I apologize for the long post – this week’s recap is really long!

First, here are a few things I missed from the previous week’s recap:

1. Trump says he will not release his tax returns because “He won and no one cares but media.” Polls reveal that over 60% of Americans want to see his tax returns.
2. Trump did not put his company in a blind trust and in fact still retains full ownership in it, putting him in violation of the “Emoluments Clause” in the constitution.
3. The entire senior staff at the State Department “quit”.
4. Despite insistence that the travel ban is not a Muslim ban, this page was part of Trump’s campaign and remains on his site: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/…/donald-j.-trump-statement-on…
5. Along with the above, Giuliani said in an interview that Trump asked him to write a Muslim ban and so he pulled a commission together to come up with a way to do it legally. Giuliani justified this by saying they focused on danger instead of religion.
6. The ACLU brings in $24 million in funding over the weekend.

And now here’s what happened last week. As always, let me know if I missed anything or if I got anything wrong:

1. Spicer uses the Quebec mosque shooting to defend the travel ban and “certain” news agencies run with the story that the shooter was Muslim. The perpetrator was an alt-right Trump supporter, but these stories are not walked back until the Canadian Prime Minister insists on it.
2. Trump retains the protections given to LGBQT federal employees under Obama, apparently thanks to Ivanka and Jared Kushner.
3. Betsy DeVos is found to have plagiarized her answers to senators’ written questions.
4. Information comes out that indicates Mnuchin and Price lied in their confirmation hearings.
5. A third wave of threats hits Jewish centers around the country, prompting evacuations. The first was 1/9, the second 1/18, and today’s brings the total to over 60 centers evacuated.
6. Trump postpones signing an executive order on cybersecurity and another to the Justice Department to investigate his allegations of voter fraud, both signs that he is starting to hit roadblocks after a flurry of executive orders.
7. Harley Davidson cancels meeting with Trump on fear of protests.
8. Trump’s first military excursion results in the death of a navy seal, a 14-year-old American girl, and many Yemeni citizens. Leaks from officials indicate that the operation was undertaken without sufficient intelligence or support. The Trump administration tries to blame the Obama administration, but sources say the Obama administration delayed saying they didn’t want to push the new administration into an escalated situation with Yemen.
9. Trump’s national security team, led by Mike Flynn, wants give more power to lower-level officials in order to speed up the decision-making process for operations such as the above.
10. Democrats boycott the nomination hearings for Mnuchin and Price because of perceived lies during the hearings. Republicans change the rules and pass the nominees through to the Senate. This is all symbolic on both sides.
11. Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court appointment. He would be a pretty even replacement for Scalia, though he has tended to favor religious freedom over civil rights. Democrats debate whether to give payback for last year’s treatment of Garland Merrick or to save that fight for another battle.
12. Mitch McConnell derides Democrats for the possibility that they might block Gorsuch, presumably forgetting the name Merrick Garland.
13. Rex Tillerson is confirmed as Secretary of State. Approval for James Mattis (Defense), Elaine Chao (Transportation) and John Kelly (Homeland Security) follows.
14. House passes a resolution to end the Stream Protection Act, which protects our waters from coal pollution.
15. Leaked info from Trump’s call with Mexico reveals that he threatened to send US troops there.
16. Iran tests a missile, eliciting a stern response from the Trump administration along with some new sanctions.
17. Troop movement and fighting resumes between Russia and the Ukraine with no immediate response from the administration.
18. On a call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump slams the refu­gee agreement and brags about how much he won the electoral college. Trump ends the call after 25 minutes even though it was scheduled for an hour. Later explanations are that Trump was tired, and Senator John McCain smooths things over.
19. At the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump vows to get rid of the Johnson amendment, which would allow tax-exempt churches and their pastors to be politically involved and outspoken (thus breaking the rule separating church and state). The Baptist Joint Committee responds: “To change the law would hinder the church’s prophetic witness, threatening to turn pulpit prophets into political puppets.”
20. A bill is filed in the House that would remove Steve Bannon from the security council.
21. Over 50 lawsuits arise against the administration, mostly regarding the travel ban and the sanctuary city order.
22. After Trump, Conway, and Spicer all called the travel ban a ban, they claimed it’s not a ban.
23. Government releases numbers revealing that over 100,000 visas have been revoked as a result of the travel ban.
24. Multiple judges put stays on the travel ban, citing unconstitutionality. Trump issues clarifications on the ban.
25. The first visa holder who was denied entry and sent on a flight back home arrives back at LAX to be reunited with his family (after about 60 total flight hours over 6 days).
26. A federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocks the travel ban from being enforced nationwide, and the Department of Homeland Security announces that it is ceasing all operations associated with the ban. This opens us back up to visa holders, though the administration vows to fight it.
27. The Ninth Circuit Court denies an emergency motion to reverse the above decision and allow enforcement of the travel ban again.
28. House votes to repeal regulations aimed at curbing bribery and graft in the oil industry, which restricts paying bribes to foreign officials. Senate passes the same and the bill heads to Trump for approval.
29. Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, quits Trump’s advisory council. I’m torn about this, because sometimes you can work more change from within.
30. The House reverses the Obama administration rule preventing gun sales to people with severe mental disabilities, going back on their previous statements where they said the problem is not guns, but is instead mental health.
31. Trump appoints Jerry Falwell Jr. to head a task force on higher education.
32. Kellyanne Conway repeats the debunked lie that the Obama administration put a ban on Iraqi visas and made up a massacre, the Bowling Green Massacre, to support it.
33. CNN reports that Republican are saying more and more that there are parts of Obamacare that they will keep and that there is no mega-bill in the works to replace it. They are now talking about fixing it piece-by-piece.
34. Betsy DeVos has donated $10s of thousands to Republican senators. The same senators who will be voting on her confirmation. Teachers start crowdfunding sites to make enough money to give to those Senators to see if they can be bought back.
35. Trump orders a rollback of Wall Street regulations, including Dodd Frank.
36. The last jobs report of the Obama administration shows 227,000 jobs created. Naturally, Spicer tries to give all the credit to Trump, even though the report’s data was from prior to the inauguration.
37. Trump takes his first vacation to Mir-a-Lago for the weekend.
38. Congressmen report that their phones, and the main Capital Hill switchboard, are so jammed from constituents calling in, they can’t keep up. Rumors are that the main switchboard was down for three days because of it. So keep those calls and emails up!
39. A bipartisan bill is in the works to prevent Trump from being able to roll back sanctions against Russia without congressional approval.
40. Senators Graham and Whitehouse say the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism will investigate Russia’s influence in both our elections and EU nations’ elections.
41. The administration sends out Bureau of Indian Affairs agents to remove DAPL protesters from the protest camps.
42. Trump has the highest disapproval rating of any newly elected president.
43. McConnell says we shouldn’t spend federal money on an investigation into Trump’s claims of voter fraud.
44. Ten states draft laws that either would criminalize peaceful protests or could cause physical harm to protesters.
45. Trump appears to back off on his previous promise to reopen offshore black sites.
46. Ajit Pai, the new FCC chair, begins reversing Obama administration rules, including a program that expands high-speed internet to poor communities.
47. The administration is looking at changing the program, “Countering Violent Extremism,” to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.” The program has targeted all extremists in the past, but now might not target groups like white supremacists, the same groups that carry out most of the bombings and shootings in the US.
48. Some in Congress appear to be backing off of the idea that America can go it alone, as they scramble to meet with and reassure various heads of state.
49. In keeping with the tone of the Obama administration, Trump demands that Russia withdraw from Crimea, that Israel stop constructing new settlements, and that Iran receives additional sanctions based on their recent missile test.