Tag: Sessions

Week 29 in Trump

Posted on August 21, 2017 in Politics, Trump

If you haven’t noticed, I no longer included in this recap how often Trump golfs or visits a golf course. It’s a given he’s going to golf far more often than his predecessor, whose golf habits Trump criticized endlessly. It’s also apparent that when he said he wouldn’t be out golfing—no, he’d be spending his weekends working—he was lying.

Sorry for the late and abbreviated recap this week—I was on vacation and trying to ignore the news. Here’s what happened in Trump’s 29th week.

Missed From Last Week:

  1. The Trump campaign and associates turn over around 20,000 pages of documents in the Russia investigation.
  2. Trump launched a series of ″news″ videos on Facebook with Lara Trump (his daughter-in-law) as the ″anchor.″ They’re calling this ″real news″ because, as Lara says, ″there’s so much fake news out there.″ But this screams of state-run media.

Russia:

  1. Two Republican house staffers make a surprise visit to the office of Christopher Steele’s lawyer (Steele wrote the dossier on Trump). No one in the committee knew anything about this, but we later find out they were there on Devin Nunes’ behest. Nunes is supposed to be recused from the investigation.
  2. It comes out this week that the FBI executed a surprise search warrant on one of Paul Manafort’s homes a few weeks ago in the wee morning hours.
  3. Financial disclosures for the lawyers working on the special investigation with Robert Mueller show that many left multi-million-dollar jobs in the private sector to work on this.
  4. A Russian surveillance plane flies over the D.C. area, including the Pentagon, capitol buildings, and other government buildings.
  5. Mueller requests documents from the White House on Michael Flynn, presumably to determine whether he was paid by the Turkish government to discredit a dissident.
  6. Trump surrogates won’t confirm whether Trump wants to fire Mueller, but four Members of Congress have proposed bills protecting Mueller.
  7. Trump says any investigation into his finances is off-limits, but the Deputy Attorney General says Mueller can investigate any crimes discovered in the course of the probe.
  8. Trump periodically sends messages to Mueller of appreciation and just general greetings.
  9. Federal investigators work on getting Paul Manafort’s son-in-law, who is also a business partner, to cooperate in the Russia probe.
  10. Mueller subpoenas Manafort’s financial records.
  11. The House Intelligence Committee wants to question Trump’s personal secretary.
  12. Trump thanks Putin for expelling hundreds of diplomatic employees back to the U.S., saying he’s trying to reduce payroll (apparently not understanding that these State Department employees aren’t actually fired).

Courts/Justice:

  1. A federal judge orders an October hearing into whether Trump’s business dealings violate the emoluments clause.

Healthcare:

  1. Jared Kushner’s brother owns a healthcare company that lobbied against the repeal of the ACA. Jared held a stake in the company at the time, but has since divested.
  2. As Republicans try to find ways to destroy the ACA, insurers start pulling out of markets and expect a rise in premiums because of the uncertainty being created. Insurance companies plan to boost premiums to guard against the uncertainty, up to 20% in some markets. Insurers say the uncertainty is far outside the norm.
  3. The White House fails to coordinate with organizations responsible for outreach and education before the open enrollment period for the ACA begins.
  4. The Freedom Caucus in the House is trying to force an outright repeal of the ACA, bypassing House leaders.
  5. Trump declares the opioid epidemic a national emergency.

International:

  1. Trump tweets a Fox News story that Nikki Haley says contains classified info. The story claims that North Korea loaded anti-ship missiles on a boat near the coast, which Haley says is classified info because it indicates where we get that information from.

  2. North Korea says they’ll use nukes against us if we provoke them militarily. They also promise “a thousand-fold revenge” against the latest UN sanctions. Meanwhile, Trump spends the day tweeting insults to Democratic Senator Dick Blumenthal.

  3. The Pentagon is considering drone strikes on ISIS in the Philippines to assist our allies there.

  4. Trump threatens to release ″fire and fury like the world has never seen″ in retaliation to any moves by North Korea to attack U.S. interests. Of note, a year ago, 50 Republicans previously employed in national security signed a letter warning that Trump acts impetuously, has no self control, and is erratic.

  5. Trump later wonders if fire and fury wasn’t quite strong enough.

  6. Trump tweets, “My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before….” In truth, updating the arsenal is under review.

  7. Trump sends out aides to get people to rally around him in his escalation with North Korea.

  8. North Korea calls Trump’s threats a ″load of nonsense.″

  9. Tillerson manages to defend Trump’s statement while de-escalating the situation some and smoothing out Trump’s threat.

  10. In spite of all the trash talk, the administration has been in back-channel talks with North Korea for months.

  11. The Pentagon prepares a plan in the event that Trump orders a strike on North Korea.

  12. Trump comes under criticism from leaders on both sides over his rhetoric around North Korea.

  13. European officials view Trump as erratic and limited, and say he is a laughingstock in European government circles.

  14. After North Korea’s threat to attack Guam, Trump had a phone meeting with the Governor of Guam. Trump said that this has made Guam famous and now their tourism will rise tenfold. Because I certainly want to visit the current target of a nuclear threat. Aaand the Republican Governor agreed with him.

  15. The UN Security Council voted unanimously to sanction North Korea for its missile testing.

  16. The number of people who took the Foreign Services exam in June fell 26% from the previous year. Interest in foreign service work has tumbled under this administration.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Trump calls out Mitch McConnell for not getting him the legislation he wants—healthcare, tax reform, infrastructure, and so on.
  2. Congressional Democrats raise alarm bells over the Regulatory Reform Task Force’s lack of transparency. They’ve been performing their reviews in private, out of the public view, and in consultation with experts and lobbyists from the businesses from whom the task force is supposed to be protecting us.
  3. Trump supporter and funder Robert Mercer funds potential opponents to Jeff Flake in Arizona. Trump put a target on Flake after he released a book and did several interviews critical of both Republicans and Trump.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. We’re still waiting for word from Trump condemning the mosque bombing last week in Minnesota.
  2. Neo-nazis, white supremacists, the KKK, and other hate groups from across the country come together for rallies in Virginia and North Carolina. This is the biggest white power rally in decades.
  3. They are met with both peaceful counter protesters and with the more violent antifa groups.
  4. The hate groups march with torches and chant slogans like ″Jews will not replace us!″ and ″Blood and soil!″ an old Nazi slogan that refers to a racially defined group associated with specific lands.
  5. After the rallies break up, a car ploughs through a crowd of counter-protesters who were peacefully demonstrating away from the alt-right groups. One woman is killed and at least 19 injured. The driver is a white supremacist.
  6. Additionally, two police officers are killed when the helicopter they were monitoring the rallies from crashes.
  7. David Duke says that alt-right groups voted for Trump because he’s going to bring their America back.
  8. In Trump’s initial statements, he basically said that the people protesting the racist hate groups were as bad as the hate groups themselves, drawing deep criticism from all sides.
  9. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe stands up and says what Trump should have—bigotry and hatred are not welcome. He tells the hate groups to go home.
  10. The DoJ opens a civil rights investigation into the extremist attack.
  11. Trump gets blasted for not calling out white supremacists by name, something he accused Obama of doing with Islamic terrorists.
  12. Kenneth Frazier, Merck’s CEO, denounced Trump’s comments along with hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy. He then dropped out of Trump’s business council. Additional CEOs follow suit.
  13. Trump immediately attacked Frazier on Twitter, saying Frazier’s resignation will give him “more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” Frazier went from business genius to ripoff artist in just three weeks in Trump’s mind.
  14. Social media users start identifying and outing alt-right marchers. Some from the alt-right are fired from their jobs.
  15. Refugees continue to flee across the northern border of the U.S. and into Canada. They are currently staying in tents erected by the Canadian army.
  16. Chicago says it will sue the DoJ for it’s policies on sanctuary cities.
  17. Deportations of illegal immigrants under Trump is lower than under Obama by an average of 3,000 people per month, even though they are casting a wider net.
  18. Five transgender members of the military sue Trump for proposing to ban them from serving.
  19. DHS considers starting ″Life After Hate″ back up and adding new funds. This agency works to deradicalize members of white hate groups like the KKK and neo-nazis.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Emails show that the USDA censors climate change language.
    • Instead of “climate change,” staff must use “weather extremes.”
    • Instead of “climate change adoption,” staff must use “resilience to weather extremes.”
    • Instead of “greenhouse gases,” staff must use “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency.”
    • Instead of “sequester carbon,” staff must say “build soil organic matter.”
    • However, the emails say this won’t change any of the modeling, because, you know, climate mitigation is important. This also doesn’t apply to scientific studies.
  2. The New York Times releases a leaked draft of the government’s climate change report. This is the final draft presented to the administration, and it was leaked because scientists are afraid Trump will try to change it because it contradicts his and his administrations claims that climate change isn’t affected by human activity.
  3. The report has already incorporated both public and scientific comment.
  4. The climate change report needs to be approved by August 18 by 13 different government agencies, including the EPA. As we know, Scott Pruitt, the head of the EPA, does not believe in man-made climate change.
  5. The official report that Trump releases will give a clear indication of whether our policies going forward will be based on science or belief.
  6. According to EPA employees, Scott Pruitt is very secretive and goes to extreme measure to hide what he’s doing.
  7. Let’s take a second to look at this quote from the NY Times:
    • “Allies of Mr. Pruitt say he is justified in his measures to ramp up his secrecy and physical protection, given that his agenda and politics clash so fiercely with those of so many of the 15,000 employees at the agency he heads.”
    • Employees also say that Pruitt’s ignoring years of scientific research and industry input.
    • So why is it we’re letting the one person who disagrees with 15,000 experts steer the direction of our environmental future? IMO, the conclusions of 15,000 experts should override the one.
  8. The Department of the Interior eases the Sage Grouse protections implemented under Obama.
  9. The EPA makes it easier to approve new chemicals.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Consumer confidence, which bumped up after the election, has been on the decline since January.
  2. 39% of American colleges and universities see a decrease in applications from foreign students. The University of Toronto, on the other had, sees a 20% increase.

Elections:

  1. The DoJ changes its position on Ohio’s purging its voter rolls. They previously argued the purges weren’t lawful because they targeted Democrats and African Americans. Now they say the purges are lawful.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Talk about giving a participation medal to everyone… Trump’s aides give him a propaganda report that contains only positive news about him. Twice a day. WTH?
  2. Steven Miller, who last week accused CNN’s Jim Acosta of being cosmopolitan, lives in a nearly $1 million condo in a building described as “the new ideal for sophisticated, modern, urban living.” Also known as cosmopolitan.
  3. House Democrats request information on how much government money is being spent on trump properties.
  4. After two deadly crashes, the Marine Corps grounds all aircraft for 24 hours.
  5. The Phoenix mayor asks Trump not to hold his rally there in light of the recent controversy surrounding the events in Charlottesville. Trump ignores his request.
  6. Silicon Valley entrepreneur (PayPal) Peter Thiel throws his support behind Trump publicly, and has from the beginning. But in private he told friends last year that there’s a 50/50 chance this ends in disaster. This year, he’s upping the odds on that.
  7. Even with last week’s confirmation of over 60 of Trump’s nominees, he still lags far behind in staffing up open positions.
  8. Four senior cybersecurity officials resign.
  9. Faced with what they call a dysfunctional federal government, city Mayors talk about ways to take on problems like the opioid epidemic, homeland security, and global warming on their own.

Polls:

  1. In a recent survey, 52% of Republicans would support postponing the 2020 election if Trump said we should (to make sure there’s no voter fraud). 56% would if both Trump and congressional Republicans backed it.
  2. Trump hits yet a new low in the Quinnipiac poll with 33% approving and 61% disapproving of his performance.
  3. 36% of Americans say Trump’s first 200 days were successful. 59% call it a failure.
  4. 47% of Americans now strongly disapprove of Trump’s performance.
  5. 60% of Americans don’t think Trump is honest and trustworthy.

Week 28 in Trump

Posted on August 7, 2017 in Politics, Trump

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

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

Meanwhile, here’s what happened this week.

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

(more…)

Week 27 in Trump

Posted on July 31, 2017 in Politics, Trump

People are calling this week one of the worst for any president’s inaugural year in modern history… with some obvious exceptions, I’m guessing. The Boy Scouts had to apologize for Trump, New York police departments had to disclaim his remarks, the Pentagon got caught off-guard by his tweeted transgender ban, Congress failed to repeal the ACA (but they did manage to restrict Trump on Russia sanctions), the new comms director gave an immensely foul interview, Trump undermined his attorney general, he changed his chief of staff, and North Korea can reach us with a missile.

