Tag: yemen

Week 112 in Trump

Posted on March 21, 2019 in Politics, Trump

ABC News: Brendan Esposito

Poor Trump got a three-fer this week. The House and Senate voted to stop supporting the Yemen war and they also voted to overturn the national emergency over the wall. The House then voted 420-0 in support of releasing Robert Mueller’s report to the public. On top of that, he was named as the face of white nationalism in the manifesto by a mass shoot at two mosques in New Zealand. His reaction is to appear to threaten us while minimizing the rise of white hate groups. Here’s what he says: “I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point and then it would be very bad, very bad.” Who’s they? Who will it be very bad for?


Whatevs. Here’s what else happened this week…

Russia:

  1. For some reason, House Republicans leak Bruce Ohr’s and Lisa Page’s full testimony on the investigation into the investigations of Hillary’s emails and Russian interference in our 2016 election. I think they thought it would bolster Trump’s case, but from what I’ve read so far it hasn’t. (I’m working on summarizing that, but that’s a whole other post.)
  2. Paul Manafort receives his second prison sentence, this one for 73 months (we expected a maximum of about 10 years). 30 of those months are to be served concurrently with his previous sentence, so he ends up with a total of 7 1/2 years.
    • Some people feel like Manafort got off too easy, but this isn’t over. On the same day of his sentencing, New York state officials indict Manafort on 16 counts, including mortgage fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records. So much for an “otherwise blameless life.”
    • In direct contradiction to Judge Ellis’s “blameless life” statement, Judge Jackson says that Manafort “spent a significant portion of his career gaming the system.”
    • Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that Trump will make a decision on whether to pardon Paul Manafort. If Trump does pardon him, it won’t cover New York’s state charges.
  1. The House votes nearly unanimously (four voted ’present’) to urge the DOJ to release the final Mueller report to Congress and to the public. Mitch McConnell has blocked similar bills in the Senate, and Lindsay Graham blocks this one.
    • Graham tries to include a provision urging the DOJ to appoint a second special counsel to investigate the investigations into Hillary Clinton’s emails (again) and the FISA warrant obtained by the FBI to surveil Carter Page (again).
  1. Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff says that there is already enough evidence to support indicting Trump once he’s out of office.
  2. As part of a defamation suit against BuzzFeed, a court unseals documents that show how Russians hacked Democratic Party email accounts in 2016.
    • The suit was filed by Aleksej Gubarev, who sued BuzzFeed for defamation when they published the Steele Dossier.
    • The documents seem to show that the part about Gubarev owning the servers that were used to do the hacking is true.
  1. Well, there’s a twist. Oleg Deripaska sues the U.S. Treasury over the sanctions against his companies.
  2. Mueller requests a delay in Rick Gates sentencing because he’s still cooperating with several ongoing investigations. Gates already pleaded guilty to conspiracy and to lying to the FBI.
  3. Michael Flynn completes his cooperation agreement with Mueller’s investigation. However, Mueller still requests a delay in sentencing because Flynn is still cooperating with the federal investigation into Bijan Rafiekian.
  4. If you’re convinced that Democrats are all about impeaching Trump, Nancy Pelosi blows a hole in that by saying it would be too divisive for the country and Trump’s not worth it. There would have to be extremely strong evidence of impeachable activity.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Steve Wynn, the former RNC finance chairman, met with Steven Mnuchin about ways to reduce his taxes after he had to sell his stake in his casino business (which he was forced to sell after of 20 years of sexual misconduct accusations came to light).
  2. The New York attorney general’s office opens investigations into loans that Deutsche Bank made to the Trump Organization.
  3. The DOJ is looking into whether a $100,000 donation to the Trump Victory committee came from a Malaysian business person accused of embezzlement (and now a fugitive).
  4. An appellate court in New York rules that Summer Zervos can proceed with her defamation suit against Trump. Zervos was a contestant on The Apprentice who accused Trump of sexual misconduct, and when Trump called her a liar, she filed the suit.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A court rules that Betsy DeVos acted illegally when she delayed an Obama rule requiring states to handle racial inequities when it comes to special education. The judge calls her actions “arbitrary and capricious.”
  2. Federal judges have ruled against the Trump administration’s policies at least 63 times over the past two years, and largely for being “arbitrary and capricious.” This means they were in such a hurry to implement their policies (mostly to overturn Obama policies) that they didn’t take the time to come up with a good reason or a solid basis for the changes.

