Tag: white supremacy

Week 134 in Trump

Posted on August 20, 2019 in Politics, Trump

(Credit: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

This restores my faith in humanity. A man who lost his wife in the El Paso shooting and had no family left opened up her funeral to the entire community. Over 1,000 strangers showed up to comfort the grieving man and pay their respects to his wife. The funeral home was filled to capacity, and people waited outside for hours for their turn to come inside. People from across the globe send flowers, and some people even travel from out of town or out of state to get there.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending August 18…

Shootings This Week:

  1. The week‘s mass shootings (defined as killing or injuring four or more people):
    • A shooter wounds four people behind a grocery store in Greenwood, MS.
    • A shooter in Tacoma, WA, kills two people and injures three.
    • A shooter near the Alabama State University campus in Montgomery, AL, kills two people and injures three.
    • A shooter injures five people in Philadelphia.
    • A shooter injures seven people at a house party in Houston. It was a pop-up party, started by random invitations on Snapchat.
    • A shooter injures four teenagers in the Kansas City Sheraton Plaza hotel.
  1. This was another bad week for LEOs, too.
    • During a traffic stop in Riverside, CA, a shooter kills one police officer and injures two more before the police kill the suspect.
    • Six police officers are shot and injured in an hours-long shootout in Philadelphia during an attempted drug bust. The shooter was firing an AR-15.
  1. Public tips lead to three arrests in three states of men threatening mass shootings.
    • One posted his interest in committing a mass shooting on Facebook.
    • One texted his ex-girlfriend threatening a mass shooting.
    • On threatened to shoot up a Jewish community center.
  1. Prosecutors indict a young man who threatened federal agents. Agents seized 25 guns and around 10,000 rounds of ammunition from his house.
  2. The House Judiciary Committee announces they’ll cut their August recess short in order to move forward three gun safety bills.
  3. A leaked memo shows that Congressional Republicans’ talking points about mass shootings include labeling them “violence from the left.” Left-wing extremism is responsible for 3% of extremist killings as opposed to the right-wing’s 73%. In 2018, all extremist killings were related to right-wing extremism, mostly white supremacy.

Russia:

  1. The nuclear blast that killed five Russians occurred during a failed test of a nuclear-powered missile, likely the one that Putin has called “invincible.”
    • Days after the blast, which caused local radiation levels to spike, Russian officials ordered an evacuation of a small town near the blast for “military drills.” They then cancel the evacuation, saying the drills have been cancelled, leading defense experts to believe they’re suspending more tests for now.
  1. FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub accuses her Republican colleagues of blocking an investigation into a complaint of allegations of Russian money laundering involving the NRA. The complaint stems from a reported FBI investigation.
    • Weintraub claims Republicans on the FEC stopped the General Counsel from even reaching out to the FBI to confirm whether or not this investigation actually exists.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The guards who neglected to check on Jeffrey Epstein before he hanged himself didn’t check on him because they fell asleep. They falsified records to cover it up.
  2. Epstein’s autopsy found broken bones in his neck that can happen in a suicidal hanging, but that are more common in a homicidal strangling. The conspiracy theories grow.
  3. But then, the cause of death is listed as suicide by hanging. And the conspiracy theories continue to grow. *sigh*
  4. Two women file lawsuits against Epstein’s estate under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
  5. The House Judiciary Committee subpoenas Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former White House official Rick Dearborn to testify September 17. We’ll see if it actually happens this time.
    • The White House wants to invoke executive privilege to restrict Lewandowski’s testimony, but he never worked for the White House.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The DOJ submits a brief asking the Supreme Court to rule that Title VII (which prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sex, race, color, religion or national origin) does not apply to transgender people.

Healthcare:

  1. Despite the spate of highly restrictive abortion laws passed by states in recent years, draconian restrictions on abortion are extremely unpopular in the U.S., with less than 25% of people supporting total bans. 58% of Americans support legalized abortion in all or most cases.
  2. A Kaiser Family Foundation study shows that support for so-called heartbeat bills, which ban abortions later than six weeks into pregnancy, plummets when people are told what those laws actually do.
  3. Doctors in Congo say they’ve cured two Ebola patients they treated with new Ebola drugs.
  4. A VA inspector general report shows that for a six-month period in 2017, the VA incorrectly denied about 17,400 veterans $53.3 million in medical claims. A bipartisan group of lawmakers pushes for reconsideration of those claims.

International:

  1. Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests continue this week, with flash-mob style protests across the territory.
    • Officials shut down all outgoing flights at the airport, and requested incoming flights not come, for two days due to the number of protestors at the airport.
    • Violence breaks out sporadically, but the largest protest over the weekend is mostly peaceful. Nearly 1.7 million people, or a quarter of the city show up in the pouring rain to protest.
    • Satellite images of the Hong Kong border show over 500 Chinese military vehicles hidden along the border, waiting to be deployed against protestors.
  1. Pro-democracy protests also continue in Russia for the sixth straight week.
  2. Last week, I said that Israel doesn’t let Trump tell them what to do. But it turns out Israel does. They bar Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from entering Israel because they support BDS (and because Trump said to). Israel later says Tlaib can come visit her Palestinian grandmother, but Tlaib declines because of the restriction and conditions place on the visit.
  3. I’m still confused over Trump’s concern over A$AP Rocky, but anyhoo… a Swedish court finds Rocky guilty of assault, but doesn’t give him any more jail time.
  4. Trump floats purchasing Greenland.
  5. A suicide bomber at a wedding reception in Kabul kills 63 people and injures 182 more. The Islamic State claims responsibility; the Taliban denies any responsibility.
  6. Foreign diplomates and officials are already making contingency plans in case they have to deal with Trump for four more years, fearing he’ll win in 2020. 
Countries are holding off on launching new initiatives with the U.S. as a precaution.
  7. It’s kind of telling that the leaders Trump has the most goodwill with right now are those who are gutting democracy in their countries (Hungary, Poland, and Israel).
  8. Trump wants to create a naval blockade along Venezuela’s coast to stop the import and export of goods from the country. Sr. Pentagon officials don’t see the point, think it’s impractical, and say it would stretch them even thinner in the international arena.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The Trump administration plans to dig up Native American gravesites in order to build the border wall. Democrats in Congress are working to exempt historic cemeteries like this from being part of the wall.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. An American fencer who won bronze and helped Team USA win gold at the Pan Am Games takes a knee during the national anthem to protest racism, gun violence, our horrific treatment of immigrants, and Trump.
    • A hammer thrower who took gold raises her fist in protest at the end of the national anthem.
  1. Last year, Alabama filed a suit against the Commerce Department and the Census Bureau arguing that undocumented immigrants shouldn’t be counted when apportioning federal representation and funding. This would be a major shift away from how we’ve done things in the past.
  2. Families separated at the border by the Trump administration are suing for damages, specifically families with kids who claim they were abused in foster care. As expensive as family separation and endless detention has been for taxpayers, these lawsuit settlements could cost us 100s of millions more.
  3. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a nationwide injunction against Trump’s policy of denying any asylum claims for people who enter the U.S. via a third country. So the policy goes back into effect in Texas and New Mexico, but not California and Arizona.
  4. The Trump administration introduces a new rule that changes how recipients of public assistance are evaluated for U.S. residency and citizenship. The rule adds things like receiving food stamps or medicaid to the things immigration officials can take into consideration.
    • Pros: Fewer people getting public assistance.
    • Cons: People will forego the help they need for fear that they won’t get residency or citizenship (meaning children will go hungry, for a start).
  1. In defending the new rule, Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ken Cuccinelli rewrites the poem at the base of the statue of liberty. He says:

“Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge.”