Here’s what happened this week:

Russia:

  1. Jared Kushner releases a written statement before testifying for Congress behind closed doors.
  2. Kushner discloses yet another previously undisclosed meeting with Russian officials that happened last April at the Mayflower Hotel. Actually, he confirms that the meeting he was already suspected of having actually did happen.
  3. Kushner also says he met with a Russian banker, Sergei Gorkov, to set up a private line of communication with Putin.
  4. Brian Benczkowsi, the nominee to head the criminal division at the Justice Department, says he worked for Russia’s Alfa Bank last year. He helped them determine whether its computers contacted the Trump Organization.
  5. The House finds agreement on the sanctions bill and forwards it to the Senate where it also passes.
  6. Trump announces he’ll sign the sanctions bill after congress threatens an override.
  7. In retaliation for the new Russian sanctions, Putin shuts down U.S. facilities in Russia and kicks out 755 U.S. foreign agents.
  8. The EU says they support sanctions but also voice concerns over how this will affect their workers in the energy sector.
  9. This part of the story is convoluted and I’m a bit confused about where things stand. I think we’ll have to wait for answers on this one. I am honestly not trying to ″Rachel Maddow″ the dots together here.
    • William Browder, an associate of Sergei Magnitsky, testifies to Congress.
    • He claims that Fusion GPS, the group that commissioned the Steel dossier, worked for Russian interests last year, including the Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. (Veselnitskaya).
    • Browder also says Congress should investigate Fusion GPS for not registering as foreign agents under FARA and that they were hired to smear him and Magnitksy.
    • Fusion GPS says that they did work for an American law firm and not Russian interests, and therefore didn’t need to register.
    • Sarah Huckabee Sanders asserts that the author of the Steele dossier was also being paid by Russia. I think that’s what she took away from Browder’s testimony.
    • Magnitsky had uncovered $230 million in tax fraud by Russian interests. His treatment and subsequent death in a Russian prison led to the Magnitsky Act (sanctions) and subsequent hold on adoptions of Russian children.
    • The meeting with Donald Jr. and Veselnitskaya last year was likely about the Magnitsky act, though she baited him with dirt on Clinton.
    • A few years ago, the U.S. began a lawsuit against Russian-owned Prevezon Holdings, which was using real estate holdings in New York to launder money (related to the fraud Magnitsky found).
    • Jared Kushner bought New York real estate from Africa Israel Investments (AFI), which is a partner to Prevezon Holdings.
    • The Prevezon case was abruptly settled in May for $6 million and no admission of guilt. Full circle, right?
  10. Senator Lindsey Graham says he’s writing a bill that will protect the investigation and make it harder for Trump to fire special counsel Mueller.
  11. It seems that Russia’s meddling in our election has so far backfired. Relations between our countries have sunk even lower, and Trump’s hands are tied with the latest sanctions bill.
  12. Scaramucci, citing an anonymous source, says that if the Russians actually did hack our computer systems we’d never know it because they’re that good. They wouldn’t leave a trace. He later outs his own source—Trump.
  13. Security software company Kaspersky Labs continues to take a hit over rumors that it leaves a backdoor open for Russian hacking.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Trump continues to berate AG Jeff sessions, saying he’s going too easy on Hillary and that she never got the level of scrutiny that Trump is. Really? Where was he in 2015 and 2016? Or for the past 30 years for that matter? This widens speculation that Trump will fire Sessions.
  2. In one of his many tweet storms this week, Trump tweets unsubstantiated info about Hillary and wonders why Sessions didn’t investigate her harder… before he was even AG.
  3. Trump reportedly asks whether he should replace Sessions with a major conservative. If Sessions isn’t a major conservative, I don’t know who is.
  4. As Trump continues his public denigration of Sessions, some speculate he’s trying to make Sessions quit so he doesn’t have to fire him. Sessions has no intention of quitting.
  5. The two men are reportedly no longer talking to each other. Instead they send messages through intermediaries.
  6. Senators are quick to come to Sessions’ defense and to warn Trump away from firing him.

Healthcare:

  1. Texas Representative Blake Farenthold calls out and insults Susan Collins, Shelley Moore Capito, and Lisa Murkowski for their continued opposition to what they call bad bills. Blake says their actions are repugnant. Collins is later caught on a hot mike criticizing Blake’s appearance and wondering if Trump is crazy, also saying she’s worried. Collins and Blake end up making nice.
  2. Pence comes in to break a tie in the Senate to bring the healthcare bill to the floor for debate. Collins and Murkowski continue to vote country over party.
  3. At Trump’s request, Ryan Zinke, department head of the interior, calls Murkowski to say that her vote would affect programs in her state of Alaska. Murkowski then cancels hearings on nominee confirmations, including three to the Department of the Interior.
  4. After a dramatic week, the Senate fails to pass any healthcare bills. They voted on multiple versions: the Ted Cruz amendment, full repeal with no replacement, Medicare for all, and skinny repeal (the final nail in the coffin).
  5. Throughout the week, Trump continues pressure on and threats against Republican Senators who aren’t supporting these bills or this process, but based on his words, he doesn’t seem to have a grasp of what is in any of those bills.
  6. At one point, Democrats threaten to stall the bill and stop proposing amendments until they can see the actual text of the bill they are supposed to be debating.
  7. By the night before the final vote, Republicans still have not released the text of what they’re supposed to vote on after debate.
  8. While Senate Republicans want to pass SOME bill, they don’t want the bill they pass to become law.
  9. Some Senators say they won’t vote for their own bill unless House Republicans assure them that they will not pass it as is. There are rumors, though, that the House is ready to pass whatever the Senate sends them.
  10. Skinny repeal would likely have sent existing markets into turmoil, raised rates, and kicked people off insurance. This bill would’ve essentially defunded the ACA but kept some of the popular requirements.
  11. The bill fails because Republican holdouts Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski continue to oppose on the grounds that their constituents will be hurt by it, and because John McCain has nothing left to lose so he did the right thing and opposed it.
  12. Trump threatens to let the ACA implode, even to force its failure. He could stop the payments to insurance companies that keep prices down. For a select group, prices aren’t low now, so they will be priced out of the market completely.
  13. The bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus in the House has quietly been working on a plan to fix the ACA. More to come on this next week.
  14. Because Republicans have campaigned on repealing the ACA and maligned the bill for so long, they will likely keep working on ways to repeal it. This could suck up valuable time when they could be getting stuff done instead.

International:

  1. Hundreds of thousands of protestors in Poland turn out to demonstrate against the politicization of the judicial branch. In a surprise move, the Polish president vetoes the bill.
  2. Venezuela also continues its move toward authoritarianism, holding a vote that sparked violent protests across the county. The vote creates a new panel to rewrite their constitution.
  3. Trump tweets that the Washington Post got it wrong when they reported that the U.S. was ending a program to arm Syrian rebels, but then later confirmed the story.
  4. Trump announces he’ll nominate Sam Brownback (governor of Kansas) to serve as ambassador at large for international religious freedom. Brownback has recently faced blowback from his own Republican legislature because he went too far on tax cuts.
  5. While the administration works on ways to more strictly enforce the Iran deal, they’re also working to fix perceived flaws in the plan. If they don’t get the fixes in, Trump wants to pull out of the deal (even though top military officials say this is the best deal they can get).
  6. Tillerson wants to eliminate dozens of special envoy positions that deal with specific issues, like food shortages, civil rights, and labor rights. The more we can stabilize regions that need this help, the more secure we are as a country.
  7. North Korea executes another missile launch that puts the U.S. definitely within range of a strike. Trump again tweets his displeasure at China’s lack of help here.
  8. The U.S. flies two B-1 bombers over the Korean Peninsula and conducts a successful test of the missile defense system.
  9. After previously announcing a ramp up in troops in Afghanistan, Trump and his generals can’t agree on a plan. He’s now considering plans to scale back our troops there. But he’s also looking into making mining deals with the Afghan government, which would give him a reason to keep troops there.
  10. The extremist group Al-Shabab releases a video saying that U.S. voters elected “arguably the most stupid president a country could ever have” and that Trump is “making the United States the greatest joke on earth and is now propelling it further to its eventual defeat and destruction.”

Legislation/Congress:

  1. House Republicans send down two bills for a vote under suspension of rules. This expedites the process, limits debate to under an hour, allows no amendments, and requires 2/3 majority. In protest of the process, House Democrats and a few Republicans stop the passage of these completely non-controversial bills.
  2. Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee block Democrat requests to obtain Treasury Department documents on Trump.
  3. Using Congressional Review, the House rescinds a rule that would make it easier for Americans to bring lawsuits against financial institutions. It goes to the Senate for a vote.
  4. Upon his return from surgery followed by a cancer diagnosis, John McCain delivers a stern warning to Congress, saying they are getting nothing done. Complaining about bipartisanship, he says “There’s greater satisfaction in respecting our differences but not letting them prevent agreements.” It’s a pretty good speech; you can listen to it here.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. ICE agents have mixed feelings about deportations under Trump. Some feel they are freer to do their jobs and some feel they’re targeting vulnerable populations.
  2. Through a series of tweets, Trump announces he’ll ban transgender people from serving in the military in any capacity, reversing Obama’s direction. He cites disruption and higher medical costs.
  3. The Pentagon is taken by surprise and directs all queries on this to the White House, suggesting that even though Trump says he consulted his Generals, he probably didn’t.
  4. The Joint Chiefs of Staff say they were blindsided by this announcement. As of Thursday they hadn’t received any guidance on how to implement the ban.
  5. We currently have thousands transgender troops serving. Studies find the costs to be minimal with little to no disruption.
  6. It turns out Trump was just talking out of his ass (again). Joe Dunford, on behalf of the joint chiefs, says that there are no planned changes to the military’s policy on transgender troops despite Trump’s tweets.
  7. On the same day Trump tweets the ban, the Department of Justice files a legal brief saying that the Civil Rights Act doesn’t cover discrimination based on sexual orientation. It isn’t typical for the DoJ to weigh in on court cases like this.
  8. The House approves a spending bill that includes initial spending for the wall.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Department of the Interior proposes to rescind safety rules on fracking and underwater drilling equipment. They’ve already rolled back a rule banning coal mining on pubic lands, as well as delayed methane emission controls.
  2. Changes are coming to the EPA museum. It’s being changed to reflect the administration’s disbelief in global warming. Displays that are already set up will be removed, and the EPA is thinking of adding a coal display.
  3. In one 3-month period, Scott Pruitt spend nearly half his time in Oklahoma or traveling to and from there. It makes me wonder where he finds the time to destroy the agency he runs.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Frustrated that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) won’t score their plans positively, Republicans plan to cut 89 jobs and $15 million in funding from the CBO. Piggybacking on their disbelief in science, they want the CBO to be a number aggregator rather than an independent number cruncher. Of note, the CBO has one of the most accurate track records of all similar estimators.
  2. Foxconn Technology Group announces that it’s in talks to build a $10 billion plant in Wisconsin. It could employ 3,000 to 13,000 people, and would receive up to $3 billion in subsidies.
  3. The Treasury Department shuts down an Obama program to help people whose companies don’t offer 401Ks to save for retirement anyway. The program was called MyRA.
  4. As mentioned above, the House passes a spending bill that includes $1.6 billion to start the border wall. It also gives a huge increase ($68.1 billion more) to the Pentagon. This might come up against spending limits set by earlier budget laws.
  5. Republicans in the House, Treasury, and administration are eager to dig in on tax reform, but are still light on details.

Elections:

  1. A federal judge rules that the Elections Integrity Commission is free to request voter roll data from states, including names, addresses, partial SSNs, party registration, felony convictions, and voting record (whether you voted, not who you voted for because that actually is secret). The judge did not rule on whether the commission can compel states to turn the info over.