Healthcare:

  1. Four states pass anti-abortion legislation on the same day.
    • Arkansas and Utah passed bans on abortions after 18 weeks.
    • Kentucky passes a law prohibiting abortion for reasons of “sex, race, color, national origin, or disability.” (I’m so curious why any parent-to-be would give race, color, or national origin as a reason. Especially national origin. I can’t find these reasons listed in any studies so far.)
    • Kansas passes a resolution condemning New York’s new abortion law that codifies the rights given under Roe v. Wade.
    • There are already legal challenges to Kentucky’s latest bill, and a judge just blocked the bill they passed the previous week that banned abortion after six weeks.
  1. The Trump administration reduces fines for nursing homes for endangering or injuring their residents. Previously nursing homes were fined for each day they were in violation. Now the administration issues a single fine. The average fine is now to $28,405, down from $41,260.

International:

  1. Despite Theresa May getting some concessions from the EU on a Brexit deal, the British Parliament once again defeats the proposal she brings before them. They also vote against holding a second public voter referendum to see if a majority of citizens are still in favor of exiting the EU (this sounds like a timing issue and could be brought up again later).
    • They’ve had two and a half years to work this out, and they can’t. Why? IMO, because it was such an abysmally bad idea.
    • One MP tweets that Theresa May voted against her own proposal.
    • The longer Brexit drags on, the more it drags on the economy; but a hard exit with no deal could be far worse for the UK’s economy.
  1. Israel’s Supreme Court overturned a decision by the Central Election Committee and will allow a joint Arab slate and a leftist candidate to run in the April election. The court also blocked a far-right leader of the Otzma Yehudit from running.
  2. The U.S. has always referred to Golan Heights as an area under Israeli control. Now, for the first time, a U.S. government agency refers to Golan Heights as occupied territory. Israel has been lobbying the Trump administration to recognize Israel sovereignty over Golan Heights.
  3. After two missiles are launched at Tel Aviv, Israeli military responds by striking over 100 targets in Gaza. It is believed that the two rockets were launched by Hamas and by mistake.
  4. The Senate passes a resolution to end unauthorized participation by the U.S. in the Yemen war, which is backed by Saudi Arabia. Now the resolution goes back to the House for a vote.
  5. A bipartisan group of congressional leaders, including Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell, invite NATO’s secretary general to speak to a joint session of Congress. They’re looking at how they can honor NATO on its 70th anniversary while letting our allies know that the U.S. remains committed.
  6. North Korea threatens to withdraw from our ongoing denuclearization talks and resume their nuclear program unless the U.S. gives in to some of their demands. This comes after we found evidence that they rebuilt a supposedly decommissioned missile site.
    • North Korea says John Bolton and Mike Pompeo created an environment of hostility and distrust.
  1. Tensions between the Trump administration and the Afghan government intensify when Afghanistan’s national security adviser says that a deal between the U.S. and the Taliban would dishonor the American soldiers who have fought there. The U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan responds by accusing the Afghanis of corruption and misusing the resources we gave them. Notably, the Afghan government has been excluded from negotiations with the Taliban.
    • If you’re wondering which side to take here, remember that the Taliban want to prevent women from getting educations and to force them to wear burqas.
  1. Embattled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro uses paramilitary gangs on motorcycles to keep protestors in line.
  2. The U.S. removes all diplomatic personnel from the Venezuelan embassy.
  3. Foreign leaders, and especially strongmen like Kim Jong Un, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Vladimir Putin, take advantage of Trump’s preference for personal diplomacy and cut out the diplomatic experts in the middle. They talk directly to Trump, leaving advisers to wonder when he speaks with them and what they talk about. Officials say they never know what he’s agreed to.
  4. Intelligence reports show that Saudi Arabia’s plans to silence dissidents went way further than just murdering Khashoggi. They started a secret campaign more than a year before Khashoggi’s murder that included forcible repatriation, detention and abuse, and obviously murder.
  5. International hackers are all over the Navy, its contractors, and its partners. The hackers exploit weaknesses in our systems and there have been numerous breaches. The hacks affect other branches of our military as well.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. One unintended consequence of the shutdown over the wall is that it delayed the software fix for the Boeing 737 Max airplane fleet.
  2. The Senate votes to overturn Trump’s national emergency declaration, but Trump says he’ll veto it. 12 Republicans and every Democrat voted for it, but that’s not enough to override Trump’s veto. This is the first time both houses of Congress has voted to cancel a sitting president’s declaration of national emergency.
