S. prisoners from North Korea.
  22. An upswing in activity between North Korea and China points to China holding leverage in the Korean peace talks.
  23. Mike Pompeo’s initial remarks to State Department employees indicate that he will work to build our diplomatic ranks back up throughout the world.
  24. Our actions with the Paris climate accord, tariffs and trade spats, the U.S. embassy in Israel, and the Iran deal have created a rift with our traditionally closest allies.
    • The president of the European Commission says that the U.S. is turning its back on allies and cooperation with ferocity. He also says we’ve lost out vigor and influence.
    • A former French ambassador to Washington concurs, saying they can’t work with a U.S. leadership that doesn’t want to be a leader. European leaders are mulling ways to move forward without U.S. leadership.
  1. The Pentagon concludes that the special ops mission in Niger that killed four American soldiers was the fault of numerous planning failures. They also dispute the rumor that one of the soldiers was captured alive.
  2. Iraqi and U.S. intelligence capture five top ISIS leaders in a three-month operation between Washington and Baghdad.
  3. Twenty people who were beaten by Turkish security guards outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in DC last year file a lawsuit against the Turkish government.
  4. Australia sees its worse mass killing since they passed strict gun control laws in 1996. While gun violence has dropped 47% in Australia since the laws passed, they can’t prevent every shooting.
  5. We learn that Paul Ryan spoke in March to the Czech Parliament where, in a split from Trump talking points, he admitted Russian election hacking, praised NATO, and accused Russia of subversive tactics and aggressive action against our allies. He also negotiated for a Russian hacker to be extradited to the U.S. instead of Russia.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. While the FCC says that net neutrality will be repealed next month, Senate Democrats are one vote short of passing a bill to make net neutrality the law.
  2. Connecticut bans bump stocks, the ninth state to do so.
  3. Delaware bans child marriage. How is this not a federal law??
  4. Cory Booker puts forth legislation to remove marijuana from the controlled substances list, making it legal at the federal level.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Sessions speaks on immigration at the border. He announces crackdowns on illegal border crossings, saying it will be our policy going forward to separate children from their parents at the border.
  2. Sessions also says he might eliminate political asylum for victims of domestic abuse. So far, he’s set aside four decisions by the Board of Immigration Appeals on this subject.
  3. Fair housing groups sue HUD and Secretary Ben Carson over suspending an Obama-era rule that required communities receiving HUD funds to work to desegregate their communities. Carson’s actions would let communities receive full funding without complying with the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
  4. Senate Democrats refer the Trump administration to the Government Accountability Office over their actions against immigrants with Temporary Protected Status. The investigation exposed warnings from several senior diplomats last year that deporting these immigrants would destabilize the regions and lead to an increase in illegal immigration. Apparently former Secretary of State Tillerson ignored their cables.
  5. New Hampshire passes a law protecting transgender residents from discrimination in employment, housing, and public spaces.
  6. Even Pakistan passes legislation to protect their transgender citizens.
  7. The House passes a resolution to repeal a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule that protects consumers from discrimination when getting a car loan. Because they use the Congressional Review Act to repeal the rule, it blocks the CFPB from creating a similar rule in the future. The bill heads to Trump for signing into law.
  8. Far-right political parties across Europe are playing on anti-Jewish stereotypes like the Nazis used to. Muslim immigrants contribute to the anti-Jewish sentiment, but it’s mostly coming from Christian anti-Zionist factions that have grown because of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment.
  9. Trump, furious that border crossings are on the rise again, unleashes a 30-minute tirade against Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen during a cabinet meeting. He blames the increase on her, though her policies have been pretty darn tight. Many attendees were taken aback by the tirade.
  10. There’s a bipartisan push to force a vote on immigration bills, and Paul Ryan is working to halt it. He says he’d like to take up an immigration bill, but not at this time. Or ever, it seems.
  11. John Kelly takes heat for his comments that undocumented immigrants don’t assimilate well because they have little education, they’re rural, they don’t speak English, and don’t have skills. These assertions don’t hold up in real life studies. Also, what does being rural have to do with assimilating in the U.S.? Does he have something against rural Americas? Even the right-leaning Cato Institute disagrees with Kelly.
  12. If you thought the FBI’s push to prosecute black identity “extremists” was a myth, it turns out that they arrested a black activist, held him without bail for five months, and didn’t have anything to prosecute him on. He lost his house, and to top it off, it turns out that the FBI was using conspiracy site Infowars to get information.
  13. A New Hampshire court rules that a Border Patrol checkpoint set up last year was illegal. Turns out they set up a drug checkpoint framed as an immigration checkpoint, and illegally searched thousands of cars.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Trump administration ends NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), which uses satellite and aircraft instruments to monitor the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane remotely. These measurements are invaluable to climate research and high-res models of the earth’s carbon flows.
  2. India’s Supreme Court upholds a ruling that Monsanto can’t patent its genetically modified cotton seeds in India.
  3. Studies link climate change to the increasing severity of hurricanes. Climate change causes the oceans to trap more heat, and that heat is released as energy during a hurricane. So the more heat in the ocean, the more powerful the storm. Ocean temperatures were at record highs last year before Hurricane Harvey.
  4. When automobile executives lobbied the Trump administration to loosen emissions standards, they didn’t expect the administration to go as far as they did or to attack California’s long-standing ability to set their own standards. This week, the executives meet again with the White House, saying the regulation was taken over by anti-regulatory members of the administration who pushed it way too far. They’re asking Trump to let California keep its own standards; they don’t want to pick a fight.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump tries to make up for the ballooning deficit by asking for $15 billion in cuts to spending previously approved by Congress. Almost most half the cuts would come from children’s health programs. Most of the rest would come from money earmarked for the ACA. The cuts amount to 0.4% of this year’s spending.
  2. After touting his infrastructure plan in March, Trump’s administration now says there likely won’t be an infrastructure plan this year. Last month, the top infrastructure advisor resigned.
  3. According to Paul Ryan, we have a shortage of workers. Seems like a bad time to remove nearly a million Dreamers from the work place, deport around a half million TPS immigrants, and cut back on legal immigration (which the administration has been pushing for).
  4. Continuing on with the teachers’ strikes, University of California workers strike for better wages, benefits, and job security.
  5. The Trump administration wants to freeze federal workers’ salaries and cut their retirement benefits.
  6. Trump tweets that he’s working with Chinese president Xi Jingping to save Chinese company ZTE, which largely shutdown after last month’s sanctions prevented them from getting the needed parts for their electronics. ZTE is known to pirate U.S. intellectual property, which Trump counted as a reason for China sanctions. Trump says there were too many jobs lost in China… which is kind of how sanctions work.
  7. Chinese custom inspections are holding up automobiles, soybeans, and other agricultural projects, earmarking them for deeper inspection over trade uncertainty.

Elections:

  1. Ohio votes to end gerrymandering.
  2. Connecticut passes a bill to commit their electoral votes in the presidential election to the winner of the national popular vote. It joins 10 other states and DC in this effort.
  3. A Dallas judge dismisses a case brought by Republicans to drop over 80 Democrats off the midterm ballot.

Miscellaneous:

  1. New York Attorney General Eric Schneidermann resigns amid multiple accusations of sexual violence.
  2. Around 5 years ago, two women contacted attorney Peter Gleason about sex abuse complaints against Schneidermann. Gleason then shared information about those complaints with Michael Cohen in case it could be used against Schneidermann if he brought a lawsuit against Trump University. Gleason recently filed to have those records remain sealed after they were seized from Cohen’s home. Trump appears to have known about it. In 2013, he tweeted about Schneidermann, “Wait and see, worse than Spitzer or Weiner.”
  3. As part of Melania Trump’s new program “Be Best” the White House reissues an Obama-era pamphlet rebranded for Melania’s program. The White House says it’s written by Melania, immediately undermining her credibility. Also, the DOJ could’ve waited to announce their family separation policy instead of doing it within an hour of Melania announcing her children’s program.
  4. A group of governors joins to study gun violence since the federal government is failing to make any progress on it.
  5. Kansas passes a law to make it illegal for domestic abusers to own guns.
  6. Gina Haspel appears before the Senate in her confirmation hearing to head the CIA. Her confirmation is in trouble due to her connection with the torture of detainees. She also participated in destroying evidence of the torture.
  7. A little respect please? In response to John McCain speaking out again Gina Haspel’s use of torture, White House staffer Kelly Sadler says McCain is irrelevant because he’s dying. Later, a retired three-star general says on Fox News that torture worked on John, propagating the pants-on-fire lie that McCain told his torturers what they wanted to know.
  8. Mick Mulvaney and others in the White House say that it’s worse Sadler’s words were leaked than that she said it in the first place. Can they not just apologize and move on? They just make everything worse.
  9. New NRA president Oliver North says that Parkland activists are criminals, and he compares threats and vandalism against NRA officials to the Jim Crow era. North knows a thing or two about being a criminal, but apparently not much about Jim Crow.
  10. Last week, Rudy Giuliani said it’s common for lawyers to make payoffs for their wealthy clients without telling them, so common that it’s even done at the law firm he works at. In response, the law firm he works at says Giuliani no longer works there and that’s not the kind of law we practice.
  11. An email sent out to FDA staff says that the TV monitors at one of their campuses can’t be changed from Fox News per a directive from the administration.
  12. Democrats are forcing a vote on net neutrality in the coming week.

Polls:

  1. 63% of American think we should stay in the Iran accord; 29% think we should withdraw.
  2. 57% of young Arabs see the U.S. as an enemy; 35% see us as an ally. That’s a reversal of the numbers from 2016.

Week 65 in Trump

Posted on April 24, 2018 in Politics, Trump

DRAKETOWN, GA - APRIL 21: Members of the National Socialist Party burn a Swastika (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

To me, the biggest news this week is that after decades of rule – longer than my entire lifetime – the Castro family is ceding leadership of Cuba. However, the new president, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, is Raúl Castro’s handpicked successor and Castro will remain party leader until 2021. I wouldn’t expect much to change, at least not any time soon. At any rate, it will be interesting to watch.

Here’s what else happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. April 10th was Equal Pay Day. That’s how far into this year white women had to work to make as much as their male counterparts did last year. For African-American women, this day doesn’t come until August 7th; for Native American women, it comes on September 7th; and for Latina women, it comes on November 1st. It’s a good time to remember that the administration stopped forcing companies to provide data on wages by race and gender, making it harder to close this wage gap.