Miscellaneous:

  1. In an apparent attempt to get science on board, Ivanka misattributes a tweet to Einstein: “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts. – Albert Einstein ‪#quote ‪#sunday‪“‬
  2. Trump again shows disrespect for Obama and Clinton both, by getting attendees at the Boy Scouts Jamboree to boo them during his speech. Boy Scouts. Way to cultivate their good souls.
  3. I’m not going to regurgitate Trump’s speech to the Boy Scouts because it’s hard to listen to. While there were some good bits mixed in with the bad, the speech is so partisan—and offensive—that the BSA feels obligated to put out a statement defending their honor.
  4. On complaints that their statement isn’t strong enough, the BSA issues an apology to the families of Boy Scouts for Trump inserting politics into the event.
  5. And then… Police departments in and around New York City have to issue a statement denouncing Trump’s remarks to them about new tactics to fight the MS13 gang. Trump advocated for officers to rough up suspects.
  6. And then… Trump holds another political rally in Ohio where he again puts out false and misleading information (see factcheck.org’s check).
  7. By now this is old news because Scaramucci is no longer with us. But here’s what led up to that.
    • Scaramucci promises to hunt down and fire leakers. Michael Short is the first to leave after Scaramucci says he’ll fire him.
    • Scaramucci accuses Reince Priebus of leaking financial information on him, but it turns out the information is publicly available. Still, he says the leak is a felony.
    • Scaramucci creates a diagram on news organizations to which they think Priebus leaked information.
    • Scaramucci gives a completely cray-cray interview to the New Yorker. As comms director, he apparently doesn’t know he needs to say ″off the record″ if he doesn’t want the information released. It is unbelievably profane.
    • New Chief of Staff Kelly says get this guy outta here, and now Scaramucci is gone. Quick as that.
  8. Democrats release their new agenda, A Better Deal, which includes an infrastructure plan and a plan to help workers by increasing wages and providing paid family and sick leave.
  9. House Republicans call for a special counsel to investigate James Comey, Hillary Clinton, and Loretta Lynch.
  10. Reince Priebus “resigns” as White House Chief of Staff. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly takes his place. We learn this via Twitter. This leaves Trump with no real close relationships with high-profile members of the GOP. It also leaves him with an opening at DHS.
  11. Betsy DeVos sits on thousands of applications for debt relief from students defrauded by for-profit universities. She’s delayed Obama’s debt relief program, while thousands of people owe money for promises that were never delivered.
  12. Kellyanne Conway says Trump really does believe that Obama wiretapped him and that there were millions of undocumented immigrants who voted for Hillary (giving her the popular vote though he doesn’t think she won the popular vote).
  13. Six hours after pre-orders are announced for Hillary Clinton’s new book, it hit number 1 on Amazon.
  14. Interesting note: Behind the scenes, Marco Rubio maintains a database of political prisoners and human rights victims, He advocates for them generally through the state department and sometimes directly through world leaders.
  15. An aide to Debbie Wasserman Schultz is arrested for bank fraud. This is part of a bigger investigation, so I’m sure there’s more to come.
  16. Tillerson takes a little time off.
  17. Rick Perry is duped into taking a phone interview with some Russian comedians.
  18. Career civil servants in the Department of Energy say they aren’t getting any direction or policy information, and no one is sharing information with them. Nothing is getting done.

Polls:

  1. 49% of those who voted for Trump still believe he won the popular vote. Only 40% believe Clinton did.
  2. 58% of Americans think transgender troops should be able to serve in the military.
  3. Trump averages higher than 50% approval ratings in these states: West Virginia (60% approval), North Dakota (59%), South Dakota (57%), Montana (56%), Wyoming (56%), Alabama (55%), Oklahoma (54%), Kansas (53%), Kentucky (53%), Arkansas (53%), and Idaho (53%).
  4. Americans are divided over whether Trump should be removed from office 42% to 42%.

Political Quotes:

  1. Jeff Flake, Republican Senator from Arizona, talking about the baseball field shooting that left Scalise in the hospital:
    “The deterioration of political discourse in general aids this. When we ascribe motives to our opponents, that they are evil, then we’ve almost given license to extreme behavior.”

Week 26 in Trump

Posted on July 24, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Since we’re at the half-year mark, here’s a status update courtesy of Politico (plus a few extra):

  • Healthcare: Stalled for now, likely dead.
  • Infrastructure: This has moved to low place on the totem pole, with no signs of movement.
  • Tax Reform: Uncertain. Congress can’t do much with this until they pass a 2018 budget, which conservatives are already talking about killing.
  • Government Spending/Debt Ceiling: Behind. This needs to get done by the end of September.
  • The Wall: Stalled with the spending bill and budget, though companies are beginning soil tests to figure out the required structure of the wall.
  • Immigration: The ban is in place, sort of. It’s unclear where they are on analyzing and updating the vetting process.
  • ISIS: A strategy just came out that is very similar to Obama’s.
  • Supreme Court: A conservative judge, Gorsuch, is firmly in place.
  • Climate: This is probably where the most progress has been, though states and cities are able to mitigate. Trump announced our withdrawal from the Paris accord, and Congress has rescinded a gazillion environmental protections. Zinke is looking at which national monument designations he can remove or shrink. Also, the cabinet is full of global warming deniers. So things aren’t looking so great for the environment.

Russia:

  1. Revelations from the Russia/Trump Jr. meeting reveal that one of Russia’s goals in all this was to get the Magnitsky act repealed (in other words, sanctions).
  2. Robert Mueller asks the White House to keep all documents around the above meeting.
  3. Both Manafort and Trump Jr. make a deal with congressional committees to avoid a public hearing and instead to testify privately.
  4. Two weeks before Kushner released the emails about the meeting, the Trump reelection campaign paid $50,000 to Kushner’s attorney.
  5. It turns out Trump had a second meeting with Putin after their official 2 1/4 hour official meeting; this one was informal and lasted around an hour. The meeting was at a dinner at the G20, and the only other person speaking with them was Putin’s interpreter (though the other leaders and diplomats were around).
  6. Trump says he and Putin talked about adoptions, which we now know is code word for sanctions.
  7. Trump says he wouldn’t have nominated Jeff Sessions if he would’ve known he was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
  8. Trump warns Mueller against expanding the scope of his investigation to include financial and business transactions. The next day, we learn that Mueller is investigating business and real estate transactions between Russia and Trump businesses and associates.
  9. Trump’s team of lawyers look into ways to undermine Mueller and his investigation, as surrogates make the talk show rounds to throw doubt on both.
  10. Trump wonders if he can pardon his family and even himself. His lawyers are looking into it. There’s no real precedent, though documents from Nixon’s hearings could provide some guidance.
  11. He later asserts that he can pardon himself, saying he has the complete power to pardon his family, aides, and himself.
  12. The Senate Intelligence Committee thinks the Trump campaign digital team might have assisted Russians by boosting and helping to target fake stories. They’re investigating, but not likely to get help from companies like Facebook.
  13. Manafort’s troubles keep growing. Mueller is investigating him for possible money laundering involving contacts in Russia and the Ukraine, and before joining the Trump campaign he was millions in debt to pro-Russia interests.
  14. Trump’s personal lawyer, Mark Kasowitz, steps down as head of the legal team. The legal team’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, quits over disagreements about smearing Mueller and over all the infighting in the White House.
  15. After Jeff Sessions denied any meetings with Russian operatives, we learn that he did meet with their ambassador to the U.S. After Sessions admitted to that meeting but denied they spoke about campaign or policy issues, intelligence intercepts show that they did indeed talk about such things (according to the ambassador).
  16. The House finally reaches agreement on a Russia sanctions bill that would require congressional approval to lift sanctions on Russia.
  17. Susan Rice meets with the Senate Intelligence Committee, likely around unmasking U.S. names in intercepts.
  18. In case you were wondering, the special investigation into Bill Clinton headed by Kenneth Starr concluded that not even the president is above the law and therefore can be prosecuted. So yes, Trump could be prosecuted if Mueller’s investigation finds any illegal activity.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions reverses a policy that made it harder for local law enforcement to confiscate property of people who are merely suspected of a crime. Not charged, not indicted, not found guilty. Just suspected.
  2. The Senate confirms John K Bush to a lifetime appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He once compared abortion with slavery, saying they are “the two greatest tragedies in our country.”

Healthcare:

  1. Two more senators oppose the revised healthcare bill and it is effectively dead.
  2. In [what I thought was] a last-ditch effort, Mitch McConnell tries to push for a repeal-only bill that would delay actual repeal for two years (that is, after next year’s midterm elections). But it would repeal the mandate immediately, causing turmoil in the marketplaces. This doesn’t fly either.
  3. This is similar to a plan the Republicans passed in 2015 under reconciliation, but they knew Obama would veto it. That they can’t pass it now makes me think they were bluffing the last times they tried to repeal it in full or in part.
  4. Republicans play with a plan to stop supporting portions of the ACA to make it fail. This throws a curve ball into the insurance markets, so we can expect higher costs and fewer choices next year. Trump alternatively supports and rejects this.
  5. Trump hosts Republicans for lunch to talk healthcare, telling them they should work on repeal through the August recess. He says every American should have a good health care plan, apparently not understanding that repealing the ACA leaves us with no plan. He also issued not-so-thinly veiled threats to Senators who are holding out.
  6. If the senate actually repeals the ACA without any replacement, the CBO estimates that 32 million more people will be uninsured.
  7. In an interview Trump says, “Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan.” TWELVE DOLLARS? Try $12,000, if you’re lucky. This possibly explains the disconnect between the Republican plan and the actual reality of insurance. A Republican defended him saying he doesn’t need to know every detail. Some think he’s mixing up health insurance with an ad for life insurance that plays on Fox.
  8. The Department of Health and Human Services releases a fake score of Ted Cruz’s amendment to the healthcare bill. The CBO has had trouble scoring it because Cruz’s office won’t respond to questions.
  9. Legal experts request an investigation into the Department of Health and Human Services’ use of ACA funds to create a propaganda campaign against the ACA. They allege that HHS used funds designated to provide helpful information about the ACA. Some of the videos they produced highlighted personal stories caused by states not accepting the Medicaid expansion, and some caused by misunderstanding patient rights under the law.
  10. The Trump administration ends ACA contracts that helped shoppers get insurance through the exchanges. This, along with shortening the sign-up period, minimizing information campaigns, and creating anti-ACA propaganda, indicates that they are ready to force this ship to sink.
  11. But then, this effort just won’t die. By the end of the week, McConnell is still looking to pull something together for a vote. Senate Republicans plan a vote on whether to begin debate on a bill. Though there is confusion over which bill is actually going to be up for a vote.
  12. Democrats say certain wording in the bill needs to be removed because it doesn’t comply with reconciliation rules… but how do they know which bill they’re voting on?
  13. Trump says the healthcare bill will put money in the pockets of middle- and low-income earners, but the $700 billion in cuts will likely go mostly to the most wealthy.

International:

  1. Trump recertifies the Iran nuclear deal after a few hours of arguing with his national security advisors. This needs to be recertified every 90 days.
  2. He then puts together a group of White House staffers to come up with reasons not to recertify the Iran nuclear deal when it comes up next time around, bypassing the State Department. And apparently not judging it on what actually goes down over the next three months.
  3. Trump ends the CIA’s ongoing program to arm and train Syrian rebels fighting Assad, something Russia’s been wanting for a while.
  4. The EU threatens to remove Poland’s EU voting rights in response to Poland’s government’s plans to put the judiciary branch under full political control.
  5. Tillerson shuts down the war crimes office of the State Department.
  6. Trump’s nominee to head the Import-Export Bank has previously said he’d like to shut it down. No surprise here, based on recent experience.
  7. Trump nominates Jon Huntsman as ambassador to Russia.
  8. A strategy document outlining the Trump administration’s approach to defeating ISIS indicates that they plan to pretty much carry on with Obama’s approach without having learned from his errors.
  9. The administration puts the kibosh on travel to North Korea.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. House Republicans working on the defense spending bill remove an amendment that would have repealed the 2001 Authorization of War. The amendment had bipartisan support in the Appropriations Committee.
  2. Texas Governor Greg Abbott calls a special session of Senate to push through Republican initiatives, including a bathroom bill, abortion bills, limits on local ordinances, school vouchers, voter fraud investigations, and restricting union dues, among other issues. This draws community protests and criticism from local officials.
  3. The House Appropriations Committee approves the destruction of all remaining wild mustangs in the U.S.
  4. Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee files a no-confidence resolution against Trump, citing 88 reasons he’s unfit for office. This will not pass the House.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Six months later… When immigrants take the oath of citizenship, the welcome letter in their citizenship packet is still signed by Obama.
  2. The Supreme Court upholds a Hawaii judge’s ruling that extended family is exempted from the travel ban, so grandparents, nieces, and other relatives of U.S. residents can enter the country. However, the court struck down an exemption for certain refugees.
  3. Kim Davis’s refusal to issue marriages licenses to same-sex couples ends up costing Kentucky $224,000 in legal fees and costs.

Climate/EPA:

  1. California passed a bipartisan bill to extend the state’s cap-and-trade program. Far-left says it doesn’t go far enough; far-right says it’s too restrictive on businesses.
  2. The Army Corps of engineers says it’ll need the rest of 2017 to perform a court-ordered environmental review of DAPL. They’re suing to keep the pipeline running during the review.
  3. A study ordered by Energy Secretary Rick Perry showed that, contrary to Perry’s claims, solar and wind power don’t reduce the reliability of the electric grid. In fact, the power grid is more reliable today than it’s ever been.

