Tag: Trumpcare

Week 99 in Trump

Posted on December 18, 2018 in Politics, Trump

So much happened last week, but my favorite part of the week was when Trump surprised Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer with a meeting with the press when they thought they were having a closed-door meeting. As far as transparency goes, that was awesome. But things went downhill fast, with a lot of shouting, a lot of misinformation, a bit of man-splaining, and some name-calling; only Nancy Pelosi was trying to talk policy. Pelosi came out of it not only looking like the adult in the room but also firmly pinning any potential government shutdown on Trump. It’s easy to see how she got the votes for Speaker.

Here’s what else happened this week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. NASA spacecraft OSIRIS-REx arrived in the orbit of an asteroid named Bennu. OSIRIS-REx launched two years ago and will spend the next year surveying and mapping the asteroid and hopefully bring us back some rock samples. Seriously. We sent a spacecraft to an ASTEROID!
  2. The week had some hate:
    • Jehovah’s Witnesses have been targeted with hate crimes 5 times this year in Washington state. The latest attack destroyed a church in a fire.
    • Again in Washington, eight self-professed neo-Nazis assault a black man, yelling racist slurs as they attack him.
    • Someone spreads anti-Semitic pamphlets throughout Pittsburgh, and a student plasters State University of New York’s Purchase College with Nazi-themed posters.

Russia:

  1. Maria Butina pleads guilty to acting as an illegal foreign agent and agrees to cooperate with federal investigators. She’s the first Russian charged to admit trying to influence the 2016 elections.
  2. Here are some highlights:
    • In 2015, Butina began working with Alexander Torshin to establish “unofficial” lines of communication with political leaders for the benefit of the Russian Federation (because official lines weren’t working).
    • Butina targeted Republicans because she thought a Republican would win the presidency in 2016.
    • She worked with her boyfriend, South Dakotan Paul Erickson, on her plan and also to make the contacts she needed.
    • Butina planned to use the NRA to lay the groundwork because of their influence over the Republican party.
    • She received funding from a Russian billionaire.
    • In the middle of all this, Butina obtained a student visa so she could stay in the U.S.
    • She worked to meet with Trump’s advisors once he was elected. Butina and Erickson also tried to set up meetings between Trump advisors and Russian officials.
  1. As of this week, we know through court filings and guilty pleas that at least 16 Trump business and campaign associates had contact with Russians during the 2016 campaign. And every one of them lied about it.
  2. Newspapers and businesses across the country receive bomb threats, suspected to come from Russian hackers. The hackers ask for bitcoin in order to not detonate the (non-existent) bombs.
  3. Everything was going so well for Michael Flynn, who was probably on track to serve no jail time. And then, his lawyers file a court document claiming that the FBI didn’t let him know he maybe needed a lawyer during the interviews where he lied to investigators (which led to the charges against him). They say that the FBI tricked Flynn into lying but still don’t say why Flynn lied.
  4. Mueller says Flynn is an experienced military man in a high-level government position. He should know better than to lie to U.S. intelligence in any situation, and there was no coercion for him to lie.
  5. Two of Flynn’s associates say he was meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 elections to talk about cooperation between Russia and the U.S. Russia would help end the Syrian conflict and the U.S. would ease sanctions.
    • The talks continued even after U.S. intelligence agencies told Trump’s campaign that Russia was behind the DNC hacks and subsequent leaks.
  1. On judge‘s orders, Mueller turns over their documentation of the interviews with Flynn where he is said to have lied.
  2. Texts and emails show that Paul Manafort was advising the Trump administration on ways to discredit Mueller’s investigations. Manafort recommended attacking the FBI, the DOJ, the Steele Dossier (and the Clinton campaign’s involvement) and any Obama officials involved in getting the FISA warrant. He recommended accusing the DNC of colluding with Ukraine.
  3. Studies commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee find that clearly all of the messaging coming from Russian entities was designed to benefit the Republican party and later Trump specifically.
    • One report finds that Russians used every major social media platform to influence the elections in 2016.
    • The other report analyzed how the Russian company Internet Research Agency targeted specific demographics for political messaging. IRA targeted blacks and other minorities to either discourage them from voting and turn them against Democrats.
    • Russian trolls and bots put a lot of time into dividing us on gun rights and immigration issues. They’d embed themselves in specific circles using authentic content, and then start posting provocative misinformation.
    • Posts on Instagram generated more than twice the user engagement than other major platforms.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump says he never told Cohen to break the law, but didn’t dispute that he told Cohen to pay off his mistresses to keep them quiet about their affairs. Trump says Cohen should’ve known what was legal; Cohen says he was under Trump’s sway.
  2. Sources says that Trump was involved in meetings where Cohen and David Pecker (of American Media Inc. (AMI)) talked about the payments.
  3. In his sentencing hearing, Cohen implies that he has more to talk about than just hush money payments. He gets a three-year sentence plus fines.
    • As a reminder, he pled guilty to: tax evasion, campaign finance violations, lying to banks, and lying to Congress. These are not all his known crimes.
    • Sean Hannity deletes all his tweets linking him to Cohen just before Cohen is sentenced.
  1. AMI is also in a cooperation agreement and has agreed to tell prosecutors everything they know about Trump. If you remember, AMI also has a vault of the negative stories about Trump that they killed in the run-up to the 2016 elections.
  2. David Pecker also admits to the hush money payments. AMI says the payments were to influence the elections, giving even more credence to the allegation that these were illegal campaign donations.
  3. Investigators are looking into donations to Trump’s inaugural committee and to a pro-Trump super PAC. They say foreign agents from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE might have disguised donations to buy influence over U.S. policy. Not surprisingly, Manafort it involved in this.
  4. When Trump and his siblings inflated invoices for their shell company decades ago, they also used those invoices as justification to inflate rent increases in their apartment buildings. This has caused the rent in those buildings to be artificially inflated for decades, even though the Trumps no longer own them.
  5. In a defamation lawsuit, Roger Stone admits to telling lies on InfoWars. Stone says he didn’t do his research and took the word of Sam Nunberg about alleged foreign donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. “Didn’t do his research” is how all this BS gets spread around in the first place so do your research!

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court refuses to hear cases about blocking funding for Planned Parenthood. This leaves in place the lower court rulings that say states can’t cancel Medicaid contracts with Planned Parenthood offices.
  2. The Senate confirms Jonathan Kobes to a federal appeals court despite the ABA questioning his knowledge of the law and ability to understand complex legal analysis. This is Trump’s second unqualified but confirmed judicial nominee.
  3. The chief justice of California’s Supreme Court changes her party affiliation from Republican to No Party Preference. She says it’s been coming for a while, but Kavanaugh’s confirmation was the nail in the coffin.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration shuts down an HIV research project in Montana because they use fetal tissue to research a cure for HIV/AIDS. Restrictions on the use of fetal tissue have been shutting down research projects across the country.
  2. The Senate votes against a bill that would extend VA benefits for thousands of vets who were exposed to Agent Orange. The House passed this bill unanimously.
  3. A federal judge in Texas rules that without the mandate, certain parts of the ACA are unconstitutional. Trump says that’s great news, but even legislators who tried to kill the ACA aren’t thrilled with this ruling. Many are even confused by it. The White House assures us that the ACA will remain in place through the appeals process. Oh, and the ruling comes the day before open enrollment ends.