    • Here’s the actual line from the poem. I’ll let you compare the difference. Jeez.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

    • He later says that the poem only refers to people coming from Europe.
    • In implementing the rule, the DHS ignored a majority of the 266,077 public comments submitted.
    • California seeks an injunction to block the new rule on the basis that it’s intended to discriminate.
  1. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to be a very good friend to the LGBTQ community. Well, a couple bans later (along with with removing protections against discrimination), he proposes a new rule that would let companies doing federal business discriminate against LGBTQ workers based on closely held religious beliefs.
    • The rule also allows discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nation of origin, gender, and more.
    • This is just one in a string of new rules that makes it harder to win a discrimination case in court.
  1. Representative Steve King (R-IA) defends his anti-abortion stance in cases of rape and incest by asking, if we didn’t have rape and incest, would there be any population left?” Makes me wonder what kind of sex this guy is having.
  2. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court’s ruling that DHS must provide immigrant children in detention centers with edible food, clean water, soap, and toothbrushes. The ruling also says that the children cannot be sleep-deprived.
  3. Gavin Grimm finally wins his discrimination case against a Virginia school board over transgender bathroom use. The case was temporarily put on hold when Trump rescinded the bill allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their gender identity.
  4. The officer who drove into a group of people protesting at an immigrant detention center resigns. One of the protestors suffered a broken leg and internal bleeding, while other were sprayed by other officers with pepper spray.
  5. A new analysis shows that black men are 2.5 times more likely that white men to die during a police encounter. Latino men, black women, and all Native Americans are also killed by police at a higher rate.
  6. Well this is so not good. Experts at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) argue that domestic terrorists, like ISIS, are trying to create dirty bombs (that is, radioactive bombs). This includes white hate groups and neo-Nazis.

Alt-Right vs. Antifa:

  1. While Portland police planned well for a white supremacist rally and the corresponding counter-protests by antifa, several fights broke out and police arrested 13 people and seized several weapons.
  2. Trump says we should designate antifa as a terrorist group (just a reminder that antifa stands for anti-fascist, and it’s not an organized enough group to be considered a terrorist group).
  3. One of the alt-right leaders just turned himself in for charges of felony rioting from a previous fight.
  4. The alt-right organizer says the whole point of the rally is to bring attention to antifa after the beating of far-right journalist Andy Ngo.
  5. If you don’t think that Trump fans the flames of white supremacy, white supremacists would disagree with you. The Proud Boys organizer Joe Biggsold says:

“Go look at President Trump’s Twitter. He talked about Portland, said he’s watching antifa. That’s all we wanted. We wanted national attention, and we got it. Mission success.”

  1. My question here is, if there were no white supremacy groups, would there be any antifa? And does antifa organize protests on their own, or do they just come out to protest white hate groups? The only exception to that that I’ve seen is the inauguration day vandalism.

Climate:

  1. 29 states and cities sue the Trump administration over the new rules attempting to rescind Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The new rules would ease emissions restrictions on coal-burning power plants.
  2. The Interior Department issues new rules to weaken the Endangered Species Act. The act, which was passed by Republicans in 1973, protects hundreds of species. The Secretary of the Interior is a former fossil fuel lobbyists, so the speculation is that this will allow for more drilling. Cue the lawsuits.
  3. The use of neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics, for short) has made our farms around 50 times more toxic to honeybees and likely to other insects as well.
  4. In another testament to the impulsive nature of this administration, the EPA reverses its decision to allow “cyanide bombs” to kill wildlife. Apparently the public outcry over this took them by surprise.
  5. India holds a tree-planting marathon, with students, volunteers, and government officials planting 220 million trees in just one day.
  6. A U.S. Geological Survey study found plastic particles in more than 90% of the rainwater samples they tested in the Denver-Boulder areas and surrounding mountains. It’s raining plastic, folks.
  7. While the globe is still waiting for the fateful day when warming reaches 2 degrees Celsius, several U.S. areas have already reached it and are feeling the effects.
    • New Jersey and other New England states, New York City, and Los Angeles, are among the most rapidly heating areas.
    • Other states feeling the burn include northern parts of Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan. Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, and Arizona also have some hot spots.
    • The warming affects industries and causes overgrowths of toxic algae and seaweeds.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Seemingly spooked by the market’s reaction to tariff announcements, Trump delays tariffs on Chinese goods that are big-sellers during the holidays. They’ll go into effect in mid-December.
  2. So far this year, tariffs have doubled customs duties to $57 billon.
  3. This fiscal year’s budget deficit grows to $866.8 billion, surpassing last year’s total and we still have two months to go in the fiscal year. The deficit is expected to surpass $1 trillion this year, two years earlier than previously predicted.
  4. GDP growth slowed in fiscal year 2019, indicating that tax cuts and deficit spending aren’t what will boost the economy in the long term. And after all the financial maneuverings, the economy is on pace to keep up the steady growth of the past 10 years.
  5. Analysts attribute the slowing to the GOP tax cuts, increased government spending, and a population that’s getting older. The GOP still says that the tax cuts will boost GDP growth.
  6. In case you thought last week would be the worst for the markets… Stocks took a little rollercoaster ride, dropping nearly 1,000 points in one day. Most indexes drop around 3%. They bounce back up (mostly), but bond yields are still pushing lower.
    • Trump blames his own Fed and pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong.
  1. The 10-year and 2-year bond yield curves invert for the first time since 2007, a fairly predictable indication of recession. But we’re not in predictable times right now. This is what triggered the stock market drop.
    • A yield curve inversion occurs when the yields for short-term bonds is higher than the yields for long-term bonds. If investors think a recession is coming, they’ll settle for those lower yields in long-term bonds.
    • You can look at Treasury bonds as a bet on economic growth. What’s happening now indicates that investors think the damage is done and this market bounce is temporary.
    • We had warnings in March and May, where the 3-year yield curve temporarily inverted.
    • The caveat? Steps the Fed took to get us out of the Great Recession changed some of the fundamentals of the market. So it could be the yield curve isn’t the reliable indicator it’s been in the past. Another caveat? Economists have also made that caveat before previous recessions.
  1. The New York Fed recession indicator issues recession warnings as well.
  2. And more recession jitters. Goldman Sachs expresses concern that a protracted trade war will trigger a recession.
  3. At a rally, Trump says, “I never said China was going to be easy,” directly contradicting what he said in March 2018: trade wars “are easy to win.”
  4. Moody Analytics estimates the trade war has axed 300,000 jobs and blunted GDP growth by 0.3 percentage points.
  5. John Deere and Caterpillar both fall short of investor expectations and Deere lowers its annual earnings forecast as a result of the trade war with China coupled with extreme weather.
  6. The yield curve inversion occurs in the UK as well.
  7. The UK’s economy shrank last quarter for the first time in nearly seven years. The European economy is slowing in general right now, but the UK is facing a possible no-deal Brexit, which would slow them down even further.
  8. Germany‘s economy, the EU’s largest, shrank in the second quarter of fiscal year 2019. Germany has taken a hit in their auto industry because of the trade wars.
  9. The European Central Bank proposes stimulus measures in expectation of a global downturn. Their interest rates are already negative, and they’re considering further cuts.
  10. China’s industrial output growth was at its weakest in 17 years.
  11. Japan buys $22 billion in U.S. Treasuries in June. That’s the most of any country and it makes Japan the largest foreign holder of U.S. Treasuries.
  12. Finally for some good news. Retail sales in the U.S. beat expectations in July, and major retailers had their biggest sales increase in four months. Economists raise their GDP growth expectations for the quarter.
  13. Trump says he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook over the weekend to talk about how tariffs affect Apple and how Apple’s major competitor, Samsung, gets around the tariffs. Is that normal for a president to meet with one CEO? I don’t know.
  14. Trump says the stock market will collapse if we don’t vote for him next year. It might collapse either way. He has a 50/50 chance of being right.
  15. Trump’s administration is reviewing unspent funds for foreign programs that were approved by Congress with an eye on redirecting those funds in a process called rescission. But he won’t touch Mike Pence’s or Ivanka’s programs.

Elections:

  1. A Republican group files a lawsuit against the voter-passed citizen redistricting commission in Michigan. They say the commission is unconstitutional. Voters passed similar anti-gerrymandering measures in other states, where the GOP is also trying to circumvent the vote of the people.
  2. At least eight state still use paperless ballots, so there’s no audit trail in the case of a challenge or recount. However, a judge orders Georgia to stop using paperless touchscreen voting machines by 2020.
  3. Trump holds a rally at a Shell plant in Pennsylvania where thousands of union workers are told to show up and to not yell or protest, or they won’t get paid. The rally was held during a time when workers get overtime, so they were looking at a good loss if they didn’t show.
    • Trump tells that group of workers that Shell‘s manufacturing complex never would’ve happened without him, even though Shell announced it under Obama in 2012.
  1. Trump renews his claims of voter fraud in New Hampshire, and receives a quick rebuke from FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub, who says:

“People have studied this. Academics have studied this. Lawyers have studied this. The government has studied this. Democrats have studied this. Republicans have studied this. And no one can find any evidence of rampant voter fraud either historically or particularly in the 2016 elections.”