Budget/Economy:

  1. It’s Made in America week, but Homeland Security allows an additional 15,000 H-2B visas (for low-wage, foreign workers). The reasoning is that these workers help American businesses to prosper.
  2. As Trump pushes Made in America week, the administration also tries to defund a Labor Department agency that helps American workers compete fairly in the global market.
  3. The Trump administration announces their NAFTA objectives, which so far mostly seem to be around tougher enforcements. Trump says that the current deal is good for farmers and ranchers, but maintains that it is bad for manufacturing.
  4. The House releases a budget plan this week that increases defense spending more than Trump’s plan, cuts domestic spending less, and assumes a lower rate of growth. It also pushes options for private plans in place of Medicare.
  5. At the same time, the Senate Appropriations Committee announces funding levels that are relatively in line with the current levels, giving House moderates more ammunition.
  6. The House budget bill pretty much cancels trumps budget provisions for school choice vouchers.
  7. Mexico signs a trade deal with Brazil, which means the U.S. is no longer their sole provider of corn. They’re working on another deal with Argentina. U.S. corn sales to Mexico are already down 7% this year.
  8. Canada finalized a trade deal with the EU that will cut into U.S. sales of processed goods to Canada.
  9. The U.S. signs a deal with China that’s been decades in the making and that will allow the U.S. to sell rice to China.
  10. Infrastructure, which IMO is the one thing that might get bipartisan agreement, is stuck behind other legislative issues, including the budget, the debt ceiling, tax reform, and immigration laws. It’s not looking like it’ll happen anytime soon.

Elections:

  1. A South Carolina State Election Commission report says there were about 150,000 attempts to hack into their voter registration system on Election Day last year.
  2. The Illinois State Board of Elections says they were being hit by hacking attempts 5 times per second, 24/7, from late June to mid-August 2016. Hackers accessed around 90,000 voter records.
  3. The Election Integrity Commission holds its first meeting. Commission member Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who is actively looking for massive voter fraud, hands out copies of his voter fraud database. To put voter fraud in perspective, the database contains around 1,000 prosecuted cases over the past 15 years. That’s fewer than 70 cases a year out of more than 100,000,000 votes (so conservatively, a .00007% incidence). A quick check of his database shows that several of those cases were by candidates, not voters, so the rate of actual voter fraud is even lower than that.
  4. Cory Booker introduces a bill to repeal Trumps executive order on the voter fraud commission and to block federal funds from being used for it.
  5. Obama’s cybersecurity team had a plan in place to minimize damage caused by any last-minute cyber attack efforts by the Russians on election day.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Sean Spicer resigns upon Trump’s hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director. Scaramucci is the senior vice president and chief strategy officer at the Export-Import Bank.
  2. Scarmaucci’s hiring took most everyone in the White House by surprise.
  3. Scaramucci starts deleting old tweets and social media posts that spoke against Trump or the RNC. At least he’s being transparent about it. He announced he was doing it saying his views have evolved, after which social media users furiously comb through and save his old posts. The internet is forever folks.
  4. And no wonder he’s doing this. He “called Hillary Clinton incredibly competent and appeared to be at odds with his new boss on issues such as gun control, climate change, Islam and illegal immigration …”
  5. Doctors diagnose John McCain with aggressive brain cancer, the same one that both Ted Kennedy and Beau Biden had.
  6. Trump says Akie Abe, the wife of China’s prime minister, didn’t talk to him at the G20 dinner because she doesn’t speak any English. But she speaks it pretty well.
  7. In areas of Texas where Planned Parenthood facilities closed and abstinence-only sex ed is taught, the teen abortion rate has increased 3%. Meanwhile, the nationwide trend has been decreasing.
  8. Trump nominates Sam Clovis as head of science at the USDA. Clovis is a former radio talk show host who doesn’t have a background in science. This, even though the role is only available to scientists according to congressional rules. He also denies anthropogenic global warming.
  9. As a way to address problems around the opioid epidemic, a judge gives Tennessee inmates an option: early release or long-term contraception (vasectomy for men or contraceptive implant for women).
  10. Jared Kushner failed to disclose over 70 assets on his initial financial disclosure. He’s updated the disclosure over 30 times since March. This affects Ivanka as well as the disclosure includes family members.
  11. An interesting legal battle is brewing between federal agencies over ExxonMobil’s alleged violation of Russia sanctions. The violation occurred in 2014 under the helm of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Exxon was fined $2 million. In response, Exxon named Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in a legal complaint.
  12. Tillerson hires consulting companies Deloitte and Insigniam to help with the State Department reorganization.
  13. New Hampshire becomes the 22nd state to legalize pot.
  14. One reason for the slowdown in the vetting process for Trump’s nominees is that we’ve never had so many nominees with such complex financial holdings and conflicts of interest. Several of them dropped out because they got frustrated with having to comply with the ethics rules.

Polls:

  1. Only 45% of Republicans believe that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer during the elections. Even though he not only said he met with Russians to get dirt on Hillary, but also tweeted out the entire email thread.
  2. A Bloomberg poll finds that 61% of Americans think we’re headed in the wrong direction, and 55% view Trump unfavorably.
  3. Trump’s approval is at 36%, lower than any other president at this time. His disapproval rating in 59%.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

  1. OK. This isn’t really stupid, just something to think about. Ben Carson says:
    “Let me put it this way. I’m glad that Trump is drawing all the fire so I can get stuff done.”
    So maybe we should be paying more attention to what the federal departments and agencies are actually doing instead of to what Trump isn’t getting done.

Week 25 in Trump

Posted on July 17, 2017 in Legislation, Politics

(Credit: AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth/Getty/Don Emmert/Peter Muhly)

With Congress spinning their wheels and not able to actually push much through other than undoing some Obama rules, something John Boehner said several weeks ago rings true for several of their bigger goals. He said he doesn’t think tax reform is going to happen this year:

“I was a little more optimistic about it early in the year; now my odds are 60/40. The border adjustment tax is deader than a doornail. Tax reform is just a bunch of happy talk.”

And so once again Russia dominates the week. Here’s what happened…

Russia:

  1. Last week we heard about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer and the changing stories he gave around it. This week, he releases the entire email thread setting up the meeting. He says he’s just being transparent, but it turns out the New York Times was about to release them and were waiting his response. He scooped them.
  2. The emails show he was looking for compromising information on Clinton and that he was OK working with the Russian effort to discredit her.
  3. We learn the meetings were set up by British publicist Rod Goldstone, who offered to connect Don Jr. with sensitive documents from the Russia government that would be damaging to Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” To which Don Jr. said “I love it.”
  4. Before we get ahead of ourselves, the meeting may have broken federal law, but doesn’t amount to treason. It might be conspiracy, but definitely not treason.
  5. The meeting implicates Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, who didn’t reveal this meeting in his security clearance forms. Since May, Kushner has added over 100 names of foreign officials he had contact with last year. In his defense though, it appears Kushner’s lawyers found the email thread and turned the emails over.
  6. The Russian lawyer they met with says the meeting was always about sanctions, though the emails say otherwise.
  7. We still don’t have a complete list of all who attended the meeting, though the list of Russians keeps growing. We now know a Russian lobbyist and an interpreter were there as well, and possibly two more people.
  8. Trump Sr. says the Secret Service vetted the meeting. The Secret Service says that didn’t happen.
  9. Trump Sr. denies knowledge of this meeting, but after the meeting ended, he tweeted out a dig about Hillary’s emails. Two days before the meeting, he said he’d give a speech the following week that would tell all about the Clintons. That speech didn’t happen.
  10. It turns out that the White House crafted Trump Jr.’s initial statement about the meeting, which turned out to be untrue.
  11. A democratic representative files the first formal articles of impeachment against Trump over obstruction of justice in the firing of Comey.
  12. According to the Wall Street Journal, our intelligence agencies saw evidence of Russians attempting collusion with the Trump campaign in 2015, even before he officially declared his candidacy.
  13. Kushner’s digital campaign program is under investigation to find out if they assisted the Russians in targeting specific voter markets during the election meddling. Intelligence officials are pretty sure they had U.S. help.
  14. Trump backs off on the idea of a joint U.S. and Russia cybersecurity force saying that it can’t happen.
  15. Democratic lawyers from the Obama camp sue Trump over invasion of privacy. They allege that the campaign was involved in what has been seen as a Russian operation, but which now seems to include campaign members. This operation resulted in the dumps of tens of thousands of emails that included private information.
  16. After passing nearly unanimously in the Senate, the Russian sanctions bill stalls in the House while the White House continues pressure to soften the bill.
  17. Mike Pence’s spokesperson refuses three times to answer whether Pence has had any undisclosed meetings with Russians.
  18. According to a coroners report, Peter Smith asphyxiated himself. Smith died 10 days after an interview with the Wall Street Journal where he described his plan to work with Trump’s campaign to get dirt on Clinton. It’s not known whether Trump’s campaign was aware of Smith’s effort.
  19. People start comparing the DNC getting opposition information from Ukraine sources with Trump Jr.’s effort get oppo on Clinton. Right now it looks like comparing a traffic ticket with totaling your car, but more info will come out on both.
  20. Some of the memos Comey wrote summarizing his conversations with Trump contain classified information, but not the one that he leaked to the press. Comey said they were his personal memos, but the FBI now says they are FBI property and Trump accuses Comey of breaking the law. So now we’re looking at an investigation into Comey’s handling of the memos. Full. Circle.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Jeff Sessions takes credit for last week’s Medicare and Medicaid fraud bust saying it’s part of the administration’s effort to get tough on drugs. It turns out Medicare fraud is a huge thing, and all presidents since Clinton have funded task forces to crack down on it. They’ve recovered tens of billions of dollars since the 1990s.
  2. Twitter users blocked by Trump sue, saying that since Sean Spicer said Trump’s tweets are official statements, Twitter users can’t be barred from viewing them.

Healthcare:

  1. The Senate Republicans’ revised health bill increases insurance subsidies and keeps some of the ACA taxes.
  2. This new version allows insurance companies who do sell ACA-compliant policies to sell policies that don’t include all the mandated coverages as well.
  3. It also opens the door to insurance companies being able to deny people with pre-existing conditions access to certain healthcare plans.
  4. The latest version of the bill doesn’t change the cuts to Medicaid and keeps it as a block grant with per capita spending caps. It also includes $1 billion in Medicaid funding that only Alaska qualifies for, largely seen as a bribe for Lisa Murkowski’s support.
  5. With teen pregnancy at its lowest rate in recent history, the Trump administration cut $213.6 million in research and programs aimed at preventing teen pregnancy (this includes funding for Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and Johns Hopkins University, along with almost 80 others).
  6. Governors from both parties come out strongly against the new healthcare bill at their annual summer meeting. They don’t issue a joint statement, though, because they all have different reasons.
  7. Mitch McConnell delays the healthcare vote until John McCain comes back from what was deemed minor surgery. He’s expected to recover in a week, but health experts think it could be more like two weeks. This gives the bill an even slimmer chance of passing.
  8. Lindsay Graham also comes up with a healthcare plan, which basically gives more power to the states.
  9. From Politico’s talks with legislators: “Republicans REALLY want to wrap up the health care discussion. Sure, they want to repeal Obamacare. But the conversation they’re having now is how many people are going to get booted off their insurance. That’s not good politics.” Also it’s kind of heartless.
  10. Burglars break into Senator Dean Heller’s office in Las Vegas. Probably not related, but Heller was among the first Senators to say he wouldn’t approve the healthcare bill.

International:

  1. Trump celebrates Bastille Day in Paris with President Macron.
  2. Rex Tillerson heads to Qatar and then other Mideast countries to try to patch things up. Qatar agrees to stop funding terrorists.
  3. It turns out that the UAE was behind the cyberattacks that planted fake news stories and social media posts about Qatar’s empire, leading to the four-nation boycott and a new quagmire in the Mideast. It was originally thought that Russia was behind it. Now U.S. intelligence thinks it was part of a larger plan by the UAE to destabilize the area.
  4. If Tillerson can fix this, it will be his first major diplomatic accomplishment. If it backfires, it will strengthen Qatar’s relationship with Iran.
  5. Trump appears to support Saudi Arabia over Qatar in this standoff, but Saudi is known for funding terrorists as well.
  6. While Trump takes credit for sparking the Qatar standoff, some allege that this is more on Kushner. Kushner tried and failed to get a $500 million loan from a Qatari businessman, and then allegedly pushed Trump to take a hard stance on Qatar.
  7. Trump delays his state visit to the UK until next year.
  8. Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner look at proposals to use private mercenary firms to fight in Afghanistan.
  9. Iran has been stepping in to fill the void left when U.S. troops departed from Iraq. They’ve been giving aid, working with the government, and shipping food and supplies.
  10. Civilian casualties from U.S. airstrikes in the Mideast are on pace to more than double under Trump.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The White House wants Congress to take care of these items before the August recess:
    • Repeal the ACA
    • Raise the debt ceiling
    • Agree on a general outline of tax reform
    • Clear remaining nominations

    Note: It’s almost August already.