    • By the end of the week, Trump vetoes the bill. It’s not likely either house can muster enough votes to override his veto.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. House Democrats introduce the Dream and Promise Act of 2019, which would give immigrants currently protected under DACA and TPS (temporary protected status) a path to citizenship.
  2. The Pentagon announces a new directive to implement Trump’s transgender ban in the military. Anyone who joins after it takes effect must serve in the gender assigned at birth.
  3. The Trump administration plans to further restrict visas for applicants who they think use too many public services. As a result of Trump’s previous restrictions, visa denials are already up 40% over the past two years.
  4. The Trump administration plans to close all the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ international offices. This will likely cause even more slowdowns in family visa applications and foreign adoptions.
  5. A federal court halts Trump‘s policy that blocked visas for young immigrants who are fleeing abuse. A government program allows these immigrants to apply for special visas until they become 21 years old. Trump’s administration has been blocking applicants once they turn 18.
  6. Mexican officials and cartels are extorting asylum seekers at the border, including those who’ve begun the asylum process but who we now force to wait in Mexico for processing.
  7. 2,200 migrant detainees are quarantined because of a mumps outbreak in detention centers across the country. There are almost 240 confirmed cases.
  8. The Trump administration considers sending a volunteer force to help stop illegal crossings at the border.
  9. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross testifies to the House Oversight Committee about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Ross has repeatedly told Congress that the DOJ requested the question, but according to email records, he was the one who made the request to the DOJ.
  10. White nationalists open fire in two New Zealand mosques during Friday prayers, and police find bombs attached to one of the shooters’ vehicles. At least 49 people are dead and another 48 injured.
    • This is New Zealand’s first mass shooting since 1997. They move quickly to tighten gun laws.
    • The shooter live-streams part of the shooting on social media and posts a white nationalist manifesto online. He wants to ensure a white future for our children.
    • The title of the manifesto is The Great Replacement, the same words used by white nationalists here in the U.S., most notably Representative Steven King. Also like King, the manifesto complains of the fertility rates of immigrants.
    • While the manifesto criticizes Trump’s leadership and policies, it also says that Trump is a “symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” Again, I’m not saying I think Trump’s a bigot, but bigots think he’s a bigot.
    • Even though Trump is specifically named in the manifesto, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney claims it’s absurd to associate the attacks with Trump.
    • The next day, Trump talks about immigrants at our southern border as an invasion, the same description used in the manifesto and used by white nationalists/supremacists. Words matter.
    • Trump says that white nationalists make up “a small group of people.” I guess that depends on how you define small. The number and membership of white nationalist groups, the number of racist rallies, and the number of hate crimes are all rising sharply.
      • Over the last four years, hate groups increased by 30%. Last year alone, hate crimes grew by 17%.
  1. We’re all going to make up our own minds about whether Trump‘s rhetoric somehow contributed to these attacks, but just a reminder that Trump has (and often more than once):
    • Said we should ban all Muslims from the U.S.
    • Touted a debunked story about killing Muslims with bullets dipped in pig’s blood.
    • Proposed creating a registry of Muslims.
    • Shared violent anti-Muslim snuff films.
  1. The Center for Investigative Reporting has identified 150 cases of harassment or violence where the perpetrator mentioned Trump.
    • Some of these hardly made a blip on most of our radar—the bombers of an Islamic Center in MN, the beating of a Boston homeless man by men who thought he was undocumented, the stabbing of two people on a train in Oregon, the shooting at a Montreal mosque, the foiled bomber in Oregon who put Obama on his kill list, the foiled bombers planning to bomb a Somali apartment building, and so on and so on.
    • Some of the major recent ones to name him include the terrorist who killed 49 Muslims as they worshipped in New Zealand, the Coast Guard terrorist who stockpiled weapons and planned a massive terror attack, and the Florida man who sent bombs to people conservatives tend to target (funders, journalists, and Democratic politicians).
  1. Prosecutors bring terrorism charges against five people who were arrested in New Mexico last year on what was found to be a training compound for would-be terrorists. The group, which was Muslim, isn’t associated with any known terrorist groups.
  2. The Supreme Court unanimously overturns an Alabama court’s refusal to recognize an adoption by a same-sex couple. The adoption occurred in Georgia.

