Tag: Trumpcare

Week 23 in Trump

Posted on July 3, 2017 in Politics, Trump

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

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

Here’s what happened this week in Trump:

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Week 22 in Trump

Posted on June 26, 2017 in Politics, Trump

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

Russian Investigation:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Elections:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Week 21 in Trump

Posted on June 19, 2017 in Politics, Trump

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

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

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

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

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

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Polls:

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

Week 20 in Trump

Posted on June 12, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Attribution: Getty Images

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

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

Comey:

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

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Week 19 in Trump

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

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

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

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

Russia:

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

Courts/Justice:

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

Healthcare:

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

International:

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

Legislation:

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

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

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

Climate/EPA:

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

Budget/Economy/Trade:

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

Miscellaneous:

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

Week 18 in Trump

Posted on May 30, 2017 in Politics, Trump

With Trump off on his whirlwind trip abroad, I figured it would be all international news this week. But the chaos and drama at home seem to be never-ending. Here’s what happened last week.

Russia:

  1. The director of national intelligence (Daniel Coats) and the director of the NSA (Adm. Michael Rogers) testify before the House Intelligence Committee. We learn that in March, Trump asked both to deny publicly that there is evidence of collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
  2. The Senate Intelligence Committee announces additional subpoenas to require Michael Flynn to turn over documents. He could be held in contempt of Congress if he refuses.
  3. Joe Lieberman withdraws from consideration for the position of FBI director after Trump retains Marc Kasowitz to represent him on Russia issues. Lieberman cites conflict of interest, since he is currently senior counsel at Kasowitz’s law firm.
  4. Former CIA director John Brennan testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, saying he saw intelligence that showed contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and that he is convinced that Russia aggressively tried to interfere in the election.
  5. Brennan says that the CIA intelligence found that Russians discussed how to influence Trump advisors but whether they actually tried to influence either is still being investigated
  6. There are currently at least five probes related to Russia, from ties with Trump campaign staff and associates to James Comey’s firing.
  7. Fox News retracts a story about DNC staffer Seth Rich where they implied that he was the leaker to Wikileaks and that his death was related to the DNC. Sean Hannity refuses to let it go completely, despite all players saying there’s no evidence of either the contact with Wikileaks or the murder being anything other than a robbery gone bad.
  8. Jeff Sessions says he was advised not to disclose his meetings with foreign leaders as a senator on his security clearance application, including meetings with Russian officials. It seems this is standard for legislators, since they meet with many officials, but still… you’d think he’d have thought this one through a little better.
  9. The new person of interest this week in the Russia investigation is Jared Kushner. The Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted a back door communication channel to the Kremlin.
  10. The Wall Street Journal publishes a report about Aaron Nevins, a Florida-based Republican who was provided hacked DNC information from Guccifer 2.0 and shared that information with others in the GOP. The info was used by Paul Ryan’s campaign and PAC, among others.
  11. According to Comey, he knew a piece of evidence he was working on in relation to Clinton’s email investigation was false and planted by Russian intelligence. There was a document indicating Loretta Lynch told the Clinton campaign not to worry about the emails–no charges would be brought. This led to Comey overriding Lynch last year when he made the public announcement that the investigation was over.

Courts/Justice:

  1. It’s been a bad couple of weeks for the North Caroline GOP. On May 15, the Supreme Court struck down a voter law designed to depress black voter turnout ″with almost surgical precision.″ The following week, a court also ruled against new maps of congressional districts that were also designed to limit the black vote. The message here is that states need to stop gerrymandering.

Healthcare:

  1. The CBO releases it’s analysis of the healthcare bill passed by the house. Main takeaways:
    • Premiums would vary significantly according to health.
    • People with pre-existing conditions would likely not be able to afford premiums over time.
    • Around 1/6 of Americans live in states that would request waivers, and those markets will be less likely to be stable.
    • Premiums would likely be lower for healthy people.
    • It would likely reduce the deficit by around $120 billion.
    • The 10-year outlook estimates that 23 million more people will be uninsured.
  2. Mitch McConnell says he doesn’t know how he can get to 50 votes. My advice? Come up with a plan that works for all Americans.
  3. Senate Republicans, who are working on their own version of repeal and replace, consider pushing back the repeal of Obamacare to 2020. Hmmm. Election year. Coincidence?

International:

  1. A suicide bomber detonates a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester England, killing 22 and injuring 58 more. This leads investigators to a network of suspected terrorists and at least 13 people are arrested in connection with the bombing.
  2. And the above continues the ongoing leak saga… apparently the name of the bomber along with crime scene photos were leaked to U.S. news agencies who later published the information.
  3. The Philippines government releases a transcript of Trump’s call with Duterte from last month in which Trump praised Duterte for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem.” Of note, Duterte started a drug war that sanctioned killing suspects in the streets with no trial. Over 7,000 people have been killed.
  4. In the same tape, Trump mentions “two nuclear submarines” off the coast of North Korea. This info isn’t technically classified, but the Pentagon typically doesn’t talk about nuclear sub locations.
  5. Wilbur Ross expresses surprise that there weren’t any protests against Trump in Saudi Arabia. Protesting isn’t allowed in Saudi Arabia.
  6. Trump continues his trip abroad, meeting with Netanyahu in Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Pope Francis. Then on to the NATO and G7 summits.
  7. The warmth evident in Trump’s visits with Mid Eastern leaders sits in stark contrast to the icy chill around the summits with our traditional allies.
  8. In the NATO summit, Trump scolds nations not living up to the 2% guideline of military spending to GDP, refuses to reconfirm the ″all for one, one for all″ alliance (specifically the collective defense clause), and criticizes Germany for our trade deficit with them.
  9. At the G7 summit, Trump refuses to commit one way or the other on the Paris agreement, but acquiesces on trade and protectionism.
  10. After the European meetings, Angela Merkel suggests that Europe and U.S. relationship is at a point where they can’t fully rely on each other anymore. While emphasizing maintaining friendly relationships with the U.S., England, and Russia, she also says Europe basically needs to do its own thing.
  11. The Pentagon apologizes to all affected in a botched airstrike on Mosul in March in which over 100 civilians were killed.
  12. Trump calls Korean leader Kim Jung Un a madman with nukes just days before he says he’d be honored to meet with Kim.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules against the Muslim ban 10-3, saying that taken in context, the executive order “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”
  2. The State Department lifts the restriction on the number of refugees allowed to enter the U.S. Currently around 800 refugees enter each week; it’s estimated that will rise to over 1,500 per month.
  3. Though Tillerson made a statement about Ramadan, he’s breaking with two decades of tradition and declining to host a commemorative event this year.
  4. A white supremacist harangues two teenage girls for being Muslim (only one is, and she was wearing a hijab). Three heroes step in to defend them–two pay for it with their lives and the other with serious injuries. Prosecutors are trying to figure out if they can try this as a hate crime.
  5. In international discrimination, militants opened fire on a bus of Christians, killing at least 26 and wounding 25. This is the fourth attack on Christians in Egypt since December.
  6. And some good news in international discrimination, Tawain’s highest court rules against their marriage law saying that defining marriage as between a man and a women violates equal rights.
  7. Nevada and Connecticut ban conversion therapy for minors, which has been proven not to work. Duh.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A group of 22 Republican senators urge Trump to leave the Paris agreement. They say it will get in the way of legally gutting the Clean Power Plan.
  2. The G7 summit declaration for 2017 includes the following text:
    “The United States of America is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris Agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics,” the leaders wrote. “Understanding this process, the Heads of State and of Government of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom and the Presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission reaffirm their strong commitment to swiftly implement the Paris Agreement, as previously stated at the Ise-Shima Summit.”