  2. Mitch McConnell delays the August recess in order to take care of some of the above items. He blames the delay on lack of cooperation from Democrats, but with the Republican majorities in both houses, he doesn’t need Democrats’ cooperation.
  3. The bill to overhaul and privatize air traffic control stalls in the House.
  4. As a part of the effort by Everytown for Gun Safety, six states (Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Tennessee and Utah) pass gun restrictions for domestic abusers, bringing the total number of states with such laws to 23.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. After a huge public outcry, Trump intervenes to grant visas to the all-female Afghanistan robotics team so they can come here and compete. Very cool.
  2. Trump plans to delay or eliminate a rule to let foreign entrepreneurs come here to start companies. Business leaders and organizations are quick to criticize the move.
  3. Jeff Sessions speaks to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group accused of being an anti-LGBTQ hate group.
  4. In a move to restore some of the protections for workers that one of Trump’s executive orders rescinded, the House unanimously passes a nondiscrimination bill.
  5. A federal judge in Hawaii rules that the administration’s definition of bona fide relationships in regard to the travel ban is too narrow. He ruled that the definition includes broader family ties, like grandparents, grandchildren, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins of people in the U.S.
  6. Trump shortens his requirement for the border wall from 2,000 miles to just 900, and says he wants it to be somewhat transparent so we can see people on other side throwing over bags of drugs. We don’t want Americans getting hit on the head by bags of drugs.
  7. The number of bullying incidents where the bully uses Trump’s words and slogans continues to rise in schools. The incidents are primarily based on religious or racial prejudice.
  8. Trump and some of his aides are working with two conservative senators (Tom Cotton and David Perdue) to draft legislation drastically curbing legal immigration. The legislation would cut legal immigration in half. Why is this important? Because economists say that the only way Trump can achieve his predicted economic growth is if the immigrant population doubles.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A chunk of ice nearly the size of Delaware breaks off from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf. The iceberg’s water volume is about twice Lake Erie’s. I mention it because some attribute this to global warming, but scientists are still looking at whether it’s related.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The White House objects to parts of both the House and Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2018. Specifically they object to a prohibition on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) process (base closures). They also object to greater private audits of the Pentagon.
  2. In Senate testimony, Janet Yellen says, “I believe we have done a great deal since the financial crisis to strengthen the financial system and to make it more resilient.” She also indicates that some of the recent rollbacks passed by the House could lead to another crisis. She’s willing to consider changes to the regulations though.

Elections:

  1. The DoJ sends a letter to all states requesting information about voter rolls and related processes. States take this to indicate that the DoJ is looking to purge voter rolls and roll back some portions of the National Voter Registration Act, which sought to streamline the process of registering and make it easier for eligible voters.
  2. After running up against a slew of legal challenges, Trump’s voter fraud commission tells states not to send them any of the information they requested for now.
  3. The White House publishes all the comments they’ve received so far on the voter fraud commission’s request for information on a government website. The comments weren’t vetted and the now-public information includes commenters’ names, emails, addresses, and more. Some are pretty profane and some include links to porn.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The spin about Trump’s slow nomination process is giving me whiplash. Democrats have requested cloture on many more Trump nominees than were requested for Obama’s. But Trump is also way behind in nominating candidates, and often sends them over without the correct paperwork.
  2. Trump has an off-the-record talk with reporters on air force one, but then wonders why it wasn’t covered, so it becomes on the record.
  3. Paul Ryan puts the kibosh on holding any more townhalls, saying they’re just becoming screamfests.
  4. The FCC gives phone companies leeway to jack phone rates for prisoners, which were capped under Obama. Prisoners now have to pay more to phone home.
  5. Christopher Wray took questions in the Senate around his confirmation as FBI director to replace Comey.
  6. Trump’s personal attorney responded to an email from a critic with a series of profanity-laced emails.
  7. Both Mike Pence and Justin Trudeau join the governors meeting in Providence, RI. Trudeau is the first foreign head of state to attend, likely because renegotiations for NAFTA are about to begin.
  8. Highlighting the tepid relationship between AZ Senator Jeff Flake’s and the White House, the White House meets with three possible challengers to his seat in next year’s election. Trump isn’t afraid to bring in the big guns against lawmakers who disagree with him.
  9. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, our most powerful lobbying group, is not only losing power, but some of its largest members consider pulling out. Members disagree on a number of issues facing us right now.

Polls:

  1. Since 2015, Republicans who have a positive view of education has dropped from 54% to 36%. 58% of Republican say colleges and universities have a negative effect on the U.S.
  2. 54% of Americans think Trump did something wrong or illegal in regard to Russia. 58% think one of his campaign members did. 67% think Russia’s 2016 hacking poses a future threat.
  3. 82% of Americans say large businesses, lobbyists, the wealthy, and Wall Street have too much power in D.C. 75% say people like themselves don’t have enough power, and another 3% say people like themselves DO have too much power. Who are these altruistic 3%?
  4. An Iowa poll puts Trumps disapproval rating at 59%.

 

Week 23 in Trump

Posted on July 3, 2017 in Politics, Trump

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

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

Here’s what happened this week in Trump:

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Week 22 in Trump

Posted on June 26, 2017 in Politics, Trump

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

Russian Investigation:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Week 21 in Trump

Posted on June 19, 2017 in Politics, Trump

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

The big news this week was, of course, the shooting at the baseball field. Republican or Democrat, those were our elected representatives just out there doing their thing, and suddenly finding themselves sitting ducks at the hands of one lone shooter. Had Scalise not been there, I don’t even want to think about how much worse this could’ve been. It inspired Trump to give a unifying speech, and we saw the best of him and Melania that day.

Maybe we can all just try to be a little bit nicer, to stop believing BS conspiracy theories and propaganda, and to understand the other side better even if we still disagree.

Here’s a little inside look from Politico that gives me hope that things in D.C. aren’t as bad as they sometimes sound:

“Capitol Hill reporters were shaken up [by the shootings], as well. First of all, dozens of reporters work in the Capitol every day. And unlike the White House — which regularly dumps all over reporters and decries their work product as phony — lawmakers on the Hill are generally cordial with journalists in the Capitol and respect the job we do. We spend years covering lawmakers up close and oftentimes develop an easy rapport with people like Scalise — savvy pols who successfully make their way up the leadership ladder. Scalise shows up at off-the-record happy hours for reporters at the annual Republican retreat. His office, like others, throws cocktail receptions to get to become better acquainted with Capitol Hill reporters. That doesn’t mean the relationship isn’t adversarial at times — it most definitely is. It means building a personal relationship — getting to know each other as human beings — is important to both sides. We know Scalise, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer as politicians, but most of us have had many occasions to talk to them on a personal level, as well.”

Russia:

  1. A district court judge orders Jeff Sessions to make his clearance form public. This is the form that should’ve listed his contacts with Russian officials.
  2. Rumors abound that Trump is considering firing special prosecutor Mueller. Trump’s representatives in the media start discrediting Mueller, even those who previously called Mueller a superb choice (which is most of them, but I’m looking at you, Newt Gingrich). They’re likely just testing the waters while giving Trump plausible deniability.
  3. The investigation into Russian hackers discovers that the hackers tapped 39 states in their hacking efforts. They breached campaign finance data and voter data, and they tried to change or delete information in at least one voter database.
  4. Jeff Sessions testifies in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, but doesn’t reveal much except for that he has a pretty lousy memory. He defended himself heartily, refused to answer questions about conversations with Trump (citing a non-existent guideline), contradicted himself a few times, and used “I don’t recall” throughout most of the hearing.
  5. An American lobbyist for Russian entities contradicts Sessions’ testimony, saying that he himself attended two dinners with Sessions and Republican foreign policy officials.
  6. Some Democrats call for Sessions to step down, saying that his refusal to appear before the Judiciary Committee indicates that the Russia probe is preventing him from doing his job.
  7. Special Counsel Mueller interviews senior intelligence officials for more information about whether Trump attempted to obstruct justice. His group also starts looking into whether Trump associates committed any financial crimes. The focus of the Russia investigation has been mostly about Russia meddling in our elections; but since Comey’s firing, the focus seems to be expanding.
  8. So to recap, here’s what Mueller’s investigating: 1) Russia meddling in the election, 2) possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, 3) possible obstruction of justice by Trump, and 4) possible financial crimes around any of the above. The House committee might also investigate the obstruction question, but the Senate committee is leaving it to Mueller.
  9. Trump associates who are being investigated for financial and business dealings now include Jared Kushner as well as Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page.
  10. Trump acknowledges in a tweet that he’s under investigation in the Russia probe for firing Comey, and seemed to blame Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein for what he calls a “witch hunt.” Later in the week, one of Trump’s lawyers walks that back, saying Trump is NOT under investigation for obstruction. But that was after he complained that Trump WAS being investigated for firing Comey even though the DOJ had recommended it.
  11. Rosenstein faces pressure to recuse himself from the Russia investigation after the above tweet, and he acknowledges it could happen. This would definitely be unprecedented.
  12. Rosenstein urges caution about believing information coming from unnamed sources.
  13. Trump’s long-time personal attorney, Michael Cohen, retains a lawyer for himself.
  14. Alexis Navalny, Russia’s opposition leader, is arrested just before an anti-corruption protest and receives a 30-day sentence for illegally staging anti-government rallies. Tens of thousands of Russians join the protest across the country. Side note: Navalny will likely run against Putin in the next election.
  15. Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak hosts Washington insiders and diplomats to celebrate Russia Day. He seems to be trying to mend frayed relations between our countries, handing out pamphlets that talk about our close relationship, including this: “As an American, I love Russia because if not for Russia, there may not have been a United States of America.”
  16. Paul Manafort continues to try to lure business partners with promises of access to Trump.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Maryland and D.C. attorneys general sue Trump for his failure to divest sufficiently of his businesses, saying that it violates the emoluments clause.
  2. Almost 200 Democratic members of congress also sue Trump for violations of the emoluments clause.
  3. In a similar case in NY brought by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the DOJ argues that Trump can accept payments from foreign governments and also that CREW has no standing to sue.
  4. The Standing Rock Sioux get a small win in court when a federal judge rules that the Army Corps of Engineers didn’t perform an adequate environmental study. The judge didn’t rule that the pipe be shut down—that decision is pending another hearing—so it’s a mixed result for the tribe.
  5. Preet Bharara, fired NY attorney general, says his initial meetings with Trump were strikingly similar to the meetings described by Comey, and that they made him uncomfortable as well.
  6. Jeff Sessions wants to prosecute medical marijuana providers, and asks leaders in congress to remove federal protections for them.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump calls the House healthcare bill “mean.” The same healthcare bill that he lauded in a Rose Garden ceremony last month. The same healthcare bill that he pushed so hard for the House to pass. This slip will likely undo much of the goodwill between him and the representatives who put themselves on the line to get the bill passed.
  2. Six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS resign, saying Trump doesn’t care about the issue. The government website on HIV was taken down after the inauguration and has yet to be replaced, and Trump hasn’t appointed anyone to lead the council.
  3. The Senate committee tasked with creating a Senate version of the ACA replacement bill continues to hold the contents of the bill in secrecy, though senators have said it includes about 80% of what the House bill does (yes, the same bill that would drop 23 million Americans from coverage and grant waivers to states so insurance companies don’t have to provide full coverage and so they can charge higher premiums to older people and people with pre-existing conditions).
  4. Even Senate Republicans are critical of the secrecy and lack of transparency in the healthcare bill process, and caution against rushing it to a vote.