  1. While both parties have used the recall to try to get rid of elected officials they don’t like, the GOP wields it like a weapon. There have been 45 state-level recall elections in the history of the U.S., and 20 of those were just in the past 10 years.
    • In California, they recalled a state senator to break the Democratic supermajority in 2018.
    • In Nevada, they tried to recall three lawmakers in 2018.
    • In New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, and California, they’re trying or planning to recall the governors.
    • In Colorado they recalled two lawmakers in 2013. This year, they’re trying to recall four lawmakers and are targeting more.
    • In comparison, Democrats tried to recall Scott Walker and his Lt. Governor in Wisconsin in 2012, and are working on a recall of the governor of Alaska.
  1. Trump says he can decide which TV networks air the presidential debates.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Remember that big scandal under Obama where we all found out that the National Security Agency (NSA) was surveilling our phone records? Well, that program has been shut down indefinitely, but Trump wants to reauthorize it and make it permanent.
  2. Trump says being president will cost him $5 billion. Isn’t that all he was worth in the first place?

Polls:

  1. 72% of Americans support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Even 54% of Republicans do, thought that’s down from 59% in March, 2017.

Quote of the Week:

This quote comes from a surprising source: former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci (the Mooch).

“We recognize that the president is a clear and present danger to the American society, the American culture. There are many people inside the White House and in the Cabinet. I would ask the left to let’s create an off-ramp for those people because when you’re trying to deprogram people from a cult, one of the first things you have to do is allow them to change their mind, and you have to allow them to have the space to change their mind.”

Week 133 in Trump

Posted on August 14, 2019 in Politics, Trump

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

This week, Tucker Carlson calls white supremacy a hoax, just like the Russia thing. Maybe he meant that white supremacy is not a hoax just the way the Russia thing is not a hoax. It is so far past time for ALL of us to take a stand against white supremacy. Any of you who still pretend it’s not a thing need to take a deep look inside about why it’s so important to hold on to the idea that we don’t have a white supremacist problem in this country. Because we do. We really, really do.

Here’s what happened in politics in the week ending August 11…

Shootings This Week:

  1. Here’s a list of the week‘s mass shootings (defined as killing or injuring four or more people):
    • A drive-by shooter in Chicago injures six people.
    • Another drive-by in Chicago injures four people.
    • A drive-by shooter in San Francisco injures four people.
    • A shooter injures four people near Richmond, VA, outside a hotel and bar.
    • Two people are dead and two injured in a shooting connected to a traffic accident in St. Louis.
    • A shooter kills one person and injures three at an altercation following a funeral in Maryland.
    • A shooter or multiple shooters injure four people at a community vigil in Brooklyn.
    • And a near miss in Springfield, MO. After an alert Walmart clerk pulls the fire alarm to get people out of the store, a former firefighter detains a man armed with tactical weapons, body armor, and over 100 rounds of ammunition.
  1. Trump calls for stronger background checks, but earlier he threatened to veto House legislation that strengthened background checks.
  2. Gun rights supporters single out mental health as the big issue in gun violence, but only a small fraction of mass shooters have a previous history of mental illness (and most mentally ill aren’t violent). The most common factors of mass shooters are:
    • Strong sense of resentment
    • Desire for infamy
    • Domestic violence
    • Study of other shooters
    • Narcissism (not to be confused with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is a mental illness)
    • Misogyny (so if you think the Incel movement is nothing to worry about, think again)
    • Access to firearms
  1. Trump speaks out against white supremacy, bigotry, and hatred, and says we need to do something about gun safety… and that maybe we should tie that together with immigration reform. I’m not sure what the two have to do with each other.
  2. Whoops! Trump refers to Toledo instead of Dayton in his speech. And then Joe Biden refers to Houston instead of El Paso, and to Michigan instead of Ohio.
  3. Trump calls for unity in his speech, but then later that day he and his staff were back to targeting his perceived political opponents, including those affected by the shootings.
  4. Trump tweets that the Dayton shooter supported Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Antifa. Police haven’t determined a political motive for that particular shooting, though violent misogyny seems to have played a part.
  5. None of the El Paso shooting victims are willing to meet with Trump, so they make a photo op by bringing in the baby whose parents were both killed in the shooting.
  6. FBI Director Christopher Wray orders the FBI to conduct a threat assessment to help find and stop possible mass shootings in the future. They’ll work to identify threats similar to the recent shootings and hopefully stop them before they occur.
  7. The FBI has around 850 active domestic terrorism investigations, down from nearly 1,000 a year earlier.
  8. The FBI opens a domestic terrorism investigation into the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting after finding a list of additional targets.
  9. After the recent mass shootings, Trump says “fake news” contributed to the anger and fate that led to these problems. The problem is, most of the recent shooters cited race and immigration, and echoed rhetoric used by Trump and white supremacists. The Dayton shooter was different–a violent misogynist whose motivation in unclear.
  10. Following the recent shootings, the FBI urges Congress to make domestic terrorism a federal crime, as it should be.
    • The gap in the law allows self-radicalized Americans who attack immigrants, Jews, African Americans, etc., to be tried for hate crimes instead of terrorism.
    • Even though both the Gilroy and El Paso shooters are being investigated for domestic terrorism, there’s no law that lets them get charged with that.
  1. The El Paso shooter said he was targeting Mexicans.
  2. Google and Amazon are both found to be selling gun accessories in violation of their own policies.
  3. Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine listens to his people and rolls out a 17-point gun safety plan that includes expanded background checks, red flag laws, improved access to mental health services, and social media monitoring.
    • These are the same laws Democrats have been trying to pass in the state (and around the country) for 20 years.
    • The state’s GOP legislators are dragging their feet on the bills already.
    • A Republican state representative in Ohio backs a ban on assault weapons and limits on magazine sizes. His change of heart came because his daughter was near the shooting in Dayton.
    • A group of activists is already working to get expanded background checks on the ballot in November 2020 as a voter referendum. If legislators won’t act, the people will.
  1. California Governor Gavin Newsom proposes expanding an existing commission on terrorism to find ways to reduce these kinds of gun violence at schools and at public events.
  2. Foreign journalists covering mass shootings in the U.S. say it’s hard to explain the issues surrounding mass shootings in the U.S.—our gun culture, politics, and extremism. People abroad frankly think Americans are a little nuts.
  3. Amnesty International issues a travel warning for the U.S. due to all the gun violence, as do countries like Japan, Venezuela, and Uruguay. Other countries urge caution when traveling here because of the number of shootings, especially mass shootings.
    • Trump threatens retaliation against these countries.
  1. For over a year, the White House has been blocking requests from the DHS to make fighting domestic terrorism a priority. The White House preferred to concentrate on the jihadist threat… because, you know, brown people and scary Muslims.
    • The majority of domestic terrorist cases involve white supremacy.
  1. A group of Walmart employees walk out in protest of the company continuing to sell guns.
  2. Trump says he’s been tough on guns, but his administration has actually worked to make them easier to obtain over the past 2-1/2 years by:
    • Lifting bans on certain locations.
    • Limiting the capabilities of the background check database.
    • Reversing Obama’s limits on gun ownership by people with certain and severe mental disabilities.
    • Working to make it easier for private sellers to sell weapons to foreign buyers.
  1. He‘s also banned bump stocks, increased penalties for agencies that don’t report information to the background check system, and approved funds to combat violence in schools. So it’s a mixed bag.
  2. Ten new laws loosening up gun regulations in Texas are set to go into effect over the next month. These laws make it easier to carry weapons in churches, on school grounds, in apartments, and following natural disasters, among other things.
  3. Congress calls the owner of the 8chan online message board to testify after the website is linked to the El Paso shooter (and it does seem to be the place to air your white supremacist angst).