Russia:

  1. So far this year, Trump’s reelection campaign has spent over $1 out of every $5 on legal fees.
  2. A judge rejects Trump’s request to review material seized from Michael Cohen before it can be allowed as evidence.
  3. We learn that Trump was surprised when he found out that the U.S. had expelled far more diplomats than our ally countries, and he was pretty pissed off about that.
  4. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley says new sanctions will be coming down on Russia. Trump says nope, not happening. And then, instead of the White House taking responsibility, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow says Haley must’ve been confused. And Haley says “I don’t get confused.” Kudlow says maybe he was the one who got confused. Haley, who was was repeating official White House talking points, wins the round but Trump still overrides her.
  5. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, is recused from the Michael Cohen case due to potential conflicts. He’s a temporary appointee and Trump could nominate him to a permanent position or not.
  6. Trump contradicts himself again on why he fired Comey, saying it wasn’t because of Russia. Last year, he said he was thinking about the Russia thing when he decided to fire Comey.
  7. Rudy Giuliani joins Trump’s legal team, saying he’ll get this Mueller thing wrapped up in two weeks.
  8. The DNC files a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Russian government, the GRU, several members of the Trump campaign, Russian nationals, and Wikileaks. The suit alleges a conspiracy to disrupt our presidential elections, and to favor Trump and harm Clinton in the election.
    • Defendants in the suit also include Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, Julian Assange, George Papadopoulos, Josef Mifsud (who leaked the email information to Papadopoulos), Aras and Emin Agalarov (Russian oligarchs who hosted the Miss Universe Pageant), the GRU, Russian hackers, and the Russian known as Guccifer 2.0.
    • The suit says that due to the nature of the crimes, Russia isn’t entitled to sovereign immunity.
    • The suit gives us some previously unknown dates. Russians first breached the DNC computer system on July 27, 2015. They breached it again on April 18, 2016, and began downloading documents on April 22. Four days later, Mifsud told Papadopoulos that Russians had emails that could harm Hillary’s campaign.
    • Analysts say the primary purpose of this suit is for the evidentiary discovery it will prompt.
  1. The DOJ finally releases Comey’s redacted memos to the House Republicans who then immediately turn around and release them to the public. House GOP had been threatening to hold DOJ officials in contempt if they didn’t turn the memos over, though it isn’t typical for the DOJ to release evidence relevant to an ongoing investigation.
  2. I haven’t read a lot that’s news in the memos, except maybe that:
    • Trump lied about whether he stayed overnight in Moscow, which his bodyguard already said he did. (Also, new news is that flight records confirm he stayed there.)
    • The administration (including Trump) had their doubts about Michael Flynn, which seem for Trump to stem from Flynn not telling him about a call from Vladimir Putin.
    • Trump wondered if Andrew McCabe had it in for him from the start.
    • Trump refused to criticize Putin even in private.
  1. We learn that House Republicans threatened Rosenstein with impeachment if he didn’t release information about the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Russia meddling. Sources say they’re trying to build a case against Rosenstein.
  2. We also learn that Trump pushed Jeff Sessions and Christopher Wray to investigate Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two investigators removed from the Russia case. He doesn’t understand why they still have jobs at the FBI, and wants Sessions and Wray to find information to discredit them.
  3. Rod Rosenstein tells Trump he’s not the target of an investigation, which seems to give Mueller a little breathing room and lifts the threat of being fired.
  4. We learn that Sessions told White House Counsel that if Trump fires Rod Rosenstein, Sessions might quit in protest. Not that there seems to be much love lost between Trump and Sessions, but an attorney general resigning could lead to a string of resignations.

Courts/Justice:

  1. While Trump’s been suggesting he might fire Mueller, the Supreme Court is set to hear a case on how SEC judges are appointed. Trump’s Solicitor General is urging the courts to make this case about the president’s power to fire all “officers of the United States” who “exercise significant authority” instead of limiting the scope to firing SEC judges.
  2. With Neil Gorsuch siding with the liberal judges, the Supreme Court invalidates part of a federal law that mandates deportation of immigrants convicted of certain “crimes of violence.” They say the law is too vague.
  3. Parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims finally bring Alex Jones to court for his repeated lies and conspiracy theories intended to convince the public that the parents are crisis actors and it was a “false flag” operation.
    • At least three lawsuits have been filed against him recently for defamation.
    • The parents have been receiving death threats from people who believe Alex Jones’ dangerous lies.
  1. A court holds Kris Kobach in contempt. Kobach led Trump’s voter fraud commission, and has been tied up in courts over his voter suppression efforts as Secretary of State in Kansas. The judge says Kobach disobeyed orders to let thousands of disenfranchised voters in Kansas know that they actually were registered to vote in 2016.
  2. Three federal judges rule that the Trump administration cannot withhold funds from so-called sanctuary cities, a decision roundly criticized by the DOJ. In case you think the judges are activist judges, they were appointed by Reagan, Bush Sr., and Ford.
  3. In response, Trump tweets that sanctuary cities released 142 gang members back into the streets in 2017. In reality, 142 detainer requests for suspected gang members failed for various reasons and not all in sanctuary areas. Reasons include administrative errors, ICE issuing the detainer request too late, ICE being unable to arrange custody transfer, and, yes, non-cooperation by local officials. (You can see the report here). 


Healthcare:

  1. Attorneys general in sixteen states file a motion to intervene in a lawsuit filed by several red states to overturn the ACA.
  2. Anti-abortion laws are on the rise. In 2017, 19 states passed 63 laws restricting abortions, some even trying to ban all abortions without regard for the mother’s life. Thirty-three states have placed restrictions on abortions since 2011.
  3. The ACLU and Education Law Center win a lawsuit requiring that kids in Flint, MI, get health checks to make sure they haven’t been harmed by the lead in their water supply. They’ll also get special health or education services if needed.
  4. A federal judge rules that the Trump administration can’t cut funding to the successful Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program. The administration was trying to cut the program’s five-year grants down to three years.

International:

  1. Trump gives North and South Korea his blessing to talk about formally ending the Korean War. North Korea also drops it’s decades-long requirement that U.S. troops leave South Korea in order for North Korea to denuclearize.
  2. Ahead of the planned meeting with Trump, North Korea says it will suspend their nuclear tests and shut down a test site. Likely, the test site is degraded—nuclear test sites can only be used for so long. Kim Jong Un says there’s no more need for the sites, but it’s not clear if that’s because the country has advanced their weaponry as far as they need to or because they’re focused on peace.
  3. Trump meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe again at Mar-a-Lago, nearly a year from their first visit there. Both leaders are under investigation this time around.
  4. The White House says that Mike Pompeo met with Kim Jung Un over Easter weekend. We only learn about it now because Trump thinks it will help Pompeo get confirmed as Secretary of State.
  5. We learn that Jim Mattis pushed Trump to obtain congressional support before launching an attack on Syria. He was overruled, obviously.
  6. Anti-government protests break out across Nicaragua, spurred by changes to their social security system (but discontent against the Ortega government has been simmering for a while). After days of violence and at least 10 deaths, Ortega agrees to reverse the changes.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Senate Judiciary Committee finally considers bipartisan legislation to prevent Trump from firing Mueller. Mitch McConnell says that even if the committee passes the legislation, he won’t bring it to a floor vote in the Senate. The committee says they’ll vote on it anyway
  2. A group of House Republicans ask the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Dana Boente, Loretta Lynch, and other perceived enemies, largely for activities surrounding the Steele dossier.
  3. Trump recently signed a law to protect victims of online sex trafficking, but it could have some unintended consequences. The way the new law is written, entities that host a website could now be held responsible for content that other people put on the site. Some sites are already doing damage control by closing down sections like personal ads and by rewriting the terms of service.
  4. Chuck Schumer introduces a bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. This comes not long after we learn that John Boehner will be lobbying for the marijuana industry.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A Starbucks manager calls the police on two black men who ask to use the facilities while waiting for someone to join them and before they order coffee. The men decide to wait for their friend instead of ordering, and the police arrest them and detain them for 8 hours.
  2. The manager no longer works for the company, and Starbucks will close all stores on May 29 in order to train staff on racial bias.
  3. Trump says sanctuary cities are places where undocumented immigrants “breed.” I’m not sure what he means by that, but it’s dog-whistle language that plays on people’s fears of immigrants while at the same time dehumanizing them.
  4. Trump tweets that he won’t fund California’s national guard at the border after Governor Brown says they can only be used to fight drug smuggling and other illegal activities (and that they can’t be used for immigration enforcement).
  5. A jury convicts three men in Kansas of plotting to bomb an apartment complex largely populated by Somali immigrants. The men, part of a militia group called the Kansas Security Force, said their attack would wake people up. This is a good example of why anti-Muslim sentiment is so dangerous.
  6. GOP members of the Senate whip out their new favorite weapon, the Congressional Review Act, to overturn rules laid out by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that mandate fairness in auto loans. Studies find that lenders charges minorities more for auto loans than whites, so the CFPB was trying to level the playing field.
  7. Instead of dealing with actual problems facing Tennesseans, the Tennessee House of Representatives has been working on bills to punish Memphis for removing confederate statues. Nothing has passed, but now they voted to strip $250,000 from the city in next year’s budget. The money was for the city’s bicentennial event.
  8. Six children in California’s central valley are orphans after an ICE chase results in a car crash that leaves their parents dead. The people in the car weren’t even ICE targets. People in the area blame ICE and Trump’s immigration policies; ICE blames California’s sanctuary policies.
  9. The city councils in several Orange County cities have voted to fight California’s sanctuary policies against the wishes of many of their constituents. Now they’re starting to get sued over those decisions.
  10. While women and Democratic men in the Senate have signed on to a letter pushing an overhaul of their harassment rules, not one Republican man has signed on to it yet.
  11. Dozens of demonstrators surround a school in Michigan with pickups flying the confederate flag, which eventually forces the school to cancel classes. Despite racial bullying that accompanies the demonstration, the mayor says “people in this country have to start realizing we have to tolerate all peoples’ views.” Um no, sorry. #NoH8
  12. ICE has reportedly been targeting immigration activists, and this week a judge rules that activist Alejandra Pablos be released.
  13. Neo-nazis take to the streets in Newnan, Georgia, to commemorate Hitler’s birthday. Counter-protestors wrote messages of peace and love in chalk on the sidewalks, while Antifa protestors were a little less touchy-feely.
    • Speeches were largely about white power and taking our country back from “illegal immigrants.”
    • Here’s a telling quote: “We need to round them up and put them in camps if need be, like we did the Italians, Germans and Japanese. We are at war with the illegals.”
    • It was mostly non-violent, and the only arrests were for counter-protestors wearing masks.
    • Supporters later gather further away from Newnan to burn a swastika and othala rune.

Climate/EPA:

  1. New information about Scott Pruitt’s paranoia and overspending keeps popping up. It turns out he upgraded his official car to a larger SUV with bullet-resistant seat covers.
  2. 170 Members of Congress sign on to a resolution requesting Pruitt’s immediate resignation from the EPA. They say they have no confidence in his ability to run the agency.
  3. GOP Representative Jim Bridenstein is just barely confirmed as administrator of NASA in a vote along party lines. Jeff Flake was a holdout until he got concessions on an unrelated issue. Bridenstein is not a scientist, lacks aeronautical expertise, and denies climate change.
  4. Just a note on Earth Day. The environmental movement started nearly 50 years ago because of real disasters like burning rivers, thick smog, oil spills, toxic waste leaching into neighborhoods, and poisoned lakes. The movement led to Earth Day and these disasters led to the creation of the EPA and the regulations that helped us clean up the mess we made. And now Scott Pruitt’s EPA, along with the Republican-led Congress, is working to remove the protections that gave us clean air and water and that stopped businesses from dumping toxic wastes. Fortunately, the courts are ruling against most of these changes.
  5. Trump marks Earth Day by promising to reverse even more regulations. He says that a market-driven economy is what will protect the environment and give us clean air, land, and water. (See above explanation of Earth Day.)
  6. Just like the previous few years, this year is predicted to be the worst so far for allergies. Why? Blame climate change for higher concentrations of pollen for longer periods of time.

