Tag: william barr

Week 119 in Trump

Posted on May 8, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Of all people, Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napolitano penned an op-ed supporting Mueller and objecting to Barr’s handling of the report. It strikes me here that the Mueller report lists 127 interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, and not one person involved didn’t lie about them. Anyway, Napolitano says what anyone who read the Mueller report knows—Bill Barr was wrong to try to absolve Trump of obstruction of justice. Napolitano also says what Trump did was “unlawful, defenseless and condemnable” and it’s up to House Democrats to decide whether to impeach.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. Someone leaks a letter that Robert Mueller sent to Attorney General William Barr at the end of March objecting to the letter Barr released outlining his own summary of the Mueller report. The letter said:
    • Barr misrepresented Mueller’s findings.
    • Mueller wanted more of the report to come out.
    • Mueller had already provided Barr with redacted summaries of each of the report’s volumes, which were ready in March to be released to the public.
    • Barr’s summary didn’t capture the context, nature, and substance of Mueller’s findings.
    • Barr’s summary caused public confusion.
  1. As for Barr himself, he dismisses the letter in his congressional testimony by saying, “The letter’s a bit snitty and I think it was probably written by one of his staff people.”
  2. The letter also shows that Barr lied to Congress when he previously told them that he didn’t know whether Mueller had taken issue with his summary and subsequent public comments on the report.
  3. Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the start, Lindsey Graham has to be reminded to swear him in, and then right off the bat, Barr contradicts what was in Mueller’s letter to him.
    • Committee Chair Lindsey Graham admits he hasn’t read the full report.
    • When pressed on Mueller accusing Barr of failing to capture context and substance in his summary, Barr tries to focus blame on the media.
    • Barr says (despite Mueller’s letter) that he didn’t know Mueller or his staff disagreed with his summary.
    • Barr defends Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice, despite the evidence laid out by Mueller.
    • Republicans on the committee weren’t really concerned about the nearly dozen instances of attempted obstruction detailed in the Mueller report. They mostly asked questions about investigating the investigators and about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
    • That’s OK, though, because Barr’s with them. He confirms he’s already started a review of how the FBI handled the Russia and Clinton email investigations.
    • Barr says he didn’t review Mueller’s underlying evidence before making a decision on obstruction charged. He didn’t look at the underlying evidence of possible coordination either.
    • And that totally explains why he doesn’t understand why Mueller would investigate obstruction of justice if he knew he couldn’t charge Trump under DOJ rules.
    • Barr says he hasn’t seen the report that launched the FBI investigation (the one provided by an Australian diplomat about George Papadopoulos). Despite calling for an investigation into the FISA warrant, Barr has not yet looked at the underlying evidence here. Earlier in his testimony, Barr told Lindsey Graham that he had concerns about how the investigation started (though apparently not enough concern to review the existing evidence).
    • Barr doesn’t even know what data Paul Manafort shared with a Russian operative nor who the Russian is, so as it turns out, Barr hasn’t read the full Mueller report either.
      • Hint: It was campaign polling data, and Manafort shared it with Konstantin Kilimnik. This is a large section in the Mueller report, and I’m not sure how it’s possible Barr didn’t know this.
    • Barr defends Trump’s attempts to fire Mueller, saying that a president can fire Special Counsel for conflict of interest. But he couldn’t come up with any specific conflicts of interest that might’ve existed.
    • Barr defends his use of the word “spying” for the FBI obtaining a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
    • Barr continues to say Trump fully cooperated, though Trump said he didn’t recall over 30 times in his written answers to Mueller.
    • Barr disputes Trump’s claim of being totally exonerated. Barr says he didn’t exonerate him either.
    • Barr says he “can’t fathom” why the FBI didn’t give the Trump campaign a defense briefing to let them know that Russia was targeting them in 2016. Both the Trump and Clinton campaigns received a security briefing in August of 2016. A security briefing is a step down from a defense briefing, but it’s not like both campaigns weren’t very aware of what was going on.
      • During those briefings, both campaigns were told to let the FBI know of any “suspicious overtures” from Russia to their campaigns.
    • Barr says that Mueller left the decision of whether to pursue obstruction up to Barr, and that the decision not to indict wasn’t influenced by DOJ guidelines. In the report, Mueller talks extensively about Congress’s duty here (so the decision of whether to pursue was left up to them), and talks about DOJ guidelines being one reason he didn’t indict.
  1. After his first hearing, Barr refuses to appear before the House Judiciary Committee due to the format of the questioning (the committee wants a lawyer to handle the questions). The committee threatens to hold him in contempt.
  2. DOJ prosecutors want to prevent Roger Stone from reviewing any parts of the Mueller report that are redacted due to his ongoing court case. They also subpoena Randy Credico to testify against Stone.
  3. A federal appeals court refuses to re-examine a case that claimed Mueller’s appointment was unconstitutional.
  4. Rod Rosenstein tenders his resignation. He’ll leave on May 11.
  5. White House lawyer Emmet Flood sends Barr a letter accusing Mueller of politicizing his report because the report explicitly says it doesn’t exonerate Trump. He also criticizes Mueller for not making a decision on prosecution, though Mueller says he couldn’t make that decision because DOJ guidelines say a sitting president can’t be indicted and therefore Trump would be denied due process because he wouldn’t get a chance to defend himself in a court of law. He’s pretty specific about leaving the next steps to Congress, as specified in the rules of impeachment.
  6. Nancy Pelosi says Barr did not tell the truth to Congress, and that’s a crime.
  7. Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms that Trump and Putin spoke this week and that they agreed there was no collusion. Well, I guess we can put this whole thing to bed now, right?
  8. Lindsey Graham sends Bob Mueller a letter asking if he wants to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee over his dissatisfaction with Barr misrepresenting his report.
  9. Trump doesn’t want Mueller to testify before Congress, but says he’ll leave that up to Barr.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump and Trump Organization, along with Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, sue Deutsche Bank and Capital One over those companies complying with subpoenas for their financial records.They want to prevent the banks from releasing any private materials.
  2. The White House won’t release the documents requested by the House Oversight Committee related to security clearance overrides.
  3. A federal judge allows an emoluments case against Trump to move forward, refusing Trump’s lawyers’ request to dismiss the case. The suit was brought by congressional Democrats.
  4. After being convicted of jumping bail, Julian Assange receives a 50-week prison sentence in the UK. The judge says Assange has cost the UK $21 million, and that he could’ve left the embassy at any time (Assange was claiming he was like a prisoner).
  5. The House Intelligence Committee plans to make a criminal referral to the DOJ for Erik Prince. They say he might have given false testimony to Congress based on information contained in the Mueller report.

Courts/Justice:

  1. The Wisconsin Supreme Court restores the 82 people appointed by outgoing Governor Scott Walker whose appointments were previously invalidated based on a lower court ruling. This only affects the 15 people who weren’t reappointed by the new governor. The lower court ruling is still going through appeals.

Healthcare:

  1. The Trump administration submits a court filing claiming that the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) should be struck down.
    • If the court agrees, an estimated 21 million Americans will lose healthcare coverage.
    • Many millions more will be affected if we lose requirements for covering pre-existing conditions, pregnancy, prescription drugs, and mental health services.
    • Just a reminder, Republicans might want to strike this down, but they have no plan to replace it with.
  1. Trump announces a new rule that allows healthcare providers to refuse to provide services based on their religious beliefs. This includes abortions, sterilization, assisted suicide, and advance directives. The rule also lets parents refuse certain types of care for their children.
    • In the past, issues for some medical providers have included AIDS treatments, gender reassignment, and birth control.
  1. The Alabama House passes a bill that would criminalize abortions at any stage of pregnancy unless the mother’s life is threatened or if the fetus has a lethal anomaly. The woman wouldn’t be held criminally liable, but doctors would face a felony charge and up to 99 years in prison.
  2. Just a note here: Whether or not the mother’s life is threatened can be argued in court, so doctors are caught in a catch-22. They can save the fetus and let the mother die and NOT be criminally charged, or they can save the mother and abort the fetus and go to jail for the rest of their lives.
    • Several state legislatures are pushing this issue, hoping to get a case in front of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
  1. A U.S. District Court jury finds the founder and four executives of Insys Therapeutics guilty of federal racketeering conspiracy. They bribed doctors to prescribe powerful opioids to patients who shouldn’t be using them and tricked providers into paying for them.