Russia:

  1. A blast kills five workers and two military personnel at the Russian nuclear agency during a missile test. Russia’s Defense Ministry says they were testing a liquid jet propulsion system and that there were no dangerous gases released, though local authorities reported a radiation spike.
    • Russia later confirms that there were radioactive materials involved in the blast.
    • Later yet, they confirm that they were testing a nuclear-engine missile.
  1. JU.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman resigns, possibly to run for governor of Utah.
  2. The House Judiciary Committee files a formal lawsuit to force former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify about Trump’s potential obstruction of justice. So far, the White House has blocked his testimony.
  3. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, says that formal impeachment proceedings have already begun in that they are investigating the allegations of obstruction of justice in Mueller’s report, as well as other potential crimes.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Fired FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok sues for reinstatement, saying he was unfairly terminated for criticizing this president (which we all have a right to do, even in the FBI).
    • He argues that the Trump administration has tolerated and encouraged partisan political speech by federal employees as long as Trump’s in agreement with them.
    • He also alleges that DOJ violated the Privacy Act in releasing the texts and that the DOJ violated Strzok’s Fifth Amendment rights by not allowing him to appeal.
  1. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe sues the DOJ and FBI over his firing, saying it was politically motivated.
    • McCabe was hours from retirement when he was fired.
    • The lawsuit quotes a lot of publicly available material, like Trump’s tweets, so it will be hard to argue against that.
  1. Accused child molester and sex trafficker Jeff Epstein is found dead in his cell by apparent suicide. He had been on suicide watch, but psychologists took him off it over a week ago.
    • The prison guards miss their scheduled cell check on Epstein the night before.
    • And then cue the conspiracy theories. Trump retweets a conspiracy theory that the Clintons killed Epstein (this one’s magnified on the right). Some on the left say it was Trump or Bill Barr (magnified on the left). Others say there are many judges and politicians who wanted him dead.
  1. A federal judge orders the departments of State and Defense to produce thousands of documents related to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
  2. The DOJ urges a federal court to overrule a ruling that requires Trump’s accounting firm to release Trump’s financial records to Congress.
  3. Six major banks comply with a House Judiciary Committee subpoena and turn over documents relating to Trump, his family, Russians who had dealings with Trump, and Trump Organization.
  4. The founder of Students For Trump pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He created a fake persona to run a legal consulting scheme that bilked victims out of $50,000.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Two Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee ask the National Archives for Brett Kavanaugh’s records during his time serving under George Bush, since they were concealed during his hearings.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge blocks Arkansas’ 18-week abortion ban as well as a new law preventing women from seeking abortion at any time based on a diagnosis of Down’s Syndrome.
  2. Senator Lindsey Graham says that if Republicans take back the House in 2020, they’ll try to repeal and replace the ACA again. That’s what 2020 is all about, he says.

International:

  1. For the third time in a month, Iran seizes a foreign tanker in nearby waters, this time an Iraqi ship that Iran said was smuggling fuel. The Iraqi oil ministry denies the ship is theirs.
  2. Trump tells advisors that Israel should block Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from entering the country because of their views on BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions). Israel says don’t tell us what to do.
  3. Kim Jong Un supervises a demonstration of North Korea’s newly development short-range missiles.
  4. The protests in Hong Kong continue, having evolved from a protest against an extradition law to a protest against China and for democracy. Though many protests have been peaceful, some protestors escalate the demonstrations, blocking traffic, starting fires, and occupying the airport.
    • China’s reaction is bringing up comparisons to their mishandling of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Two Galveston police officers on horseback arrest a black man for trespassing and, instead of waiting for a transport vehicle, tie a rope to his handcuffs and make him walk alongside them while they ride through town. How did they miss the optics on this one? They say they made a bad decision and they’re very sorry.
  2. A federal judge forces some of the people and groups involved in 2017’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville to pay attorney fees for the people who sued them.
  3. The State Department suspends an official who was also a leader in the white nationalist movement. He attended the Charlottesville rally and posted Nazi propaganda online.
  4. Here’s what else has happened to some of the rally attendees, who came from 39 states and represented about 50 different extreme-right groups:
    • Three former Marines were discharged from the corps.
    • More than a dozen attendees have been imprisoned for various crimes.
    • Unite the Right organizers have been hounded by lawsuits, several leaders have left the movement, and some leaders have moved into new roles in the white supremacist movement.
    • Several attendees have been banned from social media platforms or banned from travel. Some have lost their jobs and some have been ostracized by their communities.
    • But most importantly, most attendees are still active in white nationalist, white supremacist, and racist movements, and some are running for office.
  1. John McCollister, a Republican State Representative in Nebraska, says the “Republican Party is COMPLICIT to obvious racist and immoral activity” inside the party, and that Trump “continually stokes racist fears in his base.” After listing some of Trump’s racist rhetoric, he says, “No more. When the history books are written, I refuse to be someone who said nothing. The time is now for us Republicans to be honest with what is happening inside our party. We are better than this and I implore my Republican colleagues to stand up and do the right thing.”
    • He clarifies that he’s not saying all Republican are white supremacists or racists.
    • In response, the Nebraska Republican Party says McCollister should leave the party. A little self reflection might be in order…
  1. In the largest ICE raid in a decade, immigration officials sweep seven Mississippi food processing plants and arrest 680 people. They leave the children of the arrestees to fend for themselves, so neighbors take over the care of the families left behind.
    • The raid occurs just hours before Trump travels to El Paso and Dayton to “unify” the country.
    • The companies involved could be charged. One of the companies raided is Koch Foods, Inc.
  1. A Michigan man who had been deported to Iraq, even though he had never lived in Iraq and doesn’t speak Arabic, is dead (possibly because he was unable to get his insulin).
    • This isn’t new. Investigators followed the lives of asylum seekers we’ve deported, and 62 of them were killed or died after being sent to the country they were born in.
    • Trump’s deportation policies hit the Iraqi Christian population in Michigan particularly hard, even though many family members of these deportees voted for Trump never thinking he would come after their non-citizen family members. We never think they’ll come for us, right?
  1. Police in El Paso arrest an armed man found lurking outside a migrant shelter. The man had been sitting in a truck with a likeness of Trump as Rambo painted on it. Police release him because they found no crime was committed. Wut?
  2. Trump says, “I am concerned about the rise of any group of hate, whether it’s white supremacy, or any other kind of supremacy.” What other kind of supremacy is there?
  3. Trump Organization hires undocumented workers for construction projects, and has been doing it for two decades. New York’s attorney general is investigating allegations that Trump didn’t pay several of them.
    • We already knew they were hiring undocumented workers at their country clubs after some of them came out publicly and eight were fired last year (even though their employers helped them get the necessary documentation to work).
  1. Federal agents arrest an Ohio man who threatened to shoot Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on social media. The man was also stockpiling weapons and says he’s proud of those posts.
  2. The FBI arrests a neo-Nazi in Las Vegas who was plotting to bomb a gay club and a synagogue.
  3. The DOJ files a petition to potentially decertify the union representing federal immigration judges. The union has been critical of Trump’s immigration policies.
  4. The Trump campaign has paid for about $1.25 million in Facebook ads about immigration (over 20% of their Facebook ads). Over 2,000 of those ads refer to immigration as an invasion.

Climate:

  1. The EPA reauthorizes using poison devices called cyanide bombs to kill wild animals like coyotes and foxes in order to protect livestock. This practice was previously considered inhumane, and has injured humans, domestic pets, and endangered species, too. During the public comment period, over 90% of the comments were opposed. I guess the EPA doesn’t really care what you think.

Budget/Economy:

  1. China said to Trump, I see your bet and I raise you. After Trump says he’ll add a 10% tariff to an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods, China lets it’s currency drop to an 11-year low against the dollar, imposes additional tariffs, and suspends the purchase of all agricultural goods from the U.S.
  2. Trump accuses them of currency manipulation, and the Treasury Department officially designates China as a currency manipulator. This is really just symbolic, and according to the IMF, China’s actions don’t technically qualify as that.
  3. Many U.S. farmers lose one of their largest customers with China’s announcement, and after a year of devastating heat waves and floods, too.
    • China bought $19.5 billion in farm goods in 2017; just $9.2 billion in 2018; and so far this year, it’s down 20% more.
  1. As a result of all the above, the Dow Jones has its worst day of the year, dropping 760 points, or nearly 3%. The S&P also fell 3% and Nasdaq fell 3.5%. The Dow was down nearly 1,000 at one point.
  2. The international travel industry continues to lose business, with a loss of 14 million international travelers, $59 billion in income, and 120,000 jobs in the U.S. Forecasters expect the decline to continue at least through 2022.