Budget/Economy:

  1. On tax day, the IRS’s online system for filing taxes failed. They gave everyone an extra day to file their taxes.
  2. Crude oil prices are on the rise again, with our stockpile shrinking and OPEC keeping their supply tight.
  3. Trump criticizes OPEC for rising gas prices. So I see how this works. Now high oil prices AREN’T the president’s fault? (For the record, they aren’t, and they weren’t under Obama either.)
  4. Trump tweets that Japan and South Korea want us to get back in to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but South Korea was never part of it.
  5. Marijuana is a big money-maker in states where it’s now legal, but sellers generally deal in cash because banks can’t get around federal law. California legislators are pushing a bill to let the state license banks especially to handle money generated by marijuana sales.
  6. Paul Ryan wants to pass another major tax cut this year. Republicans hope it will generate some enthusiasm with their GOP base and help out in the midterms.
  7. While some are benefiting from the new tariffs, they’re pushing up the cost of newsprint. The Tampa Bay Times announces dozens of job cuts.
  8. Arizona’s teachers vote to strike, even though their governor promised a phased in 20% raise by 2020. Teachers say the money to fund the raises will come out of necessary programs, and the raises don’t apply to support staff.
  9. It’s spreading like a virus. Teachers in Colorado march on the statehouse for higher salaries and retirement fund guarantees, causing school closures in the state.
  10. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to fine Wells Fargo $1 billion over lending abuses. The bank is still struggling to recover from last year’s scandal where account reps signed up customers for fake accounts.
  11. Trump’s tax cuts pay big dividends for our six largest banks (JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and so on). They made $3.6 billion off the tax cuts in just three months this year.

Elections:

  1. Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA) announces he’ll resign in the coming weeks, opening another GOP seat in Congress.
  2. The White House legislative director says that Mitch McConnell plans to make the Senate workweek longer to hurt vulnerable Democrats. By making them work longer hours, they have less time to campaign.
  3. Oh man… this is just wrong. Luke Messer is a Republican candidate for the Indiana state legislature where he’s running to fill a seat previously filled by someone who was killed by a drunk driver. Messer chose not to tell party leaders that he had two DUI convictions.

Miscellaneous:

  1. It turns out that Cohen’s mystery third client is none other than Sean Hannity. Hannity’s been reporting on Trump and Cohen, even interviewing Cohen, without giving us any disclosure. He also fought to have the courts keep his name out of it.
  2. Hannity shares the services of other Trump lawyers too, including Jay Sekulow and Victoria Toensing.
  3. Hannity owns several real estate properties under shell companies, some of which he purchased with the assistance of HUD. He also purchased some of those properties through Jeff Brock, who plead guilty to rigging foreclosure auctions from 2007 to 2012.
  4. Cohen requests a 90-day delay in the Stormy Daniels lawsuit, but the judge says he would have to plead the 5th to get that.
  5. Now that Michael Cohen is under criminal investigation, the White House says Cohen is just one of the several lawyers Trump has on retainer.
  6. Amid his fight to keep seized documents secret, Cohen drops his libel suits against BuzzFeed and Fusion GPS. He was suing over allegations in the Steele dossier, and likely wants to avoid being questioned by Fusion GPS lawyers or being forced to present evidence.
  7. Karen McDougall reaches a settlement with the parent company of the National Enquirer, freeing her to talk about her alleged affair with Trump.
  8. Students across the country stage another walkout, this time to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, to protest gun violence, and to push for gun law reform.
  9. Missouri Governor Eric Greitens (R) faces a new scandal and is charged with a felony for misusing a charity donor list. He’s the same guy facing felony charges from taking a nonconsensual sexual picture of his mistress and then blackmailing her with it.
  10. Barbara Bush passes away at 92. While members of both parties praise her, Roger Stone calls her a “vindictive drunk” and we find out where the GOP draws the line at supporting Trump’s friends.
  11. The Washington post wins a Pulitzer for reporting on the Alabama Senate race (specifically the Roy Moore scandal). The New York Times in conjunction with the New Yorker, wins a Pulitzer, for work on breaking the Harvey Weinstein sex-abuse story. Both the Washington Post and New York Times win Pulitzers for their work on Russian interference in our elections.
  12. Electricity goes out across Puerto Rico, which still hadn’t restored electricity to all residents.
  13. A Southwest jet blows an engine, killing one passenger who was partially sucked out and apparently hit by shrapnel. The pilot shows nerves of steel, and turns out to be one of the Navy’s first female fighter pilots.
  14. The DOJ’s inspector general referred his findings on Andrew McCabe to the top federal prosecutor, who could file charges against McCabe.
  15. McCabe’s lawyers say that McCabe will sue Trump for defamation.
  16. A man shoots up a Waffle House in Tennessee, killing four people. Authorities had revoked his firearms license and seized his weapons last year, giving the weapons to the shooter’s father who then turned around and gave the guns back. The big hero of the day is James Shaw Jr., who charged the shooter, grabbed the weapon, and threw it to the other side of the counter.
  17. Ugh. Another data breach. SunTrust Banks announces that one of their employees might have stolen the personal data of 1.5 million customers. Not only that, but the employee likely gave that info to a “criminal third party.”
  18. After years of calling the parents of Sandy Hook shooting victims “crisis actors” in a false flag shooting, Alex Jones now says he believes the shooting really did happen. I’m guessing that’s because some of the parents are suing him for defamation. Of note, Alex Jones also recently lost custody of his children. His defense during that trial was that his decades of spreading conspiracy theories and lies is “performance art.”

Polls:

  1. Mueller’s favorability drops 11 points over the past month, likely a result of the Trump and GOP campaigns to attack his credibility. 32% see him favorably, 30% unfavorably, and 38% have no opinion.
  2. Mueller has a 19% unfavorability rating with Democrats, but almost half of Republicans view him unfavorably (up nearly 20 points from last month).
  3. Trump’s approval rating with white Evangelical Protestants hits a new high, reaching 75%. I wonder what he’s done that’s made them think more highly of him.

Week 64 in Trump

Posted on April 16, 2018 in Politics, Trump

I open this week with a quote from Trump on how a trade war might affect farmers:

“But if we do a deal with China, if, during the course of a negotiation they want to hit the farmers because they think that hits me, I wouldn’t say that’s nice. But I tell you, our farmers are great patriots… They understand that they’re doing this for the country. And we’ll make it up to them. And in the end, they’re going to be much stronger than they are right now.”

He also said that farm income has been trending downward over the last eight years (it’s actually the last four) and said that because of his actions on NAFTA and China, “farmers will be better off than they ever were.” I hope he’s right but if he’s not, then thanks, farmers, for taking a hit for the rest of us.

Anyway, here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. The FBI raids Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s office and hotel room, seizing emails, tax records, and business documents. Which seriously enraged Trump, based on his subsequent comments. As a reminder, Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels and at least one other woman who allegedly had an affair with Trump.
  2. Reportedly, Cohen made recordings of meetings and conversations, which the FBI also seized.
  3. The raids were based on a referral from Robert Mueller, so Trump calls Mueller’s team “the most biased group of people” and says they’re mostly Democrats with a few Obama-appointed Republicans. Though they are actually mostly Republicans.
  4. Trump calls Cohen just to check in and see how he’s doing.
  5. We learn that Cohen is being investigated for bank fraud, wire fraud, and campaign finance violations. Mueller handed this investigation off to a New York attorney likely because it was out of his jurisdiction. Rod Rosenstein signed off on the search warrant.
  6. Most legal experts say that this warrant must have been bullet-proof in order for the FBI to get it, because it’s extraordinary to serve a warrant on a lawyer like this.
  7. Trump isn’t the only guy Cohen negotiates hush deals for. He also negotiated one for major RNC fundraiser and RNC deputy finance chairman Elliott Broidy. This makes Broidy the third RNC official to be caught up in scandal in the past year and the second to step down from his position.
  8. Trump requests an emergency order preventing prosecutors from looking at the seized material, saying he should be able to review them first because of client/attorney privilege.
  9. In response to the raid, Lou Dobbs (who has apparently been advising Trump all along) tells Trump he should fire Mueller. Trump mulls it over in the middle of a publicized meeting with military brass while they were supposed to be talking about a response to Syria’s chemical weapons attack.
  10. Trump calls it an attack on the country and says the FBI “broke in” to Cohen’s office. His rants attack the usual suspects: Jeff Sessions, the FBI, Hillary Clinton, Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe. He even steps up his Twitter game for this one.
  11. Politicians from both sides step in to support Mueller, including Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) who confirms widespread respect for Mueller in Washington and warns Trump against firing him.
  12. While many legal minds have said Trump doesn’t have the power to fire Mueller, he and his press secretary both say he does.
  13. The White House says they aren’t sure if Cohen still represents Trump. Also, Trump isn’t so sure he wants to sit down with Mueller anymore.
  14. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York recuses himself from the Cohen investigation because of his ties with donors to the Trump campaign.
  15. We learn that Trump tried to have Mueller fired last December, but his lawyers talked him out of it.
  16. Mueller is looking at a $150,000 donation to the Trump Organization from a Ukrainian billionaire (Victor Punchuk). In return for the donation, Trump appeared in a 20-minute video for a conference in Kiev.
  17. Mark Zuckerberg submits written testimony and then testifies before Congress for two days about data privacy (fully illustrating the technology gap between the generations).
  18. Paul Manafort’s lawyers file another motion to suppress evidence. This time it’s the evidence found in a storage unit and they say the employee didn’t have the authority to open the unit for the FBI.
  19. A judge denies Manafort’s request for bail. He’s been denied bail multiple times now. His trial is scheduled to start in July.
  20. The NRA admits to receiving money from almost two dozen Russians (or Americans living in Russia) over the past two years.
  21. Veteran Republicans form a group, Republicans for the Rule of Law, to help protect Mueller from being fired. Also, a bipartisan group of Senators introduce a bill to protect Mueller. Mitch McConnell agrees that Mueller should continue his work, but he doesn’t think Mueller needs to be protected.
  22. Steve Bannon floats a plan to put an end to the Mueller investigation:
    • Fire Rosenstein.
    • Stop cooperating with Mueller.
    • Assert executive privilege and make all White House interviews with Mueller over the past year null and void.
  1. Excerpts leak from James Comey’s soon-to-be-released book, and it becomes an immediate best seller almost a week before its scheduled release. Trump does not respond well. I’m not going to go into what Comey says on his media blitz nor what’s in the book, because it’s not really confirmable.
  2. The RNC actively works to discredit Comey ahead of his book release. They create a website called “Lyin’ Comey” that features quotes of Democrats criticizing him. Their campaign plan includes: digital ads, monitoring Comey’s appearances, a rapid response team to provide rebuttals, and coordinating surrogates to fan out and defend Trump. I don’t know if I’m more bothered that such a campaign exists or that they don’t mind making it public knowledge.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Judge Curiel finalizes the $25 million Trump University settlement. Curiel’s the guy who Trump said couldn’t be unbiased in the case because he’s Mexican.
  2. The Justice Department’s inspector general releases their report on Andy McCabe. (Caveat: I have yet to read the full report.) It doesn’t sound like there’s much that we haven’t already heard, and the report doesn’t include McCabe’s rebuttal. The dispute centers around a Wall Street Journal article in which McCabe authorized staff to rebut the allegations made in the article. McCabe, who first denied giving permission until he was served a reminder, says he authorized it to preserve the reputation of the FBI; the OIG says he did it to preserve his own reputation.