International:

  1. Trump rejects the information given by U.S. intelligence agencies in his daily briefings on world events. Specifically, he’s denied that Russia interfered in the 2016 elections, he says North Korea will halt their nuclear weapons program, and he disagrees with them about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, climate change, and the role of the Saudi Crown Prince in Khashoggi’s murder.
  2. Theresa May delays a vote to approve her Brexit deal, and then survives a vote of no confidence. She then returns to Brussels to negotiate once more, but returns empty-handed.
  3. On top of weeks of protests across France, a shooter kills three people and injures 13 at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, putting all Christmas Markets in France on high alert and launching a manhunt. Police later find and shoot the gunman.
  4. A cyber attack on the Marriott earlier this year accessed the personal information of around 500 million guests. Investigators blame the cyber attack on Chinese intelligence.
  5. Trump continues to stand by Saudi Arabia and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite GOP Senators standing against him on this. Interesting side note: Some members of the Saudi royal family would like to stop MbS from being crowned king, but support from the U.S. and Trump could sway them.
  6. The Senate passes a resolution that declares MbS is not only involved in Khashoggi’s murder but is responsible for it.
  7. The Senate passes a recommendation to end support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen.
  8. Party members in Hungary that are normally in opposition to one other unite in protest against Prime Minister Viktor Ordan’s authoritarian rule. Rallies and protests have spread across the country, taking the Prime Minister and his Fidesz party by surprise. Ordan has been steadily increasing his power while weakening democratic institutions and processes.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Senate reverses a Trump policy that helped hide information about donors to political non-profits. With the Senate bill, donors must be disclosed to the IRS.
  2. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signs a series of lame duck bills into law, curtailing the power of the office he is leaving because the person taking his place is a Democrat. From what I can see, the GOP plan seems to be: 1) Gerrymander districts so the other party can’t ever get a majority (even with a majority of votes statewide); and 2) When the populace finally votes your party out, change all the rules of government to make sure they can’t get anything done. Such a bad precedent.
    • Lawsuits against these bills are already in the works. Several of North Carolina’s attempt at passing bills to weaken incoming Democratic officials two years ago are still stuck in the courts.
    • Republicans in Wisconsin’s state legislature started working on these bills months ago just in case there was a shift in parties.
  1. Florida’s governor-elect Ron DeSantis wants to delay implementation of the voter approved ballot initiative that restored voting rights to felons who’ve served their time (excepting certain violent crimes).
  2. The House passes a bill to prevent states from holding children in adult jails and to ban the practice of shackling pregnant girls. The bill also funds tutoring, mental health assistance, and drug and alcohol programs for juvenile offenders.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The number of migrant minors held in U.S. custody is now nearly 15,000. A big reason for the backlog is that sponsors for these children are afraid to come forward for fear of being deported themselves.
  2. Church leaders form an interfaith protest at the U.S.-Mexico border in support of those seeking asylum. Officials arrest 32 faith leaders and activists at the protest.
  3. Officials in Ohio arrest a man who was plotting to kill people in a Jewish synagogue. Hate crimes against Jews have increased more than any other type of hate crime.
  4. Immigration judges for the most part want to make the right choices and not send people back to their home countries to get killed. The Global Migration Project at Columbia University recently found over 60 people who were killed or harmed after being sent home.
  5. The Trump administration starts working once again to deport refugees from the Vietnam war who’ve lived in the U.S. for decades.
  6. Trump says the updated NAFTA deal means that Mexico will pay for his wall. In case you were wondering, it doesn’t.
  7. A seven-year-old migrant girl dies after getting sick eight hours after being taken into custody. Homeland Security says that she didn’t have anything to eat or drink for days before being detained, but her family says that’s not true. The fastest way to get her medical assistance was a 90-minute bus ride, during which she worsened until she was no longer breathing when they arrived. An investigation is underway.
  8. Trump uses the shooting in Strasbourg as a reason we need to shore up our borders, but it turns out the shooter was born in Strasbourg.
  9. Trump claims that the migrants coming in to this country are spreading contagious diseases. There’s no evidence of this.
  10. Trump says a lot of his wall is already built and that it has decreased illegal migration significantly. He seems to be referring to fencing built or fixed between 1992 and 2016.
  11. Trump says says migrants crossing the border illegally are pouring drugs into the country, but according to the DEA most drugs come in through legal ports of entry.
  12. In referring to illegal immigration over the southern border, Trump says: “We caught 10 terrorists over the last very short period of time. Ten.” I’m not sure what he means by ‘the last very short period of time,’ but most terrorists are blocked from entry into the U.S. at airports. And a State Department study found “no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States.”
  13. Betsy DeVos moves to rescind Obama-era guidance over school discipline that prevented minority students from receiving harsher punishments than their white classmates.
  14. Miss USA, Miss Columbia and Miss Australia are caught on tape mocking other Miss Universe contestants’ English-speaking skills.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A new study that compares past and future climates suggests that over the past 200 years, human activity has reversed millions of years of cooling. So yes, our climate changes, but generally not as rapidly as now.
  2. At the UN climate talks, Trump’s top climate and energy advisor is greeted with laughter when he gives a talk that includes pitching coal, the fossil fuel largely responsible for climate change. Turns out that most of the audience is there merely to protest; the U.S. couldn’t get enough people who are serious about climate change to attend.
  3. At the same talks, nations discuss the latest IPCC report which calls for dramatic cuts in emissions. Oil producing nations want to keep the report out of the final agreement, and the U.S. backs them. They end up welcoming the “timeliness” of the report as opposed to the content of the report.
  4. Even more interesting, though, is the fact that U.S. officials were working behind the scenes to continue making contributions to the Paris agreement.
  5. The Trump administration wants to reclassify nuclear waste so we don’t have to be so cautious in disposing of it, making disposal cheaper. Though this is the same administration that says a little radiation every day is good for you!
  6. The Trump administration proposes weakening the clean water rules that were created by George H.W. Bush and expanded on under Obama. The changes loosen protections against pollutants, pesticides, and toxic waste in certain waterways.
  7. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke resigns in the middle of more than a dozen ethics investigations into his political activity, travel expenses, and possible conflicts of interest. Zinke used his position roll back environmental protections and to exploit federal lands with the goal of global energy dominance.
  8. Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt will take over for Zinke temporarily. Bernhardt was a fossil fuels and water industry lobbyist before coming to the department (whose mission, by the way, is to be a good steward of our public lands).
  9. The Trump administration auctions off leases that will allow fracking on public lands near Utah’s national parks.
  10. A new study shows that Australia’s Great Barrier Reef might be adapting to the warmer waters caused by climate change. The harm done to the reef this year was less than expected despite warmer waters.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China agrees to cut tariffs on U.S. automobiles to 15%.
  2. Trump says he’ll shut down the government if the spending bill doesn’t fund his border wall. He even says he’ll be proud to shut it down.
  3. Trump signs an executive order to help fund underserved communities known as “opportunity zones.”
  4. Trump wants to get rid of subsidies for electric vehicles, which would give foreign automakers an advantage in EV development.
  5. The budget deficit for the first two months of fiscal year 2019 is double what it was in the first two months of fiscal year 2018. The administration predicts the deficit will be over $1 trillion for three straight years.
  6. In 2010, Wells Fargo incorrectly foreclosed on around 545 homeowners due to a computer glitch. Most of these people lost their homes, their current and future equity, and in some cases their pets because they had to move. To make up for it, Wells Fargo sends the borrowers checks that grossly under-compensated them for their losses.
  7. A few months ago, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau put out a report showing that Wells Fargo was price-gouging student borrowers. The Trump administration has been sitting on that information.
  8. Betsy DeVos loses a court battle and now has to cancel $150 million in federal student loan debt. The loan forgiveness affects 15,000 borrowers who were cheated by for-profit colleges.