International:

  1. After threatening to dump the entire agreement, Trump rolls back two of Obama’s changes to the Cuba policy, reinstating restrictions on travel and on doing business with military-owned companies there. It’s causing confusion and worry on the island, especially in light of the pre-election rhetoric. Even Republicans criticize this decision, though Marco Rubio was pushing for it.
  2. Theresa May apologizes to the U.K.’s members of parliament for the recent election mess.
  3. Trump gives the Pentagon authority to set the number of troops in Afghanistan. They now have this authority in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and already plan to send 4,000 new troops to Afghanistan.
  4. Officials say the Turkish guards who attacked protestors outside the Turkish embassy in D.C. a few weeks ago will be charged with misdemeanors.
  5. On the heels of last week’s confusion over whether the U.S. approves or disapproves of four Mideast nations cutting off ties with Qatar, US authorizes the sale over $21 billion in US weapons to Qatar.
  6. Another van drives into a crowd of people in London. This time, it’s a man who says he wants to kill Muslims who drives into a group of Muslims as they were leaving a mosque after finishing prayers during their holy month of Ramadan. Ten are injured and one killed. A suspect is arrested and it’s being handled as a terrorist attack.
  7. The U.S. shoots down a Syrian bomber that dropped bombs on a Syrian militia that is helping us fight ISIS, a move Russia condemns as a “flagrant violation of international law.” Russia says they’ll treat our planes and drones as targets if they’re in the area again and is suspending an agreement that minimizes in-flight incidences in Syrian airspace.
  8. Russian forces claim to have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, but the U.S. hasn’t been able to confirm (it’s not the first time he’s been reported dead).
  9. Otto Warmbier, who was detained in North Korea for over a year for allegedly trying to steal a propaganda banner, returns home in a coma. He’s apparently been in that state for over a year. Late Update: Otto passed away this morning.
  10. A Navy warship collides with a Philippine container ship off the shore of Japan killing seven U.S. sailors.
  11. The Australian Prime Minister is caught on tape making fun of Trump, and later apologizes.

Legislation:

  1. With almost complete bipartisan support, the Senate approves a bill on new sanctions for Russia (over their election meddling) and Iran (over human rights violations and support of terrorists). In an indication that lawmakers are concerned about Trump’s relationship with Russia, the bill requires a congressional review to ease any current sanctions against Russia. The bill also penalizes the hackers who have been carrying out cyberattacks for the Russian government.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. In the second such loss, the ninth circuit court rules against Trump’s travel ban, refusing to lift the stay and calling the ban discriminatory.
  2. The 90-day period ending the travel ban would’ve ended this month had the ban been allowed.
  3. The Commerce Department updates its equal opportunity employment statement by removing gender identity and sexual orientation from the list of protected groups.
  4. Trump issues a memorandum to continue Obama-era programs to protect Dreamers from deportation and to continue providing them with work permits. He makes no promises about the long-term fate of the program though, and formally ends the process started by Obama to protect Dreamers’ parents.
  5. Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs HB 3859 into law, which allows child welfare groups, like adoption and foster care agencies, to deny qualified people who want to adopt a child or care for a child in need. Under this law, these agencies can discriminate against LGBTQ couples, interfaith couples, single parents, someone who was previously divorced… basically any reason they can come up with as a religious objection.
  6. In a series of raids, ICE detains dozens of Iraqi Christians who are now at risk of deportation to a country where they will likely be persecuted. The affected communities are angered because Trump promised to protect them from persecution in the Mideast.
  7. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights unanimously approves a two-year investigation into how budget and staffing levels affect civil rights offices and how they affect those offices’ ability to enforce civil rights laws. The bipartisan commission voiced concern that marginalized groups are at greater risk of discrimination. They’re also concerned about Betsy DeVos’s refusal to guarantee civil rights to minority groups in schools.
  8. A jury acquitted the police officer who killed Philando Castile last year, leading to large protests in St. Paul, MN. Castile told the officer he had a gun and a license for it, but the officer shot him anyway.
  9. U.S. Park Rangers find a noose hanging outside the National Gallery of Art in D.C., the third one found in recent weeks. The other two were at the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Hirshhorn Museum.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Trump administration rescinded rules protecting whales and sea turtles that get caught up in fishing nets off the West Coast. Ironically, the fishing industry proposed the rules in the first place, and didn’t ask for them to be removed.
  2. Michigan’s attorney general charges five Michigan officials with involuntary manslaughter around the Flint water crisis. Over a dozen people have been charged in this investigation.
  3. The Department of Energy closed the Office of International Climate and Technology, which works on climate change abroad and helps provide technical advice to other nations on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  4. Members from both sides of the aisle of the House Appropriations Committee told Scott Pruitt that Trump’s proposed cuts to the EPA would not be approved. Nearly every member opposed reductions to environmental programs and most agreed that climate change still needs to be addressed. Note: This is a bipartisan, Republican-led committee. And they think climate change needs to be addressed.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Fed raises interest rates again, a sign that the economy continues to do well. Jobs and wages continue their steady growth, and the economy has grown for eight years straight.
  2. Trump signs an executive order promoting apprenticeships as a way for people to get the skills they need for the new economy. He wants to increase the number to more than 10 times what we have currently, but he’s not allocating much more money toward the effort than Obama did in 2016.
  3. The Department of Agriculture finalizes a China trade deal that has been in process since last year. It allows U.S. beef exports into China, promotes U.S. dairy in China, and allows us to import chickens from China.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump starts the week off with a meeting of his cabinet members who douse him in praise… until they start to realize that this is being recorded for posterity. It was a very weird moment. For comparison, here’s a tweet from Chris Lu: “I ran 16 Cabinet meetings during Obama’s 1st term. Our Cabinet was never told to sing Obama’s praises. He wanted candid advice not adulation.”
  2. Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) says the Trump administration is worse than the Obama administration at delivering on congressional requests for documents and information. And if you remember, that was a very big complaint about Obama.
  3. File this under “Why Wasn’t This Done Sooner?” Trump officially orders the government to stop reporting on the Y2K bug… which didn’t live up to it’s apocalyptic expectations 17 years ago. Though the reporting requirement wasn’t removed until now, in practice most offices were ignoring this requirement anyway.
  4. A court sentences Greg Gianforte to community service, anger management, and a small fine for assaulting a reporter the day before he was elected.
  5. Washington is extremely shaken this week after a lone gunman attacks Republican members of congress while they practice for a charity baseball game. The gunman is killed and five others are injured, including House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, who was shot in the hip and has been in critical condition, and lobbyist Matt Mika, who was shot in the chest and has also been in critical condition. Two staffers and a D.C. police officer were also injured. Interestingly, lawmakers had expressed concerns about safety the previous week. They’ve felt fairly safe in Washington until now.
  6. The shooting is followed by creepy email threats to Representatives. One of them read: “One down, 216 to go… You sold your soul.”
  7. The charity game goes on as planned, and draws a bigger crowd than ever.
  8. The shooting spurred a lot of reaching out across the aisle. When they heard of the shooting, Democrats practicing on a different field huddled in the dugout to pray for their colleagues on the other side. Members of Congress did media interviews with members of the other side. When they won the game, the Democrats gave the Republicans the trophy to put in Scalises’s room while he recovers.
  9. And then someone blames Bernie and someone blames Obama, and the back and forth starts up again.
  10. A congressional hearing on gun legislation is postponed in the wake of the above shooting. While the measure in question is primarily about recreational shooting, it would make it easier to buy silencers and to transport guns across state lines, and would also ease restrictions on armor-piercing bullets.
  11. On the same day as the ballpark shooting, a gunman opened fire in a UPS facility, killing three and then himself.
  12. Cindy McCain (John’s wife) accepts a position at the state department after being aggressively recruited by Trump. She’ll focus on stopping human trafficking, refugee issues, and humanitarian aid.
  13. The FDA announces that the “added sugar” requirements for nutritional labels are delayed indefinitely, the third such change to Obama’s labeling requirements. These are the changes championed by Michelle Obama, indicating that the effort to erase the Obama presidency doesn’t end with Barack but also extends to Michelle.
  14. Trump appoints Lynne Patton to lead the HUD department in New York and New Jersey. If you don’t recognize the name, it’s probably because she is an event planner for the Trump organization. She claims to have a law degree from Quinnipiac, but the school says she doesn’t.
  15. Trump blocks a slew of Twitter followers who regularly troll him and make him mad, including a veteran’s group.

Polls:

  1. 45% of Americans polled trust Comey to tell the truth compared to 32% who trust Trump.
  2. 50% of CEOs polled give Trump an F for his performance so far, and 21% give him a D. Just 1% give him an A. Over 65% disapprove of pulling out of the Paris agreement, 75% say his budget isn’t sound, and 86% are worried he’s minimizing the impact of Russian influence.
  3. Trump hits the 60% disapproval mark in the Gallup poll.

Week 20 in Trump

Posted on June 12, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Attribution: Getty Images

Sorry for the long post but a lot happened again this week—though the news was all about Comey, all the time.

“Lordy, I hope there are tapes.” The White House won’t confirm the existence of the tapes Trump tweeted about, but if they do exist we could get through this a lot faster.

Comey:

  1. The Great America Alliance PAC takes out an attack ad against Comey the day before he testifies. The White House tries to undermine Comey and the RNC mobilizes its base by issuing an email: “Talking Points and Digital Packet for Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing.” Tip: This is not a court of public opinion.
  2. Trump’s lawyers urge him not to tweet during Comey’s testimony, and Trump’s staff keeps him busy throughout most of the hearing.
  3. Comey testifies in front of a Senate committee (as if you didn’t know). Half of the committee asks about the Russia probe and alleged interference by Trump while the other half asks about Clinton’s email investigation. Main takeaways:
    • Trump wasn’t personally under investigation at the time of Comey’s firing, though the issue of collusion is being taken up by Special Prosecutor Mueller.
    • Trump asked Comey to take it easy on Flynn in a conversation where he asked everyone but Comey to leave the room. Mueller is looking into this.
    • The day after the above, Comey asked Sessions not to leave him alone with Trump, saying private interactions were inappropriate.
    • After Trump tweeted that he had tapes of their conversations, Comey leaked his own memo about the Flynn conversation in order to force the appointment of a special prosecutor. He has since provided copies of all his memoranda to Mueller. Note that this is not illegal but is also not consistent with FBI employment agreements.
    • Sessions never questioned why Trump kicked everyone but Comey out of the Oval Office for a private meeting.
    • Comey was so worried about misunderstandings and lies in his conversations with Trump, he made copious notes of all of them.
    • Comey suspected beforehand that Sessions would have to recuse himself and also didn’t seem to trust Sessions to keep sensitive information from the White House. The only way Comey would have known this beforehand is if Sessions’ name had come up in the investigation.
    • Comey believes Trump when he says he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation. Comey also accused the administration of defaming both him and the FBI as part of that firing.
    • Neither Sessions nor Rosenstein expressed dissatisfaction with Comey’s job performance prior to the letters they sent to Trump (at Trump’s request).
    • Russia interfered in our elections and will continue to do so.
    • There is still a lot of information Comey can’t talk about.
    • Comey said an article published last February in the NY Times was largely inaccurate, though the NY Times stands by their reporting and much of the substance of the story has already been shown to be true.
  4. Paul Ryan defends Trump’s actions with Comey, saying “he’s new to this.”
  5. Trump basically says Comey lied under oath and that he’d go under oath to dispute Comey’s testimony. But he also says that Comey vindicated him… so either Comey lied under oath or he cleared Trump.
  6. Trump calls Comey’s testimony “an excuse by the Democrats, who lost an election they shouldn’t have lost,” though Comey’s a lifelong Republican. And also Republicans control congress and the committees investigating Russia ties.
  7. In his rebuttal to Comey’s version of events, Trump’s lawyer gets the timeline wrong for what the NY Times reported and when they reported it in relation to the release of Comey’s memo.
  8. Both sides are claiming victory here, or as was heard over the weekend “Comey Poisons Trump: Trump Claims Victory.”
  9. Representative Al Green (D-Texas) begins writing articles of impeachment against Trump for his firing of Comey. #premature

Russia:

  1. A classified document shows that Russian military intelligence ran cyberattacks against voting system software vendors. They used the hacked data to send spear-phishing emails to over 100 local election officials before last year’s elections. They targeted multiple states and got into at least one voter database.
  2. The above information was leaked to The Intercept. The Feds arrest the suspected leaker, Reality Winner, confirming the existence of the document.
  3. It turns out that the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee, which recently issued subpoenas to learn more about the unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, had also themselves asked to unmask the names of organizations and individuals last year. Devin Nunes signed off on all subpoenas.
  4. Putin denies that he has compromising information on Trump.
  5. This was under International last week, but all things come around to Russia. After four nations—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, and Bahrain—cut ties with Qatar, the FBI joins the Qatar government in investigating the involvement of Russian hackers. They suspect the hackers planted a false story with Qatar’s state news agency, launching a Mideast crisis.
  6. Trump is smart to get private counsel from outside the White House. When Ken Starr was investigating Clinton, he got attorney/client privilege thrown out when it came to conversations with White House counsel, setting a precedent that could still be used.
  7. Intelligence Director Dan Coats corroborates Comey’s story that Trump requested that he lay off Flynn in the Russia probe. Officials corroborated that story in March. In testimony, though, both Coats and Rogers say they’ve never felt pressured to do something immoral, illegal, or inappropriate. They both refuse to discuss specifics of conversations between them and Trump, and refuse to answer questions directly.
  8. The Kremlin turns its attention to our military members and veterans by ratcheting up hacks, trolling, fake news, and propaganda directed at them. Russians set up fake Facebook accounts posing as attractive young women to friend service members and target the DoD on Twitter for phishing attacks.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Once again, the Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling that threw out North Carolina state legislative district lines that discriminate against voters based on race. This is the latest in a string of rulings against NC’s highly gerrymandered districts. Literally, NC is the poster child for how not to run a democratic republic.
  2. Trump is frustrated with AG Sessions because Session’s recused himself from the Russia investigations and because Trump thinks that the DOJ should’ve stuck with the first travel ban, not the “watered down, politically correct” [though still unconstitutional] version. Sessions had apparently offered to step down at one point.
  3. The Justice Department considers major changes to the H-1B visa program, including forcing companies to advertise jobs online first and hire U.S. workers first, as well as reducing cap and duration of visas.
  4. Trump nominates Christopher Wray to FBI chief. The law firm where Wray works represents Rosneft, the Russian oil company at the center of the Russia probe.

Healthcare:

  1. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) wants a Senate vote on the ACA replacement bill by the July 4 recess. He’s bypassing procedure and trying to schedule a vote without going through committee hearings. Props to Claire McCaskill for calling him out on this. For the ACA, there were committee hearings, amendments, and a public comment period.
  2. Senators don’t sound positive, and word is McConnell just wants this done. It’s possible he’ll bring up the vote whether it can pass or not, just so they can move on to tax reform.
  3. The healthcare committee starts sending the bill piecemeal to the CBO.
  4. McConnell seems optimistic he has the votes needed to pass a replacement, but the bill is still being modified to accommodate various factions, including moves to accommodate moderates that will likely alienate more conservative Republicans.
  5. Meanwhile, five states—California,New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts—all have single payer legislation floating around.
  6. The Department of Health and Human Services signals a reversal of an Obama-era rule that prevented nursing homes from forcing tenants to sign an arbitration agreement as a requirement of being admitted.

International:

  1. As we learn of potential Russian hacking in the Qatar/Saudi issue, Trump takes credit for causing the situation, calling it “hard but necessary” (and apparently forgetting they’re a strong ally). He says the nations spoke to him about it before they cut ties, and that he and Tillerson agreed it was time to end funding to Qatar. Just before Trump said that, though, Tillerson asked the four nations involved to ease their blockade because it’s causing humanitarian problems for Qatar and logistics issues on our military base there. Trump later offers to help mediate the conflict.
  2. Trump doubles down on his criticism of London’s mayor after being called out for taking the mayor’s words out of context, tweeting: “Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement.” Londoners love Khan. This would be like Tony Blair calling Rudy Giuliani pathetic after 9/11.
  3. Mayor Khan suggests that the U.K. should cancel Trump’s state visit.
  4. Trump puts his visit to England on hold amid worries of protests.
  5. A man attacks a police officer with a hammer at Notre Dame. It’s being looked at as a terror attack.
  6. The death toll in the Kabul bombing from the previous week rises to over 150.
  7. Terrorist attacks in the parliament building and Ayatollah’s mausoleum in Iran kill at least 12 and wound dozens. ISIS claims responsibility, though Iran points the finger at Saudi Arabia and the U.S. The White House sends a message of support, but then closes out by blaming Iran for sponsoring terrorism.
  8. It turns out no real deal-making happened on Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia. According to the Brookings Institution, there are no deals or contracts, just letters of interest or intent. The Senate hasn’t received anything to review, and so far all the deals began during the Obama administration.
  9. Theresa May’s Tory party suffered a setback in a snap election, losing their parliamentary majority while the Labour party gained several seats. She called a snap election three years early to bolster her negotiating power with the EU over Brexit, but now it looks like her position is weakened and she’ll have to form a coalition.
  10. Unlike May’s party, French President Macron’s party is about to win a very large majority of parliamentary seats. Round one of votes was this week; candidates who didn’t win outright go on to round two next week.
  11. US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces break into Raqa, an ISIS stronghold in Syria.
  12. The U.S. provides military air assistance to Philippine troops fighting off a Muslim militant siege in Malawi.
  13. The U.S. launches an airstrike in Somalia, killing 8 in an action that was only possible because Trump changed the designation of that part of Somalia to a war zone.
  14. The Senate confirms former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown as Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, who credits former opponent Elizabeth Warren with moving his nomination through Senate.
  15. Romanian President Ioannis contradicts Trump in a joint press conference. When asked about including Romania in our Visa Waiver Program (VWP), Trump says they didn’t talk about it, but Ioannis says they did and that it’s very important to Romanians.

Legislation:

  1. After nearly half a year, the only notable legislative achievements of the administration are rollbacks to existing legislation and regulations.
  2. Congress looks at Trump’s push to privatize air traffic control through a non-profit company, which has bipartisan support and has already been done in several European countries with success. However, this has been around before and not passed Congress.
  3. It’s looking possible that Congress might raise the debt ceiling and continue funding Planned Parenthood without repealing the ACA, reforming taxes, or passing an infrastructure bill.
  4. Senators from both parties push for a vote on harsher sanctions against Russia, making it harder to rollback any current sanctions.
  5. The House votes along partisan lines to roll back parts of Dodd Frank, passing a bill named the Financial Choice Act. They’re calling it a jobs bill, but it really gives banks more freedom to pull the same risky crap that led to the financial crisis. The Senate has a bipartisan effort going to rewrite the regulations as well.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Kellyanne Conway’s husband sends out a series of tweets critical of Trump’s tweets about the travel ban, saying it only hurts his chances of winning the lawsuit.
  2. This isn’t really new news, but it’s in the news this week. School kids often quote Trump to bully classmates, with many reported incidents of white students bullying Latino, Middle Eastern, Asian, black, or Jewish classmates using the same rhetoric as Trump. How do you convince kids that even though the president of the United States does it, it’s not OK?
  3. Anti-Sharia marches around the country are met with counter-protestors of similar sizes. We need better education on what Sharia is and isn’t.
  4. It’s Pride month, but annual parades around the country morph into a mixture of pride and resistance, as hundreds of thousands of marchers show up not to just support LGBTQ rights, but also to resist Trump’s agenda.

Climate/EPA:

  1. While discussing our withdrawal from the Paris agreement, Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, says, ”I think the rest of the world applauded what we did in Paris.” First, this is the EPA. And also, no, much of the world chastised us out loud.
  2. The second highest ranking U.S. diplomat at the Beijing embassy resigns in the wake of the Paris agreement withdrawal, refusing to officially notify the Chinese of our withdrawal. He was a 27-year diplomat and was acting ambassador until the new ambassador arrives. The acting ambassador to England and the ambassador to Qatar have also publicly broken with Trump.
  3. California Governor Jerry Brown takes a leadership role by meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping to discuss climate change, highlighting how Trump’s ‘America first’ policy is sidelining him on the world stage.
  4. The United States Climate Alliance expands to include 13 states representing about 35% of our economy. Ten additional governors and the mayor of D.C. express support for the Paris agreement, but have not yet joined the coalition.
  5. I don’t know whether this falls under climate or travel ban, but Trump floats the idea of putting solar panels on the wall to pay for it, since Mexico for some reason still says they won’t.
  6. Hawaii becomes the first state to enact legislation supporting the Paris agreement. Under the new law, Hawaii will measure the sea level rise and set a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases.
  7. Democratic Senators question Betsy DeVos on whether the DOE was behind the recent mailings sent out by the Heartland Institute to 300,000 science teachers about how to teach that climate change is not manmade. Interesting Fact: Heartland Institute tried to convince us smoking doesn’t have adverse health effects.
  8. A federal court gives the EPA until June 15 to justify why they should be able to pause regulations limiting methane emissions while they do a review.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump’s infrastructure briefing includes no written plan, not even bullet points.
  2. Scott Pruitt implies that almost 50,000 jobs have been created in coal since Trump took office. The actual number is 1,000; the rest are in mining in general.
  3. Kansas legislators override Governor Brownback’s veto of their tax reform bill. Kansas has been undergoing a failed experiment since 2012, working under the theory that low taxes would result in a thriving economy. But it’s done the opposite and Kansas is in a world of hurt. Even still, the state congress barely pulled enough votes together to override his veto.
  4. In the aftermath of the vote, Kris Kobach launches his run for governor on an anti-immigration platform. Kobach’s the author of the strident and much-litigated voting laws in Kansas, leading many to accuse him of voter suppression. Kobach also serves on Trump’s voter fraud committee.
  5. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin takes his first foreign trip, meeting with Canadian officials on trade, economy, and national security issues.
  6. Trump withdraws Obama-era guidance on how employees are classified; a win for business, a loss for workers being misclassified as independent contractors (which are cheaper for business than actual employees). He also withdraws guidance that made parent companies liable for labor violations by their franchises.
  7. The U.S. and Mexico avert a trade crisis by coming to an agreement over Mexican sugar exports.
  8. The DOJ ends the practice of forcing companies to make payouts to affected groups when settling law suits. For example, when cases against banks for predatory lending practices were settled, the banks had to pay reparations to affected homeowners. No more.
  9. Trump proposes charging retailers a fee for accepting food stamps, a move that will largely affect small grocers but will also generate over $2 billion over the next decade.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Frustrated by Trump’s order to only comply with information requests from Republican congressional leaders, Democratic congressional leaders consider posting all questions publicly. DHS Secretary Kelly says his department will respond to all congressional requests, regardless of who they come from.
  2. Trump blames Democrats for holding up his ambassadorship nominations, even though there aren’t enough Democrats in the Senate to block them. It turns out that while he’s tapped several nominees, he hasn’t officially submitted them to the Senate even though he selected some as far back as April.
  3. Four law firms have turned down requests to represent Trump in the Russia probe amid concerns he wouldn’t listen or wouldn’t pay.
  4. Sean Spicer says we should consider Trump’s tweets to be official statements.
  5. It appears that, while Eric Trump’s foundation started out doing good work, at some point Donald Trump decided the foundation should be billed for everything for events held at a Trump golf course. So Eric ended up funneling charity dollars back into the Trump business. This is under investigation.
  6. Newly elected Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte published an apology to the Guardian reporter he assaulted, saying his actions were unacceptable. He also donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists. He still faces legal charges, but there won’t be a civil suit.
  7. Trump headlines the luncheon kick-off event of the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s 2017 Road to Majority gathering in D.C.
  8. For all you Trey Gowdy fans, he’s the new chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee where he’ll lead oversight of the Trump administration.
  9. Melania and Barron Trump move into the White House.
  10. The Michigan Democratic Party agrees to pay a $500,000 fine for misreporting contributions raised by bingo fundraisers prior to 2014. It’s the largest fine paid for breaking campaign finance laws.
  11. Trump’s approval rating drops to near lows of 36% in the Gallup Poll and to 34% in the Quinnipiac poll.

Week 19 in Trump

Posted on June 5, 2017 in Politics, Trump, Uncategorized

The big news of the week is our withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. At an Asian security forum in Singapore, James Mattis gave a speech reiterating our support for national alliances and institutions in an effort to reassure our allies. When asked whether moves like leaving the Paris accord meant the U.S. is abandoning these alliances and institutions, here was his response (referring to a Winston Churchill quote on democracy):

“To quote a British observer of us from some years back, bear with us. Once we have exhausted all possible alternatives, the Americans will do the right thing…. So, we will still be there, and we will be there with you.”

In other words, once we’re done fucking around, we’ll start doing the right thing again.

Russia:

  1. The Russia investigation expands to include Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who is refusing to cooperate with investigations, former adviser and White House aide Boris Epshteyn, and campaign aide Michael Caputo.
  2. The Kushner investigation includes looking into why Kushner met with Sergey Gorkov, a Russian banker and associate of Putin’s. This is part of finding out why he was setting up a confidential line of communication.
  3. Trump makes moves to reopen two Russian compounds in the U.S. that Obama had closed when he expelled 50 Russian spies last fall. Trump wants to return the compounds to Russia.
  4. Putin changes his tune somewhat and says it’s possible that “patriotically minded” Russians might have been involved in last year’s email and DNC server hack, as well as in meddling in the elections. He still denies that the Russian government was involved, and adds that it could’ve been some kid sitting in their living room.
  5. The house intelligence committee issues seven new subpoenas in the Russia investigation, indicating they are ramping things up. Three of these are about the unmasking, however…
  6. …In an apparent misunderstanding of the word “recuse,” Devon Nunes, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee who “recused” himself from the Russia investigation two months ago, issues subpoenas looking for info not about Russian ties or meddling, but about the unmasking of Trump associates caught up in foreign surveillance.
  7. Almost immediately after taking office, Trump officials asked the State Department to work on lifting sanctions with Russia and returning diplomatic compounds in the U.S. to them. State Department officials were so concerned by this they began lobbying Congress to pass legislation to block it.
  8. Special Counsel Mueller’s Russia probe is expanding to include the investigation into Michael Flynn and a criminal investigation into Paul Manafort, and it could be expanded to include the DoJ’s involvement in the Comey firing.
  9. According to Mark Warner, Democrat ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, there are reports that the Kremlin paid over a thousand internet trolls to create fake anti-Clinton news stories and to use botnets to target the stories to key states. He reconfirms the hacking and selective leaks.
  10. The Russia investigations hamper Trump’s ability to fill government jobs. There are hundreds of open positions, but candidates are nervous about coming on to this administration and the people who are doing the hiring are distracted by the probe. They’ve only nominated 117 out of 559 major Senate-confirmed positions.
  11. NBC and CNN report that, according to several U.S. officials, the Russia investigations include a meeting in April of last year at the Mayflower Hotel between Trump, Sessions, Kushner and Kislyak.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A federal judge in D.C. throws out a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton brought by the parents of one of the people who lost their lives in Benghazi. The lawsuit alleges that Clinton’s use of a private email server directly resulted in the deaths, and that Clinton had called the parents liars. The judge ruled against both of these, and said about the latter, “To the contrary, the statements [made by Clinton] portray plaintiffs as normal parents, grieving over the tragic loss of their loved ones.” The parents are expected to appeal.

Healthcare:

  1. Senator John Thune says that their caucus is done with preliminary meetings and is now drafting the base language for their replacement plan for the ACA.
  2. John Cornyn promises there will be a bill by the end of July at the latest.
  3. Governors from both sides are relieved that the House healthcare bill is stalled, and voice concerns about the Senate version, specifically around block grants. Senate Republicans want to solicit governor input for their version of the bill.
  4. Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.) says it’s not likely that they’ll get a healthcare deal at all, and Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) says he doubts they can pass a healthcare bill before the August recess.
  5. The California Senate passes a statewide single-payer healthcare bill, which now moves on to the Assembly for approval. Funding is only partially worked out, so it’ll be up to the Assembly to plan that before approving.
  6. Trump says we should spend more on healthcare to make our system the best, but his budget cuts anywhere from $800 billion to $1.4 trillion from Medicaid and doesn’t request any additional healthcare spending.

International:

  1. A car bomb went off during rush hour in Kabul, killing an estimated 90 people and injuring over 400. This happened in what should be a highly secure area near the embassies.
  2. Concerns about security arise on news that Trump hands out his cell phone number to world leaders and tells them they can call him directly. On an unsecured line. Without the meeting preparation needed to hold an informed discussion.
  3. French President Macron took some hard lines with Putin in their meeting this week, and called him out on Russian interference in the French election (if you remember, there was a last minute document leak after the media blackout). While Macron took a firm stance with Putin, Trump has been taking a softer stance with Putin.
  4. A gunman attempts to rob a Manila resort and casino, leaving 37 dead. This was not a terrorist attack, but a lone gunman, though Trump calls it a terrorist attack in his Paris agreement speech.
  5. Trump announces that the U.S. Embassy in Israel will remain in Tel Aviv for now instead of relocating to Jerusalem.
  6. A group of three assailants drive a van into pedestrians on London Bridge, and then jump out and begin stabbing people, leaving at least seven dead and 48 injured. Police kill all three assailants and neutralize the threat within eight minutes. Later police arrest 12 in connection with the terrorist attacks. This attack comes a week before the elections and is the third recent attack (though the attacks are said to be not connected).
  7. Trump and other world leaders express condolences and support to England, but then Trump criticizes London’s mayor in a tweet, taking his words out of context. He also tries to use this as support for his travel ban.
  8. Putin says that if Sweden becomes a part of NATO, Russia will consider it a threat and will think about how to eliminate that threat.
  9. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties with Qatar for sponsoring terrorist groups, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood. This could make things a little harder for the U.S. in the war against ISIS since our military operations are spread throughout the region.
  10. H.R. McMaster and Gary Cohn pen an op-ed where they claim Trump expressed support for NATO’s article 5, though he never said that in his speech.

Legislation:

  1. Trump calls for changes to senatorial proceedings to allow things like healthcare and tax reform to pass with a simple majority instead of the currently required 60 votes. Senate Republicans are using reconciliation to pass these through, which doesn’t require 60 votes.
  2. The California Senate passes a bill that would require presidential candidates to release their tax returns in order to be allowed on the primary ballot. The bill moves to the Assembly.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The tourism industry estimates that international tourism will drop by an additional 800,000 in Southern California over the next three years. International tourism in Southern California dropped 16% from the first quarter of 2016.
  2. The Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to allow the travel ban to go ahead, filing a petition to overturn the appeals courts rulings blocking the ban.
  3. The administration calls for tougher visa vetting, including social media checks.
  4. A federal court rules that a 17-year-old transgender student can use the men’s bathroom. Earlier in the year, the administration overturned the bathroom rule that allowed students to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender they identify with. This ruling is consistent with the previous administration’s stance that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination allows students to use the bathroom consistent with their self-identity.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump indicates he’s planning to pull out of the Paris agreement, but tries to keep us all in suspense like on a reality TV show. When he does announce the withdrawal, his speech is peppered with much misinformation. Critics say it weakens efforts to combat climate change and weakens our global standing. Proponents say it will save us money and now the world can’t tell us what to do… except this whole thing was our idea.
  2. Trump opts for the withdrawal process laid out in the agreement, which could take nearly four years.
  3. In his statement on the withdrawal, Trump issues a few untruths:
    • He called the attack at the Manila casino a terrorist attack, though it turned out to be a robbery gone very bad.
    • He said the tax bill is progressing through Congress, though there is no tax bill.
    • He uses incorrect statistics about slowing the increase in global temperature with numbers from a draft done before the deal was even signed. The actual reduction was expected to be between 0.6 and 1.1 °C.
    • He says that India could double their coal production, which is technically true. However that also means we could do what we want to since the accord is nonbinding. Also, both India and China are on track to exceed their promises to the agreement.
    • He says we’ll ″begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.″ Uh, Europe says no thanks– not renegotiable. According to Christiana Figueres, a former UN official who worked on the deal, “You cannot renegotiate individually. It’s a multilateral agreement. No one country can unilaterally change the conditions.”
    • Figueres also says Trump shows a lack of understanding of how international agreements work. Apparently we can’t even submit our intention to exit the accord until November 2019, and then the process would take a year.
    • Trump says the agreement puts draconian burdens on the U.S. and that we’ll have massive legal liability if we stay in. But an agreement can’t really be both nonbinding and impose draconian burdens, and a nonbinding agreement can’t have legal implications. The point of the agreement is to use public accountability.
    • He says China and India are the two largest emitters. Actually, China and the U.S. are, but no one tops the U.S. in per capita emissions; China’s are about half ours per capita.
    • There are more misstatements–I can’t get into them all here. Here are a few links: factcheck.org, politifact, WaPo.
  4. Days before Trump announces his decision on the Paris agreement, Russia expresses support for the agreement.
  5. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a Fox News correspondent, says Trump called her the morning of the decision for advice.
  6. Tesla’s Elon Musk and Disney’s Bob Iger leave Trump’s advisory council due to the exit from the climate deal. The CEOs of 25 leading tech companies signed a letter against the withdrawal. Even Exxon Mobile thinks we should keep our seat at that table.
  7. Major companies say the accord would’ve helped create jobs in clean energy fields.
  8. Three states, 80 universities, more than 200 mayors, and more than 100 businesses vow to remain in the Paris agreement and to adopt and uphold the commitments to our original goals by working together to create a clean energy economy.
  9. More Americans say the U.S. should stay in the Paris agreement by a ratio of more than 5 to 1.
  10. Michael Bloomberg says he’ll cover the cost of the U.S. portion of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change to the tune of about $15 million.
  11. In response to our withdrawal from the agreement, Macron expresses his says his country still supports the American people and our efforts against climate change. He invites scientists to his country if their research is cut here, inviting brain drain from the U.S.
  12. The 2017 hurricane season starts with no one at the helms of FEMA and NOAA. Trump nominated someone to head FEMA a month ago, but is waiting on confirmation. He hasn’t appointed anyone to head NOAA.
  13. A California court rules against Monsanto and says California can label RoundUp weed killer with cancer warnings.
  14. The California state Senate passes a bill guiding the state to get its energy from 100% renewable sources by 2045. The bill moves on to the Assembly.
  15. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke starts a review process on opening the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling. The review should take a month and will include input from locals. The results of opening ANWR are unpredictable, with the high cost of exploration and drilling in the difficult terrain and the low cost of oil with the current glut.
  16. The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) goes live.

Budget/Economy/Trade:

  1. The unemployment rate continues its steady decline to 4.3% last month even though job growth continues to slow, likely because we’re near full employment.
  2. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he’s open to completing a trade agreement with the EU, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
  3. It appears that the relationship between corporate American and Trump is cooling off, with fewer CEOs and other executives meeting in the White House and future meetings falling apart. Many business titans criticize the decision to leave the Paris accord saying it will hurt us economically and take us out of a leadership role.

Miscellaneous:

  1. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this: Trump tweets ″Despite the negative press covfefe…″ Social media hilarity ensues.
  2. The directors of the CIA and National Intelligence worry that because of the casual nature of security briefings, Trump doesn’t retain all the intelligence he gets. Briefings are very visually driven (charts, graphs, pictures) as opposed to data-driven.
  3. Continuing to make violence more acceptable, a Texas legislator threatens to ″put a bullet″ in the head of a colleague after a disagreement over an illegal immigrant rally.
  4. For the first time, a U.S. test of the ground-based system for intercepting ballistic missiles completes successfully.
  5. The White House finally makes public the ethics waivers granted so far to staffers, some of whom were lobbyists and some whose current position overlaps with work they did in the private sector. The waivers exempt them from certain ethics rules. Waivers were granted to Kellyanne Conway, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon. The number of waivers granted by the administration so far is equal to the total number granted by Obama’s administration over 8 years.
  6. Bannon’s waiver allows him to maintain his relationship with Breitbart.
  7. The White House is complying with Senator Burr’s request for all copies of the 2014 report on torture. This report is the result of a years-long investigation and it details CIA methods for detention and interrogation, including water boarding and sleep deprivation. Burr’s request has lead some to believe that Congress wants this information to disappear.
  8. The Secret Service is short agents, and in an effort to bulk up their ranks, they’re relaxing their drug policies for new hires. Agents have been working double-duty to keep up with the president’s far-flung, jet-set family.
  9. This is news to me, but not new this week: Richard and Rebekah Mercer pushed for these positions in the Trump campaign: Steve Bannon as CEO, Kellyanne Conway as Manager, and David Bossie as Deputy Manager. This led even William Kristol to dub it the ″merger of the Trump campaign with the kooky right.” Among other things, Mercer is the multi-million dollar investor in Cambridge Analytica, a firm used by both the Trump and Brexit campaigns to pinpoint and target demographics using ″secret psychological methods.″
  10. Jared Kushner gets in own intelligence briefing every morning before Trump gets his.
  11. The White House has been ignoring oversight requests from Democratic legislators, but this week they make it official by telling federal agencies to ignore the requests.
  12. This isn’t newsworthy for any reason other than the hypocrisy of Trump’s (and the right’s) criticism of Obama. Trump goes golfing for the 23rd times in his 19 weeks in office.
  13. Mike Dubke, Trump’s communication director, resigns after just under three months in the job.
  14. Kellyanne Conway’s husband, George T. Conway III, withdraws from consideration to lead the Civil Division of the DoJ.
  15. Tom MacArthur resigns as chair of the Tuesday Group caucus, a group of moderate Republicans in the House, amid his work on the healthcare bill (the waiver amendment).
  16. Polls show that 43% of Americans want Congress to start impeachment proceedings… even though they don’t think Trump is guilty of an impeachable offense? Weird.