Healthcare:

  1. Voters in Utah, Nebraska, and Idaho are working to get Medicaid expansion on the ballot since their governors refused the federal money they could have received under the ACA to do it.
  2. An appeals court in Maryland rules that a law preventing price gouging by pharmaceutical companies is unconstitutional.

International:

  1. Trump calls out Putin, Russia, and Iran for backing “Animal Assad” in Syria in a barrage of tweets. Russia responds that they don’t do Twitter diplomacy.
  2. Russia says great Britain staged the chemical weapons attacks in Syria.
  3. Trump, along with Great Britain and France, orders airstrikes on chemical weapons facilities in Syria in retaliation for the regime’s chemical weapon attack. Putin calls this an act of aggression and calls for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
  4. After the missile strike, Trump tweets those ill-fated words, “Mission accomplished!” Also, Russia says Syrian air defenses shot down most of our missiles. Doubtful, but impossible to verify.
  5. Russia also vetoes a UN resolution to set up an independent investigation into Syria’s use of chemical weapons.
  6. Tom Bossert, Homeland Security adviser, resigns at the request of the new National Security Adviser, John Bolton. Bolton appears to be cleaning house.
  7. Trump cancels his trip to South America to respond to Syria’s chemical weapons attack. Mike Pence takes his place on the trip to South America.
  8. Mike Pompeo prepares for his confirmation hearing for Secretary of State by calling Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, among other former secretaries. If you remember, Pompeo helped keep Benghazi in the news and called Clinton‘s response “morally reprehensible.” He also liked a tweet calling Kerry a traitor. So either he didn’t mean those things, or he’s looking for some morally reprehensible and traitorous advice. For her part, Clinton has been willing to talk with him and help him out.
  9. Pompeo’s confirmation will be tough, as he failed to sway any of his opponents in his hearing.
  10. We learn that Russia has been thwarting our efforts in Syria by jamming our drone’s reception of GPS satellite signals.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Trump signs legislation to crack down on online companies that aid and abet sex trafficking of minors. The bill establishes punishments, including jail time, for people who run these sites.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Justice Department removes questions on crime surveys about sexual orientation and gender identity, effectively preventing the monitoring of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community.
  2. Maryland bans conversion therapy on minors (that is, therapy that attempts to change someone’s sexual orientation). Both the American Psychological Association and the American Counseling Association find the practice harmful and ineffective. Hawaii will likely follow suit.
  3. A large number of Americans don’t believe 6 million Jews were killed in the holocaust. They think the number is much, much smaller. They also didn’t know that Auschwitz was a notorious concentration camp. Are our schools really that bad?
  4. Facebook bans white nationalist Richard Spencer, but he still has Twitter accounts. Last month, Facebook banned the anti-Muslim hate group Britain First.
  5. On top of sending tens of thousands of Nicaraguans, Haitians, Nigerians, and Syrians back to countries they haven’t been to in the decades since they received temporary protected status, Trump also wants to send Vietnamese immigrants who are protected by a bilateral treaty back to communist-led Vietnam.
  6. All states that border Mexico agree to provide National Guard troops to help CBP per Trump’s request.
  7. Hungarian journalists at state-run media outlets say they pushed an anti-immigrant message before the elections to create animosity toward immigrants and increase nationalist sentiment. They also pushed lies about George Soros influencing the election.

Climate/EPA:

  1. EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson takes responsibility for the questionable pay raises for Scott Pruitt’s friends, though an email from one of the people who got a questionable raise contradicts this.
  2. News breaks that Scott Pruitt fired his former deputy chief of staff for refusing to retroactively approve Pruitt’s travel demands. Apparently, he asked the employee to come up with justification for a trip.
  3. Trump signs an executive order that would loosen air pollution standards and sideline science in setting pollution regulations in individual states.
  4. The Government Accountability Office says that Scott Pruitt broke the law by installing a $43,000 sound proof phone booth. Spending more than $5,000 requires him to notify Congress first.
  5. The non-profit Environmental Defense Fund plans to launch a satellite that can monitor methane releases and pinpoint the biggest offenders.

Budget/Economy:

  1. After all of Trump’s criticism of Amazon for not collecting state taxes (which it mostly does), we learn that the Trump Organization’s online store only collects taxes in two states.
  2. According to the CBO, the budget deficit is on track to surpass $1 trillion again sooner than expected (by 2020). They raised the expected deficit for this year to $804 billion and for 2019 to $981 billion. And this is under a forecast with an upgraded GDP growth rate of 3.1%.
  3. Trump tells his top officials to look into getting back in to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which he pulled out of last year because it was such a “disaster.” In February, nearly half the Senate Republicans urged him to rejoin.
  4. TPP member countries express an unwillingness to reopen TPP negotiations to include the U.S., and then Trump reverses course and says he’d only consider rejoining if the term were substantially better for the U.S.
    Background: Joining the TPP would’ve given us a trade advantage against China with Pacific Rim countries, but China has been moving in to fill that gap.
  5. Jobless rates continue to fall, marking the 162nd week that claims have been below 300,000. That’s since March of 2015.
  6. Both Oklahoma and Arizona teachers wind their protests down. Arizona’s governor promises a phased 20% raise for teachers by 2020.
  7. The White House proposes large cuts to public assistance programs along with work requirements. They request a $17 billion cut to SNAP that would affect around 23,000 military families. Which again begs the question “Why aren’t we paying our men and women in the military enough to live on?”
  8. They also propose to expand the definition of welfare to include SNAP, Medicaid, and other safety-net programs. This is part of their effort to overhaul public assistance, which also includes work requirements.
  9. Republicans in Congress unveil a new farm bill that would require SNAP recipients to either work or attend school or training for 20 hours a week. The plan does not include Trump’s idea of providing some of the food to SNAP recipients in the form of government rations. The CBO estimates that this could remove 1 million people from SNAP over 10 years.
  10. Good news for people who eat organic, though. The farm bill cracks down on inspections of imported products that are labeled organic.
  11. Trump orders an audit of the US postal service.
  12. Trump wants to try to rescind billions of dollars in spending that he signed into law last month. Mick Mulvaney is developing the plan, even though Republican lawmakers don’t want these negotiations to start up again.
  13. On the other hand, House Majority leader is working in tandem to get this through the House, and Mitch McConnell seems open to getting it done in the Senate. This is being done alongside a Balanced Budget Amendment to the constitution, which has very little chance of passing.
  14. The Department of the Interior walks back its plans to drastically raise entrance fees at national parks, and will instead raise prices $5 across the board.
  15. Federal appeal judges seem to think that it’s a conflict of interest that Mick Mulvaney heads both the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget.

Elections:

  1. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan announces he won’t seek reelection, bringing the total number of House Republicans not seeking reelection to 46.
  2. There are two Republicans vying for his Wisconsin seat, the most prominent of which is a white supremacist who got banned from Twitter.
  3. Ryan endorses California Representative Kevin McCarthy to replace him as Speaker of the House. If you’ll remember, Kevin lost out on his initial bid to become speaker when he admitted that the Benghazi hearings were dragged out in order to smear Hillary Clinton.
  4. The New Jersey legislature passes an automatic voter registration bill. It will be the 13th state to implement this, and Nevada has it on the ballot this year.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump met with the chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group to talk about a new broadcasting standard that Sinclair is invested in. It would let authorities broadcast to any American’s phone.
  2. Sinclair’s chairman says that during the 2016 campaign, he told Trump: “We are here to deliver your message.”
  3. Several senators request that the FCC investigate Sinclair after complaints arose about Sinclair forcing anchors at local stations to read propaganda pieces. Ajit Pai, FCC chairman, refuses.
  4. Since the Parkland shootings, several cities and states have begun implementing gun regulations, and there’ve even been some changes at the federal level, like allowing the CDC to study gun violence.
  5. On the other hand, a school district in Pennsylvania opts to arm their teachers with miniature baseball bats.
  6. Senator Tammy Duckworth gives birth to her daughter, becoming the first sitting senator have a baby.
  7. Trump issues a full pardon to Scooter Libby, who was Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.
    Background: Libby was convicted of perjury, making false statements to the FBI, and obstruction of justice in the investigation into the information leak that lead to exposing the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. The leak appeared to be in retribution for criticism of the Bush administration by Valerie’s husband.

  8. Marches across the country this week include the March for Science, the Tax March (to protest the new tax bill), and gun rights marches. Of note, gun rights groups encouraged people to carry unloaded weapons, which many did. At least I assume they were unloaded.

Polls:

  1. Just over half of Americans now support a single-payer healthcare system.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who tried to stop bills to expand the state’s education funding, says that children were physically harmed during the teacher strikes because they were left at home alone.

“I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”

Week 62 in Trump

Posted on April 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Trump’s public attacks on major businesses like Amazon are not just bad presidenting, they’re bad for the economy. As I write this, the stock market is still dropping, partly on a tech sell off and partly on fears of a trade war. Both, you can argue, are sparked by Trump’s rhetoric, and now the market has lost all of its gains so far this year.

Here’s what else happened this week.

Russia:

  1. Over 20 countries expel Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of Russian ex-pats on British soil. Trump expels 60 Russian diplomats and closes their consulate in Seattle. Worldwide, over 100 Russian diplomats are expelled.
  2. Russia threatens to expel U.S. diplomats in retaliation.
  3. Russia performs another test of its latest nuclear missile that it says can reach anywhere in the world and get through any missile defense system.
  4. Emails turned over to investigators show that George Papadopolous had more contact with transition and campaign officials than has previously been recognized.
  5. A new court filing by Mueller shows that Rick Gates and Paul Manafort continued their ties to Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign. Such links were previously known, just not that they had continued throughout the campaign.
  6. It turns out that Trump did speak with his attorneys about pardons for Manafort and Michael Flynn last year.
  7. Manafort asks a court to dismiss 18 criminal charges against him because his work with Russia ended in 2014. Reminder: Manafort’s business associate, Rick Gates, already pleaded guilty and is cooperating.
  8. Manafort’s friends think he’s counting on a presidential pardon, even though a pardon doesn’t apply to state crimes (which he will likely be charged with should a pardon be issued).
  9. The FBI issues Trump’s friend Ted Malloch a subpoena to testify for Mueller. They‘re interested in Malloch’s relationship with Roger Stone and Julian Assange.
  10. Mueller is taking another look at the 2016 Republican National Convention, specifically Jeff Sessions’ meetings with Russian officials and how language in the party platform that was hostile to Russia got removed.
  11. High profile law firms continue to turn down the opportunity to represent Trump in the Russia investigation. Most of them seem to be citing conflicts, and some are already representing witnesses.
  12. Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange’s access to the internet at the embassy in London where he’s been staying. Earlier this year, Ecuador granted Assange citizenship.
  13. Facebook announces plans to fight fake news and foreign interference in our elections. They’ll fact check stories, photos, and videos; add stricter requirements for political ads; notify people who share fake news; display a new dashboard that lets you see who’s buying political ads; and be more proactive about blocking fake accounts.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions directs the inspector general of the Justice Department to investigate the FBI and DOJ surveillance of former Trump campaign aides (that is, Carter Page). This isn’t enough for critics, who want a special counsel to investigate potential FISA abuses. The inspector general is also looking into whether the investigation into Uranium One was thorough enough.
  2. A federal judge says an emoluments lawsuit against Trump can continue. The lawsuit, brought by Maryland and DC, accuses Trump of accepting payments from foreign governments or individual states in violation of the emoluments clause.
  3. A New York judge allows Summer Zervos’s defamation case against Trump to continue.
  4. Judge Reinhardt of the ninth circuit court of appeals dies.
  5. The wife of the gunman who carried out the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL, is acquitted of being a co-conspirator to the crime.