Climate/EPA:

  1. A new report on the Arctic concludes that regardless of whether we take action to stop climate change, the Arctic is now in a cycle of temperature rise that will continue. The rise is locked in because of greenhouse gases already emitted and because of heat already stored in the ocean.
  2. Inspired by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg, over a million students in over 100 countries walk out of school to push leaders for urgent climate change action.
  3. A court of appeals upholds a November decision blocking construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
  4. The Trump administration finalizes plans to loosen environmental protections for the sage grouse and its habitat with the goal of making it easier to drill for oil on those lands.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Trump proposes his new budget, which raises military spending, funds the border wall, and decreases domestic discretionary spending. The budget forecasts trillion-dollar deficits for each of the next three years, and expects the debt to reach $31 trillion in a decade.
    • The budget cuts funding for these departments and agencies: agriculture, state, interior, education, justice, energy, labor, health and human services, transportation, NASA, the Treasury, and environmental protection.
    • The budget also cuts social security, Medicaid, and Medicare.
    • The budget increases spending on commerce, national nuclear security, homeland security, the VA, and military.
    • The budget cuts funding for the USDA by 15%, because the administration says that current subsidies to farmers are “overly generous.” This at a time when tariffs and weather are hurting farmers and when we’ve just provided a $12 billion aid package to help them stay afloat.
  1. Trump’s economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, says that federal revenues are up about 10%. In fact, revenues were down in fiscal year (FY) 2018 compared to FY 2017, and they’re down so far in FY 2019 compared to the same period in FY 2018.

Elections:

  1. Bernie Sanders wife and son suspend the Sanders Institute and will not accept donations as long as Bernie is a presidential candidate. They fell into the same old pitfalls, being accused of blurring financial lines between family, fundraising, and campaigning.
  2. Delaware follows 11 other states by signing a bill into law that would give all their electoral votes to the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote. This only goes into effect if enough states sign on to total 270 electoral votes.

Miscellaneous:

  1. After the Ethiopian Airlines crash, several countries ground their fleets of Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 planes. The U.S. does the same a few days later.
    • Afterward, Trump tweets about how planes are too complex for pilots. He’s basically complaining about the company he was just bragging about signing a billion dollar deal with Vietnam (Boeing).
    • Boeing grounds its global fleet of the Max airplanes. There are a total of 371 Max planes.
  1. The Kentucky student who became the face of the students accused of mocking a Native American elder in D.C. in January sues CNN. He’s already suing the Washington Post.
  2. Connecticut‘s Supreme Court says families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting can sue Remington. The shooter at Sandy Hook used a Remington Bushmaster rifle. The families’ argument is that the rifle was intended for military use and the company allowed civilians to obtain them.
  3. California Governor Gavin Newsom places a moratorium on death penalty executions. Most states have the death penalty, but very few states actually carry it out.
  4. Audio recordings surface of Tucker Carlson making racist, white nationalist, and blatantly sexist comments in a series of interviews. Carlson doesn’t apologize and doesn’t deny what he said. Instead, he issues a challenge: “Anyone who disagrees with my views is welcome to come on and explain why.” This explains so much about his show.

Polls:

A Reuters/Ipsos poll finds (among other things):

  1. 60% of respondents think that journalists sometimes or often get paid by their sources.
  2. 41% of respondents are less likely to trust a story with anonymous sources.
  3. People with a college degree have more faith in the press than those without one.
  4. People who live in urban areas have more faith in the press than people in rural areas.
  5. People who are employed full-time have more faith in the press than retired, self-employed, or unemployed people (that’s a weird split there).
  6. Here’s their rankings of which sources are most trusted of the mainstream media (click the image to view a larger version).

    Columbia Journalism Review

Week 91 in Trump

Posted on October 22, 2018 in Politics, Trump

I heard something interesting on Marketplace. It turns out it doesn’t matter whether we cut funding for food assistance, or SNAP, like some in Congress want. Because of our trade war, many farmers lost the buyers for their crops. So part of the government bailout for farmers is going toward purchasing those crops, which will then be donated to food assistance programs like food banks, shelters, and so on. The charities currently don’t have enough resources to store all that food, and they estimate it’ll cost around $300 million to take care of it all. They say they’ll get it done, but what really just happened is that the U.S. lost all that income from those crops, the government is trying to cut taxpayer payments to SNAP, but the government did pay taxpayer money directly to the farmers who lost their buyers, and then turned around and gave that food right back to the needy. Talk about going around in circles.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Russia:

  1. In the DOJ’s first case around Russian meddling in our elections, federal prosecutors charge a Russian woman, Elena Khusyaynova, with fraud against the U.S. She managed the finances for an operation funded by the Concord group that ran a social media disinformation campaign. This campaign wasn’t tilted toward either political side; it’s aim was to spread disinformation and increase divisiveness.
  2. This campaign spread misinformation about immigration, gun control, the NFL protests, LGBTQ and racial issues, the Confederate flag, and much more.
  3. Putin says that U.S. influence across the globe is almost over, and that he’s been more able to push Russian influence with Trump as president.
  4. Russian trolls have stepped up their spending on disinformation campaigns in 2018.
  5. Mueller will likely issue his findings in the Russia investigation after the midterm elections, specifically around whether Trump’s campaign coordinated in any way with the Russians and whether Trump obstructed justice during the investigation.
  6. It’s up to Rod Rosenstein, who’s defended Mueller’s investigation, to decide whether the results will become public.
  7. Remember when we kept hearing about SARs (suspicious activity reports)? A senior employee at the Treasury Department is charged with leaking those reports related to Paul Manafort’s financial activity, along with SARs for other subjects of the Mueller investigation.
  8. A federal judge refuses Paul Manafort’s request to wear a suit to his sentencing hearing. He shows up in a wheelchair.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Michael Cohen has met with both New York state and federal law enforcement about the Trump Organization and their charity.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A federal judge orders the Department of Education to implement regulations to protect students who were defrauded by for-profit colleges. The regulations help them get their federal student loans forgiven. Betsy DeVos has been delaying the regulations while the department rewrote rules around loans, but a different judge already called those rewrites capricious and arbitrary.

Healthcare:

  1. Along party lines, the Senate votes down a repeal of Trump’s expansion of short-term insurance plans that do not have to comply with ACA guidelines. So now we’ll have cheaper plans available for the short-term, but they won’t have to cover anything required by the ACA.
  2. Mitch McConnell suggests that Republicans will try again next year to repeal the ACA, but no word yet what they’d replace it with.

International:

  1. Reports are that the U.S. intelligence community knew that the Saudis planned to kidnap Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and possibly harm him. This information had been spread across all relevant government agencies, yet Trump pretended to know nothing about this for days.
  2. Turkey says they have audio tapes of the killing, and Trump requests the tapes to be released to U.S. intelligence. As far as I know, this hasn’t yet happened.
  3. Early in the week, Trumps says he’ll send Mike Pompeo to meet with Saudi King Salman over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. Trump also says the king firmly denies involvement, and he suggests rogue killers could be responsible.
  4. And then Trump tells the Associated Press that blaming Saudi Arabia without evidence is like blaming Kavanaugh without evidence. Just another case of “guilty until proven innocent.”
  5. Pompeo has a friendly meeting with the Saudi prince who says they’ll perform a thorough and transparent investigation into the killing.
  6. The day Pompeo arrives, the Saudi government transfers $100 million to the U.S. to help stabilize things in Syria.
  7. Trump is also concerned about a $110 million arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and he doesn’t want the Khashoggi affair to get in the way of it.
  8. Treasury Secretary Mnuchin joins many other foreign officials in saying they won’t attend what’s been called “Davos in the Desert.” It’s an economic investment conference in Saudi Arabia.
  9. Jared Kushner, who is a close friend of the Saudi prince, is involved with the Trump administration response to the killing.
  10. The ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker (R) and Bob Melendez (D) send a letter to Trump triggering the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. The administration must now investigate the killing.
  11. The Saudi government prepares us for their admission that Khashoggi didn’t leave the consulate in Turkey and is indeed dead, but they say it was an interrogation that went wrong. And then they say that a fight broke out (which I guess somehow required the 15-man security team to kill Khashoggi and then dismember him with the bone saw that they conveniently had thought to bring with them ahead of time by the doctor they conveniently had the forethought to invite along).
  12. So the Saudi’s have gone from:
    • Khashoggi left the consulate alive, to
    • He is probably dead but we didn’t kill him, to
    • We’ll investigate this fully, to
    • He was killed by our security team but it was his fault because he started a fistfight (against 15 security guys, uh-huh), but
    • The Saudi prince knew nothing of this plan.
  1. U.S. intelligence says evidence points to the Saudi prince being involved, but it’s circumstantial right now.
  2. This comes at a critical time for the administration because we need Saudi Arabian oil to make the sanctions against Iran work.
  3. Saudi Arabia has apprehended several suspects. Four suspects are linked to the Saudi prince’s security detail.
  4. And is this always going to be their comeback? Republican lawmakers and pundits begin smearing Khashoggi to dampen criticism of Trump’s handling of the situation. They bring up his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and say he’s a friend of terrorists and “not a good guy.”
  5. Trump says we have an investigation on the ground in Turkey, but U.S. officials are unaware of any such effort.
  6. While Trump appears to be defending Saudi Arabia publicly, privately he has doubts they’re telling the truth.
  7. Germany halts all weapons deals with Saudi Arabia until further notice.
  8. The UN warns that Yemen is facing its worst famine in history because Saudi Arabia continues to launch airstrikes against them. We’re looking at over 12 million people facing starvation, which will only add to the global refugee crisis. Yemen is trapped in the middle of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
  9. The Taliban wipes out all of the top leadership in Kandahar Province in an assassination strike.
  10. Trump says the U.S. will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a Cold War arms control agreement with Russia. Trump says that Russia is violating the treaty and that it prevents us from developing weapons to combat China’s new weaponry.
  11. Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the treaty’s signers, says this decision is reckless and “not the work of a great mind.”
  12. Trump suspends yet another military exercise with South Korea. It seems they’re trying to further nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