Elections:

  1. A federal court in Virginia hands down documents in a case that concluded that 11 of Virginia’s districts are illegally gerrymandered. The case is pending before the Supreme Court, but the legislature must redraw the district lines anyway. One of the documents includes a variety of plans, but none of them redraw less than 21 districts.
  2. Things aren’t looking good for Mark Harris, Republican candidate for Congress in North Carolina’s 9th District. It turns out that he sought to hire Leslie Dowless to help win the 2018 race after losing a race in 2016, knowing Dowless’ reputation for using sketchy means to win elections. Dowless illegally harvested ballots according to witnesses.
  3. George Papadopoulos feels like he’s ready to run for Congress. Now that he’s done his jail time for lying about Russian contacts, that is.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Time Magazine names a group of journalist as their Person of the Year. The group, which Time calls The Guardians, include the slain journalists at the Capital Gazette and Jamal Khashoggi, among others. One of the reasons for this choice is that “manipulation and abuse of truth is really the common thread in so many of this year’s major stories.”
  2. The House Judiciary Committee questions a Google executive for over three hours because Republicans think Google searches bring up results that aren’t fair to conservatives. Both parties are concerned about privacy issues.
  3. Stormy Daniels has to pay Trump nearly $300,000 in legal fees because her defamation suit against him was dismissed.
  4. A Kansas state senator switches party affiliations from Republican to Democrat after being ostracized for supporting the Democratic candidate for governor over Kris Kobach.
  5. The Trumps cancel the White House tradition of a holiday press party. Last year, they held the event but declined the tradition of taking pictures with anyone who wanted one.
  6. After Nick Ayers turns down the chief of staff position, Chris Christie takes himself out of the running as well. Jared Kushner’s in the running, but then Trump picks Mick Mulvaney to be acting chief of staff. Mulvaney is already wearing a couple different hats.
  7. The Trumps plan to take a 16-day trip to Mar-a-Lago over the holidays.
  8. Voyager 2 becomes the second human-made object to leave our solar system (Voyager 1 was the first). Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and its equipment still functions.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating in rural areas is 61% compared to 31% in urban areas and 41% in suburban areas.

Week 79 in Trump

Posted on July 30, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Credit: gguy/Shutterstock

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

Missed from Last Week:

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

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Family Separation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

 

Week 76 in Trump

Posted on July 9, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Was your Member of Congress in Russia?

Thankfully it was a short news week with the 4th of July holiday falling right in the middle, but that didn’t stop the government from working. GOP Members of Congress traveled to Moscow to meet with Russian officials (over the 4th? weird); Pompeo met with North Korean officials; children are still separated from their parents at the border (surprisingly there was no plan to reunite them); Scott Pruitt retired; and let the trade wars begin.

Here’s what happened last week. I’m sure I missed things, so if you notice something, let me know.

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Paul Manafort’s personal assistant was the person who gave the FBI access to the storage locker where they found evidence in the case against Manafort. Manafort is now trying to have that evidence suppressed, but the assistant was likely within his rights to provide access.

Russia:

  1. Michael Cohen replaces his legal team with Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House spokesperson and special counsel.
  2. Mueller is looking into whether Russian nationals used the NRA to illegally funnel funds to the Trump campaign.
  3. Mueller expands his team of prosecutors.
  4. Paul Manafort is spending much of his time in custody in solitary confinement for his own safety.
  5. Ahead of Trump’s upcoming visit with Putin, a delegation of GOP Senators and Representatives take a trip to Moscow to meet with Russian leaders.
    • John Neely Kennedy (R-La.)
    • Sen. John Thune (S.D.)
    • Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who denounced our sanctions against Russia when he returned
    • Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.)
    • Steve Daines (Mont.)
    • Jerry Moran (Kan.)
    • John Hoeven (N.D.)
    • Kay Granger (R-Texas)
  1. Coinciding with this visit, the Senate Intelligence Committee releases an interim report on their Russia investigation, concluding that the U.S. intelligence community was correct in its findings that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections to help elect Donald Trump. They also say that Putin ordered this interference.
  2. The committee’s main criticism is that the intelligence community could’ve been more thorough. The committee claims they found a far more extensive effort by the Russians to sow division and disrupt our elections.
  3. Independent journalist Marcy Wheeler becomes an FBI informant after spending more than a decade criticizing the U.S. intelligence community. She went to the FBI once she realized her informant played a part in the Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Chuck Schumer calls Trump to suggest he nominate Merrick Garland to Justice Kennedy’s about-to-be-empty seat. Seems the answer was no.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump halts payments to insurers that cover sicker patient populations, an ACA program to protect such insurers from loss and to spread the risk among all insurance companies. Note that these payments come from insurance companies and not taxpayer dollars.
  2. Insurance companies say to expect premium increases next year because of this.
  3. The U.S. refuses to sponsor a noncontroversial resolution at the World Health Assembly promoting the health benefits of breastfeeding, even threatening to withhold funding to WHO. Not only that, we threaten the country that introduced the resolution, Ecuador, with economic and military punishments. Ecuador withdraws the resolution. Health activists look for a replacement, but other countries are now too afraid to step up. Except Russia, that is, which steps up and saves the resolution. For some reason, we don’t threaten them over it.
  4. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin (R) plans to cancel dental and vision benefits provided under Medicaid after a judge blocked his Medicaid work requirements.

International:

  1. Denmark now legally classifies low-income immigrants (in what they call “immigrant ghettos”) as “ghetto children” and “ghetto parents.” They also require these children spend 25 hours a week away from their parents starting at age one to get training in “Danish values.”
  2. Protests continue in Iran over water shortages caused by mismanagement and over the economy, now threatened by U.S. sanctions after we withdrew from the Iran deal.
  3. We learn that Trump has asked at least four times why we can’t just invade Venezuela.
  4. After Mike Pompeo’s meeting with North Korean officials, Pompeo says the meetings were productive but North Korea says the attitude of the U.S. team is “regrettable,” “gangster-like,” and “cancerous.”
  5. Over the past few months, North Korea’s been increasing their production of enriched uranium, indicating that they don’t currently have any intentions of denuclearizing. The country is also finishing up an expansion of a ballistic missile factory.
  6. John Bolton says North Korea could denuclearize in about a year, while Mike Pompeo says two and a half years.
  7. Trump threatens NATO allies, saying they must increase defense spending or the U.S. will decrease its military presence around the world.
  8. A British couple is exposed to the toxic nerve agents that was used on a former Russian spy and his daughter in March.
  9. With newly expanded powers, Turkey’s president Erdogan fires over 18,000 state employees because of alleged terrorist ties.

Separating Families:

  1. Groups have been raising money to make bail for mothers separated from their children because that’s the quickest way to reunite them. But now ICE agents are saying that they’ve been told to deny bonds for separated parents.
  2. ICE agents, under administration instructions, are using the separated children to extort asylum seekers into voluntary deportation.
  3. Asylum seekers are not being allowed to reunite with their children while awaiting their asylum hearings (even parents who have passed their initial asylum screening).
  4. A federal judge orders the administration to halt blanket arrests of asylum seekers. The judge also rules that asylum seekers must either be released or granted a hearing.
  5. ICE is reportedly not giving families a chance to officially seek asylum. They’re telling refugees that they can either leave with their children, or seek asylum and have their children taken away.
  6. All of this is increasing the calls to abolish, or at the very least restructure, ICE.
  7. A woman climbs the base of the Statue of Liberty after a protest to abolish ICE, shutting the statue down to the public for several hours while law enforcement brings her down.
  8. Local officials cancel their contracts with ICE to provide facilities to detain immigrants.
  9. The Trump administration requests more time to reunite families. A federal judge says children under 5 must be reunited by July 10, and others by July 26.
  10. Why are they having trouble reuniting these families? Because some records linking families have been misplaced or destroyed. It’s almost like they never intended to bring the families back together. They’re now using DNA testing to find families. Humanitarian issues aside, the zero-tolerance policy is ending up costing us an immense amount of money in the long run.
  11. Meanwhile, toddlers continue to appear before court in immigration hearings, with judges admittedly uncomfortable asking them if they understand the proceedings.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A federal judges rejects a Trump administration request to block three sanctuary laws in California.
  2. To justify his policy of family separation, Trump says we have a border crisis. But the numbers show that the number of border crossings has plummeted 80% from 2000 to 2017.
  3. Trump says he didn’t push Republicans to pass an immigration bill despite tweeting three days earlier that House Republicans should pass Goodlatte’s bill (while continuing to blame Democrats for the failings of the GOP-led Congress).
  4. The Trump administration plans to rescind Obama-era rules for colleges to consider race in order to diversify their student population. The DOJ says they’ll sue any universities who don’t follow the new policy. This is the seventh affirmative action rule Trump has rescinded.
  5. Trump repeats a lie that seems to have started with a hard-line Iranian cleric by saying that Obama gave citizenship to 2,500 Iranians as part of the Iran deal.
  6. The U.S. Army begins discharging immigrant recruits who were promised a pathway to citizenship at the end of their service. Some aren’t given a reason, some are told that something came up in their background checks, and some are suing the military.
  7. The above could be part of Trump’s new task force that was put in place to review immigrants who have been granted citizenship to find out if there’s anything in their background that we can use to deport them.
  8. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago has applied for 61 H2-B visas to hire temporary workers from abroad.
  9. A judge orders the Trump administration to provide documentation about how they decided to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The judge indicates the administration might have acted in bad faith.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Scott Pruitt and his staff keep secret calendars in order to hide meetings with people representing the very industries the EPA is supposed to watch over.
  2. EPA staffers even modified Pruitt’s official calendar to make sure there weren’t any meetings that might look bad.
  3. Staff members also testify to Congress that Pruitt ignored warnings about ethics violations and tried to use his position for personal gain.
  4. Scott Pruitt finally resigns, and Andrew Wheeler will take over as acting administrator for now. Wheeler was a coal lobbyist for Murray Energy.
  5. Pruitt pens quite the love letter to Trump as his resignation letter.
  6. Ah… but before he leaves, Pruitt gives us one last gift. He enacts a loophole that raises the limit on the number of trucks a manufacturer can produce that use old engines (super polluter trucks). These trucks emit up to 55 times the pollutants that trucks with more modern engines do.
  7. Locations all across the northern hemisphere log record high temperatures this week.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The latest BLS numbers show that while employment increased by 213,000 in June, the unemployment rate rose to 4.0% because of more people, largely college graduates, entering the workforce.
  2. Trump doesn’t like the updated NAFTA deal and says he won’t sign it until after the midterms. Is he really using this as an election campaign tool?
  3. U.S. tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports begin, while Chinese tariffs on the same amount of American goods go into effect, including on pork, wheat, rice and dairy products. China will also cancel orders for 1.1 million tons of soybeans.
  4. Canada places retaliatory tariffs on $12.5 billion in American goods.
  5. Mexico implements the second part of their retaliatory tariffs on $3 billion in American goods.
  6. Russia places retaliatory tariffs on American goods.
  7. Ahead of these tariffs, global export growth has slowed to a crawl.
  8. The [conservative] U.S. Chamber of Commerce launches a campaign opposing Trump’s trade policies.
  9. Trump says that Saudi leaders have agreed to his request to increase oil production, but Saudi leaders say they can increase production, not that they will.
  10. The Tax Foundation estimates that the current trade wars will cost us 250,000 jobs.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Leaked copies of Michael Cohen’s shredded documents seem to confirm his hush money payment to a playboy model on behalf of Elliot Broidy.
  2. Maybe this is why Jim Jordan is so mad. Several Ohio State wrestlers have come forward to say that Jordan was aware of alleged sexual abuse by the team doctor during his time there as coach. Jordan is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, whose members are being urged to stand behind him.
  3. Trump hires Bill Shine to be Communications Director. You might remember that Fox News fired Shine for how he handled sexual harassment claims while there.
  4. Melania Trump has an agreement with Getty Images that not only pays royalties to the Trumps when photos of them are used, but that also says the photos can only be used in positive news stories.
  5. Public confrontations with people affiliated with the Trump administration are growing. Protestors follow Mitch McConnell in a parking lot asking him where the children are, and a woman is kicked out of a bookstore for calling Steve Bannon a piece of trash. A bartender flips off Steven Miller, so Miller throws away the take-out sushi he got there.
  6. Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, says he’ll run for president in 2020 if Trump does, because he alone can beat him. Where’ve we heard that before?

Polls:

  1. 63% of American voters support the Roe v. Wade decision.
  2. 64% of American voters want campaign spending limits for corporations and unions.
  3. 58% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration. I seriously can’t believe that 40% of Americans are OK with treating families this way.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

Trump holds yet another campaign rally, this time in Montana. Here are a few highlights.

  1. A week after the mass shooting at the Capital Gazette in Maryland, he again makes a point of calling the media “fake news.”
  2. In another assault on our intelligence officers, he accuses them of giving Hillary Clinton special treatment.
  3. He says North Korea signed a denuclearization deal, which they haven’t yet.
  4. He once again hypes the threat of MS-13, saying that if Democrats win, MS-13 members will run free. A) MS-13 makes up .1% of all gang members in the U.S. and B) no one wants them to run free.
  5. He pushes the false theory that we have rampant voter fraud, and this time throws in the misinformation that Republicans have a tougher time winning the electoral vote. Of note, Democrats have won the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections, but have only won the electoral vote in 4 of them.
  6. He mocks the #MeToo movement, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, John McCain, and George Bush Sr. (whose eloquence apparently went over Trump’s head). But Putin? He says Putin’s fine.
  7. He also mocked people who say that Putin was KGB, despite the fact that Putin really was in the KGB for quite some time, rising to the level of directory by the time it became the FSB.
  8. He went into a stream of consciousness comparing his crowd size with Elton John’s:

“I have broken more Elton John records…and I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ.”

Week 74 in Trump

Posted on June 25, 2018 in Politics, Trump

Border policy is the big story this week. 538 gives a good wrap up about how family separation is just part of a bigger plan to control and limit immigration. The administration has tried to end DACA; reviewed applications (going back decades) of immigrants who’ve been granted citizenship; deported non-criminal immigrants who’ve made lives here for decades; and tried to curtail refugee admissions, work visas, travel from Muslim countries, and immigration by international entrepreneurs. Now they’re separating children from their parents at the border. Put together, these policies will force some immigrants here to return to their home countries, they’ll make it harder to help relatives come to the country, and they’ll reduce the number of immigrants and refugees coming here in the first place. So the overall goal seems to be to reduce the foreign-born population in the U.S.

And just a reminder of how these policies are based on misleading information: The Trump administration tried to stifle a report they commissioned that shows refugees added $63 billion to US economy over the past decade. The released version was manipulated to only show the costs of refugees and none of the profits. Trump also holds up Germany as example of how bad immigration is, saying crime in Germany is way up. In real life, the crime rate in Germany is at it’s lowest point in 26 years and was down 10% in 2017 from 2016.

But here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

  1. DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, along with the FBI’s Christopher Wray, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his newly released report on the investigation into Hillary’s emails.
  2. Republicans aren’t satisfied with the 580-page report, so they threaten to investigate the investigation into the investigation of Clinton’s emails.
  3. Wray supports Mueller’s investigation and says this is not a witch hunt.
  4. The FBI turns over thousands of documents to congressional committees about its processes and sources for finding information on Russian contacts with Trump campaign members. Wait for the leaks…
  5. In the run-up to the 2016 elections, the National Enquirer got Michael Cohen’s approval before running stories about Trump. This allowed Cohen to limit negative press and is being looked into as a violation of campaign finance laws.
  6. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan subpoena the publisher of the National Enquirer over their payment to Karen McDougal to keep her story of her alleged affair with Trump out of the news.
  7. Even Mueller’s team worries that the Russia investigation is being overexposed in the press and has already biased potential jurors.
  8. A judge denies Paul Manafort’s request to suppress evidence against him and says that the money laundering charges won‘t be dismissed.
  9. Mueller tries to thwart further moves for dismissal by filing a request preventing the defense from saying Manafort was targeted because of his proximity to Trump.
  10. Michael Cohen resigns as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee. This makes him the third person to step down from the RNC finance committee over scandals.
  11. Joshua Schulte, a former CIA engineer, is indicted for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks.
  12. House Democrats release thousands of RussiaToday Twitter ads that were used before the 2016 election.
  13. In a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, two former Obama officials say we didn’t do enough to deter Russian meddling in our elections.
  14. We find out from the Kremlin that John Bolton is going to Russia in the coming week. Four Senators are heading there too.
  15. The House Judiciary Committee issues a subpoena to Peter Strzok even though Strzok has already offered to appear voluntarily.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Supreme Court throws out a 1992 ruling that blocked states from collecting taxes from online entities.
  2. The Supreme Court rules that the government can’t track or obtain cellphone location data without a warrant.
  3. A federal judge strikes down Kris Kobach’s voter registration law in Kansas that requires proof of citizenship, saying that it violates constitutional rights, that Kobach failed to prove cases of fraud, and that the burden of proof had disenfranchised thousands of voters. This makes an earlier injunction of the law permanent.
  4. The same judge forces Kobach to attend legal classes because he is too unfamiliar with the law.