Healthcare:

  1. After the largest black lung cluster in history is found in Kentucky, state legislators pass a law requiring pulmonologists and not radiologists to diagnose black lung. Most pulmonologists in the state are regularly hired by coal companies or the healthcare insurers used by coal companies. This cluster is especially confounding because it’s striking miners at a younger age and is very aggressive.

International:

  1. North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has an unannounced meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping weeks ahead of a planned meeting between North Korea, South Korea, and the U.S.
  2. Satellite images indicate that North Korea is testing a new light water nuclear reactor and has brought another reactor online, bringing their promise to denuclearize into question.
  3. Over 200 former U.S. ambassadors and diplomats sign on to a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warning about the deterioration of U.S. leadership in the world and urging a restoration of U.S. diplomatic influence around the globe. The letter is in advance of the committee’s confirmation hearings for Mike Pompeo to replace Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State.
  4. Even though state and military officials say we should stay in Syria for the foreseeable future, Trump says we’ll be out of there very soon.
  5. U.S. military commanders say their ability to fight ISIS is hampered by a lack of direction from the White House. Ten weeks ago, they would’ve told you that ISIS would be taken down in Syria by mid-April, but now they see that falling apart.
  6. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announces that the U.S. will no longer pay over 25% of the UN’s peacekeeping costs.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. New York tightens gun ownership rules for domestic abusers, preventing them from owning any firearms at all.
  2. Vermont, which had some of the weakest gun laws in the country, passes a sweeping gun control bill that includes raising the minimum purchase age to 21, banning bump stocks, expanding background checks, and limiting magazine capacities.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. At least 12 states sue the Trump administration over the addition of a question about citizenship on the 2020 census. Critics say that the question will prevent some citizens from filling out the questionnaire, and that it goes against the Constitutional requirement that the census count everyone. The administration says the information will help enforce the Voting Rights Act.
    Background: The citizenship question was dropped from the census in 1960, and has only been added to supplemental questionnaires ever since. Most questions have years of vetting, but this was added suddenly.
  2. Orange County’s board of supervisors votes to fight California’s sanctuary laws.
  3. A draft of changes proposed by the Trump administration to immigration rules widens the definition of benefits for which immigrants can be penalized. Currently, immigrants who receive welfare are penalized, but the new definition of welfare would include Earned Income Tax Credits as well as health insurance subsidies.
  4. Trump pushes for the military to use part of their expanded budget to pay for the military wall. Repurposing military funds for the wall would require approval by Congress, and the wall is not popular with either party in Congress.
  5. Ben Carson moves to scale back enforcement of HUD’s fair housing rules, which protect people from racial, ethnic, and income segregation in federal housing projects.
  6. Chuck Grassley’s chief investigative counsel for the GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee is also the guy pushing the current attacks against the FBI and trying to undermine Mueller’s investigation. He’s the reason Grassley pushed for criminal charges against Christopher Steele. If you wonder what informs his choices, here are a few things he’s written on his blog:
    • Homosexuality is like incest
    • There’s an impending Islamic takeover
    • Liberals are anti-American
    • McCarthy should be remembered more kindly
  1. A federal judge cites Trump’s “racially charged language” when ruling that a lawsuit to prevent DACA from being ended can go forward. The judge says that Trump’s racial slurs and epithets infer that his ending DACA violates the equal protection clause of the constitution.
  2. The State Department issues notices that will require most visa applicants to hand over five years worth of social media accounts. The 60-day public comment period begins this week.
  3. Happy Easter. Here’s a round up of Trump’s Easter day tweet storm:
    • He says “ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release” make it too dangerous for Border Control to do their jobs, and calls on Republicans to unleash the nuclear option to overhaul immigration. Also, “NO MORE DACA DEAL!” There is no catch and release law, just a policy on when to detain asylum seekers. The courts might make Trump’s view on DACA irrelevant, but it’s not clear if he really means to end the program.
    • He then threatens to withdraw from NAFTA if Mexico doesn’t stem the flow of drugs and people into the country, and reiterates the need for the wall. Which experts says won’t stem the flow of either of those things.
    • This all seems to be a reaction to a Fox & Friends commentary labeled “CARAVAN OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS HEADED TO U.S.” talking about a group of Hondurans reportedly traveling through Mexico to seek asylum here.
  1. Trump clarifies the above to reporters as he goes into church that morning, saying Democrats prevented a potential DACA deal and a lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of the DACA program. (DACA is only available to people who arrived before 2007, so no one coming in now is eligible.)
  2. Trump tweets out pictures of a border project saying they’ve begun building the wall. Except the photos are of a fence repair project authorized under Obama.
  3. Trump once again opts out of the tradition started under Obama of holding a White House Seder to celebrate Passover.
  4. A black woman in Texas who voted illegally because she wasn’t aware she wasn’t eligible gets sentenced to five years. Meanwhile, a white woman in Iowa who tried to vote for Trump twice (once as her dead mother) gets probation. I’m not sure if the difference in treatment is due to state laws or to the color of their skin.
  5. In order to speed up deportation cases, Jeff Sessions is considering overruling judges who put these cases on hold. The Justice Department is also setting quotas for immigration judges.
  6. After ending temporary protected status for refugees from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Sudan earlier this year, this week Trump lets it expire for Liberians as well. As before, some of the people have been here for nearly two decades.
  7. After the questionable shooting of Stephon Clark, the Sacramento Kings announce a partnership with activists against the shooting. Also, an independent autopsy shows he was shot 8 times in the back and side.
  8. No charges are brought against the officers who killed Alton Sterling in 2016, but the shooter is fired and his partner is suspended.
  9. ICE detains and deports an army veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Scott Pruitt wants the EPA to ignore any research based on raw data that is not publicly available. This data often includes people’s private information. So while Facebook is under attack for releasing private information, Scott Pruitt is asking scientists to publicize people’s private information or risk having their studies ignored.
    Background: This isn’t how science is done. When a scientist completes a study, other scientists try to replicate or refute it using their own data.
  2. Giraffes make the endangered species list. Yay us.
    CORRECTION: Giraffes are listed as vulnerable. They aren’t on the official list.
  3. The Sahara Desert is growing due to a combination of natural climate patterns and global warming.
  4. The UN Secretary General says that climate change is the biggest danger we face today. He also dismisses Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement, saying that the U.S. people are doing much on their own to help control greenhouse gases.
  5. The EPA distributes a list of climate change talking points to its staffers as part of guidance on how to talk to local communities about related issues. The talking points downplay climate science and question how much we actually know about human causes. This is either a way to downplay global warming while actually addressing the problem, or it’s a way to continue to stir up confusion on the issue.
  6. Scott Pruitt comes under even more scrutiny over his spending with the disclosure that he’s been renting one bedroom for $50 a night, but only when he stays there and even though all the other bedrooms in the apartment are empty. The apartment building is owned by the wife of an energy industry lobbyist.
  7. The House Oversight Committee is investigating Pruitt’s travel and security costs.

Budget/Economy:

  1. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announces a new trade agreement with South Korea. Trump uses the threat of a steel tariff to get concessions in the deal.
  2. Wall Street bonuses are their highest level since before 2008, at an average of $184,220. There’s your trickle down economics.
  3. As a way of trying to show they’re for fiscal responsibility before the midterm elections, Republicans in the House are considering voting on a constitutional amendment that would require balanced budgets. This, after a $1.5 trillion tax cut and a $1.3 trillion spending bill. In order to pass, it would require Democrat votes plus ratification by 34 states.
  4. In protest of changes to their pension plan, teachers in Kentucky call in sick or call for substitutes, shutting down several schools across the state. Teachers in Arizona head to the capital building to demand higher pay and better funding.
  5. Trump goes after Amazon in a series of tweets, causing Amazon’s stock to drop and causing Jeff Bezos to lose over $10 billion in stock value.
    • Trump’s tweets about Amazon were inaccurate. The post office has a profitable agreement with Amazon, the Washington Post is not a lobbyist organization, and Amazon does pay state taxes.
    • This precipitated a continued fall in tech stock prices.
    • Could this be because Bezos also owns the Washington Post?

Elections:

  1. Ryan Costello, one of the strongest opponents of the redrawn district lines in PA is not running for re-election. He says pro-trumpers are too strident and anti-Trumpers are too angry. His timing leaves Republicans having to maneuver ways to get a new candidate on the ballot.
  2. Joe Arpaio, who is running for Senate in Arizona, promises to renew his efforts to prove that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S.
  3. After being ordered by a court to hold special elections for two open seats, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker sets a date for June 12. GOP legislators in Wisconsin had considered holding a special session to change the rules in order to avoid a special election, but the court also denied Walker a delay he needed in order to get that done.
  4. Florida moves to give voting rights back to ex-felons. A judge ordered Governor Rick Scott to overturn Jim Crow-era laws that disenfranchised African Americans.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Puerto Ricans are having a hard time getting FEMA assistance for their damaged homes because it’s hard for some to prove that they own the homes.
  2. Wisconsin students march 50 miles to Paul Ryan’s hometown to get him to take action on gun violence.
  3. White House lawyers look into whether loans to the Kushner family business violated any laws or ethics rules. The loans in question were made after the loaning companies met with Kushner at the White House.
  4. Color me surprised. Mitch McConnell issues a bill to legalize hemp and remove it from the list of controlled substances.
  5. Lawyer Michael Cohen says Trump didn’t know about his $130,000 bribe to keep Stormy Daniels quiet, which could insulate Trump but could also invalidated the non-disclosure agreement.
  6. Sinclair Broadcasting forces anchors at local news stations to repeat the same script about fake news, biased media, and one-sided journalism.
  7. The FTC opens an investigation into Facebook‘s privacy practices.
  8. Trump fires the head of the VA, David Shulkin, and says he’ll nominate his personal physician, Ronny Jackson, to fill the position. Interestingly, Trump and Shulkin had a meeting about the VA and its programs right before Trump had John Kelly call Shulkin and fire him. There was no mention in the meeting that anything was up.
  9. Shulkin says he was prevented from defending himself from the accusations of taking his wife to Europe on the government’s dime. He says it was approved by the ethics committee, and after the controversy swelled, he paid the government back. He also says he was fired because people in the administration want to privatize the VA, though he had privatized several services himself.
  10. Official word from the White House is that Shulkin resigned. Official word from Shulkin is that he was fired. This is an important distinction because of the Federal Vacancies Act, which allows Trump to temporarily replace him without confirmation.
  11. Over a dozen advertisers pull out of Laura Ingraham’s show after she mocks a Parkland student activist and he calls her out on it.
  12. In a speech, Trump admits he doesn’t know what community colleges are, conflating them with vocational schools (not the same thing). Community colleges offer associates degrees and less-expensive prep for completing a 4-year degree at a university or college.
  13. The Texas police chief who called the Austin bomber a challenged young man now says the bomber was actually a domestic terrorist.
  14. The NRA confirms that it receives foreign donations, but denies that it uses any of those funds for election-related purposes.