International:

  1. In Venezuela, self-declared president Juan Guaidó calls for an uprising against President Nicolás Maduro. Guaidó doesn’t have enough military defectors, the clashes turn violent, and five people are killed.
  2. More than 50 countries support Guaidó, including the U.S., UK, and most Latin American countries. Maduro is backed by Russia and China, among others.
  3. The Senate can’t muster enough votes to overturn Trump’s veto of a bill withdrawing U.S. support for the war in Yemen. So we’re still fighting there.
  4. Under the personal supervision of Kim Jong Un, North Korea tests rocket launchers and guided weapons off its east coast. (It’s OK, though, because they can’t reach the U.S. Forget about all the troops we have deployed in the area.)
  5. Trump deploys a carrier and bombers to the Middle East as a warning to Iran, claiming there have been troubling “indications and warnings” from Iran.
  6. Trump wants to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Florida House passes a bill to let teachers carry weapons (with training, of course). Frankly, just from my limited and sometimes exasperating experience with teenagers, it’s rarely a good idea for adults to have weapons around them. But seriously, the group that will bear the brunt of this is young males of color.

Family Separation:

  1. The Trump administration promises to reunite thousands of migrant families they separated at the border, but at the same time they send each other private internal emails acknowledging that they only have information for about 60 parents and their kids. This highlights the fact that they were never planning on allowing the children to see their parents again (known in most circles as kidnapping).

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Two men found guilty of rape will do no jail time (and yes, they’re both white).
    • The first is a 25-year-old school bus driver who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl. He has to register as a level 1 offender, so he won’t be on offender databases. Ya know, because there was only one victim and he’d never done it before. So yay justice.
    • The second guy kidnapped a 16-year-old girl, forced her to have sex, and kept her in a dog cage. He received a 10-year sentence, but got time served for the eight months he was in custody and nine years and four months of probation. He also has to register as a sex offender.
  1. A New York man who threatened to hang Barack Obama and kill Maxine Waters gets a four-year prison sentence. He called various offices making the threats and using racist slurs.
  2. Brunei says they won’t impose the death penalty for gay sex after all. They only reversed their initial decision after severe international backlash.
  3. The White House makes an emergency request to Congress for $4.5 billion for the southern border. $3.3 billion is for humanitarian assistance and $1.1 billion is to shore up the border. This is on top of the $8 billion they’re requesting for the border in Trump’s 2020 budget.
  4. Trump restricts asylum seekers by banning them from getting work permits if they cross outside a port of entry, imposing application fees, and limiting their access to relief. Trump also orders that all current asylum claims be settled within 180 days; the current time to settle is around two years.
    • This isn’t something we should rush. A team that followed several asylum seekers who were denied found 60 who had been killed upon their return home.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The White House lobbied to remove the words “climate change” from the Arctic Council’s declaration, refusing to sign on with the wording included. Other members refused to sign on without it. In the end, the declaration is watered down.
  2. South Dakota’s Oglala Sioux Tribal Council votes to ban Governor Kristi Noem from tribal land unless she rescinds her support for two state bills aimed at curbing and punishing protestors (specifically around the Keystone pipelines).
  3. In April, renewable energy sources provided more megawatt hours in the U.S. than coal for the first time ever.
  4. A court in Ecuador rules that the government must consult with an indigenous tribe, the Waorani, before opening up their land to oil exploration.
  5. Trump rolls back the safety rules that the Obama administration added after the 2010 BP oil spill. The rollback eases restrictions on offshore drilling and reduces testing of safety equipment like blowout preventers.
  6. The House passes a bill that requires Trump to create a plan for the U.S. to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, even though he’s withdrawing from it. Mitch McConnell says the Senate won’t take the bill up.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump’s nominee Stephen Moore withdraws his name from consideration for the Federal Reserve Board. He was a horrible choice partly because he’s so frequently wrong about economic happenings and partly because he’s a raging misogynist.
  2. In the middle of all the contention, Trump and Democratic leaders agree to pursue a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that will include improvements to highways, railroads, bridges, and broadband.
  3. On top of good GDP news, we also added 263,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.6%.
  4. Trump says he’ll raise tariffs on Chinese goods from 10% to 25% because talks between the U.S. and China aren’t moving fast enough. Just a reminder, a recent study showed that the existing tariffs raised the costs of both domestic and imported goods.
    • Soon after, stock futures fall sharply.

Elections:

  1. Jack Burman and Jacob Wohl (right-wing lobbyist and internet troll, respectively) try to enact a social media scheme to smear presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg with fake sexual assault charges. They tried recruited young Republican men to make the accusations, and far-right news sources ran with the story. Just a reminder to not believe what you hear about any of the candidates. Check them out yourselves.
  2. The California Senate passes a bill requiring presidential candidates to release their taxes in order to be on the ballot. Several states have already proposed such bills.
  3. A three-judge panel in Ohio rules that the state’s congressional maps are partisan and unconstitutional. The judges say this partisan gerrymander was drawn with intent and that it can’t be justified. The lines were drawn to favor the GOP.
  4. After Joe Biden receives the endorsement of the largest firefighter union for his presidential run, Trump retweets 60 other Twitter users in under an hour to show he, too, has support from firefighters.
  5. The Trump campaign is resurrecting their “Lock her up!” slogan but with a new target. Trump wants Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, to be investigated for their actions around Ukraine. Biden’s son worked for a company called Burisma that was being investigated by a prosecutor that Biden was pressuring the Ukraine to remove from office as part of an anti-corruption campaign.
    • That prosecutor has been criticized around the globe for his corruption.
    • Rudy Giuliani says he wants Ukraine investigated because that’ll give us the origins of the Steele Dossier. Don’t we already know the origin?
    • Off topic, Hunter Biden seems to be a hot mess.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump says the Johnson Amendment (which prevents religious leaders and organizations from endorsing candidates) is effectively eliminated. Actually, it would take an act of Congress for that to happen.
  2. There’s another mass shooting, this time at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Two people are dead and four more are injured.
  3. Facebook announces a major purge, banning extremist figures like Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer, Paul Nehlen, and Louis Farrakhan. Their reasoning is that these people violate Facebook’s rules about promoting or engaging in violence and hate.
  4. When Democrats start walking out of Tennessee’s House chambers after Republican leadership appointed only Republican members to a committee, the Republican Speaker of the House, Glen Casada, orders the doors locked so they can’t leave. Their departure would’ve left the House without enough members to proceed.
  5. Trump retweets Jerry Falwell’s suggestion that he should get two extra years added to his term since his first two were stolen by a “failed coup.”

Week 116 in Trump

Posted on April 15, 2019 in Politics, Trump

This week reminds me again of how we can all interpret the very same occurrence in vastly different ways. Even though we hear the exact same speeches, our reactions vary. Maybe we hear what we want to hear or maybe we actually do just support very different values in those speeches. No, I’m not talking about William Barr’s testimony. I’m talking about Candace Owens, who Republican leaders brought in to testify on the rising problem of white nationalism. Among other things, she said the Southern Strategy never happened (we have the audio to prove it did), that Democrats want black and brown people to live in fear (not any Democrats I know), that the statistics showing the rise in hate crimes are faked (even though the numbers come from Trump’s own government agencies), and the real problem isn’t white nationalism, it’s far-left extremism (even though our intelligence agencies say it’s far-right extremism).

I’m not saying Owens voice isn’t important, it is. But it didn’t add anything but controversy to a hearing with victims of white nationalist hate crimes in attendance. I remember white nationalist groups when I was a kid. I remember when we all took them as a serious threat. We should all take them as a serious threat now.