Healthcare:

  1. The House passes a bipartisan group of bills aimed at fixing the opioid epidemic. The bills address expanding treatment, looking at alternative treatments, stopping the transfer of illegal opioids, and preventing the use of fentanyl.
  2. Trump issues a rule that allows small businesses to circumvent some of the ACA consumer protections in order to provide cheaper, and possibly substandard, health insurance policies.
  3. Trump creates a commission to look into closing down some VA facilities to save money. He also wants to transfer funding from VA facilities to private facilities.

International:

  1. A UN report on chemical weapons attacks and potential war crimes in Syria omits allegations that chemical weapons attacks were more common than has been reported. The authors say they need more corroboration.
  2. Trump accuses Canadians of coming across the border to buy shoes and smuggle them back into Canada. He says they scuff them up to make them look and sound old. Sneaky Canadians.
  3. Canada becomes the second country to legalize pot (Uruguay is the other one).
  4. Trump calls North Korea destabilizing, repressive, and a continued threat to the U.S. Last week, Kim Jong Un was a great leader who Trump was honored to meet. Last year, Kim was “little rocket man.”
  5. Tens of thousands of people turn out in London to protest Brexit and demand a final vote on the terms of the deal. Hundreds of pro-Brexit protestors turn out as well.
  6. Turkey re-elects Erdogan president and abolishes the position of prime minister. This move increases Erdogan’s authority greatly.
  7. European Union leaders hold a small summit to modify immigration rules, with countries that have been taking on the brunt of refugees asking other countries to do their part.
  8. Saudi Arabia ends their ban on women driving.
  9. Protests break out in Tehran, Iran. It’s not clear who’s leading the protests but the impetus seems related to the economy.
  10. Secretary of Defense James Mattis says he’s not aware of any moves North Korea has made yet to denuclearize.
  11. However, Trump has been ignoring Mattis’s advice on foreign-policy, or just leaving him out of the loop completely.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Paul Ryan delays the House vote on an immigration compromise bill that funds the wall, gives Dreamers a pathway to citizenship, and keeps families together (though detained indefinitely).
  2. And then Trump says GOP lawmakers should wait until after the midterms to deal with immigration, likely scuttling the deal through the end of the year.
  3. Paul Ryan continues his practice of only bringing bills to a vote if he thinks Trump is ready for it.
  4. The Senate votes against Trump’s $15 billion cuts to the previously approved spending plan.
  5. Trump threatens to shut down the government in the fall if he doesn’t get his wall. Senators are willing to fund border security at $1.6 billion, though Trump just scuttled the above House bill that would’ve given him $25 billion.

Separating Families:

  1. Every living first lady— from Rosalynn Carter to Melania Trump—speaks out against the separation of families.
  2. 55% of Republicans approve of this policy. 66% of Americans in general do not. Republicans are the only listed demographic in the poll to support family separation; they’re also the only other group to support building a wall.
  3. A bipartisan group of over 70 former US attorneys urge Jeff Sessions to reverse the zero-tolerance policy. They say it’s dangerous, expensive, and doesn’t live up to the our values.
  4. Trump continues to blame Democrats, which is provably false since no administration has done this before and Jeff Sessions announced the change in policy on April 6th and then went on to speak about it on May 7.
  5. Cities and states refuse to provide assistance to the DOJ or CBP in the detention of separated families.
  6. Four governors refuse to send National Guard troops to the border, and eleven governors pull their National Guard troops out. Colorado bans the use of state resources for child separations.
  7. Detained parents of separated children get no legal counsel prior to appearing before a judge and are processed in large groups in a single hearing. Prosecutors’ goals are to get through as many as possible and to have them all plead guilty, which many do because they think that’s the only way to find their kids.
  8. The Flores decision of 1997 specifies that immigrant children can only be detained for up to 20 days and after that, they can only be held in licensed facilities. The DOJ asks a judge to waive that limit so they can house immigrant families indefinitely.
  9. After a week of saying only Democrats can fix this, Trump signs an executive order drafted by Kirstjen Nielsen to attempt to fix this crisis of his own making.
    • The EO says Homeland Security will still prosecute border crossers as criminals, but that they’ll detain families together. This requires them to file a brief against the Flores decision. What they’re aiming for is to detain families indefinitely, which is far more costly than releasing them with mandatory check-ins.
      Side note: Releasing families under an Obama-era program costs about $36 per day, and families show up for meetings and hearings around 99% of the time. Detaining families together costs nearly $300 per day, and separating families has cost nearly $800 per day.
    • The EO has no provision to reunite families that Trump has already separated.
    • After the EO, border workers are left to figure out how to implement it on their own with little guidance. We hear mixed reports over whether they’re still enforcing zero tolerance and whether they’re supposed to.
  1. Melania visits a holding center for immigration children and one for immigrant families. In an unfortunate choice, she wears a coat that says “I don’t care. Do u?” Her publicist says it didn’t mean anything, but then Trump negates that in a tweet saying it was about the fake news.
  2. A dozen states plan to sue the administration over the policy of family separation. They say the EO doesn’t fix it.
  3. Health and Human Services asks the Pentagon to house up to 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors.
  4. There was a huge drop in illegal border crossings last year over fear of Trump’s hardline policies. But they’re up nearly triple from this time last year now that people see that Trump is having a hard time getting his policies implemented.
  5. On the Christian Broadcasting Network, Sessions says they never intended to separate families. I can’t even with this. Maybe he’s just saying this because his church has condemned his actions.
  6. Both Stephen Miller and Kirstjen Nielsen, staunch defenders of family separation policies, get heckled eating out at Mexican restaurants.
  7. And then a restaurant owner tells Sarah Huckabee Sanders that she and her family can’t eat there. She tweets about it on her official account, which turns out to be a violation of the ethics code.
  8. Corey Lewandowski’s speakers bureau drops him after he makes fun of a child with Downs Syndrome being separated from her mother on national TV.
  9. Protestors play the recording of separated children crying for the parents outside a Trump fundraiser and outside Kirstjen Nielsen’s house. Representative Ted Lieu (R-CA) goes against House rules and plays the recording on the floor to get it entered into the congressional record.
  10. Detained children are shipped to centers and foster care across the country.
  11. An army of volunteer attorneys is working to reunite separated families. They’re finding that officials are unable locate all the children. Of 300 parents represented, only 2 children have been located.
  12. The U.S. Attorney’s Office announces they’ll dismiss cases where parents were charged with illegal entry and separated from their kids.
  13. On Friday, a government source said all families would be reunited that day. But by Saturday night, only about 21% has been reunited. The administration says that 500 children have been reunited with their parents so far.
  14. The DNA company 23andMe offers to donate DNA kits to help locate children and reunite families that were separated.
  15. The American Academy of Pediatrics calls the separation of families child abuse.
  16. Protestors hold marches and toy/supply drives for children in holding in over 60 cities nationwide. Members of Congress head to detention facilities to protest.
  17. The Methodist Church files a complaint against family separation and 600 members file a complaint against Sessions. He could ousted from the church, but the members say they want a reconciliation process that would bring Sessions back to Christian values.
  18. An online fundraiser goes viral, raising nearly $20 million for RAICES, which helps provide legal aid to immigrant families, children, and refugees.
  19. By the end of the week, the administration says they’ll reunite families when the parents agree to give up their quest for asylum, meaning that the whole family must be deported in order for parents and children to be reunited. Until that agreement is made, parents will only have phone visitation with their children, and that is not guaranteed due to logistics.
  20. Lawsuits are filed, alleging abuse and administering drugs without consent in the detention centers for children.
  21. Notes and interviews show that the administration has been planning this since last spring.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump continues to use exaggerations of criminal behavior and of MS-13 to get people behind his harsh immigration policies.
  2. The zero-tolerance policy was supposed to deter undocumented immigrants, but instead there was a spike in border crossings after the policy was announced.
  3. Steven Miller says it was a simple decision to separate children from their parents at the border. In comparison, when the Obama administration was working on ways to strengthen border security, they talked about this for about five minutes before throwing it away as an incredibly bad idea.
  4. The National Park Service gives their initial approval to “Unite the Right” to hold a “white civil rights” rally at the National Mall. This is the same group that held the infamous Charlottesville rally.
  5. After Trump shoots down the immigration bills currently in the House, he tells Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that he backs the compromise bill. But it’s too little, too late. Representatives who were already lukewarm on the bill already moved to the other side.
  6. The Senate Appropriations Committee approves a spending bill for Homeland Security that doesn’t include full funding for the border wall, nor increased funding for CBP, nor increased funding for detainment beds. It also requires the administration to report monthly on family separations.
  7. Trump calls for deporting undocumented immigrants with no judge or court hearing, saying they should be removed immediately. And without due process apparently.
  8. Trump again quotes bad data, this time numbers he got from the mother of a victim killed by an undocumented immigrant. She said undocumented immigrants have killed 63,000 Americans since 9/11. GAO numbers actually show that immigrants, including undocumented ones, commit crimes at a far lower rate that native-born Americans (about half the rate). The false number seems to come from Steve King (R-Iowa).
  9. At the beginning of the week, Trump derides Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) idea to hire thousands of immigration judges as crazy. By the end of the week, Trump tweets that it’s what we need to do.
  10. The World Health Organization removes transgender from their list of mental disorders. About time.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Trump Tower in Chicago is the only user of Chicago River water that fails to comply with Chicago’s fish-protecting regulations. They use river water for their cooling systems.
  2. Trump rescinds Obama’s executive order aimed at protecting the Great Lakes and oceans. Trump’s order encourages offshore drilling and more industrial use of these waters. Obama’s order came about because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
  3. A Canadian mining firm prepares to start mining in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
  4. The EPA’s Scott Pruitt shutters three more advisory boards to the agency, further isolating the EPA from expertise in the areas the agency is supposed to protect.
  5. Emails released as part of a lawsuit show that Pruitt considered hiring a friend of the Harts, the family that rented him their condo for $50 a night. The emails also indicate that Pruitt has a closer relationship with the Harts than previously disclosed, and that Mr. Hart lobbied the EPA last year even though both parties had previously denied this.
  6. The special counsel opens a new probe into Pruitt for retaliating against employees who pushed back against his policies. There are around dozen other probes into his activities.
  7. The official EPA paper trail shows that Pruitt only sent one single email to anyone outside the EPA from his government account. Seems sketchy.
  8. Pruitt’s most recent financial disclosure shows he spent over $4.6 million on security. And that included things like “tactical pants” and “tactical polos.”
  9. The Trump administration finally releases a report on unsafe drinking water after working to suppress it for months. The danger in the water comes from nonstick chemicals leaked into drinking water, and affects 126 military bases.
  10. Ryan Zinke and his wife run a foundation that’s working on a real estate deal with the chairman of Halliburton. Halliburton will benefit from Ryan Zinke opening up national monuments to mining and drilling, and the Zinkes will benefit from the real estate deal, which involves building a resort on land that borders a property owned by the Zinkes. The House calls for an investigation.

Budget/Economy:

  1. House Republicans reveal their 2019 budget, which includes $4 billion in cuts to Social Security, around $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, and $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid. We all knew that’s how they planned to balance their tax cuts from last year.
  2. The House Republicans pass a farm bill, and in the process cut SNAP benefits. This could affect around 23,000 active duty military families and 1.5 million veterans.
  3. Mick Mulvaney wants to shut down the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau database of consumer complaints against the banking industry.
  4. Trump threatens China with additional tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods, which would bring the total of tariffed goods to $450 billion… and the Dow dropped nearly 300 points on its way to a six-day losing streak.
  5. Via tweet, Trump threatens tariffs on auto imports from Europe in response to Europe placing tariffs on $3.2 billion in U.S. goods.
  6. Ambassador Nikki Haley says that it’s ridiculous for the UN to study poverty in the U.S. The UN’s report says of the developed nations, the U.S. ranks highest in rates of infant mortality, incarceration, youth poverty, income inequality, and obesity. The report also says that our current policies are making these things worse and deepening the wealth divide.
  7. 11,000 AT&T workers strike against unfair labor practices. The issue started to heat up after AT&T announces $1,000 bonuses to many in their workforce, and then laid off a bunch of workers who had received that bonus.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump directs the DoD and the Pentagon to create a sixth Armed Forces Branch: the Space Force. Yes. For outer space. For real, and over James Mattis’s objections. Mattis says this isn’t the time to be creating a new branch of the military.
  2. Trump also wants to open space for more commercial development.
  3. Trump releases his proposal for reorganizing the government. Key points:

    • Merge the Department of Labor and the Department of Education.
    • Move the USDA’s food and nutrition programs to the Department of Health and Human Services (which will be renamed to the Department of Health and Public Welfare).
    • Combine the USDA’s Safety and Inspection Service with the Food and Drug Administration (currently under HHS) into a single agency under the USDA. Wait… so the USDA would essentially be its own watchdog.
    • Move the USDA’s programs to assist with rural housing and rent to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
    • Move the Army Corps of Engineers from the Department of Defense to Transportation and the Interior.
    • Create a new Office of Energy Innovation under the Department of Energy that would combine all of the current applied energy programs.
  1. Wikileaks publishes a searchable database of ICE agents and their personal information scraped from multiple public sites. DHS blame this on liberals, even though Wikileaks doesn’t have a record of supporting Democrats.
  2. Wilbur Ross shorted a shipping firm stock after learning that reporters were planning a negative story about the firm. Shorting is something you do to profit from a drop in stock price, and doing it based on nonpublic information is called securities fraud.

Polls:

  1. 75% of Americans think immigration is good for the U.S. Approval goes up to 84% when the question specifies “legal immigration.”

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 60 in Trump

Posted on March 20, 2018 in Politics, Trump

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

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

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

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


Here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

International:

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

Legislation/Congress:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Quote of the Week:

Or maybe this is just the understatement of the week…

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

~Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein:

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 54 in Trump

Posted on February 5, 2018 in Politics, Trump

No love lost here...