Polls:

  1. A third of Americans say they see a bigger paycheck after the tax reform bill. 52% say they haven’t seen a change. In fairness, nobody noticed Obama’s tax cuts in 2009 either, when 97% of households got an average of $1,200 in tax cuts per year.
  2. 54% of Americans say Trump will lose in 2020. But that’s the same percentage who thought Obama would lose in 2012.

Quote of the Week

David Shulkin, outgoing head of the VA

“It should not be this hard to serve your country.”

Week 61 in Trump

Posted on March 26, 2018 in Politics, Trump

March For Our Lives, DC - Time Magazine

#DeleteFacebook is trending! I get the concerns, but let’s all slow down a bit. Every time you sign in to an app or site using your Facebook login and every time you take a Facebook quiz, they tell you right there what information they’re going to scrape. So here are a few things you can do instead of deleting your account:

Cambridge Analytica:

The Cambridge Analytica/Facebook thing is big enough to earn its own heading this week. I’ll try to break it down, but it’s unclear how much, if any, effect the company had on the 2016 elections.

  1. Cambridge Analytica is an offshoot of the SCL Group, a behavioral research and strategic communications company.
  2. Robert Mercer is part-owner of Cambridge Analytica and Steve Bannon headed it at the time the activity in question occurred.
  3. They hired Aleksandr Kogan, a professor at Cambridge, to write an app to scrape user data from Facebook for “academic purposes.” The app scraped not only participants’ data but also their friends’ data. Kogan also used Amazon Turk to collect data, ending up with data from an estimated 50 million users without their permission.
  4. A sting video shows the CEO of Cambridge Analytica (Alexander Nix) and other officials saying that:
    • The company has used honey pots, fake news, disinformation campaigns, blackmail, sting operations, and ex-spies to affect elections around the globe.
    • Cambridge Analytica ran the digital and TV campaigns for Trump and the Trump campaign used Cambridge Analytica‘s data to direct their strategy.
    • They were the brains behind the “defeat crooked Hillary” ad campaign.
    • Cambridge Analytica helped bring Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon on board the Trump campaign.
    • Cambridge Analytica worked to influence the UK campaign for Brexit.
    • They stay under cover by using a shifting network of operatives and front groups.
    • PACs and outside groups can work around federal election laws, implying possible illegal coordination.
    • They use fake academic projects as cover, as they did with Facebook, in possible violation of federal law. This supports what their staff has claimed previously.
  1. Cambridge Analytica suspends Nix after the video surfaces.
  2. The data they scraped includes personally identifying information, a rating on how important each issue is, and which party a user leans toward. They combined all that with our voting history.
  3. And then randomly, we learn that John Bolton’s PAC was one of Cambridge Analytica‘s first customers. They used the company for polling and micro-targeting voters on national security issues.
  4. Despite Cambridge Analytica‘s denials that they ever worked with Russians, it turns out they met with Russian oil company Lukoil multiple times over how to target American voters.
  5. The FTC is investigating whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree around sharing personal information.
  6. The previous week, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica from the social network for its improper use of data. Cambridge Analytica officials, including Nix, dispute that they had ever received Facebook data.
  7. In 2015, Facebook already knew their privacy had issues and announced tightened security. Too late, because Cambridge Analytica had already scraped the data they needed.
  8. In late 2015, Facebook learned of the relationship between Cambridge Analytica and Kogan. Facebook says Kogan and Cambridge Analytica violated Facebook’s terms of service.
  9. Mark Zuckerberg says he welcomes federal regulation over Facebook’s data privacy procedures, but then we learn that Facebook lobbyists have actively lobbied against the disclosure rules for online ads.
  10. Facebook stock drops.
  11. Mueller is looking into coordination between Russian influence, Cambridge Analytica, and the Trump campaign.
  12. The British government has opened its own investigation into Cambridge Analytica, and they’ve already missed one deadline to comply with the investigation.
  13. At the end of the week, UK law enforcement officers raid Cambridge Analytica headquarters.
  14. Note that there is no proof of legal wrongdoing by Cambridge Analytica yet. They were aware of election and campaign rules and it’s possible they walked the very fine (albeit sleazy) line to keep things just on the right side of legal.

Russia:

  1. Trump’s lawyers turn documents over to Mueller that include information about key moments, like when Trump fired Flynn and Comey. They hope this will limit Trump’s exposure to the special counsel.
  2. At the start of the week, Trump hires lawyer and Fox contributor Joe diGenova. He’s out by the end of the week (along with his wife, Victoria Toensing) due to unspecified conflicts.
  3. Currently, only Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, represents Trump full-time in the Russia investigation. He’s assisted by White House attorney Ty Cobb.
  4. Both Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan say that legislation isn’t needed to protect Mueller, and Ryan says he’s received assurances that Mueller won’t be fired.
  5. Even though Trump’s security briefing said in capital letters not to congratulate Putin on his election, he congratulates Putin anyway, and then tells the press about four times that he’ll be meeting with Putin soon. Note: Obama also congratulated Putin on winning the last election, so I’m not clear the difference here unless it’s the timing. (Russia poisoning ex-pats on UK soil, meddling in our elections, and how quickly Trump congratulated him.)
  6. It’s a BFD that someone leaked any contents of the president’s security briefing, no matter how innocuous it seems.
  7. Trump blasts past presidents for not having the smarts, energy, or chemistry to work with Russia.
  8. Though Trump hasn’t directed our intelligence communities to protect our elections from foreign interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee:
    • Recommends an auditable paper trail for all U.S. voting machines.
    • Requests funds for securing databases, cyber security, auditing vote, and updating voting systems.
    • States that we need to declare that Russia’s meddling in our 2016 election was a hostile act.
  1. Senators from both parties criticize Trump for not doing anything to protect the 2018 midterms and they question Obama for not doing more to protect the 2016 elections.
  2. Both Democrat and Republican politicians call for hearings into Andrew McCabe’s firing.
  3. Mueller wants more information from Trump about four main issues:
    • Trump’s role, if any, in coming up with the public statement about Don Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with Russians.
    • The circumstances around that meeting.
    • The firing of James Comey and of Michael Flynn.
    • Any connections between the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica.
  1. John Dowd resigns as the lead lawyer for Trump in the Mueller investigation, seemingly over disagreements on whether Trump should be interviewed by Mueller.
  2. Guccifer 2.0, the hacker responsible for the DNC document and email dump, appears to be a Russian intelligence officer of the GRU (Russian military intelligence). At one point, he failed to disguise his IP address and left a real, Moscow-based IP address in a social media company’s logs. Mueller‘s looking into this.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions tells law enforcement officers he wants to see fuller jails.
  2. Sessions also calls for prosecutors to seek the death penalty in drug cases whenever appropriate (Trump called for the same thing last week).

Healthcare:

  1. Mississippi passes the most strict anti-abortion law in the nation, forbidding abortions after 15 weeks even in the case of rape or incest. The governor says he wants Mississippi to be the safest place in the world for an unborn child. Maybe Mississippi should focus on fixing things for the already-born children instead, which might help prevent unwanted pregnancies. Mississippi ranks:
    • 50th in infant mortality rate and in healthcare
    • 46th in education
    • 48th in economy and 49th in opportunity
    • 4th in gun shootings per capita
    • 42nd in gender wage gap, meaning that those women who are forced to carry unintended pregnancies are less able to afford them
  1. A federal judge temporarily blocks Mississippi’s bill.
  2. A group of Republican legislators in Ohio introduce a bill to ban all abortions in the state. Period. All of them. This despite the fact that federal courts have blocked their previous, and less extreme, attempts at abortion regulation.
  3. Roger Severino, who directs the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services, defends people’s right to refuse health services based on religious beliefs. Meanwhile, members of the LGBTQ community (especially transgender people) are denied treatment or have to struggle to get the appropriate care every day.
  4. Internal notes and emails show that Trump abruptly canceled a program to prevent teen pregnancy over the objection of experts in the department. He based his decision on the opinions of three of his appointees who think that abstinence teaching works best. Many medical professionals credit this program with bringing the teen pregnancy rate down to an all-time low.

International:

  1. Forty-four countries still don’t have an ambassador from the U.S.
  2. Trump freaks out Twitter users by tweeting about an arms race none of us knew existed.
  3. After a week of speculation (and after Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders refuted it), National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster announces his resignation. Trump announces former UN ambassador and Fox News analyst John Bolton to replace him.
  4. It surfaces that Bolton was appointed to the NRA’s international affairs subcommittee, and did a short video promoting gun ownership in Russia as part of an effort to get Russia to loosen their gun regulations.
  5. Bolton’s hawkish stances have some people concerned about potential wars with North Korea and Iran.
  6. A gunman kills two people in a French grocery store and holds another hostage, claiming allegiance to ISIS. A police officer convinces the shooter to take him as a hostage instead, and the gunman shoots and kills him. #RealHeros
  7. The UK and the EU come to an agreement to the terms of the Brexit transition.
  8. Boko Haram releases 104 girls they kidnapped last month in Nigeria, but with a warning. Don’t let your girls go to school.
  9. Officials drop charges against 11 of the 15 Turkish guards who attacked protestors last year and sent several people to the hospital.
  10. A contingent of House Democrats travels to the Mid East with a focus on security and cooperation in the region.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Representative Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) considers stepping down early to avoid an Ethics Committee investigation.
  2. Alibaba joins the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a coalition of businesses that writes boilerplate legislation for U.S. states and for the federal government. ALEC has a very large influence in our laws.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Negotiations between the White House and Democrats to come to a DACA and border wall agreement fall apart before the vote on the spending bill.
  2. Trump bans transgender people who have surgical or other medical needs from serving in the military, despite previous protestations from the military. One in five transgender people serve in our military.
  3. Protests shut down a freeway in Sacramento following the police shooting of a black man in his grandparents‘ backyard who was armed with a cell phone. Police shot at Stephon Clark—who was 22 and had two young children—20 times.
  4. The Department of Health and Human Services removes the pages from its website that provided resources for lesbian and bisexual women.
  5. The Department of the Interior joins other government agencies in removing diversity from its mission.
  6. Trump blames the opioid epidemic on immigrants and sanctuary cities.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The spending bill passed by the House includes this about Trump’s border wall.