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump’s budget released this week doesn’t account for the loss in revenue from tax cuts, leading some to say there is a $2 trillion basic math error.
  2. The budget estimates 3% economic growth, something economists are skeptical about.
  3. The new budget would lead to cuts to social security, MediCare, Medicaid, healthcare services, veterans’ benefits, food stamps, NIH, the State Department, CDC, food safety and inspections, education, transportation, agriculture assistance, international funding, the Justice Department, and more. Take a look at the NY Times breakdown for a deeper dive.
  4. The largest cuts (percentage-wise) are to the EPA, State Department, and USDA (including crop insurance, conservation programs, and rural development programs).
  5. In opposition to promises made, this budget cuts Medicare and social security; doesn’t include funding for the wall or police training; doesn’t increase funding for PTSD treatment; and doesn’t defund sanctuary cities;
  6. Carrier announces they’re sending 600 jobs to Mexico and the huge monetary investment they made in their U.S. plant is going into automation, not new jobs.
  7. And in the ″I’m taking this personally″ category, the budget gets rid of federal spending for the earthquake early warning system.
  8. Trump says Germany should stop selling so many cars in the U.S. Even though most of those sold here are made in the U.S.

Elections:

  1. The day Greg Gianforte is charged with misdemeanor assault, Montana elects him in a special election for the House seat left empty by Ryan Zinke’s move to the cabinet. He allegedly knocked over and began punching a reporter who interrupted a meeting with two Fox News reporters.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The OGE rejects a White House request to stop the agency from looking into waivers granted to Trump administration officials that were hired from corporations and lobbying firms. Note that waivers are granted under most administrations, but the OGE has always looked into them. The Obama administration made their waivers public.
  2. It appears that the Trump administration is adopting the Russian strategy of feeding false information. According to NY Times reporters, they have received misinformation from people in the administration on several occasions, but the lies were caught during the news vetting process.
  3. A conservative group of Congress urge Trump to fire NIH director Dr. Francis Collins saying he’s not pro-life enough. They object to stem cell research and using human embryos in research.
  4. John Boehner says Trump is still learning how to be president. Other than getting the House to pass a healthcare bill, he says everything else has been a disaster. (Though I would argue getting Gorsuch confirmed was also a success.)
  5. According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration might get a legal team to review Trump’s tweets to avoid political and legal trouble, especially in light of the special counsel. His tweets have gotten him in trouble in the past, most recently around Comey’s firing and most notably when he accused Obama of wiretapping him.
  6. Chris Christie advises Jared Kushner that the president should lawyer up and keep his mouth shut.
  7. Graduating students at Notre Dame walked out on their graduation in protest of Mike Pence giving the commencement address.
  8. 65% of voters say there’s a lot of fake news in mainstream media. My advice? Stick with reputable news agencies. Here’s a site I find helpful: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com. Click around the categories in the black bar, but mostly avoid the questionable sources!

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

  1. Robert Mulvaney, budget director: “If you’re on food stamps and you’re able-bodied, we need you to go to work. If you’re on disability insurance and you’re not supposed to be — if you’re not truly disabled, we need you to go back to work.” In reality, around half of those relying on SNAP have at least one person in the family working (numbers vary), and an estimated 82% work within a year of receiving SNAP. The budget director should have these numbers.

Week 17 in Trump

Posted on May 22, 2017 in Politics, Trump, Uncategorized

I wasn’t following the news so closely last week, so I might have missed a few things. Here’s what I got–at least the week started off with a bang!

Russia:

  1. Sources say that in Trump’s meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak last week, he described information related to ISIS threats around laptops in airplanes, highly classified information that jeopardizes an intelligence source. The  arrangement with the source is sensitive, and it’s restricted from our allies and within our government. Trump’s revelation endangers future cooperation. In other words, we’ve shared more info with Russia than with our own allies.
  2. McMaster and others state that Trump didn’t disclose anything that wasn’t public to the Russians. Trump’s subsequent tweets indicate that he did.
  3. Some foreign officials suggest they’ll stop sharing secrets with the U.S.
  4. The source of the information Trump disclosed turns out to be based in Israel.
  5. Putin offers to give us a copy of their transcripts of the meeting to prove that classified material wasn’t discussed.
  6. Trump indicates that he records all his conversations, so Congress requests those recordings, especially after his disclosure during his meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak.
  7. Memos written by Comey after his meetings with Trump indicate that Trump had asked him to lay off the Flynn investigation.
  8. The Justice Department names a special counsel, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, to oversee the probe into Russia’s meddling in the election.
  9. During the last seven months of last year’s elections, Trump campaign advisors, including Michael Flynn, had contact with Russian officials and Kremlin ties at least 18 times.
  10. We learn that Flynn had informed the Trump campaign weeks before he was made security advisor that Flynn was under investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey.
  11. Trump tweets his anger about the appointment of a special prosecutor.
    • “With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special councel appointed!”
    • “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”
  12. In an interview, Trump says, “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
  13. A recording of a discussion between Republican representatives is publicized in which Kevin McCarthy jokes that Trump is being paid by Putin, and Paul Ryan says they should never talk about it.
  14. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), chair of the House Oversight Committee, requests all “memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings” of Trump and Comey’s communications.
  15. Investigators into Russia coordination with the Trump campaign says a current senior White House advisor is a person of interest and is under scrutiny.
  16. White House lawyers begin preparing for an impeachment defense. Note that this is not an admission of wrongdoing; they just want to be ready.
  17. After Rod Rosenstein briefed the Senate on the current state of the Russia investigation, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says that the Russia probe looks more like a criminal investigation than a counter-intelligence investigation.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to reverse a lower court’s decision that North Carolina’s voter restriction laws are racially discriminatory. The court didn’t rule on the law itself, but rather refused to reinstate the law on a technicality. Either way, that means voter rights are safe for now. This case was North Carolina’s last-ditch attempt to save the Voter Identification Verification Act, which a previous judge said was blatantly discriminatory and was designed to disenfranchise Black voters with “almost surgical precision.”

Healthcare:

  1. Senate Republicans plan to vote on their version of the healthcare bill by August, with no public debate.
  2. Health insurance companies issue warnings about the uncertainties in the market and say that the administration is threatening to withhold payments to insurance companies unless they back the healthcare reform bill. Insurers are also planning dramatic increases in premiums because of the inconsistent guidance they are receiving. This uncertainty comes just as some markets are stabilizing, according to insurers and state regulators.
  3. The Trump administration cut U.S. aid by about $8.8 billion to international healthcare providers that support abortion rights.