Anyway, off my soapbox. Here’s what else happened this week in politics…

Russia:

  1. Attorney General William Barr testifies before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. Here are some highlights:
    • Barr says that Mueller declined to review Barr’s initial letter summarizing the main findings of the report.
    • Barr won’t say whether he’s briefed the White House on the report or whether he even showed it to the White House.
    • Barr says he’ll release a redacted version of Mueller’s report to Congress and the public within a week.
    • The redactions will be color coded so we know the reason we can’t see the information. Some information is protected under grand jury rules, some affects ongoing investigations, some is defamatory (does that qualify as protected?), and some is simply classified.
    • Barr says he won’t ask a judge to rule on whether he can release any of the grand jury information.
    • And here we go again. Barr says he formed a team to investigate the investigations into the DOJ and FBI leading up to the federal probe and FISA warrants in the 2016 elections. This is the second IG review of the events, and the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee held year-long hearings on them.
    • Barr tells the Senate Appropriations Committee that the government was spying on Trump’s campaign, but he doesn’t give any evidence supporting that assertion. Barr does add that he didn’t think any rules were violated, and he doesn’t think there was an endemic problem in our intelligence agencies.
  1. Trump says Mueller‘s investigation was an attempted coup to remove him from office.
  2. In rare bipartisan form, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Ranking Member Devin Nunes send a demand to Barr, FBI Director Chris Wray, and Rod Rosenstein that Mueller must brief them on all materials obtained during his investigation.
  3. Nunes says the Mueller report is a partisan document, even though Mueller’s a Republican and Nunes hasn’t see a single word of the report.
  4. Devin Nunes says he’ll send eight criminal referrals in the Russia investigations to Barr. Most of the referrals are around lying to or misleading Congress, but three involve conspiracy and have to do with the FISA warrant request.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, retires as a federal appellate judge. She was under investigation for violating judicial conduct rules based on the tax schemes she and her family were involved in. Stepping down effectively ends the investigation.
  2. Steve Mnuchin says the Treasury will miss the deadline to deliver Trump’s tax returns. It’s OK though, because Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Congress isn’t smart enough to understand his tax returns.
  3. Mnuchin consulted with the White House over releasing the tax returns.
  4. Trump’s attorneys threaten legal action against an accounting firm if they comply with a subpoena to release his financial records.
  5. If federal efforts to obtain Trump’s tax returns fail, New York lawmakers prepare to introduce a bill allowing the New York Department of Taxation and Finance to release state tax returns if requested by a congressional committee.
  6. Officials in the UK arrest Julian Assange, and the U.S. charges him on conspiracy to hack a Pentagon computer. This is related to his 2010 dump of classified documents and his work to help Chelsea Manning crack a password. It’s not related to his actions during the 2016 elections.
    • Ecuador withdrew his asylum, opening the door for the arrest.
    • The U.S. has an extradition warrant for Assange.
    • Trump, who has previously said he loves WikiLeaks, now says he doesn’t know anything about WikiLeaks.
  1. At first, Assange’s arrest starts a major debate over what this means for freedom of the press (though I wouldn’t technically call WikiLeaks the press, some do). But it turns out he’s not being charged for disseminating classified information; just for the commission of a crime in obtaining it.
  2. The DOJ adopts a new and narrower definition of the emoluments clause, which would allows some of Trump’s hotels to accept foreign payments or gifts.
  3. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) introduces a bill to remove fellow Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) from his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In a play on Trump’s nickname for Schiff, Gaetz calls it the PENCIL Act. He accuses Schiff of slandering the president and also wants Schiff’s security clearance revoked.
  4. U.S. attorneys charge Gregory Craig with lying to officials over whether his work for the Ukrainian government meant he should have registered as a foreign agent. Craig served as White House Counsel during Obama’s first two years, and not surprisingly was working with Paul Manafort when on the Ukraine project.
  5. Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti faces 36 charges of defrauding his clients. This is on top of the charges of attempting to extort Nike.
  6. Devin Nunes has been busy. He’s suing Twitter over two parody accounts that make fun of him and he’s suing McClatchy Company for defamation stemming from an article about a winery of which he is part owner.

Healthcare:

  1. Texas State Rep. Tony Tinderholt introduces a bill that would criminalize all abortion without exception, and possibly give women the death penalty if they do it. Remind me again how this is pro-life?
    • Tinderholt, who’s been married five times, says he just wants to make women more responsible. Don’t get me started. Find me an unwanted pregnancy that a man wasn’t responsible for.
  1. As he does every year, Lindsey Graham sponsors a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks.
  2. The Ohio legislature passes one of the most restrictive “heartbeat” anti-abortion bills in the country, which would outlaw abortion after just five or six weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Former Governor Kasich vetoed such bills, but current Governor Mike DeWine says he’ll sign it.
  3. Representative Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) blames people for being unhealthy and says healthy people shouldn’t have to share in the cost of their insurance. I get what he’s saying; people with unhealthy habits cost us all more. Except that cancer doesn’t care how you lived your life. Neither does MS, Crohn’s, arthritis, or a host of other diseases.
  4. Democrats in the House are trying to investigate prescription drug pricing, but are being thwarted by certain House Republicans who are warning drug companies against providing any information.
  5. New York orders mandatory vaccinations in areas hit hardest by the measles outbreak. They can’t force people to vaccinate, but they’re fining people who don’t $1,000.
  6. The measles outbreak in Madagascar has killed over 1,200 people. They have a vaccination rate of under 60%, but not because people don’t want to vaccinate their kids. They do. The country just doesn’t have the resources to get them all vaccinated.

International:

  1. Trump designates Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps a terrorist organization. Benjamin Netanyahu says it was his idea. Iran responds by designating the United States Central Command a terrorist organization.
  2. Even though the parties of Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponent, Benny Gantz, nearly tied in this week’s elections, Netanyahu won by courting far-right extremist parties to establish a stronger coalition than Gantz pulled together.
    • Netanyahu is facing possible indictments on bribery and breach of trust. He calls it a witch hunt. Sounds familiar, no?
  1. Great Britain and the European Union agree to delay Brexit until the end of October, largely out of consideration for Ireland. The longer this drags out, the worse the effects are on the UK’s economy.
    • Theresa May and opposition party leader Jeremy Corbyn are now in negotiations.
    • This puts everyone in a weird spot when European parliament elections come up in next month. At first May said the UK wouldn’t participate, but now she says they will. I’m not sure why they should have a voice in the EU at all right now.
    • Residents of Britain are stockpiling their favorite supplies in case they lose access to goods during the Brexit process.
  1. The Trump administration cancels a deal made in December to provide a safe way for Cuban baseball players to come to the U.S. to play in the major league.
  2. Russia’s foreign minister says trust in the U.S. is waning across the globe and that the balance of economic power is shifting from the West to the East.
  3. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir is ousted in a military coup. He led the genocide in Darfur, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The House votes to reinstate net neutrality regulations, which were reversed by the FCC in 2017. Net neutrality prohibits service providers from slowing down internet traffic or from charging certain entities extra for service.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. The Pentagon awards almost $1 billion in contracts to build part of Trump’s wall. As it turns out, the contracts are for new fencing.

Family Separation:

  1. Trump repeats the debunked narrative that family separations occurred under Obama and that he (Trump) was the one who stopped it. Let’s go over it again:
    • Under both Bush and Obama, children were separated from their family only when the family member was considered a danger or criminal.
    • The Obama administration did consider family separation, but deemed it too inhumane.
    • The Trump administration began a pilot separation program in the middle of 2017.
    • In April 2018, Jeff Sessions publicly announced their zero tolerance policy that led to widespread family separations (if it was already a thing under Obama, why would he have to announce the change in policy?).
    • The kids in cages that Trump points to under Obama were from an influx of unaccompanied minors (not the same as us separating them with no reunification plans).