“None of the funds provided in this or any other Act shall be obligated for construction of a border barrier in the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.”

  1. The Interior Department auctions off all its available parcels of public land in Utah for oil and gas development, but doesn’t include any of the land recently removed from Bears Ears. Still, environmentalists are worried.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Fed raises interest rates again to mitigate inflationary pressures.
  2. Trump announces $60 billion in tariffs against China on top of the steel and aluminum tariffs that went into effect last week. The new tariffs include some on intellectual property, partly as a way to punish China for its blatant trademark and patent infringements. China owns most of our debt, so we need to play our cards carefully.
  3. Threats of trade wars + rising interest rates + Facebook woes = major stock market volatility this week.
  4. Betsy DeVos testifies to the House Appropriations Committee to justify her budget, which includes a $1 billion voucher program. Members of her staff say she tried to withhold information about overhauling the department in her budget request.
  5. Three months after passing a GOP tax reform bill that cuts taxes by $1.5 trillion, Congress signs a bipartisan spending bill that increases spending by $1.3 trillion.
  6. Trump threatens to veto the spending bill hours before the government would shut down. Trump tries to blame the Democrats for not fixing DACA. (Can we just put the onus of this issue where it belongs? Trump broke DACA last fall, and the only reason it’s still alive right now is because it’s stuck in the court system.)
  7. Trump finally signs the spending bill, calling it ridiculous. Here are a few highlights. It:
    • Increases defense funding by $61 billion.
    • Increases funding to fight the opioid epidemic from $3 billion to $5 billion.
    • Includes $1.6 billion of the $25 billion requested for the border wall, which can actually only be used to repair existing fencing, for secondary barriers, and for 33 miles of non-concrete barrier.
    • Denies Betsy Devos’ budget requests, and denies defunding EPA projects.
    • Provides extra money to shore up infrastructure, but far short of the $250 billion Trump has talked about.
    • Includes legislation to improve the background check system for gun buyers.
    • Includes wording to allow the CDC to use public funds to study gun violence (previously prohibited).
    • Includes fixes to the recent tax plan, along with tax credits for low-income housing.
    • Bars employers from taking employees’ tips.
    • Includes funding to fight Russian interference in the 2018 elections and for the FBI to fight future Russian cyber attacks.
    • Denies funding for additional immigration detention beds and ICE.
    • Doesn’t include fixes to help DACA qualifiers.
    • Doesn’t include fixes to the healthcare system.
  1. China’s new economic czar says Trump violated international trade rules with his tariffs, and issues a vague threat of a trade war. China plans to raise tariffs on $3 billion in American goods.
  2. America’s oldest gun manufacturer, Remington, files for bankruptcy. They’ve long been having business problems, and last year, sales plummeted (likely because people stopped fearing gun control legislation and didn’t stockpile as much).

Elections:

  1. Eight months after the elections, no election official had yet received their security clearance. Currently, only 20 out of 150 elections officials have obtained clearance.
  2. Though the Illinois Republican Party campaigned against him, Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier accused of being a Nazi, wins the Republican primary for U.S. Congress. The party failed to run a candidate against him, and even with his known prejudices, Jones got over 20,000 votes.
  3. This is not what I expected Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to get investigated for. The FEC opens an investigation into Nunes for alleged violations of campaign finance laws. The allegations seem pretty trivial, but could spell trouble for Nunes.
  4. A Wisconsin judge orders Governor Scott Walker (R) to call specials elections for two districts that have been vacant for months.
  5. And then GOP legislators in Wisconsin indicate that they’ll hold a special session to change the election law instead of running two special elections. It’s a brazen move, but they’ve postponed the special elections so long that they’d run into the regular elections.
  6. Pennsylvania State Rep. Cris Dush (R) introduces a resolution to impeach the state Supreme Court justices with whom he disagrees about the gerrymandered district lines. This happens just days after the Supreme Court refuses to hear the Republican-led house’s appeal.
  7. Washington becomes the 11th state since 2015 to adopt automatic voter registration. This year, legislators have introduced at least 206 laws in 30 states to expand voter access.

Miscellaneous:

  1. There’s yet another high school shooting, this time in Maryland. One student is injured, and another dies of her injuries. The shooter shoots himself and is simultaneously shot by a school security guard.
  2. Over a million people protest gun violence in our schools in Saturday’s March For Our Lives. There are over 700 marches in the U.S. and around the world.
  3. Hundreds of thousands march on Washington, but Trump heads to Mar-a-Lago, with the motorcade taking the long way there to avoid marchers. At least the White House issues the following statement of support:

“We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today.”

  1. Instead of labelling the man who terrorized Austin with a series of package bombs as a terrorist, police called him a challenged young man. The bomber killed himself in a car explosion, and though he left a taped confession, we don’t know the motive yet.
  2. In one week, TSA found 71 guns in carry-on bags around the U.S. Of those, 66 were loaded and 29 had a round in the chamber. TSA threatens penalties of over $13,000 per violation.
  3. We learn that Jared Kushner’s old real estate venture falsified information on their permit applications so they could push out rent-controlled tenants.
  4. Former Playboy model Karen McDougal sues to be released from an agreement not to talk about her affair with Trump. She goes on to give a salacious interview about their affair. She’s suing the company that owns The National Enquirer, which bought her story and then quashed it. The owner of the company is a friend of Trump’s.
  5. In 2011, Stormy Daniels took a polygraph which showed she was telling the truth when she said she and Trump had unprotected sex. Also, polygraphs are not 100% accurate.
  6. Stormy also gives an interview to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes. I’m not going to go into any detail, because affairs are none of my business, IMO. I’m more concerned about the payoffs.
  7. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen sends Stormy a cease and desist letter following the interview.
  8. A New York judge rules that the defamation suit against Trump brought by an Apprentice contestant can go forward.
  9. Trump receives a summons in the emoluments case brought by Maryland and DC. The case was brought because of Trump’s refusal to fully divest himself of the family business.
  10. Trump praises Adapt Pharma for a program that provides public institutions with life-saving drugs to combat opioid overdoses. The program was created in partnership with the Clinton Foundation.
  11. Despite the fact that White House employees work for the public, Trump makes them all sign non-disclosure agreements.

Polls:

  1. For the first time since 2000, the NRA’s disapproval rating is higher than its approval rating.
  2. 69% of voters are in favor of stronger gun laws.
  3. 70% of millennial women identify as Democrats.
  4. 67% of voters don’t think Trump is a good role model for children, and 55% say he doesn’t have a good sense of decency.
  5. 57% of voters say Trump has damaged our global reputation instead of improved it.
  6. 59% of voters say Trump doesn’t share their values.

Quotes of the Week:

“How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about maybe taking CPR classes or trying to deal with situations that when there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that.”

~ Rick Santorum, who has apparently never seen the damage to a human body from an AR-15 shooting.

Week 60 in Trump

Posted on March 20, 2018 in Politics, Trump

This week, students at over 3,000 schools across the country protest gun violence and honor the Parkland victims in staged walkouts. Each walkout starts at 10 AM local time, and students stay out for 17 minutes in tribute to the 17 lost lives in Parkland. Students also march on Washington and the walkouts extend across the globe. Here’s what they want. It’s pretty simple, so accusing them of not knowing what they’re doing is pretty disingenuous:

  • Ban assault weapons
  • Universal background checks for all gun sales
  • Pass a gun violence restraining order law (so courts can disarm people who display warning signs)

Some schools punish students by giving them unexcused absences or suspensions—some even suspend students for five days (I’m looking at you Cobb County, Georgia). Others put their schools on lockdown so students can’t go out; students take a knee instead. Social media is awash with “grownups” saying students don’t know what they’re protesting, that students are forced into this, and that they couldn’t organize this movement on their own. It’s the 60s all over again.

And also, 7,000 pairs of shoes are laid out on the grounds in front of the U.S. Capitol, representing every child killed by a gun since Sandy Hook in 2012.


Here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

  1. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee effectively close their Russia case, just as Robert Mueller is expanding his investigation into Trump associates, Trump Organization, and a secret meeting between Erik Prince, George Nader, and a UAE official. They release a report saying they’ve seen no evidence that there was collusion or that Russia was trying to tip the scales toward Trump. Investigations continue in other congressional committees.
  2. And who’s been feeding this guy truth serum? Republican Trey Goody, who actually read the underlying legal documents, disputes some of the report’s findings. Our intelligence community disputes even more of them.
  3. Representative Mike Conaway (R-Texas) says that it wasn’t part of the House Intelligence Committee’s mission to investigate collusion between Russia and Trump associates. So basically they said they didn’t find the collusion that they weren’t even looking for.
  4. Another Representative on the House Intelligence Committee, Tom Rooney (R-Fla.), also contradicts the report, saying that there is evidence Russia was trying to help Trump in the elections.
  5. Democrats release a rebuttal to the report, outlining the areas where they think the investigation is incomplete, including key witnesses that were never called, subpoenas that were never issued, organizations that were never questioned (like social media giants), and broad issues that were never investigated. For example, the committee hasn’t interviewed key players like Papadopoulos, Manafort, Gates, and Flynn.
  6. A former Russian spy and his daughter are found poisoned in a park and are currently in critical condition. Investigators confirm that the poison is definitely of Russian origin.
  7. And then Russian exile Nikolai Glushkov is found dead in London. Police are treating it as a murder.
  8. Prime Minister Therese May pretty much accuses Russia of an act of war and gives them 48 hours to answer for the poisonings.
  9. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calls the act egregious and says there will be consequences. But Russia probably isn’t too worried about Tillerson anymore for obvious reasons.
  10. Theresa May’s first act of reprisal is to expel 23 Russian diplomats thought to be spies. She also cancels meetings with Russian officials.
  11. The U.S., France, and Germany join the United Kingdom in saying Russia is responsible for the poisonings.
  12. Two witnesses come forward to say Roger Stone spoke with Julian Assange in early 2016, and that he knew about the hacked emails before they were publicized.
  13. We learn that Qatari officials didn’t share information about the UAE having illicit influence over Kushner with Robert Mueller’s team because they were afraid it would hurt their relationship with the Trump administration.
  14. Trump finally imposes sanctions against Russia for meddling in our elections, one month after the deadline set by Congress. He doesn’t include all the recommended sanctions.
  15. Mueller subpoenas Trump Organization records, a sign that he’s expanding his investigation and that he’s not close to the end despite rumors to the contrary.
  16. Federal regulators say that a 2017 Russian hack into our energy grid didn’t compromise any of our power plants, including nuclear power plants. The hacks did, however, trigger a scramble to secure our networks, particularly those managing our infrastructure.
  17. Facebook suspends Cambridge Analytica for using an academic research cover to scrape data about hundreds of thousands of users. Cambridge Analytica also met with Russian businessmen to talk about how Cambridge Analytica used their data to target U.S. voters.
  18. The Massachusetts attorney general launches an investigation over claims that Cambridge Analytica scraped data from over 50 million Facebook users to develop social media techniques to help Trump’s campaign.
  19. Sessions fires Andy McCabe just over 24 hours before he was to retire, meaning be could lose his pension. McCabe will likely appeal this, other members of government extend offers to hire him short-term, and it is also possible that his pension won’t be that deeply affected.
  20. McCabe learned of his firing from a press release, though he likely saw it coming.
  21. Following Andrew McCabe’s firing, Trump’s lawyers says Mueller’s investigation should be halted and implied to Rod Rosenstein that he should end it.
  22. Andrew McCabe has contemporaneous memos of his interactions with Trump and of Comey’s descriptions of his interactions with Trump. He’s already met with Mueller and turned over copies.
  23. Trump says the Mueller investigation is partisan, even though there are charges and guilty pleas. And even though Mueller and many he works with are Republican.
  24. Senator Marco Rubio criticizes the McCabe firing. Representative Trey Gowdy criticizes the handling of the firing, saying Trump’s acting like he’s guilty. Senator Lindsey Graham says that if Trump tries to fire Mueller, it will be the end of his presidency. All Republicans.
  25. The FEC opens an investigation into whether the NRA received illegal contributions from Russian groups to support Trump’s campaign.
  26. A federal judge warns that Paul Manafort could spend the rest of his life in prison. Manafort is on 24-hour lockdown in his home.
  27. Seth Rich’s family files a lawsuit against Fox News over them promoting a rumor that Rich was the leaker of the DNC emails during the 2016 campaign and that he was killed because of that. If you remember, Seth Rich was a DNC staffer who was killed in an apparent random attack.
  28. Three sources say Jeff Sessions didn’t actually push back when George Papadopoulos suggested the Trump campaign meet with Russians, leading some to wonder whether he committed perjury in his congressional testimony.
  29. Russians elect Putin for another six years in a landslide victory.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Trump’s administration wants to permanently take away federal judges’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions, which stop policies from taking effect until the court can make a final ruling.