Elections:

  1. The Trump campaign and the Republican Party sue California over its new law requiring candidates for president to release five years of tax returns in order to be included on the ballot.
  2. Joe Biden joins the ranks of Democratic presidential hopefuls calling Trump out directly for his racist statements. He says:
    • “How far is it from the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville ― Trump’s ‘very fine people’ ― chanting ‘You will not replace us’ ― to the shooter at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh saying Jews ‘were committing genocide to his people?’ Not far at all. In both clear language and in code, this president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation.”
    • Kamala Harris says it’s no longer debatable that Trump is a white supremacist with no empathy.
    • Even Paul Ryan has said Trump’s remarks are the “textbook definition” of racist.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Puerto Rico gets its third governor in five days. After elected Governor Ricardo Rosselló resigns over homophobic and misogynistic text messages, Secretary of State Pedro Pierluisi is sworn in. But courts say that since Pierluisi wasn’t approved as SoS by both houses of congress, he’s not the legitimate successor. So then Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez, who’s said she doesn’t want the job, gets sworn in.
  2. Trump says his rhetoric brings people together. Like this tweet, right?
    • “Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed polling at 1% in the Democratic Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement – & be quiet!”
  1. Mitch McConnell calls the police when a group forms a protest outside his home in Kentucky. He says their actions constitute calls to violence. Frankly, I’m with him on this one. Private homes should be off limits.
    • On the other hand, his campaign tweeted a photo of headstones emblazoned with the names of his political opponents, including Amy McGrath and Merrick Garland.
    • And then a photo of several “Team Mitch” high school boys groping a cardboard cutout of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez goes viral on Twitter. Teach your boys better—this is how we end up with grown men who demean women.
  1. Cesar Sayac, who mailed pipe bombs to several Democratic targets of Trump’s rhetoric, receives a 20-year prison sentence for his crimes. Sayac drove a van covered in pro-Trump stickers. He sent the bombs to Hillary Clinton, Obama, Joe Biden, Eric Holder, George Soros, Maxine Waters, and more.
  2. Criminals are invoking Trump’s name for their defense:
    • Sayac’s lawyers say that he was radicalized by Trump’s rhetoric.
    • A man who slammed a thirteen-year-old’s head to the ground because the kid didn’t take off his hat during the national anthem says he thought he was doing what Trump wanted.
    • Defendants raise objections to people who turn state‘s evidence because Trump says that “flippers” should be illegal.
    • The defendant in a mob killing cited QAnon conspiracies and says he thought his victim was a member of the “deep state” that’s out to get Trump.
  1. Crime rates decreased from 2007 to 2017, and fewer people are in prison compared to 2007.
  2. Intelligence sources say that after he resigned, Dan Coates interrupted a meeting Deputy Director Sue Gordon was running on election security to urge her to resign as well. Trump didn’t follow normal protocol, which would’ve been to make Gordon acting directory.
  3. The White House drafts an executive order that would give the FCC more control over how social media sites curate what is allowed or suppressed on their websites.

Polls:

  1. 54% of Republicans polled support a ban on assault-style weapons.
  2. 85% of Democrats support one.
  3. 70% of registered voters overall support one. (I could’ve tell whether they defined assault-style weapons in the poll.)

Week 115 in Trump

Posted on April 13, 2019 in Politics, Trump

The economy has added jobs for a record 102 months, since October of 2010.

Here’s a stealth release of last week’s recap (ending April 7) because I’m so darn late with it. My typing fingers are still recovering from rock climbing earlier this week.

This week reminds me that while soundbites are easy to remember and fun to say, we should beware of politicians who talk in soundbites and don’t actually talk about specific policies. I know policies are boring as hell, but I’d rather elect someone who can tell me about their policies than someone who’s still trying to figure out how policies work.

Here’s what happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. I know this isn’t news, but it was quite a thing to watch. Trump tells reporters to look into the oranges of the Russia investigation. Yes, oranges. He says this three times.
  2. The House Judiciary Committee votes to authorize the use of subpoenas, if necessary, to force the release of the full and unredacted Mueller report to Congress.
  3. House Committees have so far been ignored by over half of the entities from whom they’ve requested documents in obstruction and corruption investigations. The deadline was March 18.
  4. Trump goes from saying that the Mueller report should be released in its entirety to putting out hostile tweets about Democrats who want it released.
  5. Members of Robert Mueller’s team say that Attorney General William Barr’s initial assessment of the final report undermines the seriousness of their findings, as well as how damaging those findings are to Trump. Note that these are all just leaks right now.
    • They also say they created completely unclassified summaries of each section, which Barr could easily release now.
    • The House Judiciary Committee requests that Barr release these summaries.
  1. The DOJ defends Barr, saying every single page of the report must be combed through because they all contain protected grand jury information.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A former Trump campaign staffer files a lawsuit alleging that Trump sexually assaulted her during the 2016 campaign. She says he grabbed her and kissed her.
  2. The House Ways and Means Committee formally requests six years worth of Trump’s personal and business tax returns from the IRS, as is their right per the IRS tax code. Steve Mnuchin has said he wouldn’t do that.
  3. Trump’s lawyers say handing over the tax returns would be a dangerous precedent… even though every presidential nominee in recent history has released their tax records.
  4. Michael Cohen says he just found a trove of files that could be valuable to investigators. He requests a delay or shortening of his sentence so he can review them.

Courts/Justice:

  1. We learn that DOJ officials invited William Barr to meet with them last year on the same day he published his memo criticizing Mueller’s investigation and claiming a president can’t commit obstruction of justice.

Healthcare:

  1. The number of measles cases is at its second highest in nearly 20 years. The disease was considered to be eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, but a lower rate of vaccination has brought it back.
    • In an effort to control the outbreaks, some municipalities ban unvaccinated people under 18 from being in public places.
  1. After Mitch McConnell warns him the Senate won’t take it up, Trump says he’ll put off a Congressional vote for an ACA replacement until after the 2020 elections. Probably because they don’t have a replacement and they aren’t close to having one.
  2. Last week, the DOJ announced they wouldn’t defend the ACA in any lawsuits, so I’m not clear what Trump’s change of direction means for this. The ACA could be struck down at any moment, and there is no plan to replace it.
  3. Despite there being no backup plan, Mick Mulvaney says no one will lose their healthcare coverage if the ACA is struck down.
  4. The House passes a non-binding resolution condemning Trump’s support for the lawsuit to strike down the ACA.
  5. The Trump administration proposes a new inspection system for the meat industry, which would put companies more in charge of checking for things like salmonella and E. coli. Currently, testing for those two is required; under the new plan, they wouldn’t be.
  6. A group of states sue the Trump administration over its reversal of Obama’s nutritional standards for school lunches.
  7. China bans fentanyl, cutting off its supply to the U.S.

International:

  1. The Saudi Arabian government has given Jamal Khashoggi’s (grown) children million-dollar homes as well as large monthly payments to compensate them for their father’s murder. Officials want to be sure that the family exercises restraint in criticizing the government over their father’s death.
  2. The British Parliament fails to pass any of the four new options for Brexit. The votes result in even more defections from the parties.
  3. Even though Brexit hasn’t happened yet, England’s already taking a financial hit. Investment has slowed down and major corporations have moved jobs and assets (over $1 trillion) out of England to other European cities in preparation.
  4. The House passes a resolution demanding an end to U.S. participation in the Yemeni war. The Senate has already passed such a resolution, and Trump will likely veto it.
  5. Trump says there are still key issues to work out in order to get a trade deal with China, and he won’t meet with Xi Jinping until those issues are settled.
  6. Turkey’s strongman president Erdogan might be seeing his support fade. His party loses municipal elections in the capital, Ankara, and the biggest city, Istanbul.
  7. Reminiscent of our own elections, a network of fake Twitter accounts smear Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents in the run-up to Israel’s election.
  8. India’s elections get hit with fake news and fake social media accounts as well.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House passes a stronger version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
    • A sticking point in the Senate will likely be a provision that prevents stalkers from purchasing guns. Because what could go wrong with a stalker with a gun?
    • Republicans are also concerned about provisions that give Native Americans more jurisdiction to deal with domestic violence that occurs on their lands.
  1. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) introduces a constitutional amendment to ditch the Electoral College and let the popular vote pick the president and vice-president.
  2. Mitch McConnell triggers the “nuclear option” to reduce debate time on lower-level nominees.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Regarding a border wall, Pope Francis says, “Those who build walls will become prisoners of the walls they put up.”
  2. Trump visits the border wall at Calexico, CA, where Kirstjen Nielsen attached a plaque with Trump’s name on it to the fencing. Trump says this is where he’s built part of his wall, though it was actually a program begun under Obama to update existing fencing.
    • Fun fact: To date in Trump’s term, no new fencing has been completed; only repairs to existing fencing.
  1. California, in coordination with 19 other states, launches a lawsuit seeking an injunction against Trump’s declaration of national emergency to fund his border wall. At the same time, California’s governor Gavin Newsom goes to El Salvador to learn why so many people are fleeing.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump is considering appointing an immigration czar. Not a bad idea, until you look at his potential candidates. Kris Kobach has pushed for and implemented many anti-immigration policies and works for WeBuildtheWall Inc. Ken Cuccinelli has pushed to get rid of birth-right citizenship.
  2. Trump says his father was born in Germany. Except for that he was born in New York City. This isn’t the first time he’s said that. He also says Obama was born in Kenya, so maybe he’s just bad with geography.
  3. The Mormon church announces that they no longer consider same-sex couples to be apostates (people who renounced their faith). Their children can now be baptized in the church. Likely the change came because after they put their previous policy in place, over 1,500 people left the church.
  4. Trump backs down on his promise to shut down the border with Mexico.
    • Even so, staffing shortages cause huge slowdowns in border transit. The previous week, the Trump administration pulled border agents from their positions at ports of entry to help process asylum seekers.
    • At key economic crossings, the wait to drive into the U.S. can be more than 10 hours.
    • The delays are hurting business production schedules and deliveries, and costing companies in both countries millions. But Mexico is being hurt the worst, facing contract cancellations and massive layoffs if this continues. None of those laid off workers will try to come here to work, right?
  1. In a huge raid, ICE arrests over 280 people at a phone repair company near Dallas. This is part of ICE’s new focus on businesses that hire people without the proper documentation.
  2. Trump tells reporters we need to get rid of family-based migration, the visa lottery, the whole asylum system, and the practice of releasing asylum seekers while they await their hearings. He also says we should get rid of judges and not everyone should get a court case (not everyone does).
    • I didn’t quote his dehumanizing language directly. He used the loaded terms “chain migration” and “catch-and-release” (what are they, fish?).
  1. Trump pulls his nomination to head ICE, Ronald Vitiello, saying he wants to go in a tougher direction.
    • It’s a huge surprise to DHS officials. Vitiello has worked at U.S. Border Patrol for 30 years, and he’s currently the top official.
    • White House advisor Stephen Miller has always opposed Vitiello, and despite his failed policies, Miller has Trump’s ear on immigration.
  1. Trump decides not to close the southern border as he’d previously threatened to do.
  2. Kirstjen Nielsen abruptly resigns as Secretary of Homeland Security following a meeting where she angers Trump by telling him it would violate the law to force asylum seekers to choose between keeping their children and being deported back to their country (another Stephen Miller idea).
    • Fun fact: For a few months now, Trump has been pushing to reinstate blanket separation of migrant families at the border. He‘s convinced that this has been the most effect deterrent to asylum seekers. Interviews with asylum seekers show most don’t know about this policy until they reach the border.
  1. Trump puts CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan temporarily in charge of Homeland Security. A good choice if Trump is looking for bipartisan support.
  2. The U.S. revokes the travel visa of the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor over allegations that she’s investigating war crimes in Afghanistan.
  3. Officers arrest a New York man who threatened to kill Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) because she’s a Muslim. He says she’s a terrorist.
  4. Trump defends adding a citizenship question to the census because otherwise the census is “meaningless.” I don’t think he understand the purpose of the census.
    • The next day, a third judge rules against the plan to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. The judge says that Wilbur Ross made up a fake reason to justify adding the question.
    • Fun fact: The Census Bureau itself has consistently recommended against adding the question.
  1. At a gathering of donors and Jewish Republicans, Trump says the U.S. is full, so refugees should just turn around and go back. That anyone in the room laughed at this is remarkable given the criticism of the U.S. for turning away an ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees in WWII.
    • I heard this while driving through empty swaths of land in southern California. The irony was not lost on me. We are not full.
  1. Even though far-right extremism, white nationalist and supremacist groups, and domestic terrorism are all on the rise, last year the Department of Homeland security disbanded a group focused on analyzing those very threats.
  2. Motel 6 agrees to a $12 million settlement for giving ICE personal information on 80,000 of their guests with Latino sounding last names. Big brother is watching… that’s why they leave a light on for you.

Climate/EPA:

  1. California strengthens protections for their wetlands and streams that will lose federal protections when the Trump administration rolls back the Clean Water Act.
  2. A new study from the Canadian Environment and Climate Change Department finds that Canada is warming at about double the rate of the rest of the globe.
  3. After Trump disbanded a climate panel put together under Obama, the formed a new independent group, the Independent Advisory Committee on Applied Climate Assessment. This week, they release a new report aimed at helping communities mitigate the negative effects of climate change.
  4. At an NRCC fundraiser, Trump says that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer. Studies dispute this (yes, it’s actually been studied), as do the two Republican Senators in the state where Trump said it (Iowa).

Budget/Economy:

  1. The Trump administration proposes tightening work requirements for SNAP participants, which would likely cut more than 750,000 people from the program.
  2. The first quarter of 2019 saw the U.S.’s highest level of layoffs since 2015 (and the highest in the first quarter since 2009, during the Great Recession).
  3. After February’s dismal job numbers (with only 33,000 jobs added), March rebounds with 196,000 jobs added.
    • Fun fact: This is the 102nd month in a row of job gains, the longest period of job growth on record. That’s 8 1/2 years, or since October of 2010.
  1. Trump plans to nominate Herman Cain and Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve board. Moore is dicey because he owes so much in back taxes. Cain is dicey because of all the sexual harassment accusations against him (among other qualifying issues).
  2. The Fed says they don’t plan any rate hikes this year, indicating that while the economy is strong, it’s also losing some of its tax-reform momentum. Trade uncertainty with China is also a drag on the economy.
  3. As of January, 19 states had raised their minimum wage. This could help with wage growth, which has been stagnant.
  4. We’re in the middle of a labor shortage. That’s a good sign for the economy, but we don’t have enough workers to fill blue-collar jobs. And with the administration’s restrictions on legal immigration, those jobs will stay empty.
  5. Directors at the World Bank select Trump’s nominee, David Malpass, to run the bank. A weird choice for them, because Malpass has been critical of the bank. But then no one else stepped up to run for the position.
  6. The Senate and House are deadlocked over disaster funding, with the House wanting more funding for Puerto Rico than the Senate will agree to.

Elections:

  1. New Mexico becomes the 14th state to enact the National Popular Vote. Once enough states sign on, these states will give all their electoral votes to the national popular vote winner.
  2. Federal prosecutors indict Robin Hayes, the chairman of North Carolina’s Republican Party for bribery, wire fraud, and making false statements.
    • Fun fact: Hayes was also one of the original architects of the GOP’s REDMAP plan, which led to unlawfully gerrymandered legislative districts. Many of the involved states have faced legal challenges to their district lines for the past 8 years (and most have lost).

Miscellaneous:

  1. The Secret Service arrests a Chinese woman who entered Mar-a-Lago with two passports, four cell phones, a laptop, a thumb drive containing malware, and a hard drive.
  2. Trump says Puerto Rico isn’t part of the United States. It is.
  3. Earlier this year, Trump asked Mitch McConnell to prioritize the confirmation of his nominee for chief counsel for the IRS over that of his nominee for attorney general.
  4. Even though David Bernhardt, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Interior, legally ended his lobbyist status is 2016, he was still working as a lobbyist at least into April of 2017.

Polls:

  1. About the same number of voters don’t trust Trump (59%) or the GOP (58%) to improve healthcare.
  2. 53% of voters trust Democrats to improve it, a surprisingly low number, IMO.

Week 30 in Trump

Posted on August 21, 2017 in Politics, Trump

A few quotes apropos of this past week’s events:

From Robert E. Lee himself: “I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

From one of my favorite bloggers: “We all have the right to protest, but not all protests are right.”

From the University of Texas at Austin: “We do not choose our history, but we choose what we honor and celebrate on our campus.”

And just my opinion here, but we’ve seen a lot of strong intellectuals, scientists, and business leaders jumping Trump’s ship—and there are calls for Gary Cohn to step down and save his reputation. But we need brains and leadership to help guide this careening ship, so I hope he stays, along with other thoughtful, smart people.