International:

  1. NATO is working on ways to keep their upcoming meeting interesting and simple enough to hold Trump’s attention.
  2. North Korea tests another type of ballistic missile. With this successful test they claim they can reach U.S. bases in the Pacific.
  3. Trump hosts Turkish President Erdogan at the White House.
  4. Erdogan’s security forces and supporters violently attack protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence, while Erdogan watched from the driveway.
  5. The U.S. State Department accuses Syria of killing thousands of prisoners and burning their bodies at a crematorium. Syria denies this.
  6. Trump names Callista Gingrich, Newt’s third wife, as the ambassador to the Vatican.
  7. The US launches airstrikes against pro-Assad forces in southern Syria.
  8. Moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani wins his second term in a landslide victory, which comes as a relief to most of the West because his conservative opponent campaigned against the Iran nuclear deal and for closing Iran’s economy off from the world again.
  9. After interacting with Trump and his aides, foreign officials and consultants have come up with meeting guidelines.
    • Keep it short — no 30-minute monologue for a 30-second attention span.
    • Do not assume he knows the history of the country or its major points of contention.
    • Compliment him on his Electoral College victory.
    • Contrast him favorably with President Barack Obama.
    • Do not get hung up on whatever was said during the campaign.
    • Stay in regular touch.
    • Do not go in with a shopping list but bring some sort of deal he can call a victory. (NYT)
  10. UAE and Saudi Arabia pledge $100 million to Ivanka’s charity, even though during the campaign last year, Trump criticized the Clinton Foundation for accepting money from countries that “want women as slaves and to kill gays.”
  11. In his speech to Saudi Arabian officials, Trump claims to have achieved record spending on military, though his budget has not been passed through Congress.
  12. In a reversal of his previous rhetoric on Islam, Trump calls Islam on the of the world’s great faiths in the same speech. A sample of previous statements on Islam:
    • “I think Islam hates us.”
    • He called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” to the U.S.
    • “There’s a sickness. They’re sick people.”

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The 9th circuit court of appeals again hears Trump’s Muslim ban case.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump announces his plan to renegotiate NAFTA. There’s a 90-day period during which Congress and the administration will confer on the plan, and negotiations with Canada and Mexico can begin August 16 of this year.
  2. In trying to balance the budget, Senate Republicans look at cutting over $400 billion in benefits, including Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, and veterans’ benefits. The way they’re planning on implementing the changes avoids a Democratic filibuster.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump doesn’t believe in exercising. He thinks our bodies have a finite amount of energy and that exercising too much depletes it.
  2. Mitch McConnell calls for less drama from the White House.
  3. James Clapper thinks that our institutions are under assault from the Trump administration and urges other branches of the government to step up their checks and balances.
  4. Sheriff David Clarke, who is slated to become assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, is accused of plagiarizing his masters thesis, which he denies. Naval Postgraduate School is reviewing it. You might remember Clarke as the guy who once said Black Lives Matter might team up with ISIS.
  5. The family of DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was murdered last year, sends a cease and desist order to Rod Wheeler, a Fox News contributor, after Wheeler alleged that Rich was responsible for leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks. Wheeler also alleged that the murder was related to the leaks despite no evidence of this.
  6. Trump provides North Carolina with less than 1% of the emergency funds they requested for the massive cleanup effort after hurricane Matthew.
  7. Mitch McConnell recommends Merrick Garland to replace Comey as FBI director; Garland would rather stay a judge. <opinion alert> How can he possibly think well enough of Garland to recommend him for this position, but not respect him enough to even give him a hearing for his appointment to the Supreme Court? Blatant partisanship, Mitch.
  8. Misreported from last week: The news media indicated that there was only one photographer in Trump’s meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak. There was actually one Russian and one U.S. photographer allowed.
  9. Under-reported from last week: Trump met with Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo Klimkin on the same day that he met with Lavrov and Kislyak; a meeting in which Klimkin expressed appreciation for U.S. support of the Ukraine and protection against Russian aggression.
  10. Roger Ailes, former media consultant to Republican presidents and formerly of Fox News, dies.

Week 15 In Trump

Posted on May 8, 2017 in Healthcare, Politics, Trump

I had to bring back the Stupid Things Politicians Say category this week… because you know when healthcare reform gets hot, people say some pretty stupid stuff. Here’s that and everything else that happened last week.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The EPA starts firing members of one of its main scientific advisory boards, releasing 5 scientists this week. Scott Pruitt says he wants to replace those empty positions with people from the very industries that the EPA is tasked with regulating.
  2. Emmanuel Macron, President Elect of France, has a message for U.S. scientists. France welcomes you and we’ll be spending money on scientific research, specifically in the area of climate change. Look for a little brain drain in the future.
  3. Flint notifies around 8,000 Flint residents that are risking tax liens on their homes for unpaid water bills.

Russia:

  1. Comey testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee about events before last year’s election. Specifically about his announcement a week before the election, Comey says “This was terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think we might have had some impact on the election.” Thanks for that—it makes a bunch of us more than mildly nauseous.
  2. Here are a few take always from Comey’s testimony:
    • He said that he had no choice about breaking the news of the newly found emails in the last week of the election, even though he knew he was affecting the election.
    • He wanted to go public with the Russian meddling last summer, but the Obama administration prevented it. The administration only made the info public after 17 agencies came forward in October.
    • He confirmed that Russia was behind the DNC hack.
    • He said that Russia will continue to meddle in our elections and politics because the outcome of the election showed that their methods work.
    • He confirmed that he is being investigated for his role in the email probe and the elections.
    • He confirmed that the FBI is investigating whether active FBI agents leaked info to Giuliani in the run-up to the elections.
    • He also said that Huma Abedin had forwarded classified material to her husband’s server (Anthony Weiner).
  1. Hackers break into the campaign servers of French presidential candidate Macron (now President Elect) and dump 9 gigs of campaign documents just hours before the traditional media blackout France imposes in the 44 hours around an election. Macron wins the election handily anyway.
  2. A month before Michael Flynn was caught on tape talking with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about lifting U.S. sanctions, Flynn was warned about U.S. surveillance of Kislyak’s conversations. Maybe he just forgot?
  3. It turns out that Obama had warned Trump against hiring Flynn during the transition period, though Spicer continues to blame the Flynn problem on the Obama administration.
  4. Trump criticizes Susan Rice for refusing to testify in the Russia hearings, though she says her reason is that it was a partisan request. The leading Republican on the committee wants her to testify; the leading Democrat disagrees.
  5. Trump ends an interview abruptly when pushed on his accusation that Obama was spying on him.

Healthcare:

  1. Early in the week, moderate Republicans have concerns over the new healthcare bill, and say it needs to be rewritten. The primary concerns are:
    • Deep cuts to Medicaid.
    • Higher premiums for older Americans.
    • Insufficient protections for people with pre-existing conditions.
  1. The bill’s authors add an $8 billion fund for the high-risk pool to bring moderate Republicans on board.
  2. In an interview with CBS, Trump’s answers indicate he doesn’t know what’s actually in the latest version of the healthcare bill.
  3. In the middle of the week, Ryan doesn’t have enough Republicans committed to a yes vote on the healthcare bill. 20 Republicans are a definite no.
  4. By Thursday, the House finally feels confident to move ahead with a vote on the new bill. It narrowly passes 217-213, with 20 Republicans voting no and 1 not voting. Here’s how the new bill changes the ACA:
    • Replace existing subsidies with refundable tax credits based mostly on age and partially on income.
    • Remove cost sharing subsidies for people making less than $30,000.
    • End Medicaid expansion and place a cap on federal Medicaid spending.
    • Repeal the ACA tax on individuals making more than $200,000 or families making more than $250,000.
    • Remove age-based premium limits, allowing older people to be charged up to 5x the premiums of someone younger .
    • Remove guarantees for people with pre-existing conditions and other coverages mandated by the ACA (by giving states waivers, but states then have to provide an alternative).
    • Implement more generous HSAs.
    • Eliminate the individual and employer mandate (but still fine people whose insurance lapses).
  1. On Friday, the House unanimously passed a bill that would not let them be exempt from the AHCA.
  2. Democrats warn that the House bill contains certain provisions that don’t comply with special budget rules, which could allow for a filibuster if it comes to that.
  3. Some Senate Republicans are in such disagreement with the House-passed healthcare bill that they say they’ll write their own from scratch. They form a group of 13 (all men) to start the process.
  4. Hospitals, physicians, and insurers all criticize the bill saying people will lose coverage and some won’t get the care they need.
  5. On the day the House passes the bill estimated to cause millions to lose insurance, Trump praises the House Republicans’ efforts on this. Seconds later, he praises Australia’s universal healthcare system. So as we move our healthcare system further away from universal care, Trump says universal care is far better than ours.