International:

  1. Trump fires Rex Tillerson, reportedly via Twitter but with a warning from John Kelly. Trump picks Mike Pompeo, currently CIA director, to replace him as Secretary of State.
  2. Pompeo has a background of voting against women’s and LGBTQ rights, as well as making anti-Muslim comments. He has also supports torture. So there’s that.
  3. Trump then fires Tillerson’s top aide, Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein, for giving an account of the firing that differed from the official White House story.
  4. Trump picks Gina Haspel to replace Mike Pompeo. She’d be the first woman to hold the top position at the CIA, and seems widely respected at the CIA. Her confirmation could be tough though, because of issues around her role the torture of al-Qaeda prisoners.
  5. Prosecutors in Germany are reviewing a request from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) to issue an arrest warrant on Haspel for her involvement in extreme torture measures after 9/11. NOTE: A report on her role in waterboarding suspected terrorists was later retracted. She was not involved in the waterboarding of a suspect who was later found to be innocent.
  6. Steve Bannon addresses France’s far right party, spreading his own brand of white nationalism and telling them to wear labels like racist, xenophobic, and nativist proudly.
  7. Trump brags that he just made up trade deficit “facts” in a meeting with Justin Trudeau, saying the U.S. had a trade deficit with Canada. According to Trump, Trudeau disputed that, saying there is no deficit. And Trudeau’s right. You can read the actual facts at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
  8. And then, to make it even weirder, Justin Trudeau says they had no such conversation. So it seems Trump lied about making up facts at a meeting he made up.
  9. And then Trump doubles down, tweeting that we do have a trade deficit with Canada. Again, we do not.
  10. In a fundraising speech, Trump:
    • Accuses the European Union, China, Japan, and South Korea of ripping us off and pillaging our work force.
    • Calls NAFTA a disaster and then criticizes the World Trade Organization.
    • Threatens Seoul if they give us a better trade deal.
  1. The White House plans to have Ivanka Trump meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha when she visits the U.S. Normally the minister would meet with the Secretary of State, but Tillerson was fired. Among other things, Tillerson and Kang planned to discuss talks with North Korea.
  2. Philippine President Duterte says he’ll pull the Philippines out of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is investigating Duterte for crimes against humanity for his handling of the drug problem.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Kentucky takes a page from Florida and bans child marriages.
  2. The House passes a school safety bill. It provides training for both school employees and law enforcement to manage mental health issues and provides money to put systems in place for reporting threats.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Homeland Security spokesman James Schwab resigns, saying that he can’t continue to “perpetuate misleading facts” for the administration. In other words, he’s tired of lying for Trump.
  2. Trump says it’s Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s fault that ICE didn’t pick up more undocumented immigrants in a sweep last week after she issued a warning before the raid took place. ICE typically picks up about a third of their targets in these sweeps, and here they picked up 232 out of 1,000. Trump said they were all violent criminals, but just under half of those picked up had criminal records of any kind.
  3. Trump blames Obama-era rules for mass shootings. The rules in question were an effort to rein in the harsher disciplines brought down on minority students, like suspensions and expulsions. IKYDK, no black student has been the perpetrator of a mass school shooting and minority schools aren’t the targets of these shootings.
  4. Attorney General Jeff Sessions re-opens a court decision that protects domestic violence victims seeking asylum in the U.S. This indicates he’s contemplating removing or weakening these protections.
  5. Trump visits the wall prototypes south of San Diego, only to find protests on both sides of the border.
  6. The ACLU sues ICE for detaining hundreds of asylum seekers with no due process.
  7. A court clears DeAndre Harris of assault charges stemming from the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last year where he was severely beaten. Yes, they charged the man who himself was severely beaten. The men who beat him haven’t been tried yet.
  8. Trump wants to trade a short-term DACA deal for funding for his border wall.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Why are we suddenly hearing so much about bomb cyclones? Because abnormally warm temperatures in the Arctic can bring them on, according to a recent study. And since four of the past five years have had an Arctic thaw, we’re seeing rougher weather on the upper east coast.
  2. 2017 was the costliest year yet for weather and climate disasters in the U.S., and yet FEMA just removed any reference to climate change from its strategic planning document. Because if we don’t talk about global warming, it doesn’t exist, right? It’ll just go away?

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump blocks the $117 billion bid from Broadcom to buy Qualcomm citing security concerns. Broadcom drop its bid.
  2. Trump names TV personality Larry Kudlow to Gary Cohn’s old position as top economic advisor. Kudlow has gotten some things very, very wrong, including predicting these things wouldn’t occur: the positive effects of Bill Clinton’s tax plan, the negative effects of Bush Jr.’s tax plan, the housing bubble in 2007, and the great recession.
  3. The Senate passes a bill to weaken the financial protections in Dodd-Frank, increasing the size of banks that do not need to follow the regulations. They say that this will help small community banks get out from under regulatory red tape, but most community banks have less than $10 billion in assets and this bill only helps banks that have $50 billion to $250 billion in assets. So I guess if you consider that a small bank… What the bill changes is that these banks no longer need to have an emergency plan for in case they fail.
  4. The House passes a bill requiring federal financial regulatory agencies to limit burdens on institutions. In other words, the bill favors institutions over consumer rights and once again would allow them to engage in the risky behavior that led to the great recession. And just to make sure they erase Obama’s and Elizabeth Warren’s fingerprints on any regulations, they make it retroactive to any regulations passed in the last seven years.
  5. A federal court tosses out the fiduciary rule, an Obama-era rule that required your financial advisor to act in your best interest instead of pushing you into investments that would put money in your advisor’s pockets.
  6. According to Puerto Rico’s governor, the Treasury reduced their $4.7 billion disaster relief loan to just $2 billion.

Elections:

  1. A court blocks Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, from enforcing his law requiring a voter ID to register to vote. The 10th circuit court calls it a denial of a fundamental constitutional right. If you’ll remember, Kobach believes there are thousands of undocumented immigrants who are registered to vote, even though decades of commissions and studies (both conservative and liberal) conclude that this isn’t the case.
  2. Democrat Conor Lamb defeats Republican Rick Saccone in Pennsylvania’s district 18 special election for House of Representatives. The race was to replace Republican Representative Tim Murphy, who was staunchly anti-abortion, except, it turns out, when it’s his mistress who is pregnant.
  3. This is the 42nd seat to flip from Republican to Democrat since Trump’s election. Four have flipped the other way.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Three packages left outside homes explode in Austin, killing two people and injuring another.
  2. Betsy DeVos can barely answer basic questions about our education system in an interview on 60 Minutes. She also says that she doesn’t intentionally visit troubled schools.
  3. Trump considers firing David Shelkin from the VA and moving Rick Perry from the Department of Energy to the VA. Though by the end of the week, he’s looking at different replacements
  4. The White House fires Trump’s personal assistant, John McEntee, because of financial crimes being investigated by DHS. The crimes must’ve been bad, because they didn’t even give him a chance to get his coat before walking him out. But then Trump gives him a job as senior advisor for his campaign operations.
  5. Data scientists at MIT publish a study concluding that fake news is shared much, much more than real news on social media and in one test, fake news reached 1,500 people 6 times faster than real news. Even when controlling for verified accounts, fake news is 70% more likely to be shared.
  6. Well, that was brief. At the beginning of the week, Trump reverses his stance on the NRA and drops his promises on gun control efforts, like raising the purchase age and expanding background checks. Here’s what he offers instead:
    • Rigorous firearm training to school employees who want it
    • Modest fixes to the background check process
    • A new Federal Commission on School Safety, chaired by Betsy DeVos.
  1. A bill in the Senate to improve the background check database has 62 co-sponsors (so by definition, it’s bipartisan). But it’s being held up by the remaining Republicans.
  2. Another teacher accidentally discharges a weapon in class, injuring three students.
  3. Leaked emails imply that the purging of career officials at the State Department was politically motivated and targeted people who weren’t loyal to Trump.
  4. Donald Trump Jr.’s wife of twelve years files for divorce.
  5. A UPenn study concludes that when a Trump rally comes to a town, there’s a rise in violence on that day. There was an average of 2.3 more assaults on the days of the rallies in the data and cities they studied.
  6. Trump’s lawyers say Stormy Daniels violated her non-disclosure 20 times and wants $20 million in damages ($1 million per violation).
  7. Trump lays down an epic tweetstorm following McCabe’s firing. Here’s some of what he said:
    • Mueller’s team has 13 Democrats and no Republicans, so it must be partisan. (Except Mueller himself is a Republican, so already we know that’s false.)
    • Andy McCabe and James Comey are both liars, and Comey even lied under oath. (His source was Fox & Friends.)
    • The following all came from one tweet: No collusion, no crime, fake dossier, crooked Hillary, FISA court, WITCH HUNT!
    • He brings up the donations made from the DNC to McCabe’s wife’s campaign. (This isn’t even being investigated.)
    • The House Intelligence Committee found no collusion. (In fairness, that wasn’t part of their investigation and Republicans on the committee disagree.)
    • And my favorite:

Quote of the Week:

Or maybe this is just the understatement of the week…

“I anticipated that this would be a lower-profile job.”

~Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein: