Tag: Syria

Week 103 in Trump

Posted on January 15, 2019 in Politics, Trump

A fence or a wall? Both are designed to separate, both disrupt migration for both people and animals. Is one better than the other?

Poor Mick Mulvaney. He was just trying to help. When Trump was negotiating with Congressional leaders over the budget for the wall, Mulvaney attempted to find middle ground by proposing that both sides give a little. Trump didn’t really like that much, and said, “You just fucked it all up, Mick.”

Here’s what else happened this week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Last week I reported that Ford scrapped plans to build a plant in Mexico in favor of expanding U.S. operations. I was wrong. This story was from two years ago, before Trump took office. This rumor recirculated when Donald Trump, Jr. retweeted a two-year-old story.
  2. Trump starts off a meeting with Members of Congress over the shutdown with 15 minutes of profanity-laced talk about impeachment. He also says he prefers to call it a “strike” and not a “shutdown.” (from the Wall Street Journal)
  3. It took two weeks after shutting down for the administration to realize that a shutdown would cause 38 million Americans to loose SNAP benefits and that, without continued HUD assistance, thousands of people could be evicted.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

  1. After requesting $5.7 billion for the wall and spurning Mike Pence’s negotiations to find a middle ground, Trump ups the ante and asks for $7 billion.
  2. A group of Senate Republicans work on a deal to reopen the government, but Trump shoots that one down too.
  3. The National Governors Association, a bipartisan group, calls on Trump and Congress to end the shutdown.
  4. Last week I gave a link to a summary of the misrepresentations and lies being told about the border and illegal crossings. Well, the lies continue this week, so here’s another helpful explainer.
  5. Trump holds a televised address from the Oval Office to talk about immigration policies, the wall, and the shutdown. Network stations agree to carry the address, even though they refused to air Obama’s speech on immigration policy because it was too political.
    • Fact checkers abound, but it’s not really necessary because he doesn’t say anything we haven’t already heard before.
    • Following the Oval Office address, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer give a rebuttal.
    • The address doesn’t change anyone’s mind, according to polls. But more people are now blaming Trump and Republican lawmakers than they were before. Which is weird because those earlier polls were before Democrats officially took back the House.
    • Trump tells TV anchors in an off-the-record lunch that he doesn’t really want to give the Oval Office address nor does he want to visit the border in Texas. His advisors talked him into it.
  1. A second federal employees union sues the Trump administration over the shutdown. The named plaintiff in the case is a Customs and Border Patrol officer. In a similar suit brought against Obama’s administration during the 2013 shutdown, the court took the side of federal workers.
  2. Trump storms out of a border security meeting with Democratic leaders. Trump says Democrats refused to negotiate; Democrats say Trump threw a temper tantrum.
  3. The Coast Guard Support Program advises furloughed Coast Guard employees to have garage sales or become mystery shoppers to help make ends meet. The program warns that bankruptcy is the last option. Jeez… I hope the government isn’t going to bankrupt any of its employees.
  4. Despite claiming hundreds of times (at least 212 just on the campaign trail) that Mexico would pay for the wall, Trump now says he never meant that Mexico would directly pay for the wall. Historical note: His campaign website featured a memo at one point suggesting that Mexico would pay a one-time fee of $5-$10 billion.
  5. Trump cancels his trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland because of the shutdown. He blames Democrats, though—and I can’t say this enough—the shutdown happened under full Republican control.
  6. The first federal workers start missing their paychecks, and around 1,000 of them start GoFundMe accounts. Restaurants start offering them free meals. By the end of the week, there are over 10,000 GoFundMe accounts.
    • Interesting bit of shutdown history: Government workers are still waiting for back pay from the 2013 shutdown, and the government doesn’t even know how much they owe.
  1. The House passes bills to reopen parts of the government, but Mitch McConnell refuses to bring them to a vote in the Senate. Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid did the same thing in 2013.
  2. Around 100 landowners near the border have received letters from the government requesting access to their land for surveying for the wall. This is the first step in the process of eminent domain.
    • The landowners promise a legal battle to stop the land grab. It’s worth noting that lawsuits from use of eminent domain related to the 2006 Secure Fences Act are still being fought in court.
  1. Another migrant caravan is organizing in Honduras, and Mexico is preparing a strategy to manage them. Trump says the only thing that will stop them is a big wall, though CBP has done a pretty good job of stopping the current caravan.
    • The number of people coming in caravans represents a minuscule proportion of the total number of border apprehensions. But caravans are cheaper and safer than coyotes, so they might become the new norm.
  1. Donald Trump Jr. posts on Instagram comparing the wall to the “walls” that separate animals and people at the zoo. First, is he comparing migrants to animals? And second, if the animals are separated from us by walls, how can we see them?
  2. The shutdown becomes the longest in history.
  3. Trump reiterates his desire to declare a national emergency and use funds earmarked for other purposes for the wall. Also, Border apprehensions are at some of the lowest levels in decades.
  4. Trump considers using FEMA disaster relief funds (that is, those tagged for Puerto Rico, Florida, the Carolinas, and so on) to pay for his wall.
  5. Trump and his advisors think if they declare an emergency, it would reopen the government but the declaration of emergency would be stuck in the courts for so long, that it might never actually happen. So the government would reopen and Trump could save face.
  6. The DOJ furloughs 5,000 intelligence analysts, special agents, lawyers, and other employees. They also freeze funds for ongoing investigations.
  7. The Mayors of McAllen, TX, and its sister city across the border, Reynosa, oppose building a wall between the two cities. The two mayors often work together on initiatives to improve both cities. Also, McAllen is rated the 7th safest city in the U.S., according to FBI statistics. Trump just visited the border there to gin up support for the wall.
  8. GoFundMe says they’ll refund all the donors who donated a collective $20 million to go toward building the wall. The creator of the GoFundMe account had originally said all the money collected would go to the government to help build the wall, but he has since created a non-profit where he wants to direct the funds. His plan is to start building the wall himself, but that goes against his original GoFundMe mission.
  9. Nine Republican Senators introduce a bill that would put an end to government shutdowns, including the current one.
  10. Trump orders many of the activities that were prohibited under previous shutdowns to resume. Those include processing tax refunds, SNAP, mortgage processing, flood insurance programs, and national parks.
    • However, the FDA stops routine inspections of food-processing plants.
  1. The mortgage industry lobbies to restart the IRS’s income verification service so that loans can be processed. Trump complies.
  2. Mexican officials discover another tunnel under the border. This is the third tunnel they’ve found this month, adding more questions about how effective a wall would be.
  3. Kevin Hassett, the chief economic adviser, says furloughed workers are better off because of the shutdown. They didn’t have to use any vacation days to get time off over the holidays.
  4. Trump tweets misleading crime statistics for undocumented immigrants, citing numbers up to three times higher than they actually are. Now’s a good time for a reminder that crime rates for immigrants, documented or otherwise, are lower than crime rates for native-born Americans.
  5. It turns out that this shutdown was at the urging of Freedom Caucus Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan. The Tea Party is just the gift that keeps on giving. It completely took Mitch McConnell and a few others by surprise, because they thought they had a deal to avoid this.
  6. McConnell, Ryan, and McCarthy all warned Trump against the shutdown, yet none of the three did anything to stop it. And McConnell and Ryan had the power to override it.
  7. A passenger was able to board a flight from Atlanta to Tokyo carrying a firearm. That’s a pretty good argument for ending the shutdown and letting TSA workers get back to doing their jobs.
  8. A group of Democrats catch flack from the right for heading to Puerto Rico during the weekend to attend a retreat, which includes the opening of Hamilton there. I’m torn—part of the reason for the opening is to support Puerto Rico’s recovery efforts, so it’s not all play.

Russia:

  1. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan indict Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya (of Trump Tower meeting fame) for obstructing a money laundering investigation. This isn’t tied to the Trump Tower case, but it confirms her ties to Russian government officials.
  2. Mueller interviewed Blackwater’s Erik Prince (Betsy DeVos’s brother) about meetings with Russians in the Seychelles two years ago. This week, Prince says he’d rather have a proctology exam than sit down with Mueller’s team.
  3. A (Trump-appointed) federal judge scolds Russian company Concord Management, which was charged by Mueller. The judge says their brief was inappropriate, unprofessional, and ineffective. The brief quoted the movie Animal House. One of their previous briefs quoted Casablanca.
  4. The Supreme Court refuses to vacate a lower-court order forcing a foreign-owned corporation to comply with a subpoena in the Russia investigation.
  5. It seems Manafort’s lawyers accidentally reveal collusion (by Manafort, not by Trump). They fail to thoroughly black out redacted information in a court filing, and reporters were easily able to see the redacted text by copying and pasting the PDF.
    • The filing shows that one of the things Mueller thinks Manafort lied about was that he shared Trump campaign polling data with alleged Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik (who’s also criminally charged in the Russia investigation).
    • Mueller accuses Manafort of lying about a text message asking if someone could use Manafort’s name to get an “in” with Trump.
    • The filing also shows that Manafort and Kilimnik talked about a Ukraine peace plan, something Manafort previously denied. In 2016, the Trump campaign altered the GOP platform to block a provision for the U.S. to arm Ukraine in their fight against Russia. Michael Cohen has also confirmed work on a Ukraine peace plan that would benefit Russia.
    • There are three more breaches of the plea agreement that are not yet public.
  1. A new report says that Mueller’s office has spoken with Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio.
  2. Steve Mnuchin briefs House committee leaders on why the administration plans to lift sanctions on Russian companies associated with Oleg Deripaska, who’s implicated in Russia’s meddling in our 2016 elections. Democrats complain that most of the information they got was unclassified and that Mnuchin gave them little information. They call for a delay in dropping the sanctions.
  3. Michael Cohen will give public testimony to the House Oversight Committee next week.
  4. We learn that FBI counterintelligence opened an investigation into Trump following the firing of James Comey. They were looking into whether Trump was working on behalf of the Russian government against American interests (either with knowledge or unwittingly).
    • Even though they became suspicious during the 2016 campaign, the FBI hesitated to open the case, unsure how to handle such an unprecedented situation.
    • We don’t know if the investigation is still ongoing.
  1. Trump confiscated the interpreter notes from his Hamburg meeting with Putin, and now we have no reliable record of what was discussed. Democrats discuss subpoenaing the interpreter, which is dicey since they’re supposed to keep their info confidential.
  2. In case you were wondering whether Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin’s plans to infiltrate the NRA were sanctioned by the Russian government, it turns out that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed off on it.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg misses oral arguments for the first time in 25 years while she’s at home recovering from lung surgery. She’s out all week recovering, and Trump and Republican lawmakers start talking about how they’ll be able to seat another conservative judge. Morbid.
  2. Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department if and when a new attorney general is confirmed. Other sources say Rosentstein will stay until the Mueller investigation is complete. He’s not being forced out.
  3. An appeals courts rules that politicians can’t block people on social media. This echoes a similar case against Trump, where it was ruled that he can’t block people on Twitter.
  4. William Barr, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General begins speaking with members of the Senate Judicial Committee, or at least Republican members.
    • At first he refuses meetings with committee Democrats until one of them makes that public.
    • He drafts a memo saying a president can’t obstruct justice in the process of exercising his official powers. The memo also questions Mueller’s authority.
    • Interesting history: Barr is the reason that every person involved in the Iran-Contra affair got pardoned by Bush Sr.
    • Despite his previous criticism of Mueller’s investigation, Barr tells Senators that it’s vitally important that Mueller complete his investigation.

International:

  1. Despite Trump’s claim that he’s removing troops from Syria by the end of the month (and they’ve already started removing equipment), John Bolton places conditions on removal that will slow it down.
    • The remaining bits of the Islamic State must be defeated.
    • Turkey must guarantee they won’t attack our Kurdish allies.
    • This kind of falls on Bolton. He’s mostly ended internal policy debates that allow administrations to flesh out and plan decisions like this. Bolton was taken by surprise with Trump’s decision, and has had to scramble to create a plan that in normal times would take weeks, if not months, to complete.
  1. When asked if Trump made a mistake on this, Lindsey Graham says “This is the reality setting in that you’ve got to plan this out.” And this is why Trump as president makes people nervous. Planning isn’t in his nature.
  2. Turkey’s President Erdogan harshly criticizes Bolton for saying Turkey has to promise not to attack the Kurds.
  3. The month-long protests in Hungary against the autocratic regime of prime minister Viktor Orbán continue to spread. Orbán is another anti-immigrant hardliner trying to control the press and the judiciary. He’s working toward one-party rule in Hungary, and wants anti-immigrant leaders to take over the EU. He’s already created a coalition with the like-minded leaders of Poland and Italy.
  4. The Trump administration reinstates the diplomatic status of the EU’s delegation to the U.S.
    • Trump quietly downgraded that status in December, and only brought it back temporarily and only because they protested it.
    • We only found out about it when the delegate’s name wasn’t called in the correct order during George W. Bush’s funeral.
    • Unlike every previous modern president, Trump views the EU as a foe.
  1. In anticipation of Brexit, banks and financiers move $1 trillion from Britain into other EU countries. That’s about 10% of UK’s financial sector.
  2. Mike Pompeo gives a speech in Egypt, criticizing Obama’s handling of the region. One of the biggest departures from the Obama administration is that there wasn’t any focus on democracy or human rights. Another difference was the venue: Obama chose one where he addressed the people, Pompeo chose one where he addressed elites and government officials.
  3. U.S. officials say that the White House requested plans to launch an attack on Iran last year after an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad by a military group associated with Iran.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The CEO of the Tornillo migrant child detention facility says that the head of the Office of Refugee Resettlement kept pressuring him to hold more minors at the facility. He says the reason the facility is being closed is that he refused to accept any more because ORR wasn’t releasing any of them.
    • The facility was able to rapidly release all the children in custody because HHS waived the new stringent vetting requirements for the children’s sponsors. In other words, U.S. taxpayers were paying to detain these children when they could’ve been staying with family or guardians who would’ve paid for their needs. Because what this administration really wants to do is deport people.
  1. A judge rules that Sandy Hook families suing InfoWars can access InfoWars internal marketing and financial documents, among others. Next week, the judge will decide whether the families’ attorneys can depose Alex Jones.
  2. Around 1.4 million Floridians become eligible to vote. Last year, voters there passed a referendum ending the practice of reinstating ex-felons’ rights on a case-by-case basis. The new rule automatically gives ex-felons their voting rights back after they’ve served all time and probation (excluding certain violent criminals).
  3. A judge temporarily prohibits ICE’s new practice of conducting unannounced raids on Cambodian immigrants’ homes and businesses. Sudden deportations to Cambodia were up 279% last year. Deportees don’t get to talk to their lawyers or loved ones first, they haven’t been to Cambodia since childhood, and Cambodia doesn’t want them.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Carbon emissions in the US increased by 3.4% in 2018, despite the large number of coal plant closures last year. This is likely tied to the uptick in manufacturing, and is a reversal from the previous 12 years during which emissions declined.
  2. Trump threatens to halt FEMA payments to victims of the California wildfires, and then he later tweets that he’s already ordered FEMA to stop sending money. It’s not clear whether he actually did that and if he did, whether it’s legal.
  3. I feel like this was already reported last year, but a new study shows that oceans are warming 40% faster than previously expected. 2018 is the warmest year for oceans, with 2017 coming second and 2016 coming third.
    • Oceans absorb nearly 93% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases.
    • Heat causes the water to expand, and that accounts for most of the rise in sea levels that we’ve seen so far.
  1. State legislatures across the east and west coasts introduce bills to fight Trump’s expansion of offshore drilling, including Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island. California has already passed such a bill into law.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China starts buying soybeans from the U.S. again, and they’ve cut tariffs on American cars. They say they’ll stop demanding corporate secrets from companies doing business in China.
  2. Trump puts a freeze on the planned $10,000 pay raises for Mike Pence’s staff.
  3. Democrats propose rescinding the tax breaks for the top 1% to fund raises for the country’s teachers.
  4. One year into the new tax plan, it hasn’t panned out as planned. Federal tax revenues fell by 2.7%, despite strong annual economic growth of 3%. The last time growth came close to this, tax revenues increased by 7%.

Elections:

  1. Democratic Senator Doug Jones officially requested an investigation into the social media disinformation campaign run by a Democratic group in Alabama when Jones got elected. The group ran test cases against Jones’ opponent using Russian disinformation methods on social media.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump has had twice as much staff turnover as any other president at this point in their presidency. He’s at 12; Clinton is the next highest with six.
  2. In 2013, Mike Pence harshly criticized Obama for some of the same things he’s supporting Trump on now in regard to government shutdowns.
  3. Three top Republican members of the House rebuke Representative Steve King for wondering what’s wrong with the phrases white nationalist and white supremacist. When King made racist statements prior to the 2018 midterms, only one member of the House said anything.
  4. Former GOP Senator Jon Kyl turns down Trump’s offer to take over as Secretary of Defense.

Polls:

  1. Here’s a great summary from Pew Research of their polling on immigration and the wall.
  2. 74% of Americans say the shutdown is embarrassing; 72% say it’s hurting the U.S.
  3. During the first days of the shutdown polls showed that between 43% and 47% blamed Trump for the shutdown and around 1/3 blamed Democrats. Now, 47% to 51% blame Trump, while 1/3 still blame Democrats.
    • What’s weird about this? Right before the shutdown, Trump took complete responsibility for any shutdown, Democrats weren’t even in power when it happened, and the Senate had a veto-proof majority to override Trump’s veto. So why weren’t more blaming Trump then?
    • Interesting history note: The country was similarly split during the 2013 shutdown, with 53% of Americans blaming Republicans.
  1. 59% of Americans oppose the wall, and 39% support it.
    • 74% of Republicans support the wall, but that percentage drops for Republicans who live within the vicinity of the border.
  1. 69% of Americans are against declaring a national emergency over the wall.
  2. Trump’s approval rate is trending downward, now at 40.6%. His disapproval rate is trending up, now at 54.3%.

Things Politicians Say:

  • “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?”
    —Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to the     New York Times
    Thank you, Iowa, for continuing to force this racist on the rest of the United States.
  • “When during the campaign I would say Mexico is going to pay for it. Obviously I never said that and I never meant they are going to write out a check.” —Donald J. Trump, this week.“It’s an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year.” —Donald J. Trump,three years ago.

Week 100 in Trump

Posted on December 26, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Happy government shutdown! What better way to mark the 100th week under Trump? Just a reminder, he told Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer he’d take ownership of a shutdown, then he said he wouldn’t cause a shutdown, then he caused a shutdown, and then he blamed it on Democrats. Here’s what Trump had to say in 2013 about the shutdown under Obama:

“You have to get everybody in a room. You have to be a leader. The president has to lead. He has to get (the Speaker of the House) and everybody else in a room, and they have to make a deal. You have to be nice and be angry and be wild and cajole and do all sorts of things, but you have to get a deal… And, unfortunately, he has never been a dealmaker. That wasn’t his expertise before he went into politics and it’s obviously not his expertise now. But you have to get the people in a room and you have to get a deal.”

Here’s what else happened in week 100…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Democratic legislators in New Jersey rethink their plans to essentially make gerrymandering permanent in the state after receiving pushback from Republicans, Democrats, progressives, their Democratic governor, Eric Holder, and others. It’s no secret I’m for independent commissions drawing these lines; lawmakers should never be able to draw their own districts.
  2. The reasoning behind Betsy DeVos’s decision to end the policy of making sure minorities are not disciplined more harshly than white students is that it will help end school shootings. Huh? I don’t think any of the shootings have been perpetrated by a minority student.

Russia:

  1. We’re at the end of Trump’s second year in office, and there are 17 known investigations into Trump and Russia from seven different prosecutors (and not including congressional investigations). Here’s a list with the current status of each (all are still ongoing):
    • Russian government meddling in our elections: 25 indicted, 1 guilty plea, and 1 cooperation agreement.
    • Wikileaks: 2 Trump campaign associates implicated, with 1 of them breaking their plea agreement.
    • MidEast countries seeking to influence the Trump campaign: 2 cooperation agreements, but no public court activity.
    • Paul Manafort: 4 guilty pleas, 1 broken plea agreement, 1 indicted, and 1 convicted.
    • Trump Tower Moscow: 1 guilty plea
    • Trump campaign/transition team contacts with Russian officials: 2 guilty pleas, 16 people are known to have made contact.
    • Obstruction of justice: no public court activity.
    • Campaign involvement with Trump Organization finances: 1 guilty plea, 2 cooperation agreements.
    • Foreign donations to the inaugural committee and to Trump’s super PAC: 1 cooperation agreement, no public court activity.
    • Americans lobbying for foreign governments without registering as foreign agents: 2 charged, 1 cooperation agreement.
    • Russian spy embedded in the NRA: 1 guilty plea (Maria Butina).
    • Internet Research Agency’s election activities: 2 investigations and 2 indictments.
    • Michael Flynn’s activities in regard to Turkey: 1 guilty plea.
    • Tax fraud by Trump and Trump Organization: no indictments yet.
    • Campaign finance fraud and self-dealing by the Trump Foundation: Foundation closed.
    • Violations of the emoluments clause: making its way through court.
  1. Republicans in the House Judiciary and Oversight committees question James Comey again behind closed doors about the investigation into Hillary’s emails, the Steele Dossier, and Russian meddling in our elections. The transcript is made public the next day. There’s not really anything new to learn.
  2. Comey blasts the congressional hearings, saying they’re just wasting time and attacking U.S. intelligence agencies. He says Republican legislators need to stand up for American values and stop fearing their base.
  3. Comey explains his press conference in 2016 about the email investigation, saying he was worried about the leaks coming from the New York FBI office (to Rudy Giuliani) and felt he needed to get out ahead of those leaks.
  4. Comey accuses Trump of lying about the FBI to discredit investigations.
  5. New documents show that Trump had signed a letter of intent for the Trump Tower Moscow project on October 28, 2015. Giuliani previously said no one ever signed a letter of intent.
  6. Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony to Congress contradicted Cohen’s current testimony. Jr. also contradicted the letter of intent when he said all activity on the Trump Tower Moscow project ended in 2014.
  7. The judge for Michael Flynn’s sentencing rips into Flynn for selling out his country and asks the prosecutors if there’s anything else they can charge Flynn with. He asks Flynn if he wants a delay in sentencing in order to cooperate more fully, which Flynn accepts. A few things here:
    • The judge has access to the redacted information in the court documents that we can’t see.
    • Conservative pundits praise the judge in the days leading up to Flynn’s hearing. Not so much in the days after.
    • Flynn supporters demonstrate outside the courthouse for leniency.
    • Flynn seemed to be on the road to getting the lightest possible sentence (if any), but the judge is irked by Flynn’s lawyers’ attempt to blame the FBI for entrapping Flynn when they questioned him. The judge gets Flynn’s lawyers to retract those accusations.
    • The judge says that Flynn worked as a foreign agent while in the White House, which he later corrects. Flynn’s foreign activities had ended by the time he got to the White House.
    • Trump wishes Flynn luck before the hearing.
  1. Two of Michael Flynn’s associates are arrested over their activities on Turkey’s behalf. Prosecutors in Northern Virginia charge Bijan Rafiekian and Ekim Alptekin with conspiracy to “covertly and unlawfully” influence U.S. politicians.
  2. Mueller releases a redacted memo describing the lies Flynn told in his interviews with FBI agents. The two major lies are:
    • He said he didn’t try to sway the UN Security Council’s vote on Israeli settlements during the transition period.
    • He said he didn’t tell Russian Ambassador Kislyak not to retaliate over Obama’s sanctions against Russia during the transition period.
  1. For the third time, Mitch McConnell blocks Jeff Flake’s bill to protect Mueller’s investigation.
  2. It turns out that Russian trolls were behind a campaign to smear Mueller by claiming that he was corrupt, that he had worked with radical Islamic groups, and that Russian interference in our elections is all just conspiracy theories.
  3. The Trump administration plans to lift sanctions against three Russian companies with ties to Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska has had close financial ties to Paul Manafort.
  4. After consulting with ethics officials who tell him to recuse himself from any Russia investigations, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker refuses to do so.
  5. Putin accuses the U.S. of risking a collapse in the control of nuclear arms because Trump is threatening to pull out of a Cold War treaty limiting missile development. Putin also says the world is underestimating the threat of nuclear war.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Donald J. Trump Foundation agrees to dissolve as part of an ongoing investigation and lawsuit. The Foundation will also give away its remaining assets. The New York attorney general accuses the foundation of providing money to Trump’s businesses and for his personal use, and of illegally providing campaign funds.
  2. Under the lawsuit, the foundation might have to pay restitution, and Trump, Trump Jr., Ivanka, and Eric could be barred from serving on other charity boards.
  3. Despite emails showing funds from the foundation being used for campaign purposes, Trump signed filings each year saying that the foundation never engaged in political activities.
  4. During the 2016 election cycle, the Trump campaign funded ad buys through groups accused of illegally coordinating between the campaign and the NRA. The groups used a shell company to hide their activities. The Trump campaign stopped funding the groups after the 2016 election, but now Trump’s 2020 campaign is using the same groups and the same shell company.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The federal judges assessing the 83 ethics complaints against Brett Kavanaugh dismiss all complaints, not because they don’t think the complaints are justified but because lower court judges have no authority to discipline Supreme Court justices.
  2. A judge rules that four people who brought a lawsuit against Trump and his organization over sham businesses can stay anonymous. They made the request to use pseudonyms over fear of retaliation, which the judge agreed with; she says “The manner in which the president has used his position and platform to affect the course of pending court cases is really without precedent.”
  3. The Supreme Court refuses to overturn a lower court ruling that Trump can’t immediately deport people who cross the border illegally to seek asylum. The administration argues that they can use the illegal action of crossing to deny asylum. Our law is pretty explicit that the administration is wrong—anyone who comes to the U.S. can apply for asylum no matter how they got here.
    • Not surprisingly, Justices Thomas, Kavanaugh, Alito, and Gorsuch support the administration’s argument. Ruth Bader Ginsberg voted in opposition from her hospital bed as she was recovering from lung surgery.

Healthcare:

  1. Senate Democrat send a letter to the head of the Health and Human Services Department accusing them of violating a federal court order by directing funds toward abstinence-only pregnancy prevention programs. The court order was put in place when a court found that the administration had illegally cancelled a pregnancy prevention program in favor of abstinence-only education.
  2. Ohio Governor Kasich signs a strict abortion bill into law, effectively banning abortions after 12 weeks of gestation. He vetoes a similar, more restrictive heartbeat bill (which would ban abortions after 10 weeks).
    • Ohio legislators say they’ll try to override his heartbeat bill veto.
    • Both bills would face uphill battles in courts.
  1. The VA hasn’t spend millions of dollars that were supposed to be used for suicide prevention for veterans.

International:

  1. Trump orders all U.S. troops out of Syria within 30 days. How’d that all go down? Oy…here’s a breakdown:
    • Trump speaks to Turkey’s President Erdogan on the phone. Erdogan can’t understand why the U.S. still arms Syrian Kurdish fighters (Turkey views the Kurds as a threat).
    • Trump says the Islamic State has been defeated in Syria (they haven’t; there are an estimated 14,500 IS fighters in Syria). Erdogan says their fighters can take care of what’s left.
    • Trump says, “You know what? It’s yours. I’m leaving.” And boom. The deed is done.
  1. Kurdish fighters consider releasing over 3,000 Islamic State prisoners.
  2. General Jim Mattis resigns as Secretary of Defense as of the end of February. Could this be related to Trump totally taking Mattis by surprise with his announcement on Syria? Oh yeah. Turns out it’s related, all right.
    • In his resignation letter, Mattis says he and Trump have different views on how to respect and work with our allies and how to deal with authoritarian leaders. He says Trump deserves a Secretary of State who sees things more closely to the way Trump does. His letter reads as a mild rebuke of Trump’s foreign policies.
    • After tweeting about Mattis’s distinguished service, Trump decides to remove him two months early and says Mattis will be out by the New Year. Trump was apparently unhappy over the news coverage of the implications of the resignation letter.
    • Mattis wanted to stay on long enough to ensure a smooth and informed transition.
    • Trump installs Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan as Acting Defense Secretary. Shanahan has no military, international, or counterterrorism experience.
  1. On the heels of Mattis’s resignation, Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the coalition to fight ISIS, resigns in protest of Trump’s abrupt decision to pull troops out of Syria.
  2. Trump says he’s withdrawing 7,000 troops from Afghanistan—around half of all our troops there. The Taliban then declares victory in Afghanistan.
  3. Trump creates a new “Space Command,” a precursor to the Space Force (a new 6th branch of the military).

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Voter rights groups file lawsuits against the lame duck bills passed by Republicans in the Wisconsin state legislature to cut the power of the incoming Democratic officials, specifically the bill cutting early voting periods.
  2. Congress passes a long-overdue prison reform bill. Here’s what’s in it:
    • Makes the conditions of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive.
    • Eases mandatory minimum prison sentences.
    • Provides more incentives for good behavior by prisoners.
    • Provides more incentives for prisoners to participate in rehabilitation programs.
  1. Outgoing Representative Bob Goodlatte blocks the Savannah Act from getting out of committee. Outgoing Senator Heidi Heitkamp brought up the bill to address the number of missing and murdered Native American women.
  2. The Senate passes a bill making lynching a federal crime. There have been attempts to pass this legislation for over a century.
  3. Trump urges Mitch McConnell to change the Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster so they can get funding for the wall. McConnell refuses, which could imply there aren’t enough Republican votes to support the wall.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The World Economic Forum estimates that if the gap in economic opportunities between men and women keeps narrowing at its current rate, they will be equal in 202 years. Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have the most economic equality; the U.S. ranks 51st.
  2. The judge who blocks Jeff Sessions‘ policy removing asylum protection from victims of domestic and gang violence also orders that anyone who was deported based on this policy be returned to the U.S. for a fair hearing. The judge (who is the same one overseeing Michael Flynn’s sentencing) says the policy violates the Immigration and Naturalization Act.
  3. U.S.-based anti-LGBTQ hate groups start working to meet, train, and support anti-LGBTQ groups in Italy. Good job, America—let’s spread the hate.
  4. A GoFundMe campaign raises about $14 million to help build the wall. So they’re about 1/100 of the way to raising enough to build about 1/8 of the wall.
    • The originator of the fundraiser is a triple-amputee Iraq vet.
    • The originator also lost his Facebook page, which trafficked in right-wing conspiracy theories.
    • Republican legislators question whether that money can be used for a wall.
    • What happens to that money if none of the wall gets built?
  1. The Air Force fires two HIV-positive service members despite them both passing the fitness assessments. They were found unfit for duty because of Trump’s policy for “deploy or get out.” The policy removes service members who can’t be deployed abroad for more than 12 months, and HIV-positive members fall into that category.
  2. Video evidence shows that the Proud Boys initiated the violence with protestors when one of their members spoke at a Republican Club in New York City earlier this year.
  3. The Trump administration prevents a Yemeni mother whose child is on life support in Oakland, CA, from coming to the U.S. to say goodbye because she’s from a country included in the Muslim ban. The child has a rare brain disease, and his father (who is a U.S. citizen) brought him here for treatment. After public pressure, the Trump administration relents and allows her to come visit.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Interior Department takes a step forward in opening the Arctic Refuge for oil exploration and drilling by releasing its draft environmental impact report.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Senate passes a short-term funding bill to keep the government open until February 8. It still needs to be passed by the House and signed by Trump, but then…
  2. Trump is too chicken to tell us himself right before Christmas that he won’t sign the temporary spending bill to keep the government open until February because it doesn’t fund the wall. So he makes Paul Ryan tell us. We’re looking at a shutdown the weekend before Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!
  3. A shutdown means that more than 420,000 federal workers will work without pay and 380,000 will be furloughed. This also affects federal programs that help people obtain home and business loans, among other services.
  4. Trump blames Democrats for the shutdown even though when he met with Schumer and Pelosi, we all heard Trump say that he’d take full credit for a shutdown. He said he’d own it; he’d take the mantle.
  5. Because of the shutdown, Trump cancels his holiday trip to Mar-a-Lago and Senators who flew home turn right back around and get on a flight back to D.C.
  6. The Fed raises interest rates for the fourth time this year, but they’re also lowering expectations for the 2019 economy.
  7. The stock market has the worst week in a decade and the worst month since before the Great Depression. The market is on track to close down for the year.
  8. The Dow is up 18% so far under Trump; it was up 45% at this point under Obama. In fairness, Obama was starting from a Dow that was less than half what it was when Trump took over, so 45% was only around a 3,600 point gain under Obama. 18% under Trump is closer to a 3,000 point gain.
  9. Trump says it isn’t his fault that the stock market is down (even though he blamed Obama every time the market dropped under his administration).
  10. There’s a 23% chance of a recession in the next year.
  11. Steven Mnuchin tries to calm the market by making phone calls to certain financial CEOs, which only serves to confuse them. He wanted to reassure them that Trump isn’t planning to fire the Fed chairman as is rumored.
  12. Those CEOs say political noise is making the markets uncertain, including James Mattis’ departure, tariff threats, and the government shutdown.
  13. Trump authorizes the second rounds of bailout payments to farmers to help them get through the fallout from the tariffs, about $4.9 billion. China purchased no soy from the U.S. in November.
    • The USDA says some of the payments will be delayed due to the government shutdown.
  1. The House passes a new tax bill that provides disaster tax relief, delays and repeals some ACA taxes, fixes parts of last year’s tax cuts, improves the IRS, and repeals the Johnson Amendment (which bars nonprofits from endorsing political candidates).
  2. Sonny Perdue, head of the USDA, proposes changes to SNAP that would require “able-bodied” people between 18 and 49 with no dependents to either work or register for a training or education program if they’re on food stamps for three months or more. It’s estimated that this will drop 755,000 people from SNAP benefits.

Elections:

  1. In the 2017 Alabama senate elections where Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore, a group of social media experts used tactics perfected by Russian trolls to try to sway support for Jones. Even though it was a small-scale operation, Jones calls for an FEC investigation to make sure no laws were violated.
    • The efforts were funded by a LinkedIn cofounder.
    • It was such a small effort that it likely did not effect the outcome of the election.
    • Alabama’s secretary of state says they were aware that groups from both sides were doing this but that they couldn’t get any help from Facebook or Twitter to stop it.
  1. Trump’s re-election committee and the Republican National Committee announce they’ll merge, which will strengthen his hold over the party and form a formidable fundraising machine. This is a first for a presidential campaign.
  2. The Mercers, who were implicated in the Russian social media influence campaigns in our 2016 elections, pull back on financial support to Republicans in opposition to Trump’s policies.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Trump administration issues a regulation banning bump stocks. Anyone who already owns one has 90 days to turn them in or destroy them.
  2. Trump is already beginning to sour on Mick Mulvaney, who he just appointed as acting chief of staff. Trump’s not happy recently surfaced videos from before the election where we can hear Mulvaney calling Trump a terrible human being and describing Trump’s take on the border wall simplistic, absurd, and childish.

Week 77 in Trump

Posted on July 16, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Sean Gallup / Getty Images

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

Here’s what happened last week…

Russia:

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

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

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Family Separation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Week 64 in Trump

Posted on April 16, 2018 in Politics, Trump

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

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

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

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

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

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

Polls:

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

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

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

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

Week 62 in Trump

Posted on April 2, 2018 in Politics, Trump

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

Here’s what else happened this week.

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Quote of the Week

David Shulkin, outgoing head of the VA

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

Week 59 in Trump

Posted on March 12, 2018 in Politics, Trump

As always, it was a busy week. But this piece of news jumped out at me. A report from Trump’s own Office of Management and Budget (OMB) concludes that regulations aren’t job killers after all and that their benefits outweigh their costs. The study looked at the decade from 2006 to 2016, and here are a few findings:

  • Benefits were estimated at $219 – $695 billion; costs were estimated at $59 – $88 billion. Even the most conservative benefit estimate is much higher than the most generous cost estimate.
  • Environmental regulations have both the highest costs and the highest benefits.
  • Air quality regulations redistribute wealth downward (because polluters could otherwise get away with polluting in poorer neighborhoods).
  • Regulations don’t have a noticeable effect on job gains or losses.

And here’s what else happened this week in politics…

Russia:

  1. Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg refuses to comply with Mueller’s subpoena. And then Nunberg goes on a talk-show blitz, becoming so erratic that one interviewer asks him if he’s drunk. At the end of the day he says he’ll probably comply with Mueller.
    • He says that, based on his conversation with Mueller, he thinks Trump probably did something wrong.
    • He also thinks Trump had prior knowledge of Don Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer.
  1. By the end of the week, Nunberg testifies to the grand jury.
  2. An escort from Belarus who’s in jail in Bangkok says she has over 16 hours of recordings of a Russian oligarch discussing meddling in our elections. She’s ready to hand them over to the U.S. if we’ll give her asylum.
  3. Mueller’s grand jury issues subpoenas for all communications involving Trump associates from November 2015 to the present. Among others, it covers Carter Page, Steve Bannon, Hope Hicks, Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Sam Nunberg, Keith Schiller, Roger Stone, and Michael Cohen.
  4. After the 2016 elections, Russian trolls targeted Mitt Romney in an effort to make sure he didn’t become Secretary of State. The trolls called him a globalist puppet and even organized rallies and spread petitions against him. Christopher Steele also says Russia asked Trump not to nominate him because they wanted someone less likely to implement sanctions.
  5. Denis McDonough, Obama’s former chief of staff, says that Mitch McConnell insisted on watering down a bipartisan effort to get states to increase election security. The effort was to help states guard specifically against Russian attacks.
  6. Trump agrees to speak with Mueller as long as Mueller promises to end his investigation within two months of the interview.
  7. Senate investigators bring social media sites Tumblr and Reddit into their investigation after they find documents showing that Tumblr accounts had ties to a Russian troll farm. Reddit had already shut down accounts suspected of being Russian trolls.
  8. Mueller meets with George Nader, an advisor to the United Arab Emirates. In January 2017, Nader met with Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, and an investor linked to Putin in the Seychelles. Nader was representing the UAE crown prince at the meeting, and he’s now cooperating with Mueller. The UAE believed that Erik Prince represented Trump and that the Russian represented Putin.
  9. Erik Prince claims the meeting was a chance encounter.
  10. Mueller requests documents and speaks to witnesses about Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Mueller’s interested in negotiations in 2015 to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and in a Russian-friendly peace proposal for the Ukraine given to Cohen by a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician a week after Trump took office.
  11. U.S. intelligence will announce sanctions against the 13 Russians charged by Mueller.
  12. Trump says that Russia did meddle in the elections and that we need to be vigilant to prevent foreign agents from interfering in the future.
  13. Trump has asked at least two witnesses in the Mueller probe what they talked to Mueller about.
  14. Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty to the 18 latest charges against him.
  15. I’m not sure if this is Russia related, but the day after Hope Hicks resigns, she tells the House Intelligence Committee that her emails were hacked.
  16. Russia claims to have completed a successful test launch of a hypersonic missile that can travel at 10 times the speed of sound.
  17. Corey Lewandowski meets with the House Intelligence Committee.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Department of Justice sues California over its sanctuary laws.

Healthcare:

  1. Doctors in Canada ask that their salary increases instead go to other medical workers, like nurses and technicians. Crazy socialists.
  2. Federal regulators tell Idaho that they can’t go ahead with their plans to offer health insurance plans that don’t meet ACA guidelines. But Trump offers them a workaround by expanding the allowed duration of short-term policies. Idaho’s original plans violated at least eight ACA guidelines.

International:

  1. Kim Jong-un tells South Korean officials that he’s willing to negotiate with the U.S. on nuclear issues. He even says he’s willing to meet with Trump. Background: North Korea leaders have wanted to meet with a sitting president for decades, but because it’s so important to North Korea, the U.S. holds back on accepting the offer in order to use it as a bargaining chip.
  2. Trump says he accepts Kim Jong-un’s offer to meet, effectively taking that bargaining chip off the table.
  3. Then the White House walks this back, saying the two won’t meet unless we get some concessions from North Korea first.
  4. Once again, Trump is looking at ways to retaliate against Syria after recent chemical attacks by their government.
  5. The European Union rejects Theresa May’s trade proposal for after the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU is complete. The EU sees no reason for the UK to get all the benefits of EU membership without any of the cost.
  6. Jared Kushner meets with Mexico’s President Pena Nieto without the presence of the Mexican ambassador. Kushner has no experience in U.S. – Mexico relations.
  7. China eliminates term limits, effectively giving Xi Jinping the opportunity to be in power indefinitely.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. House Republicans vote down a bill that would have forced Trump to release his tax returns.
  2. Florida legislators pass gun control measures. The bill:
    • Allows teachers to be armed if they’ve had at least 144 hours of training.
    • Raises the legal age to buy a gun to 21.
    • Adds a three-day waiting period for gun purchases.
    • Increases funding for mental health services in schools.
    • Increases funding for school security.
    • Bans bump stocks.
    • Allows law enforcement to petition courts to prevent people from owning guns if they are seen to pose a threat.
    • Allows officers to confiscate someone’s guns in certain situations.
    • Prevents people who have been institutionalized from owning a gun until they’re cleared.
  1. The Maryland Senate approves a bill requiring presidential candidates to release their taxes in order to be on the ballot. The constitutionality of this bill is not clear.
  2. The Illinois House has passed gun bills that would ban bump stocks, raise the legal age to buy a gun, and increase the waiting period when purchasing a gun. These bills are now in Senate committee.
  3. Washington state bans bump stocks.
  4. Florida passes a law banning marriage to those under 17. A surprising number of states allow young teens to marry, some with the permission of parents. This is how you end up with girls as young as 13 married to much older men (aka statutory rape).
  5. Legislators in West Virginia vote to eliminate the Department of Education and the Arts in order to pay for the 5% increase in teacher wages. This is largely seen as a revenge move.
  6. At the same time, West Virginia legislators vote to put work requirements on SNAP recipients.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A court orders Bank of America to pay over $2 million in back wages to 1,147 African American job applicants. The judge finds that BofA’s Charlotte office was guilty of racial discrimination, routinely showing preference for white applicants.
  2. The Department of Housing and Urban Development removes language from their mission statement that promised to create inclusive communities free of discrimination.
  3. The deadline for DACA comes and goes, and we’re no closer to an agreement on immigration. However, the courts have blocked Trump’s order rescinding DACA, so they’re safe for now (but still wake up every day uncertain about their futures and their families’).
  4. The ACLU sues the Trump administration to stop them from separating parents and young children arriving at our borders.
  5. 22 GOP senators reintroduce a bill that would let people who are against same-sex marriage ignore federal anti-discrimination laws.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Ryan Zinke withdraws 26 parcels of land in Montana from a gas and oil auction, but leaves in 83 parcels. The withdrawal is the result of threats of lawsuits from environmental groups concerned about the Yellowstone River.
  2. Ryan Zinke says the Department of the Interior should partner with oil and gas companies who want to drill on public land. He also says that long regulatory reviews with uncertain outcomes are un-American. If reviews had certain outcomes, then reviews wouldn’t be necessary, right?
  3. The Republican-backed spending bills going through Congress include more than 80 anti-environmental riders. Last year, Democrats stripped out 160 anti-environmental riders from the spending bill.
  4. Trump reverses a previous stance by allowing sports hunters to import elephant trophies. He’s reversed direction here a few times.
  5. A federal appeals court rejects the Trump administration’s request to dismiss a climate change lawsuit against the government. The lawsuit was brought by a group of kids in an effort to force the government into greater action on climate change. This suit was originally brought against the Obama administration. The Trump administration argument is that the process of discovery would be too burdensome for them.
  6. Despite criticisms of Obama for not being friendly enough to oil, U.S. oil output rose from 5.6 million barrels per day in 2011 to 9.8 million in 2017.
  7. John Kelly kills Scott Pruitt’s idea of a public global warming debate between scientists. Pruitt really, really wants this, but Kelly thinks it could be a politically damaging spectacle. I wonder if that’s because he thinks global warming is real.
  8. A FOIA request reveals internal emails from the Department of the Interior showing department infighting over climate change. A press release announcing a U.S. Geological Survey study says that climate change has “dramatically reduced” the size of glaciers in Montana. The dispute is over the use of the word “dramatically” and one email accuses the climate scientists of being out of their wheelhouse. Except for this is their wheelhouse.
  9. The Keystone Pipeline springs its largest leak so far, spilling 210,00 gallons of oil in South Dakota.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Both versions of the Republican-backed spending bills in Congress would open campaigns and politics to more dark money. The Senate version would make it easier for mega-donors to give even more, and the House version would allow churches to make political donations.
  2. After Trump insists that Gary Cohn support his steel and aluminum tariff plan and Cohn refuses, Cohn resigns. Ironically he quits right after Trump says that everyone wants to work for him. Trump thinks Cohn will come back. Except a little market volatility from this.
  3. Trump announces the new tariffs will go into effect on March 23, but Canada and Mexico, which account for 25% of our steel imports, are exempt. All countries can negotiate their own exemptions.
  4. Republican Senator Jeff Flake says he’ll introduce a bill that would nullify the tariffs.
  5. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warn trade officials that the tariffs could weaken our security relationships with our allies.
  6. Economists say that despite job gains in steel and aluminum manufacturing, the tariffs will cause enough job losses in other industries to cancel the gains out.
  7. Members of Congress from both sides try to talk Trump out of implementing the tariffs, or at the very least into targeting them specifically to China. Even members of the House Freedom Caucus are split from Trump on this one.
  8. Charles Koch, whose companies manufacture steel, is opposed to this, according to his op-ed in the Washington Post.
  9. The Treasury estimates the government will borrow almost $1 trillion this fiscal year, which is the highest amount in six years. Last year, the government borrowed just over half a trillion.
  10. Here are just a handful of things Trump has done to roll back consumer financial protections:
    • Weakened the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects consumers from abuses by banks.
    • Delayed implementation of a rule that would force financial advisors and brokers to act in their client’s best interest instead of pushing investments that would enrich their own pockets.
    • Withdrawn regulations that helped protect student borrowers.
    • Dropped lawsuits and investigations into payday lenders that were charging as much as 950% interest.
    • Eased up on penalties against lenders who charge minorities higher interest rates than whites.
    • And now possibly weakening Dodd-Frank. It’s like we forgot how the recession happened.
  1. Seventeen Democrats join with Republicans to support a bill to weaken Dodd-Frank. Essentially the bill says that banks with $50 billion to $250 billion in assets are small community banks and shouldn’t be held to the same oversight as larger banks. Note that there are only 10 larger banks. This bill would allow those banks to hold riskier assets.
  2. A CBO report warns that the bill would increase the possibility of another economic collapse like we saw in 2008. Note that the probability is small under the current law and would be only slightly greater under the new one.
  3. Oh, but the bill would also increase the federal deficit by $671 million.
  4. Elaine Chao confirmed to Congress that Trump personally intervened to kill an essential tunnel project between New York and New Jersey.
  5. A group of eleven nations sign a trade pact that the U.S. originally proposed but that Trump pulled us out of. What used to be the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was originally intended to counter China’s power in the region, but the new pact fails to do that without U.S. influence.
  6. Senate Democrats announce a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that would be paid for by rolling back some of the tax cuts given to the richest Americans and largest companies in last year’s tax plan.
  7. January’s monthly U.S. trade deficit rose to its highest level since 2008. It was up 5% to $56.5 billion.
  8. The economy added a whopping 331,000 jobs in February. That’s the highest number since July of 2016. Wage gains fell, though, and the unemployment rate didn’t change from 4.1%.
  9. The tax reform bill passed last year has small errors and inconsistencies. Companies and trade groups want the Treasury and Congress to fix the bill and clarify provisions. Even the U.S. Chamber of Congress sent a letter requesting clarification. How are individual CPAs supposed to be able to work this out when even major corporations and lobbying groups can’t?
  10. Betsy DeVos tells state officials to back off from trying to rein in student loan collectors.
  11. Trump Twitter-shames former presidents Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., and Obama He says they are at fault for trade deficits and lost 6 million manufacturing jobs. I guess that means they’re also be responsible for the other 53 million jobs added. Trump left out the 1.6 million manufacturing jobs lost in the decade before Bush Sr.

Elections:

  1. Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi resigns, citing health concerns. Mississippi’s governor will appoint a temporary senator who will serve until the midterm elections in November.
  2. Trump stumps for Republican Rich Saccone in Pennsylvania’s special election. In his 70-minute, free-wheeling speech, Trump calls Chuck Todd a son of a bitch, floats the idea of executing drug dealers, says steel mills are already open after he signed the tariffs the day before, rails against the media, calls a sitting representative a low-IQ individual, says Democrats want to stop DACA (though Trump signed an EO stopping it), criticizes the same blue ribbon committees he was bragging about earlier, and my personal favorite, claims to be as handsome as Conor Lamb (fact check).
  3. Here are more stump statements, if you’re interested.
  4. Midterm season starts, with the first primaries being held in Texas this week.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen says his hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels was late because he couldn’t get hold of Trump. Even though Cohen stresses that he, and not Trump, paid her off. The payment was flagged as suspicious when he paid it and again 11 months later. Cohen complained to friends at the time that Trump never reimbursed him.
  2. And then Stormy Daniels sues Trump, saying the non-disclosure agreement is void because he never signed it. The lawsuit does include some details of their alleged affair in the early year of his marriage to Melania, and alleges that Trump was involved in the hush money. She also alleges that she was coerced into signing a statement stating that there was no affair. Finally, she alludes to texts and images she has between her and Trump. Ew.
  3. We also learn Cohen obtained a restraining order the previous week to keep her quiet about the affair.
  4. Cohen used his Trump Organization email account to arrange the transfer, a potential violation of election law.
  5. Fun fact: Michael Cohen is the Deputy National Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee.
  6. Trump hires yet another lawyer to handle the Stormy issue.
  7. Two members of Colorado’s state congress start wearing bulletproof vests due to fears of retaliation by a fellow legislator. Colorado is a concealed carry state, and state legislators can carry weapons. The two members helped force a fellow legislator out of office for sexual misconduct.
  8. Washington’s governor signs a net neutrality bill into law, the first state net neutrality law so far. Expect more to follow.
  9. The Office of the Special Counsel finds that Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act when, as a White House representative, she criticized Doug Jones on TV multiple times during his campaign for Senate. Conway was thoroughly trained on the Hatch Act.
  10. Last week we found out that Trump Organization uses the presidential seal on golf course markers. Now we learn that the organization also sells swag at Trump Tower bearing the presidential seal.
  11. A court throws out a conviction against an inmate in Texas because the judge in the original case had the bailiff shock the defendant three times for refusing to answer questions to the judges satisfaction. The use of a stun belt is typically reserved for when a defendant becomes violent. The defendant was unable to attend the rest of his trial.
  12. Lawmakers joke about “Tuesday Trump” vs. “Thursday Trump.” Tuesday Trump is pretty agreeable. Thursday Trump revises everything he said Tuesday based on the reaction of his base and special interests.
  13. Sinclair Broadcasting forces anchors on local stations to read one-sided promos blasting the “fake news.” Anchors have been expressing discomfort with this (and hopefully they’ll refuse to comply).
  14. The Parkland shooter is indicted on 24 counts, possibly facing the death penalty.
  15. There have been more the 600 copycat threats at schools around the U.S.
  16. Interesting fact: Guns are now the third highest cause of death for children.
  17. By the end of the week, Trump has reversed himself again on gun legislation, calling for teachers to be armed and saying he won’t raise age limits. The White House does issue a list of recommendations though.
  18. David Shulkin, the head of the VA, trusts no one. He has an armed guard outside his office, has stopped meeting with senior management, and only meets with aides he trusts.
  19. Don McGahn has issued ethics waivers to 24 ex-lobbyists and lawyers to allow them to work in government and oversee the industries from which they came. Drain that swamp, baby!

Week 58 in Trump

Posted on March 5, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Jared was in the spotlight this week for a range of problems from his security clearance to his business dealings. I almost felt sorry for him. And also, John Kelly jokes that his current position (chief of staff) is punishment from God. Jared probably feels the same.

Here’s that and whatever else happened this week in politics…

Russia:

  1. Paul Manafort pleads not guilty to the slew of new charges against him. His trial date is September 17.
  2. As part of Rick Gates’ plea deal, Mueller moves to dismiss 22 counts of bank and tax fraud against him.
  3. We learn that during the 2016 campaigns and elections, Russian hackers compromised the state websites or voter regulations systems in at least seven states.
  4. Hope Hicks testifies to Congress, telling them she sometimes had to tell white lies for Trump. And then she resigns.
  5. U.S. Cyber Command chief Mike Rogers testifies to Congress. He says that in order to stop Russian cyber threats, he needs to be granted authority by the president. As of now, Trump hasn’t directed or authorized him to do that.
  6. The Atlantic obtains transcripts of private messages between Roger Stone and Wikileaks from 2016, showing that both parties lied when they claimed they never contacted each other.
  7. The Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee says that the House Intelligence Committee (specifically Devin Nunes) is behind the leak of Senator Mark Warner’s private text messages with a Russian contact about Christopher Steele. A little background—the Senate committee was having trouble contacting Steele, and according to both Republicans and Democrats, the texts were part of the effort to obtain more info. Nunes tried to make it look like Warner was colluding, but it’s just not the case.
  8. Subpoenas issued by Mueller indicate he’s focusing on political influence from the United Arab Emirates.
  9. Mueller’s investigating whether Trump knew about the hacked DNC emails before they were publicly released, and he’s looking into Trump’s business dealings before and around the time he decided to run.
  10. Mueller is also investigating Trump’s threats to fire Jeff Sessions last year, specifically over whether Trump wanted to install a new, more loyal attorney general who could control the Russia investigation better.
  11. Christopher Steele says that Russia advised Trump not to bring on Mitt Romney as Secretary of State. They tried to guide Trump toward someone more amenable to easing sanctions.
  12. Putin announces new nuclear weapons that he says can breach U.S. defenses. Hopefully not starting another arms race.
  13. Putin ally Alexander Torshin worked for six years to gain leverage and influence with the NRA in order to insert himself into U.S. politics. Mueller is investigating him to find out if he illegally funneled money through to NRA in order to help Trump’s campaign.
  14. The State Department has $120 million to secure our elections and guard against breaches from foreign agents. They haven’t spent any of it yet. As of now:
    • There are no Russian speakers in the department responsible for stopping Russia’s disinformation campaigns.
    • The hiring freeze means they haven’t been able to hire the needed computer experts to track Russian campaigns.
    • SoS Rex Tillerson doesn’t think we can do anything to counter Russia’s disinformation campaigns.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court hears a case about whether unions can collect fees from employees they represent but who haven’t actually joined the union. Unions use the fees to cover collective bargaining costs, which benefit all employees. This affects public unions that represent teachers, firefighters, nurses and other government employees.
  2. The Supreme Court refuses to hear a case over DACA, which means that the government must continue allowing and approving applications and renewals. This doesn’t mean that the issues around DACA are solved though.
  3. A Justice Department review criticizes Andy McCabe for leaking information about an ongoing investigation. This could bolster Trump’s theory that McCabe is at the center of a ‘deep state’ government trying to oust him… except that the leaked information led to a negative story about Clinton and Obama.
  4. Trump publicly criticizes Jeff Sessions‘ handling of the investigation into alleged FISA abuses.

Healthcare:

  1. ‪The Urban Institute estimates that recent GOP policy changes around the ACA—including getting rid of the mandate and extending short-term policy periods—will increase the number uninsured by over 6 million and the number of underinsured by 2.5 million. All this while costing the federal government an additional 9% compared to current healthcare costs. Oh, and premiums are expected to go up by 18%.‬ So good job?
  2. ‬Trump wants to penalize opioid manufacturers and distributors that allow or neglect to report drugs being funneled into the black market. Penalties could be in the form of fines or criminal charges.
  3. I don’t know… does this fall under “Healthcare”? Trumps takes a page from Philippine President and strongman Rodrigo Duterte, saying maybe we should execute drug dealers to manage the opioid crisis.
  4. Twenty Republican led states file a lawsuit against the Trump administration claiming that the entire ACA is invalid now that the mandate has been repealed.

International:

  1. The UN links the chemical weapons used by Syria to North Korea.
  2. The European Union announces new rules for tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter that give them one hour to remove terror content once it’s been identified.
  3. Chinese President receives approval to ignore the term limits put in place to avoid another Mao-like regime. Trump says it’s great that President Xi is now president for life, and maybe that’s something the U.S. should look into. Dear. God. No.
  4. The Chinese government takes over Anbang Insurance Group Co., which owns the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City (among its many other holdings).
  5. Italy’s elections don’t give any group a clear majority, but the biggest winners are populists and the far right. With gains by the League party, xenophobia raises its ugly head in yet another country.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. After Trump’s televised conference on gun violence, Mitch McConnell decides to prioritize deregulation of banks instead of looking seriously into changes to our gun laws.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a ruling that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects members of the LGBTQ community. This case was specifically around protecting them from discrimination in the workplace.
  2. The Supreme Court rules that the government can detain immigrants facing possible deportation for years without a court or bail hearing. The decision was strongly divided, and strikes down a previous requirement that detainees be given a bail hearing every six months. The ruling even applies to legal immigrants and asylum seekers.
  3. A federal judge rules in favor of DACA recipients who have had their status unlawfully revoked. The ruling says that the government can’t revoke someone’s DACA status if they haven’t been convicted of a serious crime and haven’t been given the opportunity to defend themselves.
  4. After counties in Alabama refuse to issue marriage licenses because same-sex marriage is now legal, Alabama is thinking about not issuing marriage licenses at all anymore. It turns out that then-chief justice Roy Moore told agencies in the state they don’t have to issue marriage licenses. Several other states are considering the same. It’s pretty amazing the lengths people will go to prevent gay marriage.
  5. Judge Gonzalo Curiel (the guy Trump once said couldn’t be partial because he’s Mexican) rules that Trump isn’t breaking any laws by waiving environmental reviews before building the wall, even though it crosses wildlife reserves and would block migration routes. Dammit. I hate this wall. It’s medieval.
  6. And then Trump somehow gets the idea that Californians want the wall built NOW (we don’t) and so decides to hold off on building any part of the wall until the whole thing is approved. I think he thinks he’s punishing us.
  7. Indiana implements a new law that allows the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency to refuse to give professional licenses to people with DACA status, effectively preventing them from working in a wide range of professions from medicine to cosmetology to architecture to general contractor. Those who already have their licenses can be refused renewal.
  8. Again in Indiana, a federal court rules against an order by then-governor Mike Pence that withheld payments from a refugee resettling agency in order to prevent Syrian refugees from settling in the state. Pence used terrorism as an excuse to stoke fear of the refugees in the state. The ruling permanently bars Indiana from stopping Syrian refugees from settling there.
  9. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf warns immigrants in advance of an upcoming ICE raid. According to ICE they still detained 115 people who had committed violent crimes or multiple low-level crimes.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The North Pole experiences a thaw in what is normally its coldest time, and the sun still has weeks before it shows up there. This happened four times between 1980 and 2010, but it’s happened four times in the last five winters.
  2. Internal documents from the Department of the Interior show that the primary reason for shrinking the size of Bears Ears National Monument is to increase drilling and mining in the area. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
  3. Another bomb cyclone on the east coast leaves eight people dead.

Budget/Economy:

  1. As a result of the recent tax reform, companies announce planned stock buybacks of around $180 billion (stock buybacks increase the price of stocks by reducing the number of stocks on the market).
  2. Trump shocks his aides and GOP lawmakers by announcing steep tariffs on steel and aluminum. Apparently it shocked investors too, because the Dow drops nearly 500 points after the announcement.
  3. Let the trade wars begin! The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, threatens to put tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation for Trump’s announced tariffs on steel and aluminum. EU tariffs would include iconic American exports like Levi’s, Harley Davidsons, and bourbon.
  4. Trump says that trade wars are good and easy to win.
  5. Steel manufacturers on the west coast express concerns that the tariffs will drive up the prices of their raw materials and will hurt their bottom line.
  6. Paul Ryan pleads with Trump not to enact the tariffs, which could hurt Ryan’s constituents.
  7. Trump tries to use the tariffs as a bribe to Canada and Mexico saying he might waive tariffs for them if they sign a new NAFTA deal. Canada and Mexico don’t take the bait.
  8. GOP lawmakers in Georgia punish Delta when Delta announces it will end a once-a-year discount for NRA convention attendees (which has been used all of 13 times). First Lt. Governor Cagle threatens to block a provision in a bill passed by the state House to stop taxing airlines on jet fuel, and then the Senate passes the House bill after removing the jet fuel tax break. Georgia’s governor objects, but signs the tax bill anyway to give Georgians a tax break.
  9. In the weeks before Trump announced steel tariffs, Carl Icahn (who once worked in the Trump White House until he left with a hint of scandal) dumped $31.3 million dollars of stock in a company dependent on steel.
  10. West Virginia teachers go on strike to improve the conditions of their contract. The strike almost ends when the governor offers a 5% raise, but they continue to strike over the rising costs of their healthcare plan.
  11. On a tour of government housing Ben Carson warns that we shouldn’t make housing for the poor too comfortable. Based on the conditions he was talking about, he doesn’t even want to give them basic comforts other than a roof over their head and a platform to sleep on.
  12. More than a dozen Democrats are on board with a GOP bill in the Senate that would weaken some of the Dodd-Frank regulations that were implemented to keep financial agencies on the up and up. Their argument is that financial institutions with assets of $50 billion to $250 billion don’t qualify as big banks.
  13. Trump’s budget includes increases in military and Homeland Security funding, but also includes steep cuts to House and Urban Development core housing programs and to block grants for community development. Ben Carson says he might not be able to stay in his position with these cuts because he sees these programs as crucial.
  14. Trump asks Paul Ryan to cut funding for a tunnel between New York and New Jersey. His reasons aren’t clear, and the suspicion is that he’s targeting Democratic rivals.

Elections:

  1. Democrats flip their 39th congressional seat at state and federal levels since the 2016 election. Republicans have flipped four.
  2. Senator Bob Corker confirms that he will not be running for re-election after rumors start up that he’s thinking about running again.

Parkland:

  1. The father of one of the survivors of the Parkland shooting admitted that he doctored an email to make it look like CNN was scripting questions and remarks for students to use at a town hall meeting.
  2. Legislators in Florida reject a ban on assault weapons while advancing legislation to arm teachers. The bill also addresses mental health issues, gun safety, school safety, and communication.
  3. And then a teacher in Georgia fires off a gun in a classroom and then barricades himself in a room. No one is harmed.
  4. The list of companies adjusting their relationships with the NRA continues to grow and is now at 19. The list includes Dick’s Sporting Goods, REI, Walmart, Delta, MEC, and more. They’re either cutting ties, limiting weapons sales, or getting rid of perks for NRA members.
  5. Students from a neighboring school walk 16 miles to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to support students who survived the shooting in their fight to stop gun violence.
  6. After researching gun violence and gun laws for two years, RAND Corporation finds that we need way more research on this. They ask Congress to lift the funding freeze currently in place preventing the CDC from studying this themselves. You can read the full report here.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Jared Kushner has a super bad week.
    • John Kelly downgrades Kushner’s security clearance. He no longer has access to top-secret information.
    • We learn that foreign officials discussed how to leverage Kushner’s financial transactions to manipulate him. The UAE described him as particularly manipulable because of his business dealings.
    • His point man in the White House, Josh Raffel, steps down.
    • We also learn that Kushner’s family received nearly $509 million in loans from two companies shortly after taking part in White House meetings.
    • Mueller is investigating whether any of Kushner’s foreign ties influenced White House policies.
    • Fun fact: The White House chief calligrapher has higher clearance than Kushner.
  1. The White House downgrades the security clearance for 30 White House aides after it’s revealed that 130 staffers don’t have permanent security clearance yet.
  2. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel expresses concern about the current state of the FCC, saying that everything they’ve done under Trump has been geared to support conservative media company Sinclair Broadcasting.
  3. Trump announces his re-election campaign, and names Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign‘s digital manager, as the new campaign manager (because he can’t use the old one obviously).
  4. A week after praising the NRA and saying we should arm teachers, Trump holds a televised meeting with congressional leaders, where he:
    • Pushes for raising the age limits for purchasing guns.
    • Calls for expanded universal background checks.
    • Tosses out the idea of confiscating guns now and worrying about due process later.
    • Condemns concealed carry reciprocity.
    • Chides legislators for being under the NRA’s thumb and says he’s willing the fight the NRA is necessary.
  1. And then Trump meets with NRA officials and backs down on universal background checks. Republicans go back to their offices not knowing what direction to take so once again nothing is being done about gun violence.
  2. The House Administration Committee votes to allow members of the House to use taxpayer dollars to buy bulletproof vests.
  3. Another Trump cabinet member is under scrutiny for lavish spending. Ben Carson is under investigation for whether they exceeded spending limits in refurnishing the HUD offices.
  4. Several local governments are considering laws that get rid of bail bonds for low level offenses, and some have already passed such laws.
  5. A man shoots himself in front of the White House in an apparent suicide.
  6. A bill to make 18 the legal age to marry in Kentucky stalls over concerns about parental rights to allow their children to marry. These marriages often involve young girls who are sexually exploited by the men they then marry.
  7. The Trump Organization orders presidential seal replicas to use on golf course markers, a surprising violation of federal law.
  8. The FBI is investigating Ivanka Trump over her role in negotiating and financing a deal around the Trump Hotel and Tower in Vancouver.
  9. Trump’s latest pick to sit on the U.S. Sentencing Commission thinks the commission should be abolished and has a history of making racial comments about crime.
  10. Trump’s personal pilot is his pick to head the FAA. Really fun side note: Journalists who rode along with Trump during his campaign joked that each flight could be their last because the pilot had so many near misses and bad landings.
  11. Anthony Scaramucci is on a list of people who can’t enter the White House without special permission. He says John Kelly should resign.
  12. Democrats in both the Senate and House introduce bills using the Congressional Review Act that would keep net neutrality rules. The Senate version is one vote short, but the House faces an uphill battle. Seriously voters, unless you want everything on the internet to start getting packaged up like cable channels, call your elected officials and ask them to back this bill. Getting rid of net neutrality is going to cost everyone more $$ and it’s going to be a real pain in the ass to have to figure out which sites you’re willing to pay for.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating is pretty dependent on age. His approval rating is 46% among the silent generation; 44% among boomers; 36% among Gen Xers; and only 27% among millennials.
  2. 58% of Americans want to elect a Congress that will stand up to Trump.
  3. 70% of Americans support stricter gun laws. Not surprising, since only 30% of households own guns.
  4. 83% of Americans are in favor of continuing or fixing DACA. Why is this so hard for Congress to get done? Oh yeah… Trump shot down all their bipartisan agreements.
  5. 49% of Americans agree with Nancy Pelosi that the tax plan gives crumbs to everyday people. Count me among them. I know people getting thousands (and even tens of thousands) each year in tax breaks and I know people getting less than a thousand each year. And the money isn’t going to the people who really need it.
  6. The global approval rating of the U.S. is 30%, a low in the lifetime of this poll.

Week 57 in Trump

Posted on February 27, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Last week’s shooting lit up the gun control debate once more, but this time sounds different and this time the polls are moving in favor of some moderate restrictions. I, for one, am hoping we can make some reasonable changes without taking away everyone’s guns (which I’m pretty sure will never happen anyway). Anyway, here’s what else happened in politics this week…

Russia:

  1. Robert Mueller charges Alex Van Der Zwaan with making false statements to the FBI about Rick Gates and with deleting documents requested by prosecutors. Van Der Zwaan pleads guilty, but he’s not cooperating.
  2. Rick Gate pleads guilty to charges of conspiracy and making false statements. He’s cooperating with the Mueller investigation. This is the fifth guilty plea in the Russia probe.
  3. Mueller brings nearly three dozen additional charges against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.
  4. The Democrats release their redacted memo, which says:
    • The FBI and DOJ didn’t abuse the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), didn’t omit relevant information from the FISA request, and didn’t use FISA to spy on Trump or his campaign.
    • The FBI opened their investigation months before they knew of the Steele dossier.
    • The Steele dossier was a very small part of the FISA request.
    • The FBI didn’t pay Steele for this information.
    • If the FISA warrant wasn’t paying off, the courts wouldn’t have continued to reauthorize it.

The memo includes excerpts directly from the FISA warrant application that prove the Nunes memo was incorrect. NPR has the full text with annotations.

  1. Trump wants Jeff Sessions to launch an investigation into whether the Obama administration did enough to stop Russia from interfering in our 2016 elections.
  2. A federal judge who was appointed by Trump, worked on Trump’s transition team, and donated to Trump’s campaign refuses to recuse himself from a case involving Fusion GPS (the firm that commissioned Christopher Steele’s dossier).
  3. Mike Flynn refuses to accept money from Trump’s legal fund, Trump, or Trump Organization to help out with his legal fees in the Russia case.
  4. One reason Jared Kushner hasn’t received full security clearance yet is the ongoing Russia investigation.
  5. Russian hackers attack hundreds of Olympic computers and then plant fake evidence to make investigators think that North Korea was behind it.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that Maryland’s ban on assault weapons and their magazine size restrictions aren’t in violation of the constitution. The court says the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to weapons of war.
  2. The Supreme Court rejects a case against California’s 10-day waiting period for purchasing assault weapons.
  3. Maryland and DC attorneys general expand their lawsuit against Trump for accepting gifts from foreign and state governments.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump proposes a regulation to allow short-term health insurance policies that aren’t required to meet ACA-defined protections and to let them last up to a year. They don’t even have to offer a comprehensive package.‪‬

International:

  1. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that the person who is in charge of Russian mercenaries in Syria was in touch with both the Kremlin and Syrian officials before the mercenary attack on U.S. held assets last week.
  2. Trump announces new sanctions against North Korea. These sanctions focus on shipping companies and ships, which are thought to be used to help North Korea get around the sanctions that are already in place.
  3. The UN Security Council passes a 30-day cease fire in Syria after a barrage of bombings on civilians.
  4. Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto cancels his first planned trip to the Trump White House after a tense phone call about the border wall.
  5. The international group Financial Action Task Force places Pakistan on it’s terrorist-funded watch list. This comes at the urging of the U.S.
  6. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption scandal grows as more accusations are brought against him and as friends and colleagues are charged and arrested.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. After the Parkland shooting and in front of students, the Florida state House voted against a move to merely allow the House to consider a bill banning assault rifles and high-capacity magazines.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A couple ways Trump has moved the Republican party on immigration:
    • GOP leaders in Congress are now insisting that any immigration reform include reducing legal immigration. Up until 2016, this was considered extreme by the vast majority of Republicans in office.
    • The first time Trump brought up a Muslim ban in his campaign, Republicans roundly criticized the idea. When he actually rolled it out, Republicans praised him for it. When Republican-appointed judges blocked the ban (saying it was unconstitutional), Republicans criticized those judges.
  1. A lesbian couple in Texas sues the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for not allowing them to be foster parents to a refugee child. Apparently they were told that they don’t “mirror the Holy Family.” Also, there’s a shortage of foster parents…
  2. Melania Trump’s parents are permanent residents of the U.S., triggering speculation that they were allowed here through family-based migration programs (or chain-migration, if you’re looking for the more racially charged term for it).
  3. Trump threatens to pull ICE agents from California as punishment for sanctuary policies.
  4. A civil rights group sues the Trump administration to prevent him from deporting certain immigrant groups here under temporary protected status.
  5. ICE has increasingly been using a little-known law to conduct searches on private property and in areas up to 100 miles from the border. They’re also using it to search trains and buses.

Climate/EPA:

  1. One of Trump’s biggest successes last year seemed to be efforts to reverse environmental, health, and other protections, but many got caught up in legal challenges. Here are a few regulations the courts upheld:
    • Dentists must prevent their mercury waste from getting into waterways.
    • Methane emission limits on oil and gas wells.
    • Ground-level ozone standards to reduce smog-causing air pollutants.
    • Limits on levels of lead in paint and dust.
    • Listing the rusty patched bumblebee on the endangered species list.
    • New energy efficiency regulations for certain appliances.
    • Restrictions on mining in Bristol Bay, AL (home of a major salmon fishery).

Many others are in legal limbo right now or facing new legal challenges.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Missouri’s governor is indicted for invasion of privacy. He took nude photos of his mistress, and then allegedly used them to blackmail her to keep quiet about their affair. Fun side note: This guy actually reduced Missouri’s minimum wage.
  2. Trump’s infrastructure plan drops his promised requirement that oil and gas pipelines use steel manufactured in the U.S.
  3. After announcing bonuses for employees because of last year’s tax reform, Walt Disney says it will withhold bonuses for union members (who are in the midst of negotiations) until they sign on to a contract favored by Disney. I think there’s a word for that. Like extortion.
  4. Glitches in the new tax law have been popping up. Some are drafting errors and some rules just weren’t thought all the way through. Here are just a few:
    • Legislators intended for businesses to be able to take advantage of deductions for certain building improvements, but the new law denies this to restaurants and retailers, among others.
    • Wealthy money managers can avoid losing a lucrative tax break around carried interest, which will let them pay a lower rate on some income.
    • Farmers who sell grain to co-ops could avoid taxes all together.
    • The law contains conflicting dates about when certain rules kick in.

Elections:

  1. Because Pennsylvania’s governor rejected the GOP’s court-ordered redrawing of their gerrymandered districts, an independent analyst redraws the map. The state supreme court approves the map, which is even more favorable to Democrats than the map the Democrats themselves submitted. Analysts say this map represents the state much more fairly.
  2. Trump supports the GOP fight against the new districts and says that they must fight it all the way to the Supreme Court. Fun fact: The Supreme Court has already refused to hear this case… just a few weeks ago.
  3. In the middle of an election year during which we are woefully unprepared to prevent further meddling by Russia, Paul Ryan decides to replace the chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. They’re still looking for a potential nominee to the position, which oversees election security.
  4. State election officials across the county are returning to paper ballots for better security and to prevent foreign interference.

Parkland:

And the gun debate goes on…

  1. #NeverAgain. Students across the country stage walkouts to protest gun violence.
  2. Schools threaten to discipline students who participate in walkouts in protest of gun violence. Universities assure students that walking out won’t count against them when they apply for colleges.
  3. Conspiracy theories abound on social media, and Donald Trump Jr. liked several conspiracy theories on Twitter.
  4. Russian bots and far right trolls make up stories about students who survived the shooting and are now speaking out. Many of their families are now receiving death threats. Seriously. Gun rights advocates need to DIAL IT BACK.
  5. As a result of the publicity and backlash against the NRA, major corporations begin to cut ties with the NRA.
  6. Opinion alert: NRA speakers and listeners at CPAC this week behave horribly in the wake of this tragedy. There’s just no excuse for this no matter how much you love your guns.
  7. Wayne LaPierre, CEO and VP of the NRA, blames the shooting on the failure of the family and a failure of school security. LaPierre also warns of a wave of socialism that will take away your guns.
  8. NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch says that the media loves mass shootings. She also blames the Broward County Sheriffs and the FBI.
  9. This is rich. LaPierre says, “The elites care not one whit about America’s school system and schoolchildren.” LaPierre makes $5,000,000 per year. How is that not elite?
  10. Florida Governor Rick Scott at first pushes back against any changes to gun laws, but with the continued student protests, he begins to soften on things like age limits and addressing mental health.
  11. Students and parents attend town halls with elected officials, including Marco Rubio, and a listening session with Donald Trump.
  12. Trump promotes arming teachers, rejects active shooter drills, repeats things Wayne LaPierre said at CPAC the previous day, and is open to banning bump stocks. But he balks at restrictions on assault rifles.
  13. Attendees heckle Rubio when he refuses to back a full ban on assault weapons. Rubio supports raising the legal age to 21 and creating gun violence restraining orders, opposes arming teachers, and is reconsidering a ban on high-capacity magazines. Students didn’t let him off easy; they pressed him hard on key questions.
  14. Trump appears unsure of next steps on gun violence. He surveys guests at Mar-a-Lago for their opinions. He seems to agree with gun controls a few times but then comes back around to a more hardline stance. At one point he agrees that we should tighten background checks, and wants to ban bump stocks.
  15. The security guard at the school is suspended and then resigns after it comes out that he hid instead of going in the school to confront the shooter.
  16. Both Trump and the NRA endorse arming teachers. However, in May 2016, Trump tweeted: “Crooked Hillary said that I want guns brought into the school classroom…Wrong!” After the Columbine shooting, the NRA also endorsed gun-free schools. At the time, LaPierre said, “First, we believe in absolutely gun free, zero tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America’s schools, period, with the rare exception of law enforcement officers or trained security personnel.”

Miscellaneous:

  1. Twitter continues a purge of suspected Russian bots, resulting in conservative Twitter users losing thousands of followers in one day.
  2. CPAC continues its march to the far right this year. Speakers include French politician Marion Marechal-Le Pen, Breitbart London Editor Raheem Kassam, and Brexit leader Nigel Farage. Former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka participate on a panel. Both Trump and Mike Pence addressed the conference.
  3. The Department of Health and Human Services puts Jon Cordova, a top official at the agency, on leave while they investigate his social media activity. Cordova posts baseless claims, smear campaigns, and conspiracy theories. How did our government fill up with people like this?
  4. Jared Kushner will continue in his role, which includes access to highly classified material, despite his inability to obtain permanent government security clearance.
  5. But then John F. Kelly says no one whose clearance hasn’t been finalized will be able to look at top-secret information. So they could stop letting Kushner see top-secret documents by next week.
  6. The FCC officially files their order to repeal net neutrality, which will go into effect April 23.
  7. After a backlash against the RNC using campaign funds to pay for Trump’s legal bills in the Russia investigation, the RNC now pays over $37,000 per month in rent at Trump Tower. They also pay a monthly salary to Mike Pence’s nephew John.
  8. There’s a dating site for Trump supporters. It features a man convicted of having sex with a minor on its homepage. I guess the real news here is… there’s a dating site for Trump supporters?
  9. The head of the VA, David Shulkin, has permission from the White House to get rid of any subversion in his agency. He says anyone who defies his authority will be fired. This comes after the inspector general found that Shulkin pressured his chief of staff to doctor an email so the VA would cover his wife’s European airfare. The inspector also found Shulkin improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets on the same trip.
  10. Trump wants his military parade to be on Veterans Day, and to start at the White House and end at the Capitol.
  11. The majority owner of the Trump-branded hotel in Panama orders all Trump employees out of the building in an attempt to take over the hotel. He says that the Trump name is bringing down revenue and keeping rooms empty.
  12. Elaine Duke, deputy secretary of Homeland Security, says she’ll step down. Her role has been minimized since Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen took over last year.

Polls:

  1. 62% of Americans blame Trump and Congress for not doing enough about mass shootings.
  2. 77% of Americans think better mental health screening and treatment could’ve prevented the shooting last week.
  3. 66% of Americans support stronger gun laws, including 50% of gun owners.
  4. The Presidential Greatness Survey (a survey of presidential scholars) ranks Trump as the worst president so far. Among just Republican scholars surveyed, he’s the fourth worst. They ranked him most polarizing.
  5. 51% of voters say they haven’t seen an increase in take-home pay since the new tax law passed. 25% say they have.
  6. After a brief boost, Trump’s approval rating is back down to 37% with 58% disapproving.

Week 56 in Trump

Posted on February 27, 2018 in Politics, Trump

I couldn’t get to this week’s recap on time for personal reasons, so here’s a late and rushed recap of Trump’s week 56.

Russia:

  1. All four directors of our intelligence agencies—Christopher Wray, Mike Pompeo, Mike Rogers, and Dan Coats—say the White House hasn’t asked any of them to do anything about Russian interference in our 2018 midterm elections.
  2. The directors also say Russia “will continue to use propaganda and social media as a means of deepening divisions and sowing discord.” They’ll continue to hack into our computer systems, and they’ll continue to pose as Americans.
  3. Trump and the intelligence directors aren’t publicly on the same page about Russia, and there isn’t an agency in charge of creating and implementing a plan to fight Russia’s future meddling. All agencies are worried that we won’t be able to fight it effectively.
  4. Buzzfeed sues the DNC over the Steele dossier as a way to force evidence into the open that would help Buzzfeed fight a libel lawsuit filed by Aleksej Gubarev. Gubarev is a Russian businessman tied to the DNC hacking in the dossier. The DNC says giving this info away would expose digital signatures and leave them more vulnerable to future attacks.
  5. Rick Gates is in the final stages of negotiating a plea deal.
  6. Mueller’s staff interviews Steve Bannon over multiple days (about 20 hours).
  7. But then Bannon tells the House Intelligence Committee that the White House told him to invoke executive privilege and not answer questions about Russia. He wouldn’t answer questions about his time in the White House or the Trump transition.
  8. Mueller’s grand jury indicts 13 Russian individuals and three Russian entities. Charges include conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, among others.
  9. One of the entities, the Internet Research Agency, is a Russian troll farm that used social media and fake accounts to misinform U.S. voters. Their posts and ads were designed to boost Trump and smear Hillary.
  10. The indictment describes a three-year plan to sow political discord in the U.S., to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and then later to bolster the campaigns of Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Jill Stein.
  11. The precise details in the indictment imply that the FBI had either intercepted communications or found an insider willing to cooperate.
  12. And just a side note here. The New York Times Magazine was reporting this as early as June of 2015. Why wasn’t this a bigger deal?
  13. Rod Rosenstein, Deputy AG, says the indictments don’t offer proof that the Russian disinformation campaign affected the outcome of the election.
  14. Trump seems to think the Russian indictments exonerate him.
  15. People who worked on the troll farms start to open up about their work there. Many call their time there Orwellian.
  16. Mueller charges Richard Pinedo with identity theft in relation to the Russia investigation. Pinedo is cooperating with Mueller and has pled guilty.
  17. After the Parkland shooting, Russian trolls and bots promote both pro-gun and gun control messaging to further deepen our divide. IGNORE THE TROLLS!
  18. And even though Trump thinks the indictments cleared him, he went on a 9-hour twitter rant attacking McMaster, Hillary Clinton, the FBI, the DOJ, CNN, Adam Schiff, Obama, the Democrats, John Podesta, and more. Everyone but the Russians who waged the misinformation war.
  19. Why did he attack McMaster? Because McMaster says that the evidence is incontrovertible that Russia meddled in our political system.
  20. Russians made a big effort in Florida to sow discord in our elections. They organized “Florida Goes Trump” rallies in more than 20 cities, and they generated some of the most commonly shared anti-Hillary displays, including getting people to dress up like her in prison garb or cages.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump’s new budget proposes to cut about half of the benefits of people who receive $90 or more per month in SNAP assistance. The difference would be made up by government food boxes (that is, government rations). The boxes would not include fresh fruits or vegetables, and local grocery stores will lose business. The current system is more free market.
  2. Blue Cross of Idaho announces they’ll offer a health insurance policy that ignores the ACA’s rules by charging more for pre-existing conditions. The company can do this because Idaho’s GOP governor signed an executive order allowing it.

International:

  1. Israeli police announce that there’s sufficient evidence to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They are currently looking into two corruption cases against him. The attorney general will decide whether to bring charges.
  2. Russian mercenaries attack a base and refinery in Syria held by the U.S. Over 200 of them are killed. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis says they don’t know if the attack was ordered by Russia.
  3. At a meeting of European foreign policy leaders, top U.S. officials—both Republican and Democrat—tell them not to pay any attention to Trump’s tweets.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Trey Gowdy says he’s leaving Congress because facts don’t matter there and he wants to work somewhere where facts do matter. Good to know.
  2. The Senate Judiciary Committee votes in favor of the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which eases federal sentencing rules around non-violent crimes (some retroactively) and increases sentences for domestic violence. Jeff Sessions says this will increase violent crime and make it harder to enforce federal laws.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Speaking at the National Sheriffs Association, Jeff Sessions praises our “Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement.” Whatever that means.
  2. A second federal judge blocks Trump’s attempt to end DACA, and says the government must start processing both renewals and new applications.
  3. Another federal court of appeals blocks the latest Muslim ban.
  4. The State Department advises that refugee resettlement agencies close 20 U.S. offices because the Trump administration capped refugee admissions at 45,000. Under Obama, the cap was 110,000.
  5. Trump’s repeated desire to severely restrict family-based migration brings up questions about how Melania’s parents came to be in the U.S. and whether they’ll rush to get green cards before the law changes (if it does). At any rate, many other legal immigrants are rushing to bring family members into the U.S.
  6. The Senate debates DACA and immigration policy. Several bipartisan versions have been proposed. Here’s an example of a compromise: it’s more strict than Democrats want, but it doesn’t end family-based immigration. See? Compromise.
    • Path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers.
    • $25 billion for border security.
    • The visa lottery system would become merit based.
  1. Trump shuts down all bipartisan immigration plans. Instead he tells GOP legislators to oppose bipartisan efforts to solve these issues and to support a GOP bill that would reduce legal immigration far more than even most hardliners are comfortable with.
  2. And then the Senate votes down a bipartisan agreement that would’ve saved DACA and added funding to the border. Then they vote down Trump’s plan too. Looks like a stalemate. Great negotiator my ass.
  3. Want to know how Trump really feels about immigrants workers? Across three of his properties, there were 144 seasonal job openings and only ONE went to a U.S. worker. He himself benefits from immigration.
  4. The House passes a bill limiting the power of the American with Disabilities Act, removing years of progress on rights for people with disabilities.
  5. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules 9-4 that Trump’s latest travel ban,which targets largely Muslim countries, is unlawful because it discriminates based on religion.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A federal court rules that the Trump administration must implement the energy efficiency guidelines created in 2016 under Obama. A coalition of state attorneys general had sued the Department of Energy for refusing to implement the guidelines.
  2. Apparently Scott Pruitt flies first class on the recommendation of his security team because people in coach are abusive. One person yelled at him, “You’re fucking up the environment.”

Puerto Rico:

  1. It’s been five months since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and still nearly a half million people are without power. Some people are working to restore power lines themselves.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump proposes a budget that pretty much concedes that they’ve dropped the goal of reducing the deficit. Between the recent tax cuts and the spending increases included in the budget, reducing the deficit would not be possible.
  2. Trump’s budget calls for major cuts to programs and agencies. People are making a big deal about it, but I don’t see it coming to fruition since Congress already signed a spending bill.
  3. Trump’s budget would make cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. On the campaign trail, Trump tweeted this:

“I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.”

  1. Trump endorses a 25-cent per gallon gas tax, but his party isn’t going for it so far. Seeing how the gas tax is playing out in California, I can’t say I blame them.
  2. Analysts estimate that the 25-cent gas tax would erase 60% of the tax cuts for individuals.
  3. Trump proposes an infrastructure plan that would provide up to $200 billion to encourage private and state investment in building projects and shoring up roads and bridges. He thinks this will incentivize $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending.
  4. His plan also reduces the time allowed for environmental reviews by shortening the permit period.
  5. The total U.S. household debt is at a record high of $13.15 trillion.

Elections:

  1. Pennsylvania’s governor, Tom Wolf, rejects the redrawn district lines provided to him (under court order) by the Republican state legislature after an independent analysis found the lines to be just as partisan as the current lines. The analysis found that the chances of a random map being drawn as favorably to the GOP as the redrawn map is .1%.
  2. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit by Citizen’s United. The lawsuit was against a New York law requiring disclosure of the largest donors to non-profits.

Parkland:

The news was so full of the school shooting this week, I had to put it in a separate category.

  1. There’s another school shooting, this time in Florida. There’s been a school shooting about every other day this year. There are seventeen dead, and this time, the students aren’t taking any excuses for Congress’s lack of action around gun violence.
  2. Trump tweets that the students and neighbors should’ve reported the shooter for his behavior prior to the shooting, which they actually did. Multiple times. Way to blame the victim.
  3. The FBI says it failed to act on a tip about Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz. Apparently some protocols were not followed.
  4. Trump later says that if the FBI wasn’t so busy with the Russia investigation, they would’ve been able to take care of the shooter before this happened. Yes, the FBI was at fault here, but they can walk and chew gum at the same time. They have thousands of ongoing investigations that don’t interfere with each other.
  5. Florida Governor Rick Scott calls on FBI Director Wray to resign over the missed signals on the shooter. For real.
  6. Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin calls on Congress to look into gun violence issues. He’s the first senior member of the administration to do so.
  7. Once again, people argue that it’s too soon to talk about gun control. But with a school shooting nearly every other day, when will it ever NOT be too soon?
  8. Interesting fact: The CDC is prevented from researching guns and gun violence due to a law passed in 1996. Records on gun violence are non-standard and haphazard because there are few requirements.
  9. Interesting side note: Trump’s proposed budget cuts millions from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
  10. This time students are vocal and passionate and well-spoken, and they take to the media and social media to push for change. Finally a group is more organized on social media than Russia—though they still can’t drown out the bots. Students stage walk-outs and plan a March 24th march (March For Our Lives).
  11. Lawmakers seem to agree across the aisle on some basic gun purchasing reforms, like universal background checks, but the GOP-led Congress has refused to bring any debate to the floor.
  12. Some people think the answer is to have concealed carry in schools. There was an armed guard on site.
  13. Trump says the gunman is mentally disturbed and says he’ll tackle mental health issues. He says he won’t move on gun reform though.
  14. Oh. Also, Trump’s proposed budget cuts $100s of millions from mental health program funding. Destroying the ACA, as he’s been trying to do, would also cut mental health treatment.
  15. Oh. And one more thing. Last year, Trump reversed a rule limiting gun ownership for people with certain mental disabilities. The White house refuses to release the photo of him signing it. This wouldn’t have changed the Parkland shooting, but you can’t say this is a mental health problem and not a gun problem, and then loosen mental health restrictions on gun ownership.

Miscellaneous

  1. The White House claimed last week that the FBI hadn’t completed Rob Porter’s background check and that’s why they weren’t aware of the abuse allegations. Which is why Porter was still around…reading all that classified information.
  2. But then FBI director Christopher Wray testifies to Congress that they finished checking Porter last July and provided requested updates to the White House. Wray didn’t say what their background check found, but Porter’s ex-wives say they gave all the abuse information to the FBI.
  3. Sarah Huckabee Sanders later says that the White House meant that the White House personnel security office hadn’t finished their process yet. Seven months after the FBI finished theirs.
  4. It turns out that Rob Porter was up for a promotion, even though John Kelly knew about the allegations of spousal abuse.
  5. It took a week after Rob Porter’s resignation for Trump to say he opposes domestic violence (after originally saying that baseless accusations are ruining careers).
  6. The House Oversight Committee begins investigating the handling of the Rob Porter situation.
  7. Last fall, the White House banned any new employees with interim security clearances.
  8. National Intelligence Director Dan Coats says anyone with interim security clearance should be limited in what sensitive information they can see. There are about 130 White House officials without permanent clearance.
  9. John Kelly approves changes to the vetting process that puts more onus on the FBI and Justice Department, though they are the agencies that actually did their jobs in the Porter matter.
  10. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump report $31-$155 million in debt.
  11. Ajit Pai is being investigated for corruption. The FCC is looking into whether he “Improperly coordinated” with Sinclair Broadcasting by changing the rules to facilitate Sinclair’s purchase of Tribune Media.
  12. Thomas Brunell withdraws from consideration to run the 2020 census after receiving pushback over his stance on redistricting. He thinks gerrymandering is A-OK and that elections don’t need to be competitive.
  13. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, says that he paid off adult film star Stormy Daniels with his own money.
  14. Apparently Cohen’s admission that he paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 for her to sign a non-disclosure agreement invalidates the NDA.
  15. David Shulkin, the Veterans Affairs secretary, had his chief of staff lie for him so the government would cover his wife’s travel expenses on a 10-day European trip.
  16. The IRS and DOJ issue new subpoenas to Jared Kushner’s family over their financial dealings.
  17. The Department of Defense is seriously looking into Trump’s military parade, with costs ranging from $3 million to $50 million. I don’t know if that covers fixing the streets of D.C. afterward.
  18. Trump has now gone the longest of any president in the last 50 years without holding an official press conference.
  19. The RNC refuses to return donations from their former finance chair Steve Wynn until formal investigations are complete. Wynn is accused of multiple instances of sexual assault occurring over several decades. This is notable only because of the outcry from the RNC that Democrats immediately return donations from Harvey Weinstein, whose investigation is also ongoing.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating is up to 44%, with 53% disapproving. This might be a high for him.

Week 44 in Trump

Posted on November 28, 2017 in Politics, Trump

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

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

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

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Even Congress gets a break over Thanksgiving…

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Puerto Rico:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

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

Miscellaneous:

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