International:

  1. Reports came out this week that the Trump administration is discontinuing the ″Let Girls Learn″ global program sponsored by Michelle Obama, but according to the White House, there are no changes to the program. Something to keep an eye on.
  2. South Korea’s missile defense system is up and running.
  3. Trump says he’d be ″honored″ to meet with Kim Jung Un.
  4. Trump and Putin have a tepid phone call, where they discuss Syria, North Korea, and a possible meeting this summer.
  5. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recalls how Trump told Chinese President Xi about the Syrian bombing over desert, saying it was “free after dinner entertainment.”
  6. McMaster says that Trump’s foreign policy approach is disruptive, and thinks that could help stabilize things in the Mideast.
  7. Trump hosts Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House.
  8. Trump announces a visit to Israel, the Vatican, and Saudi Arabia in an effort to unite the world’s three leading faiths in the fight against terror.
  9. Emmanuel Macron, who founded his own ″En Marche!″ party, is elected President of France over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.

Legislation:

  1. An Alabama judge rules to allow a mostly white city to secede from a more racially diverse school district, even though she also found the reasons for the move to be racially biased. The city must meet certain conditions regarding desegregation, but it’s likely to be caught up in lawsuits before they can even get that far.
  2. Trump signs a religious liberties executive order that the ACLU says will have ″no discernible policy outcome.″ While not changing any laws, it does the following:
    • Reiterates the governments support for freedom of religion and religious speech.
    • Essentially gives the IRS permission to relax enforcement of a rule restricting political actions and advocacy on the part of religious entities (by the way, the IRS has never prosecuted a religious entity based on this rule).
    • Directs agencies to explore avenues of relief for religious organizations in providing healthcare.
    • Gives the DoJ more freedom to interpret religious liberty protections versus civil rights.
  1. 1,330 clergy members took out a full-page ad against the executive order.
  2. Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, signs a law that gives adoption agencies the freedom to refuse to adopt out to parents based on religious beliefs. This is an obvious move toward allowing discrimination against gay parents. South Dakota, Michigan, North Dakota, and Virginia also have similar adoption laws.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Spicer gives the press a brief presentation of proposals for the wall, which appear to downgrade the wall to a series of fences and leads to a debate during the press briefing of the definition of a wall.
  2. Border agents have been turning away asylum seekers over the past several months. Under both U.S. and international law, asylum seekers are supposed to be allowed in to plead their case; it’s not up to border agents to decide.
  3. The number of refugees coming to the U.S. plummets to only 2,070 refugees in March and 3,316 in April, the lowest numbers since 2013.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The temporary spending measure signed by Congress to keep the government running allocates $120 million to help cover the increased security costs of protecting the first family, with about half going to the Secret Service and half going to reimburse the costs imposed on the municipalities they visit, like Palm Beach. This is just to get them through to September—5 months worth.
  2. The spending bill funds protections for refugees, H-2B visas, and the threatened Pell grants, NEA, NEH, ARC, EPA, Planned Parenthood, ACA subsidies, and Obama’s cancer moonshot at NIH. It doesn’t fund the border wall, not does it reduce funding for sanctuary cities. It does expand the military and border protection budgets. Democrats won concessions to keep Puerto Rico’s Medicaid program, while Republicans won on D.C.’s school choice program.
  3. Corn and soy farmers are now worried that Trump was serious about pulling out of NAFTA, and are concerned that renegotiating or pulling out completely could negatively affect the market for their crops.
  4. The budget Trump released in March would cut funding to programs under the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization (POWER). These Obama-era programs work together at revitalizing coal communities with things like new business development and job and skills training. The approximately $1.13 billion cut would affect 7 of the 12 programs.
  5. In what appears to be an openness to suggestions from people in the trenches, Tillerson asks his staff for feedback on the budget cuts to the State Department.
  6. The economy adds 211,000 jobs this month and the unemployment rate edges down to 4.4%. Labor force participation is also down, but this is still good news.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Though Trump promised to drain the swamp, including barring his transition staff from lobbying for six month, at least nine people who worked on the transition have already registered as lobbyists.
  2. Transfers of cash from the U.S. to Mexico jumped 15% in the last month due to uncertainty around travel to the U.S. and relations with Mexico.
  3. Trump returns to New York City for the first time since taking office, to be greeted by protests and angry chants.
  4. The administration begins removing the staffers that they had installed to serve as Trump’s eyes and ears in various agencies (AKA, internal spies). Tensions have been growing between these monitors and the heads of the agencies.
  5. Hillary Clinton gives Christianne Amanpour a blistering interview where she takes responsibility for losing but also blames Comey’s timing of the email announcement along with Russian meddling. She also criticizes Trump’s performance so far and says she’s part of the resistance.
  6. According to 538, the letter Comey sent to Congress the week before the election probably did cost her the election. At a maximum, they estimate it might have shifted the race by 3 or 4 percentage points in states where she lost by less than 1 percentage point. And before you start up with how inaccurate the polls were, the final popular results was well within the margin of error of most reliable polls.
  7. It sounds like Trump wants to change the rules of passing a bill, not seeming to understand the system of checks and balances our usually slow-moving government applies. He called the system rough and archaic, and called Congressional rules bad for the country, saying that they should be changed.
  8. Trump launches a series of campaign ads singing the praises of his first 100 days in office, starting with a 30-second TV ad along with a series of more targeted online ads. It is an early return to campaigning for any sitting president. Usually they take this time to push through their most important policy changes.
  9. CNN refuses to air one of Trump’s campaign ads because it has a graphic with “Fake News” plastered across images of some familiar journalists. CNN says they aren’t fake news, therefore the ad is false and does not comply with their guidelines. Trump says this is censorship, but experts say CNN is within their rights not to air it.
  10. North Dakota is requesting $38 million from the federal government to pay for the DAPL protests.
  11. Thousands gather across the country for May Day marches and strikes. May Day, also called International Workers‘ Day, originated when U.S. trade unions declared the work day would be an 8-hour day, which united several groups and mobilized the workforce to fight for workers’ rights. Two years later, this movement brought about the first May Day strike on May 1, 1886.
  12. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Army, Mark Green, withdraws from consideration over controversies around past comments on gender, Islam, and evolution.
  13. Sonny Perdue ends nutritional standards at schools, reducing whole-grain requirements, allowing higher sodium levels, and restoring high-fat, sweetened milk. Because childhood obesity isn’t a problem here in the states, right?

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

  1. From Donald Trump: “I also applaud the Palestinian Authority’s continued cooperation with Israel. They get along unbelievably well… They work together beautifully.”
  2. Trump wonders why we had to fight the Civil War and surmises that if Andrew Jackson would’ve still been in power, he would’ve nipped it in the bud. History lesson: Unlike Lincoln, Andrew Jackson owned many slaves. And isn’t Lincoln supposed to be the big Republican hero? Here’s the full quote:

″I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn’t have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. And he was really angry that — he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, “There’s no reason for this.” People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War — if you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?″

  1. Arizona House Majority Leader John Allen, on teachers who have to work two jobs to make ends meet: “They’re making it out as if anybody who has a second job is struggling. That’s not why many people take a second job. They want to increase their lifestyles… They want to pay for a boat. They want a bigger house.”
  2. Wow. Just… wow. Rep. David Eastman (R-Wasilla) thinks that women in Alaska are getting abortions for the exciting travel opportunity, saying, “You have individuals who are in villages and are glad to be pregnant, so that they can have an abortion because there’s a free trip to Anchorage involved.”
  3. Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-NC) on pre-existing conditions: “People can go to the state that they want to live in. States have all kinds of different policies and there are disparities among states for many things: driving restrictions, alcohol, whatever. We’re putting choices back in the hands of the states.” As if moving to another state to get the care you need is a viable option for most people.
  4. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price says people who are sicker and riskier have to pay more for health insurance, and that it’s “pricing for what an individual’s health status is.” In reality, the reason we don’t rely on free-market pricing for health care is that the older and sicker would be charged higher insurance premiums because they’re more likely to cost more, and the younger and healthier would be charged less because they’re likely to cost less. Except you can’t predict when you’ll get sick.
  5. Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho): “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.” Prior to the ACA, around 45,000 Americans died annually because of lack of health insurance (according to a 2009 Harvard study). Additional studies back this up.
  6. Jimmy Kimmel’s son is born with a heart condition, and he makes an emotional plea on live TV to make sure that nobody loses healthcare and that every baby is covered. Joe Walsh, former Republican Congressman tweets this response: “Sorry Jimmy Kimmel: you’re [sic] sad story doesn’t obligate me or anybody else to pay for somebody else’s health care.”
  7. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), defending an amendment that would require sicker people to pay more insurance costs: “My understanding is that it will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, you know, they are doing the things to keep their bodies healthy.” Because, you know good people who live healthy lives never get sick.

Week 14 In Trump

Posted on May 1, 2017 in Politics, Trump

Quote of the week:

“I love my previous life. I had so many things going. I, actually, this is more work than in my previous life,” Trump said. “I thought it would be easier. I thought it was more of a — I’m a details-oriented person I think you would say that. But I do miss my old life. I like to work so that’s not a problem but this is actually more work.”

Anybody who thinks presidenting is easy — in fact anyone who doesn’t think it’s just about the hardest job in the world — has never really paid attention to our government.

Russia:

  1. The Senate Intelligence Committee adds more staffers to help investigate Russia ties after they are criticized for the slow pace of their investigation.
  2. The slow pace also generates a bigger push for an independent investigation (73% of Americans want one).
  3. Rep. Jason Chaffetz says that it appears Michael Flynn broke the law in accepting foreign money for appearances and lobbying because as a retired Lieutenant General he is required to obtain permission.
  4. Sean Spicer shifts blame to the Obama administration for having given Flynn security clearance, though Obama had also fired Flynn. Meanwhile, the White House refuses to turn over the documents requested by the oversight committee, something Spicer denies.
  5. The Defense Department inspector general also launches an investigation into Michael Flynn.

 

Courts/Justice:

  1. Arkansas forges ahead with their executions, killing three more inmates this week.
  2. Trump says he’ll get rid of the requirement that employers provide birth-control coverage to their employees, but the DoJ indicates that they intend to continue fighting for that coverage.
  3. The Senate confirms Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General, and he’ll be taking over handling of the Russia probe.
  4. We learn that the DoJ, in a 180-degree turn, has withdrawn a primary claim against a Texas voter ID law. The DoJ until now has maintained that the law was written with discriminatory intent, a reversal that indicates the DoJ’s new position toward protecting minority interests. Or toward not protecting those interests.
  5. In response to a California judge ruling against Trump’s financial threats against sanctuary cities, Trump says he’s considering breaking apart the ninth circuit court of appeals, apparently unaware of presidential limits.
  6. In the ongoing conflict between North Carolina’s Republican legislature and its new Democratic governor, the legislature is trying to pass bills that would strip Governor Cooper of his ability to fill seats on the state court of appeals. In response, conservative Republican Judge J. Douglas McCullough steps down a month before his required retirement date to allow the governor to appoint someone to fill his seat. He is so opposed to the Republican antics that he is willing to have a Democrat replace him on the bench.

Healthcare:

  1. The GOP works again to revise their healthcare bill so they can bring it to a vote, this time catering to the interests of the Freedom Caucus.
  2. Changes to the bill give states more flexibility, letting them apply for waivers to some provisions. This includes rules around pre-existing conditions, patient age, prescription drug coverage, and mental health coverage.
  3. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, government costs would actually increase by $2.3 billion if they stop paying the ACA subsidies (as has been threatened in order to make the system fail).
  4. 79% of Americans say Trump should try to make the ACA work instead of trying to make it fail quickly. 50% of Americans don’t have faith in the replacement plan for the ACA.
  5. The UN sends a letter to the Trump administration warning that repealing the ACA without a robust replacement that ensures coverage is available to all could violate our obligations to international law.
  6. The House fails again to pull together enough votes to repeal and replace the ACA. The latest iteration got the Freedom Caucus on board, but lost moderate Republicans.
  7. Rep. Warren Davidson tells a woman at a town hall that her son isn’t skilled enough to have insurance coverage. When later asked about it, he reiterated that healthcare coverage is something we have to earn.

International:

  1. French President Hollande throws his support behind Emmanuel Macron in next month’s elections, calling on voters to reject far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
  2. All the Senators are bused up to the White House for a briefing on North Korea by Rex Tillerson, Jim Mattis, Dan Coats, and General Joseph Dunford.
  3. Trump says that there could be a “major, major” conflict with North Korea. While most Senators and news media agree the situation is bad, Fox News says tensions are at a “fever pitch.”
  4. North Korea launches yet another ballistic missile test. Like the last one, this missile also fails.
  5. Secretary Mattis travels to Afghanistan to figure out how to handle the issue of Russia supplying the Taliban with weapons.
  6. In retaliation for Syria’s chemical attack, the U.S. imposes new sanctions against them.
  7. A Russian spy ship collides with a freighter and sinks in the Black Sea.
  8. The Trumps host Mauricio Macri, the president of Argentina, and his wife at the White House.
  9. Trump invites Philippine strongman (and human rights violator) Rodrigo Duterte for a White House visit.
  10. In continuing his moves to stifle dissent and free speech, Turkish President Erdogan fires around 4,000 government workers, and bans access to Wikipedia and certain TV shows countrywide. Remember Erdogan is the guy Trump called to congratulate on his win in consolidating power.
  11. The State Department wants to vet any remarks made by Nikki Haley before she speaks.

Legislation:

  1. In yet another move to pretend Obama’s presidency never happened, Trump signs an executive order to review our national monuments (federally protected and owned land). In fairness, this affects all monuments, not just those designated by Obama; however Trump has specifically pointed out those that were designated by Obama as inhibiting development. He can either abolish the designations or make the monuments smaller.
  2. The next day he tweets “As families prepare for summer vacations in our National Parks – Democrats threaten to close them and shut down the government. Terrible!” A little disconnect?
  3. In response to the executive order, clothing maker Patagonia threatens legal action.
  4. The FCC proposes rules to weaken net neutrality. More than 800 leaders of U.S. start-ups signed a letter to Ajit Pai, FCC chairman, asking that these rules not be changed. In brief, net neutrality forces ISPs to treat all packets of information equally. For example, they can’t charge Hulu more for data than Netflix or YouTube, and they can’t slow down one person’s data so another’s can flow faster.
  5. Trump signs an executive order around agriculture, which instructs Sonny Perdue (Secretary of Agriculture) to review regulations and identify unnecessary rules that can be eliminated. It creates a new task force to make recommendations on existing food and agriculture policies that could hinder profit-making of agribusiness.
  6. Trump signs an executive order to encourage offshore drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, making federal waters available for oil and gas leasing. Many cities and states have their own laws around this, so parts of the Atlantic may still be off limits.
  7. Despite his criticism of executive orders, especially of Obama’s use of executive orders, Trump ends the week with 32 executive orders under his belt, the most of any president in their first 100 days since WWII.
  8. Trump ends his first 100 days having signed 29 pieces of legislation from Congress, 11 of which do nothing more than repeal Obama-era rules and regulations.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-semitic incidents are up 86% the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year. Only around a third of those were the hoax bomb threats against Jewish community centers.
  2. The Trump administration awards GEO, a company that donated almost half a million dollars to his campaign, the contract for a private immigration detention center.
  3. A federal judge blocks the Trump administration’s attempts to cut funding to sanctuary cities. Trump accuses his opponents of “judge shopping.” Once again, the administration’s words come back to haunt them. They previously said they would wield funding like a weapon and bring sanctuary cities to their knees, among other threats. The judge took their statements into account in his ruling.
  4. Mexico expresses concern that the border wall could violate a 47-year-old treaty between the U.S. and Mexico, and also that a wall could worsen flooding in some areas. The decision could be left up to international courts if Mexico protests the wall based on the treaty.
  5. Trump and Republican leaders butt heads over LGBTQ protections versus religious rights. Trump wants protection policies to remain; Republicans favor restricting those policies based on religious liberty. Trump has in the past professed support for protecting the LGBTQ community.
  6. Homeland Security creates a new agency, Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement or Voice, or VOICE, to assist families of victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants, even though undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than citizens. Some of their work appears to duplicate work already being done by states and localities, such as VINE, or Victim Information and Notification Everyday.
  7. Of the undocumented immigrants targeted for deportation in the days after Trump took office, around half had either no criminal offenses or minor traffic offenses. The number of immigrants picked up represents about a 32% increase over the previous year.

Climate:

  1. Energy Secretary Rick Perry endorses renegotiating parts of the Paris agreement instead of simply withdrawing from it.
  2. Protestors against Trump’s climate policies march in cities across the country on Trump’s 100th day in support of science-based policies that support our health and the health of the planet.
  3. The night before the climate marches, the EPA removes its scientific climate change website from public view. The site is archived, and they say they’re updating it to match the new direction of the agency. This causes great concern in the scientific community, but we’ll see whether the info gets put back up.
  4. Because of climate change, coffee production has been in a deficit for the past 4 years. Meanwhile consumption is reaching an all-time high. But not to worry; scientists are on it, working on plants that can withstand disease and grow with less water.
  5. Ice roads in Canada are freezing later and melting earlier than before, reducing the window in which isolated residents can travel and goods can be trucked. The roads take longer to freeze and the ice isn’t as thick, making it more dangerous for travel.

Budget/Economy/Trade:

  1. Trump issues a tax plan, which is more like a wishlist than an actual plan. In short, the plan:
    • Cuts corporate taxes for businesses of all sizes, from the biggest to mom-and-pop stores.
    • Cuts the top tax rate by 4.6 points.
    • Eliminates the ACA tax of 3.8% on top earners, bringing their total tax cut to 8.4 points.
    • Eliminates the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax (AMT).
    • Increases the standard deduction to help middle class earners (this might require eliminating other deductions).
    • Doesn’t include tax revenue to support the infrastructure plan.
    • Rejects the border tariff proposed by House Republicans.
    • Creates a loophole where people could create pass-through corporations and lower their effective tax rate to 15%.
    • Eliminates the state and local tax deductions from federal income tax.
  2. Analysts say the economy would have to grow by 5% to make up for the budget shortfall.
  3. The Tax Policy Center estimates the cuts will reduce federal revenue by $6.2 trillion over 10 years.
  4. Mnuchin says he can’t guarantee that the middle class won’t pay more under the new tax bill but he says there should be no absolute tax breaks for the wealthy. Even though their tax bracket is dropping at least four points. I’m trying to work out the math here…
  5. Analysts say that the economic policies in the tax plan don’t support policies in Trump’s trade and immigration plans. They say he needs an overall economic vision that brings all the different pieces together, a vision that is currently lacking.
  6. Trump orders a 20% tariff on softwood lumber coming in from Canada, which is predicted to increase the cost of new homes. He argues that the lumber is unfairly subsidized which hurts lumber companies in the U.S., but this seems to be in response to an import tax Canada on U.S. dairy products processed in a certain way (the processing style was used as a way to get around NAFTA trade rules).
  7. Democrats say they’ll stall the spending bill and risk a government shutdown if the healthcare vote happens this week.
  8. On Wednesday, Congress leans toward signing a one-week extension to the budget to keep the government going.
  9. Trump throws in a wrench by making demands to begin funding the border wall and to begin defunding the ACA (specifically the payments that help low-income people).
  10. Trump backs away from his demands around the border wall and the ACA this go around.
  11. Or wait, does he really?
  12. Yes. Yes, he does.
  13. Ryan says the spending bill will not include ACA payments that help lower-income people afford care.
  14. Or wait, will it?
  15. Yes. Yes, it will include those payments.
  16. The House and Senate pass a short-term budget bill to prevent a shutdown. The vote didn’t hinge on any healthcare changes nor on any funding for the wall.
  17. Also in the bill, the NIH will get a $2 billion dollar increase, a rejection of Trump’s cuts to the agency in his proposed budget.
  18. The White House submits a draft proposal to withdraw from NAFTA. Republicans and Democrats in Congress both say hold up, wait a minute here.
  19. Trump threatens to terminate NAFTA, causing shakeups in the markets, Congress, Canada, and Mexico.
  20. After both Mexican and Canadian leaders phone Trump, he agrees not to terminate NAFTA. It seems that what actually convinced him, though, was Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, showing him map of the farmers who would be negatively affected by scrapping NAFTA and telling him that these are Trump voters.
  21. The latest numbers show that the U.S. had sluggish economic growth last quarter at just .7%, the weakest in three years. Consumer spending was down as well. This might not have much to do with Trump, though, as we’re still on Obama’s budget.

Miscellaneous:

  1. To add to Fox’s public image issues, a new class-action lawsuit against the media conglomerate alleges racial discrimination.
  2. The Senate denies Breitbart’s request for permanent press pass credentials saying they need answers to more questions.
  3. It’s another bad week for Alex Jones of InfoWars, who is in the middle of a custody suit. Chobani sues him for defamation after Jones linked the founder of the company to a sexual assault case and accused him of importing refugee rapists. And then Jones lost his custody suit.
  4. The State Department removes a page on its website featuring Mar-a-Lago after criticism that it used government resources to basically advertise the resort.
  5. The Senate confirms Alexander Acosta as Secretary of Labor.
  6. Trump thought once he won, the press would be kinder to him.
  7. Trump speaks at the annual NRA meeting in Atlanta, the first sitting president since Ronald Reagan in 1983 to do so.
  8. Ivanka travels to Germany for a panel discussion on women’s economic empowerment, on Angela Merkel’s invite. The first day doesn’t go well as she’s forced to defend her father to a skeptical audience.
  9. Ann Coulter is speaking at UC Berkeley. Then she’s not (UCB postponed for security concerns). Then she is (forget security, I’ll just speak in a public square). Then she’s not (she lost the support of the groups who asked her to speak). The primary catalyst here is the security concern with far right and far left extremist groups, but the issue quickly escalates into accusations of free speech infringement.
  10. Paul Ryan is less popular than Donald Trump with just a 22% approval rating.
  11. A new poll shows that most Trump voters do believe that Obama was spying on the Trump campaign.
  12. And finally of note this week is this Politico story about press office lies. It seems the press were warned from the start that the White House would feed them lies just to mess with them. Staffers lie more for sport than for furthering any agenda; it’s all a game. Information is plentiful when you’re doing a story on palace intrigue, but not so much when it comes to actual policy. What they say off the record is far more accurate than what they say on the record, especially when it comes to TV appearances. For example, Spicer has lied or mislead 51 times in his briefings.