This was a huge week in Russia news, dwarfing most everything else. So I’ll skip the introduction and get right into it. Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe steps down from his job, but he’ll take leave until mid-March when he can retire with full benefits. It’s been rumored for a few weeks that he’d retire, but sources say he was forced out.
  2. McCabe is being investigated for whether he sat on the emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop for three weeks. An inspector general’s report is forthcoming on this and his handling of the Russia investigation. There’s also a question of whether McCabe should’ve recused himself from Clinton investigations because his wife received campaign donations from one of Clinton’s friend’s political organizations.
  3. Donald Trump Jr. questions whether McCabe should receive his pension. McCabe is a 20+ year veteran of the FBI and DOJ. Spoken like someone who never had to work to earn a pension nor pay into one. Junior also tweets that it was the Nunes memo that got McCabe fired.
  4. A Russian jet flew within five feet of a Navy surveillance plane over the Black Sea, forcing the Navy plane to stop its mission.
  5. Though the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to impose sanctions on Russia (only five members in total voted against it), Trump says he won’t impose the sanctions because the threat of sanctions has been enough of a deterrent.
  6. The House Intelligence Committee votes along party lines to release Nunes’ memo about classified FBI and DOJ information. They then vote to NOT release the memo written by the Democrats on the committee, which provides contextual and rebuttal information.
  7. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, sends a letter to Nunes accusing him of making material changes to the memo after the committee voted on the release but before he gave it to the White House. Technically, the changes would require a second vote to release.
  8. The Republican majority in the House Intelligence Committee opens an investigation into the FBI and DOJ without consulting the Democratic minority.
  9. Caught on a hot mike, Trump says he’ll 100% release the memo. Sarah Huckabee Sanders later says he hasn’t read it yet. John Kelly says it will be released pretty quick. And then Trump authorizes the release of the memo (in its unredacted form) within days.
  10. Here’s a hint of what the memo alleges, along with information we know:
    • Christopher Steele passed bad information to the FBI in the dossier. (There is no evidence of this.)
    • The FBI based its warrant application for Carter Page on the dossier. (They didn’t. The application contains years worth of investigations.)
    • This was biased since the dossier hadn’t been proven. (Much of the dossier was independently corroborated by the time of the application.)
    • Steele was desperate to make sure Trump didn’t become president. (Maybe (it’s hearsay), but he allegedly said it after he wrote the dossier and learned what was going on.)
    • The FBI and DOJ are partisan and anti-Trump. (These agencies tend to lean Republican, but there’s a mix of political thought, of course.)
  1. A little background here. The FBI first started looking into Carter Page in 2013, so there was much more to the FISA application than just the dossier. The courts found reason to extend the surveillance warrant on Page three times. This means that each warrant delivered enough new information to legally justify extending the surveillance.
  2. FBI Director Christopher Wray says the FBI has grave concerns about releasing the memo because the memo omits certain facts that affect the accuracy of the information. Coming out against Trump on this could put Wray on rocky ground. This doesn’t tend to end well.
  3. There was concern that the memo would give away our intelligence gathering methods and sources, but this doesn’t seem to be the case.
  4. It’ll be difficult for people who know the full story to correct the information because so much of the information is classified. So it really would require the disclosure of sensitive information about intelligence sources and their methods.
  5. Note that FISA warrant applications are typically around 50 pages long, so if Nunes condensed that to 4 pages, you can be sure it’s not the full story. Also, it turns out that Nunes never read the warrant application.
  6. Trump tells friends that he thinks the memo might discredit the Russia investigation and make it easier for him to make a case that the people running the Russia investigations are prejudiced against him.
  7. Trump also thinks releasing the memo could pave the way for him being able to make changes at the DOJ. Rod Rosenstein better watch his back.
  8. The FBI Agents Association reacts to the memo by reiterating that they never have and never will let partisan politics distract them from their mission.
  9. Trump accused Obama of wiretapping him in March of 2016, which means he’s known about the FISA warrant at least since then. Note that this doesn’t mean Obama wiretapped him, something Obama couldn’t do (I’m not sure he could even order it, but it definitely can’t be done without cause).
  10. In an interview in October of 2017, Carter Page gives an indication that he knew Paul Ryan was going to release details about the “dodgy dossier.” So it seems to have been the plan since last fall that some kind of memo would be released.
  11. Paul Ryan says that the memo isn’t an indictment of the FBI or DOJ, and he supports the release of the Democrats’ memo as well.
  12. But then Paul Ryan also calls for a cleanse of the FBI and DOJ.
  13. Trump says the memo completely exonerates him (it doesn’t) and that the investigation is a disgrace.
  14. There are many analyses of the memo, but this one from NPR is one of the better ones.
  15. And here’s a good explainer of why the memo could have the opposite of its intended effect.
  16. Rick Gates adds a new defense attorney to his team and his three existing attorneys withdraw from his case, sparking rumors that Gates is looking to strike a deal.
  17. The FBI is investigating a second dossier on Trump, this one written by a political activist and ex-journalist. It corroborates some of the Steele dossier, but the author doesn’t have an intelligence background and is an associate of the Clintons (though they didn’t know about it). Even Steele said he couldn’t vouch for all the info in the second dossier, though he did hand it over to the FBI.
  18. CIA Director Mike Pompeo (Trump appointee) says he has “every expectation” that Russia will continue their attempts to meddle in our elections, including the 2018 midterms. So please people, ignore the social media bots and fake stories.
  19. In December, Rod Rosenstein went to Trump to ask for help in stopping Nunes from getting the classified documents he requested, but instead Trump wanted to find out where the Russia investigation was going. He asked Rosenstein if he was “on my team” (his fourth loyalty request of a DOJ official). Rosenstein’s response? ”Of course. We’re all on your team, Mr. President.”
  20. We learn from Russian news sources that CIA officials met with Russian officials, including Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR. Naryshkin is barred from entering the U.S. under 2014 sanctions, so his arrival raises some questions.
  21. The DOJ files a motion to dismiss Paul Manafort’s civil suit against Mueller. Manafort’s suit claims Mueller exceeded his authority by prosecuting the crimes Manafort was indicted for, but Rosenstein says he gave Mueller broad authority.
  22. The former spokesperson for the White House legal team, Mark Corallo, warned that the statement drafted on Air Force One about Don Jr.’s Russia meeting could backfire if the underlying documents ever surfaced. Hope Hicks allegedly responded that the documents would never get out because only a few people had access to them. This is just before Don Jr. dropped all his emails to the public.
  23. One of the agents the GOP and Trump are seeking to discredit, Peter Strzok, is also the author of the letter announcing that Hillary’s email case was re-opened just before 2016’s election. That kind of pokes a hole in Strzok being biased toward her.
  24. Even though Trump has discussed firing and discrediting Mueller, Mitch McConnell says he doesn’t think Mueller needs protecting because there’s no indication anyone wants him fired or discredited. Republicans in the House and Senate refuse to advance bills protecting Mueller.
  25. Julian Assange accidentally sends a direct message to a fake Sean Hannity account, thinking he was offering the real Sean Hannity dirt on Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee that has its own Russia investigation.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump-appointed head of the CDC resigns over her investments in multiple tobacco stocks, saying it would be too difficult to divest.
  2. An investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce shows that two pharmacies in a small town of 3,000 in West Virginia received 20,800,000 prescription opioid painkillers from 2008 to 2015. That’s over 2,500,000 per year.
  3. A Texas judge temporarily blocks a state law requiring healthcare workers to bury or cremate fetal tissue after each abortion.
  4. The Senate votes down a bill passed in the House that would’ve put a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. Trump backs the House bill.
  5. The CDC plans to cut their efforts to prevent global outbreaks of disease by 80% because funding is running out.
  6. Indiana adds a work requirement to Medicaid, and will block coverage if paperwork showing eligibility is turned in late.