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. At a presser, Trump says of people crossing the southern border: They wait at the gate (this seems to be in reference to gates on ranchers’ lands) and then when the gate is open, they kill people. And then they take the truck (because a lot of times they don’t even want to go to the house) so you always go to the gate in doubles. Some are good people and they’re dying on the way.
  2. A judge blocks Trump’s policy of forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico once their asylum application has been accepted. DHS implemented the policy at a few ports of entry, and Kirstjen Nielsen wanted to expand the program further. Migrants forced into Mexico can now come back to the U.S. while they await asylum hearings.
  3. The day after DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigns, Trump tells Mick Mulvaney to ask Secret Service Director Randolph Alles to leave as well. The DHS also lost its FEMA director this year, and when Kevin McAleenan moves over to temporarily replace Nielsen, the position to head the CBP will also be open. Also, under the law, Nielsen’s replacement should automatically be Undersecretary Claire Grady, but she was also asked to leave.
  4. After Trump drops Ron Vitiello from his nomination to head ICE, he replaces him with Matthew Albence, the guy who said that migrant detention centers are like summer camps. He also thinks we should be able to detain minors for as long as we want.
  5. The White House has been complaining that the DHS hasn’t done enough to stem immigration, which is likely the reason for the shakeup.
  6. It turns out that Trump threatened to cut aide to Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala the day after Kirstjen Nielsen signed a major pact with them to address immigration and smuggling.
  7. Five former SOUTHCOM commanders put out a statement condemning Trump’s decision to cut off aid funding for those Central American countries. The generals say cutting funding will increase the flow of refugees, and cite Colombia as an example of where funding has worked. It has also helped stem the flow from El Salvador.
  8. The number of attempted border crossings has ballooned this year, and now Trump is happy that the media is reporting about the crisis at the border. Instead of taking concrete steps to deal with this problem, he helped create the crisis by (according to my own analysis):
    • Detaining everyone who crosses illegally, not just criminals, and filling up detention centers and clogging courts.
    • Separating children from their parents so he can detain the parents longer.
    • Making it harder for sponsors to step forward and claim minors in custody, making sure detention centers stay full.
    • Attempting to overturn the Flores ruling so immigrant families could be detained together indefinitely.
    • Dealing with the now-overcrowded detention centers by forcing refugees to wait in Mexico to apply and by slowing down processing to a trickle, leaving them in cities south of the border that don’t have the resources to assist them.
    • Shifting border agents from ports of entry to border areas between ports (slowing down legal traffic).
    • Threatening to close down the border.
    • Cutting funding to the countries from which the refugees are fleeing.
    • Threatening to start separating every family again.
    • Gutting the top-level officials in the DHS and pulling his nomination to lead ICE.
  1. Trump wants to hand over the credible fear interviews for asylum seekers to CBP agents instead of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services asylum officers who are actually trained in this matter. Stephen Miller says fewer people will pass if CBP handles this.
  2. Trump pressures immigration officials to release asylum seekers to so-called “sanctuary cities” as a way to punish those cities. Those cities, for the most part, say they’d welcome that, since they’re set up with the resources to assist refugees. Top ICE officials warn that this gives the appearance of political retribution.
  3. Trump tells the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection that he’d pardon him if he got sent to jail for breaking the law by stopping asylum seekers from entering the U.S.
  4. The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump told Stephen Miller he’s in charge of immigration, but Trump pushes back saying he’s the only one in charge.
  5. Trump’s ban of transgender troops in the military goes into effect. Troops can no longer transition, and they can be discharged if they don’t present as their gender assigned at birth.
    • The ban has been blocked by the courts, but in January the Supreme Court allowed the ban to be enforced while it goes through the courts.
    • Certain military organizations are working on ways to circumvent the ban.
    • The ban could affect up to 13,700 troops. IMO, we should just let people who are willing and able to serve do so. And we should be grateful for their service.
  1. Massachusetts becomes the 16th state to ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors.
  2. Police arrest the suspected arsonist of three black churches in Louisiana. He turns out to be the son of a sheriff. They’re not saying whether it’s a suspected hate crime.
  3. Trump tweets a propaganda video vilifying Representative Ilhan Omar over her comments that seem to undermine the seriousness of 9/11.
    • Omar’s point was that you can’t judge all 1.8 billion Muslims because 20 Muslims carried out the attacks. She did misspeak about the origins of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), though.
    • Omar reports an increase in threats against her and her family after Trump’s tweet (arrests have previously been made for people threatening to kill her).
    • Speaker Nancy Pelosi then meets with the U.S. Capitol Police and sergeant-at-arms, who are now having to put extra work into assessing and protecting the safety of Omar, her family, and her staff.
    • And then Trump doubles down on his comments, accusing Pelosi of protecting Omar.
    • So basically, a statement by the president of the U.S. puts a sitting Representative in danger. And then the president criticizes the Speaker for protecting the Representative. This is just weird. And it’s not OK.
  1. White nationalists meet in Finland for their second annual “Awakening” conference, featuring prominent hate leaders and neo-Nazis from the US, Ukraine, Sweden, and Russia.
  2. The Trump administration proposes a new policy that lets the Social Security Administration monitor people’s social media accounts to make sure they qualify for disability benefits. Because God forbid anyone with a disability is just out there trying to lead a normal life.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump signs two executive orders to make it easier to build pipelines and harder for activists to stop or delay construction.
    • One order requests that the EPA review parts of the Clean Water Act that are used to block permits and makes it easier to transport natural gas, among other things.
    • The second order gives the president the power to issue permits for infrastructure projects that cross international borders with the U.S.
  1. The Senate confirms David Bernhardt to be Secretary of Interior. Bernhardt is a former fossil fuel and agribusiness lobbyist.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Herman Cain, Trump’s nominee for the Federal Reserve, says that we don’t have to worry about climate change. God will tell us when to stop using fossil fuels. He also calls the Senate Banking Committee a bunch of yahoos. The Senate Banking Committee has to approve his nomination.
  2. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) becomes the fourth GOP senator to come out against Herman Cain. Cain’s not likely to be confirmed at this point.
  3. The deficit grew to $693 billion in the first half of FY2019. It was $600 billion in the first half of FY2018. Tax revenues were up slightly, likely because people found themselves paying more at the end of the year or receiving smaller refunds (which doesn’t necessarily mean their taxes went up overall).
  4. The tax cuts of 2017 increased the number of companies that pay $0 in taxes from 30 to 60.

Miscellaneous:

  1. The woman who made her way into Mar-a-Lago last week with a variety of electronic devices had even more devices in her hotel room (not at Mar-a-Lago). She had a device to detect hidden cameras, more cell phones, nine USB drives, several SIM cards, thousands of dollars in cash, and several credit cards.
    • In case you’re wondering how they discovered the malware on her thumb drive, a Secret Service agent plugged the device into his computer, which started the installation of the malware on his computer.

Polls:

  1. 51% of voters support the efforts by House Democrats to obtain Trump’s tax returns.
  2. 64% of Americans think Trump should release those returns himself.

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 113 in Trump

Posted on March 26, 2019 in Politics, Trump

NBC News

Finally the week we’ve been waiting for. Mueller completes his investigation and turns in his final report to Attorney General William Barr. Barr takes two days to review it and send a summary to Congress. It sounds like good news for Trump (no collusion!), but we won’t know for sure until we can see it ourselves. If we can see it ourselves, that is. Mueller declined to make a determination on obstruction, and Barr’s letter barely skims the surface of the content. At any rate, it’s been a little anti-climactic.

Here’s what else happened this week…

Russia:

  1. A court releases documents pertaining to the raid on Michael Cohen’s properties. It turns out that when federal prosecutors were investigating Michael Cohen last year, they were easily able to obtain digital data stored in the U.S., but Google wasn’t turning over information stored abroad. That is, until Trump signed the CLOUD Act, which made it easier for the FBI to obtain offshore information.
  2. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had planned to leave the DOJ in mid-March, but now it appears he’ll stay on longer to help the new Attorney General and to help his replacement transition in.
  3. The most intriguing thing I read this week is about a Russian journalist who went undercover at the Russian troll factory Internet Research, LLC, in 2014. Unfortunately, her report is in Russian and doesn’t translate well, but here are some highlights:
    • The factory runs 24/7, including holidays, with a few hundred people on every shift.
    • Those who have the best English skills pose as Americans and develop online personas.
    • Her job at the factory was to spark anti-American sentiment among Russians.
    • The factory also employs bloggers to get their message out.
    • The messages they send out are nearly identical to the messages put out by state-run media.
    • Take a look at some of the rallies they held to pit us against each other.
  1. And thus it ends…or does it? Robert Mueller files his final report to Attorney General William Barr, and now it’s up to Barr what to do with the information. Mueller hasn’t recommended any more indictments, though there are several ongoing investigations in district attorneys’ offices, state offices, and the House. Here’s a recap of the entire investigation (as is known to the public) so far. It’s interesting how much we forget.
  2. Remaining open investigations include:
    • Southern District of New York: the hush money payments, Trump’s inaugural fund, campaign finance violations, and the activities of a pro-Trump Super PAC.
    • NY state: Trump Organization real estate deals and possible insurance fraud, Trump Foundation, undocumented workers at Trump’s golf course, and Trump’s taxes.
    • Maryland and D.C. Districts: emoluments clause violations.
    • DOJ: Still investigating at least 12 Russian intelligence agents believed to play a part in the hacking attacks against the DNC.
    • House committees: Russia meddling, obstruction, security clearances, Deutsche Bank’s loans to Trump Organization, tax returns, Saudi Arabian ties, the Trump Tower meeting, and emoluments clause violations.
    • There’s also the Summer Zervos defamation lawsuit, the lawsuit over his legal fees, and Roger Stone’s court case.
  1. By the end of the weekend, just two days after receiving Mueller’s report, Barr delivers a summary of Mueller’s main findings to Congress. Main points, according to Barr:
    • Mueller didn’t find coordination or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the elections.
    • Russian individuals offered several times to assist the Trump campaign.
    • Mueller declined to decide on obstruction of justice charges against Trump (similar to what happened during both the Nixon and Clinton investigations). Mueller did lay out the evidence for both sides of that argument, though.
    • Mueller said his report doesn’t exonerate Trump of obstruction allegations.
    • Barr and Rosenstein won’t charge Trump, but Congress can still look into the charges.
    • Barr promises to release additional information. It’s notable that Ken Starr released his entire report on Clinton to the public.
  1. Trump claims that Barr’s letter proves Mueller’s report exonerates him. At the beginning of the week, though, he said that Mueller’s report is illegitimate because Mueller was never elected.
    • Then Trump says House Republicans should vote to make the Mueller report public, but he later says that there should be no Mueller report. Make up your mind, man!
  1. Trump wants Attorney General Barr to open investigations into Hillary, Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan.
  2. Devin Nunes tells Fox News the Mueller Report should be burned (I wonder why). In other Nunes news, he’s suing two parody Twitter accounts, @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow, because they were mean to him. And hilariously so.
  3. Leaked bits of a deposition from Christopher Steele show he used web searches and crowdsourced reporting to verify some of the information about Webzilla in his dossier. He wasn’t aware the CNN iReport is not associated with CNN journalists. But that’s only part of the story—he was unable to disclose other methods of investigation.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Judicial Watch releases an additional trove of Clinton emails received from the FBI as a result of a FOIA request.
    • Judicial Watch and Fox News claim the emails show that Clinton did the same thing as Michael Flynn by talking to Tony Blair in the days before Obama’s inauguration, that she shared classified information on her private emails, and that she had offers to establish a back channel of communication with Netanyahu.
    • I’m about halfway through reading them, and I don’t see the sharing of classified information, and it’s hard to tell if she overstepped by talking to Blair. It looks like she put off the serious talks until after the inauguration.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Senate Republicans prepare to propose a resolution that would make it easier to confirm Trump’s judicial nominations at the district level by reducing the amount of debate time required.
  2. A county judge in Wisconsin temporarily blocks a bunch of laws passed by last year’s GOP legislature and governor that would have curbed the power of their new governor. The judge says that the legislature convened under an “extraordinary session” which isn’t covered in their state constitution.
    • The ruling cancels 82 appointments made by former governor Scott Walker.
    • Immediately following the decision, Governor Tony Evers takes advantage of the reprieve to pull Wisconsin out of a lawsuit whose aim is to overturn the ACA.
    • Evers could move quickly to enact his own agenda, but he says they’re taking their time to make changes thoughtfully, not impulsively (probably to avoid the same pitfall the GOP fell into here).
  1. The Supreme Court appears split so far in hearings about gerrymandering in Virginia. A lower court already ruled that the gerrymandering there disenfranchises minorities and gives the GOP a boost. House Republicans appealed the case, but it’s not clear they have legal standing to do so.
    • The Court has two similar cases pending for North Carolina and Maryland.

Healthcare:

  1. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that 14 states plus the District of Columbia aren’t in compliance with federal Medicaid laws covering abortion. They don’t cover the abortion pill in cases of rape, incest, or endangerment.

International:

  1. Mike Pompeo briefs the State Department on International religious freedoms. They deny access to all media except “faith-based” media, and refuse to release transcripts. They also refuse to release the list of faith-based media on the guest list and the criteria for being invited.
  2. Within six days of the mosque shootings that left nearly 50 people dead, New Zealand passes gun laws banning “military-style” assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. That’s how you get it done, folks.
  3. Trump declares that the U.S. should officially recognized Israel’s occupation of Golan Heights.
  4. Theresa May requests a delay on the Brexit deadline from the EU, and they grant her a short stay. Unless the Parliament can agree on a deal, they have until April 12 to exit.
  5. The ISIS caliphate is destroyed, marking the end of a four-year campaign to wrest control of the land back from the group. This means that they don’t hold any land in Iraq or Syria, but the threat isn’t gone. They’ve already moved to a more traditional terrorist group—a clandestine network running guerrilla attacks.
  6. Trump announces he’s withdrawing the sanctions against North Korea that he said were announced earlier that day. Except no sanctions were announced that day, leading some to believe that he’s referring to sanctions announced the previous day. However, the administration says he’s talking about sanctions that hadn’t even been announced yet and that were super secret. Whoopsies!
    • Fast forward a few days: According to five sources, it turns out that the “secret sanction” story was a cover. Trump was referring to the sanctions announced the previous day but was talked out of withdrawing them. There were no unannounced sanctions.
  1. The U.S. increases the number of troops that will stay in Syria to 1,000.
  2. The U.S. announces new Iran sanctions, this time against 14 people and 17 entities associated with Iran’s defense and research organization, SPND.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Crime is rising in Tijuana, so some people who live there are stealing Trump’s new concertina wire off the fence at the border to put around and protect their own homes.
  2. The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps says Trump poses a risk to combat readiness by sending troops to the border and by using military funding for the border wall. Already they’ve had to cancel several trainings and delay much-needed repairs to their bases.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro visits the White House, and says this (to which Trump vigorously nods in agreement): The U.S. and Brazil are together ”in their efforts to ensure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God, our Creator, against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes, and against fake news.” No wonder they call him the Trump of the Tropics.
    • Bolsonaro has previously said he’d rather his son die than be gay and that parents should beat the gay out of their children. Nice guy.
  1. The Supreme Court rules that people with past criminal records can be detained indefinitely throughout the course of their deportation proceedings even if they’ve never committed another crime. This will likely cause more overcrowding in detention centers.
  2. In yet another desecration of a Jewish cemetery, vandals knock over 59 gravestones and mark them with antisemitic slurs, swastikas, and Hitler references.
  3. House Democrats reintroduce a bill that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of groups protected in the Civil Rights Act. Why? Because most states don’t provide protections, and you can be kicked out of your apartment or fired from your job for being part of the LGBTQ community.
  4. The U.S. has denied travel visas to several women trying to participate in the UN’s annual Commission on the Status of Women. Some of these women fell under the Muslim Ban, but the U.S. government technically isn’t allowed to prevent individuals from going to the UN headquarters in New York. The same thing happened last year.
  5. A flight attendant for Mesa Airlines out of Arizona put Mexico and Canada on her “no fly” list because she’s a DACA recipient and Trump’s new rules prevent her from flying outside the country. They put her on a flight to Mexico anyway, and not surprisingly she was detained. And even though she’s from Peru, they sent her back to Mexico. She was held for over a month before finally being released.
  6. A comparison of hate-crime incidents and Trump rallies shows that counties where Trump rallies were held had a 226% increase in hate crimes vs. counties that didn’t host Trump rallies. The study controlled for crime rates and active hate groups, among other things, and counties that held rallies were compared to similar counties that did not.
  7. Despite the Trump administration’s announcement last week that they’re moving forward on the ban on transgender troops, a judge blocks them from doing so. Apparently the administration says that a previous court order blocking the ban was lifted, but it wasn’t.
  8. As part of a court settlement, the state of Michigan says they’ll no longer fund adoption agencies that discriminate against LGBTQ couples.
  9. Indiana and New Mexico add non-binary gender options to official documents, and United Airlines adds the option for booking flights.
  10. Someone vandalizes a mosque in southern California with fire and graffiti referencing the New Zealand killing of nearly 50 Muslims in two mosques. What kind of person glorifies a mass killing? Geez.

Climate/EPA:

  1. The Midwest is hit with record flooding, and it’s not done yet. There’s still snowmelt coming along with spring rains. Floating ice in the floodwaters has only increased the damage.
    • Nebraska is largely under emergency declarations. Flooding also hit parts of Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Wyoming (and earlier this year, Michigan, Illinois, and California).
    • The flooding has killed livestock, destroyed grain bins, and closed businesses. A number of farmers aren’t expected to recover from this.
  1. A cyclone hits Mozambique, killing at least 750 people.
  2. A federal judge rules that the Department of the Interior (specifically the BLM) broke the law by ignoring climate impact studies in their decisions to open Wyoming lands to gas and oil drilling under Obama.
    • This could become a stumbling block to the Trump administration’s efforts to further expand gas and oil drilling.
    • The judge doesn’t block the drilling outright, but directs the BLM to perform climate impact evaluations again.
  1. Newly released audio recordings of a meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America show that shortly after David Bernhardt was appointed to the second highest position in the Interior Department, members laughed about their unprecedented access to the president and administration.
    • Bernhardt is currently nominated to become Secretary of the Interior, replacing Ryan Zinke.
    • So far, the Interior has granted the Independent Petroleum Association of America nearly all of their deregulation requests.
  1. California’s population grew by 11.7% since 2005, but gas consumption is down and the state runs on 33% renewable energy (two years ahead of schedule).
  2. Carbon dioxide emissions in the United Kingdom decrease for the sixth year in a row.
  3. Nevada joins the bipartisan U.S. Climate Alliance, making it the 23rd state to join.

Budget/Economy:

  1. February’s job report was dismal, with just 20,000 jobs added. Of those, nearly 3/4 were created in one state—California.
  2. The U.S. also had its largest monthly deficit ever in February, coming to $234 billion. The previous high was $231.7 billion in February of 2012.
  3. General Motors plans to idle five of their U.S. plants and lay off 14,000 workers. Trump pressures them to stay open or sell to another company that can use the factories.
  4. The Trump administration wants to cap federal student loan borrowing, saying that will cause schools to lower tuition fees. School administrators say that isn’t how it works.
  5. Betsy DeVos wants to stop subsidizing low-income students and wants to end loan forgiveness for public service workers.
  6. The Trump administration says that the tax cuts won’t create 3% growth after all. We also need to rollback labor regulations (I think businesses have already gotten a pretty decent break here), a $1 trillion infrastructure plan (yes!), and additional tax cuts (how’re we supposed to pay for the infrastructure then?).

Elections:

  1. Arizona pulls out of the controversial Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck program. Crosscheck was founded to compare voter records across states to make sure people aren’t registered to vote in more than one state, and to purge voter rolls if they are. After Kris Kobach took over the program, false matches started coming to light and multiple lawsuits ensued (one claiming that the system falsely matches records in 99% of all matches).
    • Nine states have dropped from the Crosscheck program so far.
    • 26 states belong to a different program, the Electronic Registration Information Center, founded by Pew Charitable Trusts.
  1. Ever since voters in Florida passed Amendment 4 last year, restoring voting rights to ex-felons who’ve completed their sentence, the state government has been working on ways to stymie that effort. Their House just passed a bill that would make ex-felons pay fees and fines before getting their voting rights back.
    • There’s a question of whether this is constitutional (imposing fees or taxes on voting).
    • And why did so many voters vote for this issue and then go on to vote for officials that they knew would oppose it?
  1. A federal court orders legislators in Mississippi to redraw a State Senate district that they previously drew to dilute minority voting power. The judge says the district violates the Voting Rights Act.
  2. Trump says it’s Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s fault that the economy didn’t exceed 4% growth last year.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Paul Ryan will join the board of Fox Corp’s new organization after the sale of their film and TV assets to Disney.
  2. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump both use WhatsApp and personal email accounts for official government business. But her emails…
  3. Trump lays into John McCain and then blames the media for his outburst when he doesn’t get the audience response he was expecting. He did this during a speech in Ohio and on Twitter with no prodding from any members of the media.
  4. Within days of each other, two Parkland school shooter survivors commit suicide. We passed the year anniversary 5 weeks ago. In the same week, one of the parents who lost his child in the Sandy Hook shooting also commits suicide. He and his wife started a foundation to combat violence.
  5. Trump signs an executive order forcing colleges to comply with his standards of free speech in order to receive certain federal grants.
  6. The Trump supporter who sent pipe bombs to targets of Trump’s ire pleads guilty. He says he didn’t design them to blow up, though he knew they could’ve. He sounds pretty remorseful.
  7. The DoD Inspector General opens an investigation into whether Acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan showed favoritism to Boeing over other manufacturers.
  8. Teachers from an elementary school in Indiana sue the local sheriff’s office after the office conducted an active shooter drill where they took staff into a room in small groups at a time, lined them up on their knees, and shot at them from behind using plastic pellets.
 What could go wrong?

Polls:

  1. The U.S. drops to number 19 in the World Happiness Report, which is still pretty good when you consider they look at 156 countries. Finland is still the happiest country on earth.
  2. 78% of the Republican Fox News audience thinks Trump is the most successful president in history. 79% say U.S. intelligence agencies are trying to sabotage him. Only 49% of Republicans who don’t watch Fox News believe either of those things. Read into that what you want…

Week 104 in Trump

Posted on January 22, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Tijuana, Mexico--where the border wall meets the Pacific Ocean and people sit on the fence and dream. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)

I’m so not ready for this… the 2020 campaign season is already starting, with a bunch of Democrats declaring a presidential run. And that means that the disinformation campaigns are already out in force. So please remember to check your facts and don’t believe everything you hear. Here’s some advice for trolls that’s circulating on 4Chan to make Democrats sound conflicted or negative about Elizabeth Warren:

“Pose as a concerned Democrat and criticize her for being white,” one wrote. “Criticize her for being a woman. Do whatever it takes to further divide the left and prevent them from unifying behind a candidate for 2020. If we can manufacture another Bernie/Hillary split, they’ll get crushed in the general election.”

Here’s what really happened last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. In late December, Trump signed an executive order that expands logging on public lands. The EO also orders the clearing of underbrush on 4 million acres and treating pests on another 1.5 million acres. Trump says this will help prevent forest fires, but experts say this is only useful when done near homes. The EO could mean a 30% increase for the logging industry.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

  1. Here’s some fallout from the shutdown this week:
    • The Federal Aviation Administration calls back furloughed safety inspectors to work without pay. The IRS does the same with its employees, and the FDA brings back food safety inspectors (without pay). U.S. Fish and Wildlife bring back some workers so people can hunt on wildlife refuges.
    • The Coast Guard becomes the first branch of the armed services to not get paid.
    • FBI agents are now working without pay.
    • The SEC stops processing initial public offerings.
    • The NTSB suspends investigations of fatal accidents.
    • The State Department is calling furloughed diplomats to come back to work without pay.
    • Trump’s economists double their estimation of how much economic growth is being lost each week of the shutdown.
    • Some states begin allowing federal workers who are working but not being paid to receive unemployment benefits. The Trump administration has said these workers don’t qualify for benefits.
    • Over 40,000 immigration hearings have been cancelled due to the shutdown. Immigrants who miss their hearings are being given new dates years from now.
    • Businesses are doing their part to help furloughed workers by helping them to delay payments and reorganize loans, and by providing free services and free food.
    • The NY Met gives free tickets to furloughed workers to see their performances.
  1. A federal judge denies requests from federal employees and unions 1) to require that air traffic controllers be paid, and 2) that employees who are essential shouldn’t be forced to work without pay.
  2. The House passes a package to reopen the government, and, for the third time this year, Mitch McConnell block bills to reopen the government in the Senate.
  3. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says it’s Democrats fault that Trump had to feed the Clemson Tigers champion football team fast food.
  4. Nancy Pelosi sends Trump a letter saying they need to postpone the State of the Union address until after the shutdown ends due to security concerns. The White House asks Mitch McConnell if he can invite them to do it in the Senate instead.
  5. In apparent retaliation, Trump postpones Pelosi’s congressional delegation (codel) trip where Pelosi planned to visit NATO officials in Brussels and then troops in Afghanistan. The codel was already on a bus on the way to the plane and Capitol Police already had their people on the ground in Europe awaiting their arrival.
  6. Trump orders that government officials can’t use military planes until the shutdown is over. Then he sends Melania to Mar-a-Lago on a military plane.
  7. Trump says Pelosi and her group can take a commercial flight if she wants. Recent history note: Trump took an official plane to Iraq during the shutdown.
  8. Pelosi says she’s now postponing even their commercial flight abroad because Trump took divulged the codel’s travel plans to the public.
  9. Nearly 400 immigrants tunneled under a border wall in Arizona and present themselves to border patrol agents for asylum.
  10. While border crossings are down, family units now makes up 80% of apprehensions. And they’re mostly seeking asylum.
  11. Trump starts telling stories about women trafficked over the border who’s mouths are taped with electrical tape. He morphs the story to include multiple kinds of tape and body parts. People who work with anti-trafficking NGOs at the border say it’s possible, but they haven’t seen it.
  12. Trump offers Democrats a three-year reprieve for people currently protected by DACA and TPS, saying he won’t try to deport them during that time if they fund his wall. Soooo he tried to take away DACA and TPS, and now he says he’ll give them back if Democrats give him the wall. Again, the courts have struck down his actions on DACA and TPS, so they’re currently protected by the courts.
    • Conservative pundits call this amnesty. To be clear, this is not what amnesty looks like.
  1. Here’s where Pelosi says Democrats want border funding to go toward:
    • Increased infrastructure investments at our ports of entry including additional ports and roads;
    • Advanced technology to scan for drugs, weapons and contraband and to detect unauthorized crossings;
    • More customs personnel including filling the more than 3,000 customs and border patrol vacancies; and
    • More immigration judges.
  1. The House cancels January recess in order to deal with the shutdown.
  2. The DOJ hires two lawyers likely to deal with issues of eminent domain at the border.

Russia:

  1. Mueller’s team subpoenas three new Jerome Corsi associates to testify before the grand jury. The Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas Corsi himself.
  2. Both Mueller and Manhattan prosecutors are investigating a breakfast event held at the Trump International Hotel in DC two days before Trump’s inauguration. In attendance were Michael Flynn, Devin Nunes, and several foreign diplomats.
  3. The House votes to overturn the Treasury Department’s decision to lift sanctions on a company that Oleg Deripaska has a stake in. 57 Senators, including 11 Republicans, also vote to keep sanctions, but it falls short of the 60 votes required to overturn the decision.
    • Under the Treasury decision, Deripaska must reduce his stake in two companies and the other sanctions against him remain. But a binding and signed document shows that it allows Deripaska to get rid of $100s of millions in debt and for him and his associates to retain a large share of ownership.
    • The primary company involved is a major aluminum producer, and the sanctions are hurting American companies.
    • With an overwhelming majority, the House passes a resolution of disapproval for rolling back the sanctions.
  1. Last year, I refrained from reporting on Anastasia Vashukevich, who says she was Deripaska’s mistress and that she has tapes of him bragging about how Russia stole our 2016 elections. She was subsequently arrested in Thailand on charges of prostitution. So I was waiting to see what would come of this, if anything. This week, Thailand releases her and deports her to Belarus… with a layover in Moscow where officials there arrest her at the airport in dramatic fashion.
  2. BuzzFeed releases a report that starts out with a bang but quickly fizzles. (Note that I don’t typically use BuzzFeed as a source, but the story generated a lot of buzz, so I figured it was newsworthy.)
    • BuzzFeed reports that Trump personally directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about the duration of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations to hide Trump’s involvement.
    • Trump’s legal team reaches out to Mueller’s office about this.
    • Mueller’s office disputes parts of the reporting, but not the substance. This is important because his office rarely jumps in with statements on news stories. They issue this statement:
      “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”
    • BuzzFeed stands by their story, but they’re also working to learn what specific parts Mueller’s team is disputing.
    • If the reporting turns out to be right, it would mean Donald Jr. perjured himself during his testimony to Congress.
  1. Rudy Giuliani says Trump and Cohen were discussing building a Trump Tower in Moscow throughout 2016, possibly into November.
  2. Giuliani also admits that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but he maintains that Trump did not. He later says he doesn’t know if there was any collusion.
  3. Cohen’s testimony before Congress next month will be limited so as not to interfere with Mueller’s investigation. So if you were expecting the full scoop, you’re not going to get it.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A new report from the Inspector General for the General Services Administration says that GSA officials chose to ignore the constitution’s anti-corruption clauses when they continued leasing the Old Post Office Building to the Trump International Hotel after Trump took office.
    • An example of why this is an issue: Last year when T-Mobile needed approval from the Trump administration for a merger, nine T-Mobile executives booked rooms at the hotel with one of them staying there at least 10 times.
  1. Michael Cohen confirms that he paid a tech firm to rig online polls in Trump’s favor during the 2016 elections. He also says this was “at the direction of and the sole benefit of” Trump. I don’t think this is illegal, but it is ironic given that Trump kept complaining about how rigged the polls are.
    • Fun fact: Cohen also used this company to promote himself as a sex symbol on Twitter.
  1. Court filings show that Paul Manafort attempted to fill Trump’s administration with his allies, but it’s not clear how successful he was.

Courts/Justice:

  1. William Barr, who’s currently being evaluated for confirmation as Attorney General, once said that the DOJ might need some “political supervision.” He thinks that we went too far in pushing the DOJ to be independent following Watergate.
    • Barr doesn’t say he wouldn’t jail journalists if they report on things that “might hurt the country.”
    • Barr says it’s vitally important that Mueller be able to complete his investigation, but he refuses to recuse himself even though he has expressed opinions on the case previously without full knowledge of the evidence obtained so far.
    • It takes Trump by surprise to learn during Barr’s testimony that Barr has been friends and colleagues with Mueller for 30 years. I would’ve thought that would come out in the vetting process. Was there a vetting process?
    • Unlike Jeff Sessions, Barr says he won’t go after marijuana sales in states where it’s legal.
  1. A district judge says Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes must answer questions for a court case in writing, but denies a request to make them sit for depositions. The conservative group Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit against the State Department last year over the handling of missing emails. Rice and Rhodes will answer questions about the talking points used after the Benghazi attacks. Because that hasn’t been investigated enough yet.

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge issues a nationwide injunction against Trump’s attempted rollback of the ACA’s birth-control mandate. Just previous to that, a different judge blocked the rule for several states just hours before it was to take effect.
    • If successful, Trump’s rollback would let employers avoid providing contraceptive coverage as part of the insurance policies they offer to their employees. Under the ACA, they must provide this at no cost.
  1. WHO issues a list of the top 10 most significant health issues facing us today (in no particular order):
    • Air pollution and climate change
    • Noncommunicable diseases (like heart disease, cancer, diabetes)
    • A global flu pandemic
    • Fragile and vulnerable settings (caused by things like drought, famine, and war)
    • Antimicrobial resistance to existing treatments
    • Weak primary healthcare
    • Anti-vaccination movements
    • High-threat pathogens (like Zika, Ebola, and SARS)
    • Dengue fever
    • HIV
  1. An appeals court vacates a previous ruling that stopped Texas from defunding Planned Parenthood. In the original case, Texas tried to oust Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid program based on the videos that purported to show Planned Parenthood workers discussing illegal sales of fetal material. This doesn’t reverse the ruling, but instead throws the ball back into the original judge’s court and forces him to use a different standard to review the case.
  2. The Senate fails to get the 60 votes needed to pass a bill that would permanently ban federal funding for abortions and place new restrictions on abortions.

International:

  1. Trump has privately and repeatedly pushed withdrawing from NATO. At the NATO summit last summer, he told his national security officials that he didn’t see the point of the coalition. Both Jim Mattis and John Bolton spent the summit scrambling to make sure there was no mention of a withdrawal.
  2. Turkish President Erdogan says Trump called him up and said that he’s still going to withdraw troops from Syria.
  3. The UK Parliament fails to pass Theresa May’s Brexit deal with a vote of 432 to 202, a huge defeat for her government.
    • As a result, May faces a vote of no confidence, which she wins.
    • The official Brexit due date is March 29. May can try to ask the EU for more concessions, but they’ve drawn a firm line.
    • It’s possible this will lead to another vote on Brexit, but it’s not clear that if voters decide to NOT Brexit that it wouldn’t happen anyway.
    • Parliament could amend the EU Withdrawal Act to force May to request an Article 50 extension on the Brexit deadline if there is no agreement on an exit plan.
  1. An explosion in Syria kills two U.S. troops and two civilians, with the Islamic State claiming responsibility. Just a few weeks ago, Trump said ISIS was defeated and we’re pulling troops out of Syria.
    • On the day of the explosion, Mike Pence states that “the caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated.”
    • Brett McGurk, former special envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, says that Trump’s choice to withdraw troops is giving IS fighters new life.
  1. Trump plans another North Korea summit with Kim Jong Un in February. A new report claims there are at least 20 previously undisclosed ballistic missile sites in North Korea.
  2. The Trump administration rejects a deal with Russia to keep the Nuclear Forces Treaty, which is intended to contain nuclear arms proliferation. They say there’s no way to verify Russia is keeping their end of the deal. This sets the stage for a six-month withdrawal from the treaty starting next month.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Three GOP Members of Congress have either had their committee assignments stripped or won’t get any assignments due to misconduct:
    • Steve King: Stripped of assignments due to racist comments.
    • Duncan Hunter: Indicted (when elected)
    • Chris Collins: Indicted (when elected)

Family Separation:

  1. An audit finds that the Trump administration has separated thousands more children than was publicly known. They started separating families over six months before they announced it, and they didn’t track those families. So we don’t know exactly how many, where the parents or children are, or whether they’ve been reunited.
    • The first separations started no later than October of 2017; Jeff Sessions didn’t announce the policy until May of 2018.
    • The separations continued after Trump ended the policy in June of 2018 (largely due to a court order).
    • Amnesty International estimates 8,000 “family units” were separated. I’m not sure what they mean by family unit.
  1. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) asks the FBI to open an investigation into whether Kirstjen Nielsen lied under oath to Congress when she said that the administration never had a policy for family separation.
  2. Merkley gave NBC News a draft of a 2017 memo from the DHS and DOJ that describes plans to separate families, to deport minors and deny them asylum hearings, and to force asylum seekers to wait for their hearings in Mexico instead of the U.S.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A judge blocks the Commerce Department from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, and rakes Secretary Wilbur Ross over the coals in his ruling. He says Ross and his aides broke a “smorgasbord” of federal rules, cherry-picked facts, twisted evidence, hid their deliberations, and lied under oath.
  2. The Pentagon extends the mission of the troops assisting DHS along the border through September. There are about 2,300 troops still at the border, down from 5,900.
  3. The Virginia Senate ratifies the ERA (yes, this is still a thing). If the GOP-led House of Delegates follows suit, we’ll have enough state ratifications to finally ratify it. Interesting history note: The original draft of the amendment was created almost 100 years ago, in 1921. Can we get this done already? We shouldn’t need to!
  4. The House passes a resolution nearly unanimously condemning white supremacy and white nationalism. Even Steve King, at whom the resolution is directed, voted for it. The lone nay vote, Democrat Bobby Rush, doesn’t think the wording is strong enough.
  5. While Representative Tony Cárdenas was speaking on the House floor, a Republican representative yelled “Go back to Puerto Rico!” The congressman later called Cárdenas to apologize and said he wasn’t addressing him, he was referring to the Democratic contingent that had a retreat in Puerto Rico earlier this year. At the time, the House was trying to pass a continuing resolution to reopen nine departments.
  6. Hundreds of thousands show up across the country for the third annual Women’s March. The marches have gotten smaller each year, and this year the National March in DC was marred by accusations of anti-Semitism.
  7. New York bans gay conversation therapy, and adds gender identity and gender expression to their anti-discrimination laws.
  8. The new Democratic governor of Kansas reinstates protections for LGBTQ state employees.
  9. The Trump Organization received at least 192 visas for foreign workers last year. That’s the highest number since 2008.

Climate/EPA:

  1. On top of learning earlier this month that the oceans are warming waaaay faster than we thought, now we learn that the Antarctic is now losing six times as much ice each year as it was in the 80s. It’s gone from 40 billion tons a year to 252 billion tons.
  2. The U.S. is increasing oil and gas drilling faster than any other nation, even though scientists say we have just 11 years to sort out this whole climate change thing.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) becomes the first woman and the first African American to chart the Financial Services Committee in the House.
  2. Los Angeles County teachers strike for higher wages and an increase in staffing levels. They’re trying to bring attention to the needs of public schools.
  3. Our six biggest banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs) made $100 billion in profit last year. That’s a first, it’s expected to grow when 4th quarter numbers come in, and it’s due to the tax cuts.
  4. The Trump administration refuses to extend emergency food assistance to Puerto Rico, calling it “excessive and unnecessary.”
  5. Economists worry that the extended shutdown could push us into a contraction. A contraction starts when there are two consecutive quarters of GDP decline.
  6. Economic growth was already slowing in the last quarter of 2018, with downward pressures including the trade war with China, the fading effects of the $1.5 trillion tax cut, and slower global growth in general. The government shutdown is expected to slow it further.

Elections:

  1. A federal judge blocks parts of the lame duck bills passed in Wisconsin aimed at disenfranchising typically Democratic voters. The judge blocks attempts to curb early voting, to limit the use of student IDs, and to limit the use of receipts for people with exceptional barriers to getting IDs.
  2. McConnell accuses Democrats of encouraging voter fraud and trying to swing elections toward one party with their sweeping election reform bill. His exact words are “power grab” and “naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party.”
    • There’s a general summary of the bill here (under Legislation): http://cjrules.com/week-102-in-trump/
    • The point of the bill is to make sure every citizen can vote and none are disenfranchised from their right to vote. So I guess if more people voting swings elections toward one party…
  1. New York passes election reform bills to allow early voting, preregistration of minors (so they’re able to vote upon turning 18), and voting by mail.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump officials reverse an Obama-era safety rule (this is so commonplace that it isn’t even news). This rule required trains that carry flammable material (like oil) to install special brakes to reduce the risk of derailment and explosion. The move was proposed just over a year ago, right around the time the Amtrak train derailed in Washington.
  2. A federal judge finds four women guilty after they enter a national park and leave food and water for immigrants crossing the border. The charges include entering a national refuge without a permit, driving a vehicle in a national refuge, and leaving things behind in a national refuge.
  3. Ouch. Betsy DeVos breaks her pelvis and hip socket in a biking accident.

Polls:

  1. 57% of American voters say they’ll definitely vote against Trump in 2020.
    • 30% say they’ll vote for Trump in 2020.
    • 13% say they have no idea who they’ll vote for.
  1. 72% of federal workers oppose the shutdown, with 64% strongly opposed.
    • 21% support the shutdown, with 14% strongly supporting.
  1. 56% of federal workers oppose building the wall, with 45% strongly opposed.
    • 34% support building the wall, with 25% strongly supporting.