Here’s what happened in week 30…

Russia:

  1. One of the veteran FBI investigators working on the Russia probe, Peter Strzok, moves into a human resources position. We don’t know if it was voluntary or not.
  2. Internal Trump campaign emails show that one of Trump’s campaign advisers, George Papadopoulos, tried several times to set up meetings between the campaign and Russian leaders during the run-up to last year’s election.
  3. Mueller wants to talk to Reince Preibus in the Russia probe.

Courts/Justice:

  1. We learn that Jeff Sessions requested info on 1.3 million visitors to an anti-Trump organizing site. It looks like this is part of the investigation into the antifa violence on inauguration day. The host company is pushing back against the request saying that it’s too broad and captures too much information.
  2. Judge Gorsuch raises ethics questions when he agrees to speak at an event being held at the Trump Hotel, which is under litigation around conflicts of interest.
  3. Sessions once again criticizes Chicago, the right’s poster child for the unproven narrative of failed liberal policies leading to violence. He says their sanctuary policies are what’s driving violent crime there.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration continues its effort to roll back Obama’s anti-arbitration regulations. At question are patients’ rights to sue healthcare companies, including nursing homes, for harm caused. Most healthcare institutions have anti-arbitration clauses that you must sign before receiving services or moving into a nursing home. This gives consumers little to fall back on when they are mistreated, and especially affects eldercare in nursing homes.
  2. The CBO reports that cutting the ACA subsidies would not only increase insurance premiums, but would also increase the cost to the federal government. Trump agrees to continue paying the subsidies. But did he do it in time to mitigate the expected increase in next year’s premiums?
  3. Tom Price ends an experiment to see if bundling payments for certain procedures, like hip surgeries, would lower overall costs. Under the program, healthcare facilities were required to charge the same price across the board for the same procedures. I guess we won’t find out if it would have worked.

International:

  1. North Korea backs down from its threats to bomb Guam, but says the U.S. is still on notice.
  2. American intelligence agencies link North Korea’s success in their missile tests with an old Ukrainian factory with ties to Russia’s cold-war missile program.
  3. Iran threatens to drop out of the nuclear deal if any new sanctions are put in place against them. This would let them get back to work on nuclear weapons, so this is not something we want.
  4. Not political, but definitely newsworthy and not getting enough coverage: At least 200 people die in a massive mudslide in Sierra Leone, and hundreds are missing. At least 3,000 people lose their homes.
  5. There are multiple terrorist attacks in Spain, with a vehicular attack on a main tourist pedestrian street in Barcelona and a bomb that accidentally exploded in the terrorists home. There are 15 dead, including several perpetrators.
  6. Trump reacts more swiftly and harshly against the terrorist attacks in Barcelona than the one in Charlottesville.
  7. After that measured response, Trump also tweets a debunked rumor about General Pershing shooting Muslims with bullets soaked in pig’s blood. Seriously people. This never happened.
  8. Pence cuts his South American trip short to meet with Trump about the war on Afghanistan.
  9. A terrorist wielding a knife kills two and injures eight in Finland. This is a bad week for terrorism.
  10. The U.S. starts a trade investigation into China’s trade violations around intellectual property. This presents risks at time when hostility with North Korea is building up and we could use China’s help. But China has ignored our intellectual property laws for decades, cutting into the profits of U.S. companies.
  11. Trump moves the cyber command unit of the military up so it will be better able to improve its capabilities to fight cyber attacks.
  12. Again? Another U.S. Navy destroyer collides with a ship—this time an oil tanker—off the coast of Singapore. Ten people are missing. This puts us down three destroyers so far. The Navy opens a broad investigation into the accidents.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

Charlottesville Fallout:

  1. Days after the Charlottesville attack, Trump retweets a GIF of a train hitting CNN (a person with a CNN logo). He later deletes the tweet.
  2. The University of Virginia holds a candlelight vigil for Heather Heyer, who was killed in the car attack. They didn’t want to put it on social media because they were afraid neo-nazis would show up.
  3. Two days after his statement blaming ″both sides″ in the Charlottesville violence, Trump reads a written statement denouncing white supremacist groups specifically by name.
  4. And then on Tuesday, he screws up any goodwill he might have gotten by doubling down on his words from Saturday and arguing with reporters for several minutes about how both sides are equally to blame and equally as bad. This was an unplanned Q&A at the end of a press conference on infrastructure, and Trump sounded very angry, defensive, and frustrated.
  5. Trump later says he feels liberated by his off the rails press conference.
  6. News hosts covering the press conference show their stunned reactions in real-time. All of them, from CNN to Fox to local news channels, are shaken by what they just saw.
  7. Even Trump’s staffers say they’re “stunned and disheartened” by Trump’s remarks.
  8. This is a tactic Trump has used before—delay denouncing members of his base for 48 hours or so, and then say something to dampen the media frenzy caused by his lack of calling out the bad apples.
  9. Here are a few of the responses across the country to the violence and Trump’s handling of it:
    • The Illinois Senate passes a resolution to have police classify neo-nazi groups as terrorist organizations.
    • Cities accelerate the pace of removing Confederate statues. Unfortunately, some city councils have voted to have the statues destroyed instead of maintained in a museum or other facility.
    • Foreign leaders denounce Trump’s response to Charlottesville.
    • So many CEOs pull out of Trump’s business councils that he disbands them.
    • The CEO of Walmart criticizes Trump’s response in a memo to his employees.
    • GoDaddy, Google, and Squarespace kick white supremacist sites off their servers.
    • Republicans are forced to step up and take a stand against racist hate groups.
    • So far, at least 16 charities have pulled their events from Mar-a-Lago.
    • One pastor resigns from Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board, saying they have conflicting values after Charlottesville.
    • All 16 commissioners on the Committee on the Arts and the Humanities resign in a scathing letter (where they also spell out ″RESIST″ in the first letter of each paragraph).
    • James Murdoch, son of Rupert and CEO of 21st Century Fox, writes a letter condemning white hate groups and pledging to donate $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League.
    • A group of Liberty University alumni return their diplomas in protest of university president Jerry Fallwell’s defense of Trump’s comments on Charlottesville.
    • House Democrats introduce a measure to censure Trump over his comments on Charlottesville.
  10. Trump says that the counter protests were illegal because they didn’t have permits. They did have permits.
  11. The White House issues a memo urging GOP members to back Trump’s original remarks on Charlottesville.
  12. Obama’s response to the Charlottesville tragedy becomes the most liked and (so far) 4th most retweeted tweet in history.
  13. Both former presidents Bush 1 and 2 denounce racism and bigotry. Paul Ryan calls white supremacy “repulsive.” Mitch McConnell says those ideologies are not welcome here. Mitt Romney pens an eloquent and scathing letter denouncing both racist hate groups and Trump’s response.
  14. The four branches of military, the Navy, Marines, Army, Air Force, and National Guard, felt the need to denounce racism after Trump’s remarks.

Everything Else:

  1. Two weeks later, we’re still waiting for Trump to denounce the bombing of a mosque in Minnesota.
  2. John Dowd, Trump’s lead lawyer on the Russia investigation, sends a bizarre email to conservative journalists saying that there’s basically no difference between George Washington and General Robert E. Lee. If I have to explain the difference to you, you need to go back to school.
  3. Dowd’s email also says that Black Lives Matter has been totally infiltrated by terrorist groups.
  4. Someone vandalizes the Lincoln Memorial, spraying painting “Fuck law” in red paint.
  5. Alt-right leaders start dealing with the fact that police and authorities in Virginia didn’t back them up last weekend. They’re having to come to terms with the realities of being members of an unpopular minority group.
  6. White supremacists have a bizarre affection for Russia:
    • From Richard Spencer: “Russia is the sole white power in the world.”
    • From David Duke: “Russia is key to white survival.”
  7. Trump’s Thursday tweet storm shows a lack of understanding about American culture and the meaning behind Confederate monuments. In this tweet storm, he:
    • Attacks two sitting GOP senators.
    • Goes after the fake news media (again).
    • Says he’s sad that we’re removing our beautiful statues. Side note: Most of these statues were erected during the Jim Crow and civil rights eras as a reminder of white supremacy.
    • Wonders if we’ll pull down all the Jefferson monuments.
    • Says we’re ripping apart our culture.
  8. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there are around 900 hate groups in the U.S. Their list is controversial because they include anti-LGBTQ Christian groups, but sorry folks, hate is hate is hate. Here’s their reasoning, if you’re interested.
  9. The ACLU says they will no longer defend the right to free speech if the group in question is armed with guns. The ACLU originally defended the alt-right’s right to march in Charlottesville. Some feel that hate speech or intent to promote violence should play into whether they defend someone, but up until now, they have defended the 1st amendment without question.
  10. The Charlottesville incident raises new concerns about pending legislation in six states to protect drivers who hit protesters with your car.
  11. People organize marches across the country in support of Charlottesville.
  12. There are also rallies across the country calling for the removal of Confederate monuments, plus a few to keep the statues up.
  13. Several ″free speech″ March on Google rallies are scheduled across the country, with counter protests also planned. Organizers cancel the March on Google rallies, citing fears of violence; but the counter protests go on. Actually it looks like the March on Google rallies didn’t spark much interest.
  14. A free speech rally in Boston draws tens of thousands of counter protesters amid suspicion that it was actually a white supremacist rally. Police arrest 27 people, mostly for disorderly conduct, but nobody is injured.
  15. While organizers claim the free speech rally isn’t a white supremacist rally, several speakers either pull out or are uninvited after the events in Charlottesville. At least two of them are known white supremacists.
  16. During the Boston marches, Trump tweets “Looks like many anti-police agitators in Boston. Police are looking tough and smart! Thank you.” It was easier for him to call out peaceful protesters who didn’t kill or injure anyone than to call out the white hate groups that did.
  17. In contrast, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh said, “I think it’s clear today that Boston stood for peace and love, not bigotry and hate.”
  18. And then later, someone must’ve taken over Trump’s account because he tweeted “I want to applaud the many protestors in Boston who are speaking out against bigotry and hate. Our country will soon come together as one!”
  19. Fox News tweets that thousands turn out for the free speech rally in Boston. In reality, tens of thousands turn out to protest the rally due to the white supremacist speakers scheduled. The number of rally attendees was fewer than 100.
  20. Of note, the protesters aren’t protesting free speech, but rather the white supremacists who organized the free speech rallies. The rallies were organized under the guise of protecting the free speech of the Google employee who was fired after his screed on gender in tech. Since he’s not being prosecuted, this is not a free speech issue.
  21. The University of Texas at Austin begins removal of Confederate statues in the middle of the night.
  22. As of August, Trump has a mixed record on immigration and border control. We have fewer Border Patrol officers than when he started, and if the current pace keeps up, 10,000 fewer undocumented immigrants will be deported this year. Illegal border crossings are down though. Side note: We just got back from Mexico, and the border area is really beautiful and rugged. The fence is already a blight and I think building a massive wall would just be a shame.
  23. A nazi rally in Berlin brings 500 nazis and 1,000 protestors.
  24. Some NYPD officers hold a rally in support of Colin Kaepernick. Frank Serpico attends. Yes, that Frank Serpico.
  25. In a May report,“White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence,” the FBI and DHS warned Trump about white hate groups. The report says these groups “likely will continue to pose a threat of lethal violence over the next year,” and that they carried out more attacks than any other domestic extremist group in the past 16 years.
  26. Trans-surgical care is put on hold in the military, pending further guidance.
  27. The DHS ends a program where Central American children can apply for parole status, but it continues the program for applying for refugee status. The parole component was started as a way to reduce the flow of children illegally crossing the border.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Ryan Zinke announces that, for now, the Sand to Snow National Monument east of Los Angeles is safe for now. This is one of the monuments Obama designated. No word on the other monuments under review.
  2. Trump disbands the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment. This group helps government and private-sector officials plan around the government’s climate analysis.
  3. A surge of GOP Members of Congress publicly jump the climate-denial ship. The House Climate Solutions Caucus has more than tripled its membership since January. And last month, 46 GOP members voted with Democrats to stop an amendment that would have removed the requirement that the Department of Defense prepare for the effects of climate change.
  4. Meanwhile, the EPA is revising an Obama-era regulation that limits the dumping of toxic metals from coal-fired power plants, along with a regulation that sets emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump signs an executive order expediting the environmental review process for high-profile infrastructure projects, like highways, bridges, and, probably most importantly, his amazing wall.
  2. NAFTA talks get underway between Canadian, U.S., and Mexican trade officials.
  3. Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) says that having a trade deficit is a good thing because it means that foreigners are investing in our economy. For example, when a foreign agent invests in a U.S. company or buys U.S. Treasury bonds, that increases our trade deficit.
  4. While groups from all sides have come forward opposing the merger between the Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Tribune Media, none have come forward to defend the merger. Conservative media oppose it because of the competition and everybody else opposes it because of Sinclair’s mandatory conservative op-eds.
  5. There’s a lot of talk about housing some of the Confederate statues in museums, but Trump’s budget eliminates funding to museums.
  6. In just 7 months, the Secret Service has gone through their entire year’s budget for protecting Trump and his family.
  7. Trump drops his plan to form an infrastructure advisory committee in light of the disbanding of his other two business advisory boards. IMO, this is not a good development—he needs all the help and support he can get here.
  8. Pence makes a few small trade deals in South America that opens up markets for U.S. agriculture, and South Korea lifts its ban on U.S. poultry and egg products.

Elections:

  1. A federal court rules that the district lines in Texas (drawn by the GOP) discriminate against ethnic minorities and must be redrawn before the midterm elections. If the Texas legislature won’t fix them, the court will.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Carl Icahn resigns from his advisory role to the White House ahead of an article discussing his potential conflicts of interest and possible illegalities.
  2. Trump closes his off-the-cuff press conference by bragging that he owns one of the largest wineries in the US, right there in Charlottesville.
  3. Steve Bannon calls a liberal journalist whom he respects to talk about trade policies, but ends up giving an accidental on-the-record interview. He undercuts Trump, mocks the alt-right as irrelevant clowns, and talks about the in-fighting in the White House.
  4. And just like that, Bannon is out. He says his purpose there is done; he’s achieved what he wanted to achieve.
  5. Bannon will go back to Breitbart, where he’ll have an even wider audience for his own brand of propaganda. Yay. Here’s what sources close the Bannon say about that:
    • Bannon will be “going to war” for Trump, vowing to intensify the fight from the outside.
    • “Steve is now unchained. Fully unchained.”
    • “He’s going nuclear. You have no idea. This is gonna be really fucking bad.”
    • According to a GOP Member of Congress: “Now the real circus begins. … This is the tea party coming full circle.”
    • From Bannon himself: “The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over.”
  6. Bannon says he’s going after his enemies, so if you’re a Breitbart reader, be on the lookout for hit jobs against the following: Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Gary Cohn.
  7. Trump thinks Bannon was behind the leaks targeting McMaster, specifically that he has a drinking problem and that he’s anti-Israel.
  8. GOP leaders worry that they don’t have anyone on their side in the White House anymore.
  9. Donald and Melania Trump announce that they will not participate in the Kennedy Center Honors this year so as not to cause political distractions.
  10. Trump hosts a dinner at his Bedminster country club with some of his most generous donors.
  11. Trump ignores Phoenix mayor’s request to cancel his rally in the city.
  12. Hope Hicks takes over as Trump’s interim Director of Communication.
  13. Prescient. During a campaign speech last year for Hillary Clinton, Obama said that no one changes the president, but instead the office “magnifies” who you are already. So if you “accept the support of Klan sympathizers before you’re President, or you’re kind of slow in disowning it, saying, ‘Well, I don’t know,’ then that’s how you’ll be as President.” Of note, Hillary also warned us.
  14. And on a positive note, with Newt Gingrich’s wife taking on the ambassadorship to the Vatican, Newt will soon be leaving the country.

Polls:

  1. Trump’s approval rating continues its slow decline, sitting at 34% in the latest Gallup poll. 61% disapprove, a new high for the Gallup poll.
  2. The percent of Americans who think Trump should be impeached has increased from 30% to 40% over the course of his presidency.
  3. Most countries worldwide trust Putin more than Trump to handle global affairs. Of the countries who trust Trump more, most trust him just barely more than Putin.
  4. Trump’s approval rating is at 34% to 36% in the three states that won him the election: Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. 60% in those states say Trump has embarrassed them.