International:

  1. Trump signs an executive order to keep Gitmo open. This formally reverses Obama’s eight-year effort to close down the military prison. Interesting side note: There are 41 prisoners currently in Gitmo at an annual cost of $440 million.
  2. As one of the world’s largest financial centers, London is working on a free trade deal for financial services with the European Commission. This week, the EC rejects the deal, so London will probably have less favorable trading terms with the EU. EU considers moving their operations out of London and into EU countries, causing another drop in sterling.
  3. The White House drops their nominee for Ambassador to South Korea, Victor Cha, over disagreements on trade and military action in the region.
  4. Poland’s government tries to rewrite history by passing a bill that makes it illegal to accuse Poles of complicity in the Holocaust. It also outlaws the use of the phrase “Polish death camps.”
  5. After an increase in violence in Afghanistan, Trump says the U.S. isn’t interested in talking with the Taliban anymore. Except that’s what our military strategy in Afghanistan is—to force the Taliban to the negotiating table.
  6. The State Department’s inspector general opens an investigation into whether career workers in the department under Rex Tillerson have been unfairly and politically targeted.
  7. North Korea gets around sanctions by entering into joint ventures in fishing and other areas with Mozambique, using these businesses as a front.
  8. The Trump administration wants to develop smaller, lower-yield nuclear weapons.
  9. Trump wants more options for a military strike against North Korea, and he’s frustrated that his military leaders aren’t providing them.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Another sitting chair, Rodney Frelinghuysen of the House Appropriations Committee, announces he won’t seek re-election, bringing that number to nine.
  2. Trey Gowdy announces he won’t seek reelection. Gowdy is known for having lead the Benghazi hearings, and at the time said it wasn’t about politics. But now he has this to say about committee investigations.

“Congressional investigations unfortunately are usually overtly political investigations, where it is to one side’s advantage to drag things out.… This is politics.”

  1. The DOJ moves to dismiss corruption charges against Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, citing a previous court decision to acquit him on several of the charges.
  2. A chartered train carrying Republican leaders to a retreat in West Virginia collides with a truck, killing one person in the truck and injuring two others. No one on the train is seriously injured.
  3. The number of members of Congress members resigning this year is the highest it’s been in 117 years.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Homeland Security extends temporary protected status (TPS) for Syrian refugees here since late 2016 for an additional 18 months. This affects about 7,000 Syrians.
  2. Here’s a paradox. The places in the U.S. where people are overall most against immigration and would like to see it limited are also the places least affected by immigration. The places where people are most supportive of immigration are the places most affected by immigration.
  3. Members of Congress from both parties want Trump to drop his request to slash legal immigration. Trump’s plan would cut it by half at a time when economists say we need more immigrants, not fewer, in order to keep inflationary pressures down.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump’s reduction of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments goes into effect. Individuals and companies can now stake claims for hard rock mining (gold, silver, copper, uranium, and the like) under the General Mining law. You can stake a claim for a mere $212 filing fee and a $150 annual fee.
  2. In response, Congressman John Curtis (R-Utah) proposes a bill to withdraw all of the Bears Ears region from any future mining claims. Previous claims would still be honored.
  3. Trump’s proposed 2019 budget cuts clean energy research by 72%. This, along with the 30% tariffs on imported solar panels, would kill our solar industry, which currently employs more people than coal, oil, and natural gas power plants combined. It would also cut funding into electric vehicle research, ensuring that foreign automakers stay far ahead of us in that technology. Congress will likely not approve the cut.
  4. A Montana oil field explosion kills one worker.
  5. Trump formally suspends the Waters of the US rule, which was designed to expand the types of waterways that are protected from pollution by industry and farming.
  6. Here’s an interesting find on Scott Pruitt, who has been the most successful of Trump’s cabinet members in reversing things done under Obama. In a 2016 interview, Pruitt said that if Trump was elected he would most certainly act unconstitutionally.
  7. Scott Pruitt has either rescinded or is refusing to enforce over 66 environmental protections.
  8. California state legislators put forth a bill to protect their coastlines from offshore drilling so they can have the same protections that Ryan Zinke arbitrarily gave to Florida.
  9. The White House drops Kathleen Hartnett White’s nomination to head the Council on Environmental Quality. Her stances on the environment and fossil fuels are so controversial that not even Republicans can get behind her.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Due to revenue loss in federal withholding taxes from the changes to the tax law, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that Congress will need to re-up the debt limit sooner than expected because we’ll run out of money sooner than expected.
  2. Mick Mulvaney takes away enforcement power of the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity, an office in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) responsible for pursuing discrimination in financial dealings. The office will no longer be responsible for oversight, but will instead be involved in outreach and education, allowing businesses to restart their discriminatory lending practices.
  3. We could see a rise in vegetable prices. Farmers in California say they’re having a hard time staffing up for their harvests, leaving some crops on the ground. Losses in two counties alone are at $13 million. Many farm workers are foreign born (largely from Mexico), and with more Mexicans leaving the US for Mexico than coming in, workers are hard to find.
  4. The Dow Jones drops 1,000 points in 5 days. I’m not panicked (yet) since it previously went up about the same amount in about the same amount of time.
  5. The government is set to borrow nearly a trillion dollars this fiscal year, the highest about in six years. This is almost double the amount borrowed in 2017.
  6. Betsy DeVos wants to issue federal student loans using debit cards so they can track how and where students spend the money.
  7. Paul Ryan tweets about how a teacher got an extra $1.50 in her paycheck because of tax reform, and that will cover her Costco membership. Twitter does not respond kindly, given the tens of thousands of dollars the tax plan gives back to the wealthy and corporations. Ryan deletes the tweet.

Elections:

  1. A federal judge says the system by which Florida reinstates voting rights for felons is arbitrary and unfair. The ruling doesn’t say that felon disenfranchisement is illegal, but the way Florida handles it is. This could help the measure on Florida’s November ballot that would automatically reinstate felons’ voting rights after they serve time except in the case of murder or felony sexual assault.
  2. The Pennsylvania GOP wants the Supreme Court to take a look at a lower court’s ruling that they must redraw their district lines due to overt gerrymandering.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Based on a recommendation from the National Security Council, Trump wants to centralize and nationalize a secure 5G network as a way to prevent cyber attacks. The FCC opposes this move. It’s an interesting deviation from the standard Republican view of a free market.
  2. Trump says he had the biggest audience ever for a State of the Union address with 45.6 million viewers. Actually, Bill Clinton’s 1993 SOTU address was the largest by a long shot, with 66.9 million watching. Bush and Obama each had SOTU dresses with higher viewership too.
  3. Fact-checking the State of the Union is too much for me, so I’m relying on the experts here. Below are a few takes on it:
  1. FEMA reaches an agreement with Puerto Rico to continue distributing aid one day after they said aid would stop. FEMA says it never intended to stop aid; it was just a re-evaluation of needs.
  2. We haven’t heard much about Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD, but now he’s run into some questions by ethics investigators. Turns out Carson let his son organize some events for him despite warnings that it could be a violation of ethics rules.
  3. Another school shooting turns out to be an accidental discharge. A 12-year-old student at Belmont School in Los Angeles brought a gun to school in her backpack.
  4. It turns out that pretty much with each new presidential administration, NASA’s mission changes. Trump wants to go back to George Bush’s plan to go back to the moon, though the reasons and purpose aren’t yet clear.
  5. Stormy Daniels signs a statement denying she had an affair with Trump (that she outlined in detail for In Touch magazine), but then walks back the denial. Sort of. She’s being coy and it’s a little weird.
  6. Trump declines the traditional presidential Super Bowl interview.
  7. Josh Hawley, Republican candidate for Senate, says human trafficking is the result of the sexual revolution of the 60s. This isn’t really news but it stuck out to me because a friend has been saying the sexual revolution is the root of liberal evil. It makes me wonder if it’s a new talking point from the right?
  8. K.T. McFarland asks to be dropped from consideration for the ambassadorship to Singapore after her hearing stalls over alleged communications with Russia.
  9. I couldn’t care less that Melania Trump took 21 trips on Air Force One before moving to the White House at a cost of over $650,000. I just put it out there for anyone who criticized Michelle Obama for the same kind of thing.

Polls:

  1. 71% of Americans think Trump should speak with Mueller, and 82% of those think he should do it under oath.