Week 13 in Trump

Posted on April 24, 2017 in Politics, Trump

You sunk my battleship!

After a week of raucous town halls, I was expecting there to be a lot of entries under “Stupid Things Politicians Say” but I couldn’t find anything worthy. So here’s what really did happen in Trump’s 13th week.

But first, I missed a few things in the previous week’s recap:

  1. A blast from a suicide car bomber struck several buses that were evacuating civilians from towns around Aleppo, killing over 100 people including children and aid workers.
  2. British intelligence was aware of the links between members of Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives as far back as late 2015.
  3. Paul Manafort borrowed $13 million from Trump-related businesses on the day he left the campaign.
  4. When Trump said that NATO was no longer obsolete, he credited himself with the change, saying his tough stance had made the other countries take their responsibilities more seriously.

 

And now here’s what happened in week 13 under Trump:

Russia:

  1. We learn that the FBI used the Trump dossier to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page last year. This means that not only did the FBI think the dossier provided probable cause, but the courts thought so as well, lending credence to the information contained within the dossier.
  2. Documents show that a Russian government think tank developed a strategy to swing the U.S. election to Trump and to undermine our trust in our electoral system. The project was requested by Putin.
  3. U.S. Intelligence announces it’s preparing charges to arrest Julian Assange. A day later, U.K. Election Commission announces an investigation into Leave.EU, the organization behind Brexit led by Nigel Farage. Farage also has ties to Assange and has visited him in the Ecuadorian embassy.
  4. Amidst all the Russian hacking accusations from last year, Trump promised to put together a team to give him a cyber security plan within the first 90 days of his presidency. As of now there is no plan and no team.
  5. Russian military aircraft come near Alaska four times in four days, to be intercepted by American and Canadian fighter jets.

Courts/Justice:

  1. While AG Sessions shuffles the DoJ toward a policy of aggressive law enforcement, as of this week he has not replaced any of the U.S. attorneys who were forced to resign last month. Unless he gets staffed up, he’ll have a hard time getting tougher on crime and immigration.
  2. The DoJ debates bringing criminal charges against members of WikiLeaks over the 2010 leak of military and diplomatic documents, as well as the more recent 2017 leaks around CIA cyber tools. They’re on the hunt for the leakers.
  3. Sessions, speaking of the Hawaiian judge who put a stay on the travel ban, says he is amazed that “a judge sitting on an island in the pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and Constitutional power.” Later, given a chance to walk those comments back, he digs in deeper.
  4. Arkansas puts a prisoner to death for the first time on over a decade. After courts in Arkansas put a stay on the eight executions they wanted to carry out last week (because their execution drugs were expiring), the courts allow the state to go forward in one case. Seven are still on hold.
  5. After Trump’s lawyers failed to make their case that Trump couldn’t be named in a civil suit because he’s president, they argue that protestors had no right to “express dissenting views” during Trump’s campaign rallies.

Healthcare:

  1. Trump debates his next move on the ACA, with certain budget decisions having to be made soon. He can either cut the subsidies and risk pissing off over 11 million people, or he can continue funding, maybe even fix a few things, and risk making it more popular and harder to repeal.
  2. It looks like they’re gearing up to try again next week to repeal and replace the ACA, as House Republicans come up with a new proposal. This version gives states more flexibility, potentially removing protections for those with existing illnesses among other ACA provisions.

International:

  1. The number of civilian casualties in the Mideast has increased dramatically under Trump. It’s unclear if this is from more intensive fighting or policy changes.
  2. Israeli defense officials say that Syria still has chemical weapons.
  3. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May calls for a general election in June though she had previously said she would wait until the regularly scheduled elections in 2020. This could strengthen her hand in the Brexit negotiations with the EU if she wins. The pound rebounds to a six-month high after the announcement.
  4. Trump calls Turkey President Erdogan to congratulate him on winning his referendum that basically consolidates government powers and sets Turkey on a path away from democracy and toward authoritarianism.
  5. Trump says both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were “outplayed by this gentleman,” referring to Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong Un has only been North Korea’s leader since 2012. Bill Clinton dealt with Un’s father.
  6. After a mixup between where the White House thought their warships were and where the warships actually were, the warships are now headed toward the Korean Peninsula.
  7. Vice President Pence pays a visit to South Korea and to the DMZ, putting North Korea on notice that the “era of strategic patience is over.”
  8. The North Korean envoy at the UN warns that they will retaliate in kind to any U.S. strike.
  9. Against Chinese opposition, South Korea is deploying an American missile defense system called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system.
  10. While Trump continues to criticize Iran and say they’re not living up to their end of the deal, Tillerson says Iran is sticking to the rules of the nuclear agreement. He also says, though, that the agreement is still being evaluated for its efficacy.
  11. The Trump administration denies Exxon its requested waiver against Russian sanctions in order to complete a business deal with Russian oil company Rosneft. Waivers have been granted in the past, but this specific deal seems to have been frozen in 2014.
  12. China and Russian vessels follow Trump’s “armada” on its way to North Korea, saying they are just there to stabilize the situation.
  13. Trump announces the nomination of former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown to the position of ambassador to New Zealand.
  14. A shooter kills one policeman and wounds another on the Champs Elysees, with ISIS claiming responsibility for his actions. This is backed up by a note found in the gunman’s pocket.
  15. GM pulls out of Venezuela after the government says they’re taking over GM’s car manufacturing plant there. The plant hasn’t put out a car since 2015, and now all those employees are out of a job.
  16. The euro dips leading up to the elections in France. It looks like there will be a runoff election between the two candidates with the most votes, center-left Emmanuel Macron and far-right Marine Le Pen. This election is being billed as a referendum, and all other parties quickly united afterward against the far-right candidate.

Legislation:

  1. The Montana legislature is proposing a strange anti-abortion bill. “The bill, S.B. 282, defines fetal viability at 24 weeks’ gestation and prevents abortions past that point, even in a medical emergency. A pregnant person whose fetus stands a 50 percent chance of survival outside the womb would be forced to undergo a C-section or induced labor. Additionally, under the proposed law, a doctor who provides an abortion past 24 weeks could face charges of homicide.” This is the third anti-abortion bill they’ve put forward this year.
  2. As part of an effort to dismantle some of Obama’s financial regulations, Trump signs an executive order establishing a review of any major tax regulations Obama set last year. He also signed two memos that could change or eliminate parts of the Dodd-Frank reforms. If you remember, these reforms were designed to prevent the “too big to fail” problem from re-occurring.
  3. Trump signs a “buy American, hire American” executive order that directs federal agencies to crack down on fraud and abuse in the H-1B visa program, but that doesn’t change anything about the current program.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. An immigrant protected by DACA is deported. There are varying stories on this, but the gist is that he didn’t have his ID with him and couldn’t prove his DACA status. Within three hours he was back in Mexico with no due process.
  2. In a twist of irony, Judge Gonzalo Curiel, whom Trump said last year could not hear his case fairly because he was Mexican, is the judge who will hear the above case.
  3. The border wall, if built, will likely go through the middle of Big Bend National Park.
  4. Controversy continues around the wall over how much it will cost (estimates are anywhere from $20-70 billion) and who will pay (people who send money to Mexico, taxpayers, child tax credits – even if the child is a U.S. citizen, trade revenue).
  5. None of the congressional politicians in border states (Texas, Arizona, California, and New Mexico) support funding for the border wall.
  6. Due to the new, more restrictive policies on entering the U.S., Emirates airlines starts cutting flights to the U.S. They say that travel demand is down.
  7. Even Canadian travel to the U.S. is down because of the new travel policies. There’s a feeling that America isn’t welcoming like it used to be.
  8. AG Sessions says they can’t promise they won’t deport DREAMers, though Trump says they have no plans to deport DREAMers right now and that they should “rest easy.” Mm-hmm.
  9. Ever since the election, doctors report seeing a surge in children suffering from Trump-related anxiety related. Symptoms include panic attacks and physical pain, such as chest pain and headaches. These children largely belong to the minorities targeted by Trump’s early rhetoric.
  10. Nikki Haley denounces the detention and killing of gay men in Chechnya. If you aren’t following this story, you should be. They are committing horrendous atrocities against the LGBTQ community there.
  11. AG Sessions sends letters to nine jurisdictions, including all of California, requesting proof that they’re cooperating with ICE and threatening that they’ll lose funding if they don’t.
  12. As part of the above, Sessions accuses New York City of being soft on crime, saying that the city is “crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime.” Of note, murder is down 82% from its peak, and crime in general is down 76%. NYC crime is at its lowest recorded level in decades.
  13. Though Trump said it was a bad deal, Pence says the U.S. will honor the refugee agreement with Australia.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Even though business leaders listed eliminating EPA regulations as one of the top targets to increase business, many of America’s corporations (from Apple to Wal-Mart) plan to continue their plans to fight climate change and move toward renewable energy.
  2. Not really a climate event, but thousands of scientists and science supporters marched on Earth Day in support of science-driven policy in 600 cities on 6 continents.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Institute of Library and Museum Sciences is on the chopping block in Trump’s proposed budget. This program finances programs at 123,000 libraries and 35,000 museums across the country.
  2. Trump is itching to get rolling on tax reform, but Treasury Secretary Mnuchin says that it’s not realistic to expect that a plan will be signed by August.
  3. I’m not sure if this exactly falls under Economy, but Trump starts an investigation into steel imports, specifically to see whether the U.S. makes enough of its own steel to defend itself if needed.
  4. While Congress is out on recess this week, everyone is bracing for a budget showdown. The money runs out on April 28, and a new budget needs to be passed to avert a shutdown. After weeks of negotiation between Democrat and Republican leaders, Trump says the budget must include funding for the border wall and an increased border patrol; Democrats say no way. Even Republicans say that’s an argument for another time. Looks like it will come down to border wall funding and ACA repeal.
  5. Politicians in Mexico consider retaliatory options to Trump’s constant criticism of Mexico and Mexicans, including aligning with China and reducing their dependence on American goods.
  6. The Dow Jones dips after Trump announces his massive tax cut plan to be presented next week.
  7. After opposition from the U.S., IMF leaders drop a pledge to fight protectionist trade policies, but still say they will work to reduce trade imbalances. Earlier they said that protectionist policies could throw a wrench in the currently improving global growth.

Elections:

  1. Jason Chaffetz says he won’t run again for office in 2018, and he might not even finish out his term. An opponent has out-raised him 4 to 1, and he’s drawn ire for recent comments on the ACA. Rumors abound about his reasons, but nothing holds water yet.
  2. Georgia’s 6th district holds a highly publicized primary election. Big news because this seat has been held by a wide margin by the GOP for decades, but a newcomer Democrat is giving them a run. Jon Ossoff needed just over 50% of the vote to win outright, but he received 48.1% so there’s a runoff between him and the leading Republican, Karen Handel, in June.
  3. Voting machines were stolen from an election officials vehicle days before the Georgia election.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The White House holds the annual Easter Egg Roll. Despite early reports that it would be a fiasco, the event went off fine though with a smaller crowd than previous years.
  2. Todd Ricketts withdraws his nomination to Deputy Secretary of commerce reportedly because it was too hard to divest from his finances well enough to meet the requirements of the Office of Government Ethics.
  3. Trump announces a campaign rally to be held on the same day as the press correspondents dinner.
  4. On the day the Ivanka had dinner with the president of China, she was awarded three Chinese trademarks.
  5. The legal team of fake news master Alex Jones says that his work on InfoWars is performance art and that the character he plays is a persona. Rush Limbaugh has said the same about himself. So for those of you listening to these two for a dose of reality, maybe it’s time to stop. A side note, Trump is friends with and listens to both of these guys.
  6. This isn’t really political news, but Bill O’Reilly and Fox cut ties after his sexual harassment suits become public. He will be paid $10s of millions as part of the exit agreement, and it took advertiser withdrawal to prompt the firing not the alleged sexual misconduct itself.
  7. The public sidewalk in front of the White House is closed indefinitely for safety reasons.
  8. Ivanka hires a chief of staff to assist her in her unpaid role in the White House.
  9. Trump replaces U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy with his deputy, Rear Adm. Sylvia Trent-Adams.
  10. Alabama politicians are having a rough year. First the Speaker of the House, Mike Hubbard (R) was forced to retire due to multiple felonies. Then Governor Robert Bentley (R) resigned pending impeachment. Now the Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice, Roy Moore, is removed from his position because he (again) told officials they don’t have to follow the Federal Supreme Court rules, this time on same-sex marriage.
  11. A lawmaker in Florida resigns after going on a (possibly alcohol aided) tirade laden with racial slurs.
  12. Trump, reverting to his old narrative, says that people who participated in the Tax Marches across the country are paid protestors.
  13. The main proponent of getting CalExit on the ballot withdraws the petition under controversy. One of the main leaders of the effort has decided to take up permanent residence in Russia. You can’t make this up.
  14. UC Berkeley cancels an upcoming speech by Ann Coulter on fears of violence, but later reverses the decision after receiving criticism. Score one for free speech.
  15. To back up the fact that it’s not UC Berkeley students responsible for violent riots, it turns out that the Patriot’s Day protestors in Berkeley traveled from all over the country to cause trouble there. According to the LA Times, “Many freely admitted they were there to make trouble and that peaceful protest… really wasn’t their goal.” Conversations on social media also show that they were working on ways to smuggle in weapons.
  16. After thousands of peaceful protests across since the election, Kellyanne Conway calls on Democratic leaders to tell people to stop the violent protests. Even though we know about the radical anti-fascists (antifa) and the black bloc instigating most of the violence, as in Berkeley above.
  17. According to an analysis by The NY Times and ProPublica, Trump is filling federal agencies with lawyers and consultants who will be creating policy for the very industries from which they received their last paychecks, setting up a huge potential for conflicts of interest.

Polls:

  1. A recent poll indicates that not only do politics alter both parties’ expectations about the economy, but politics also alter how voters think the economy is actually performing now. Last October, GOP voters in Wisconsin thought the economy had gotten worse over the last year by a margin of 28 points. In March, they thought it had gotten better by a margin of 54 points. Data show that economic indicators haven’t changed much at all, but the political landscape has.
  2. Trump’s approval rating is up a bit, to 42%.
  3. In February, 62% of Americans thought Trump was keeping his promises. That number dropped to 45% in early April.
  4. In February, 59% thought Trump was a strong and decisive leader. That number dropped to 52% in early April.
  5. 36% of Americans see Trump as honest and trustworthy.
  6. On his overall performance, 16% of voters give Trump an A; 24% give him an F. Congress didn’t get very high marks in this Politico poll either.