Family Separation:

  1. The U.S. still has 245 children in custody who were separated from their parents. The parents of 175 of them were deported, and, of those, 125 have chosen to remain in the U.S. and request asylum. That leaves 50 kids with deported parents, and another 70 who haven’t been reunited.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump threatens to cancel aid to Honduras if they don’t stop the caravan of migrants headed our way. Because cutting off a lifeline for the country will really make people want to stay there, right?
  2. He also threatens to send the U.S. military to the border to meet the migrants, and then threatens to throw out the renegotiated NAFTA if Mexico let’s them through.
  3. The Trump administration looks at redefining gender so that people can only be defined by their biological sex at birth based on genitalia. I wonder what they think they’ll do for those born intersex? At any rate, it’s pretty easy to make the argument that transgender people are the most targeted group under this administration. Right up there with black and brown asylum seekers.

Climate/EPA:

  1. Trump visits the aftermath of Hurricane Michael in Florida and Georgia. The death toll from the storm is up to 36. FEMA is still on the ground helping the hardest hit areas, but certain areas are pulling back on food and water in an effort to get back to a sense of normalcy. Some areas still don’t have electricity, though.
  2. Climate change is expected to dramatically increase the price of beer this century because drought will affect our ability to grow barley.
  3. Trump says at a Cabinet meeting that California better get its act together to fight forest fires, or he’ll stop giving the state federal funding for either fire prevention programs or disaster relief (it’s hard to tell which he’s referring to).
  4. Trump says he has a natural instinct for science, which is how he knows climate change isn’t manmade. Like many who deny manmade climate change, he says the climate goes back and forth, and back and forth. He also says that even scientists are divided on it, which really isn’t true.
  5. Trump claims to be an environmentalist despite rescinding regulations designed to protect the environment.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Another department store bites the dust when Sears declares bankruptcy. Trump says it’s been mismanaged for years; Trump’s Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin was on the company’s board from 2005 to 2016.
  2. Interesting tidbit: Sears CEO Eddie Lampert is an Ayn Rand follower, and has been trying to run the company under the principles she espoused.
  3. The numbers are in for the end of Trump’s first full fiscal year. The federal deficit expanded to $779 billion, which is up 17% from last year when it was $667 billion. (OK. That last digit is actually a 6, but I can’t bring myself to type the devil numbers. Ask me about the sump pump incident.) The deficit as a percent of GDP also rose. Taxes received from businesses dropped by 31% from the previous year, while taxes received from individuals rose 6%.
  4. So the deficit increased by $113 billion, and federal income from corporations went down by about $92 billion.
  5. This is the largest deficit since 2012, when we were still recovering from the Great Recession.
  6. Spending only increased by 3%, but still Mick Mulvaney claims the reason for the large deficit is out-of-control spending.
  7. Mitch McConnell says the increased deficit isn’t because of the Republican tax bill, but it’s because of Medicare, Medicaid, and social security (all of which are supposed to come out of a separate fund, by the way). The tax bill is predicted to add nearly $1 trillion to the debt next year. So basically after passing a $1.5 trillion tax cut and increasing the budget for the DoD, he says the only thing we can do is cut assistance to the needy and senior citizens. Also, since McConnell became majority leader nearly four years ago, the deficit has increased 77%.
  8. In contrast, the Treasury Department says deficit growth is because of the of the tax cuts, bipartisan spending increases, and rising interest payments.
  9. In response to the news, Trump announces he’ll ask each of his cabinet members to cut the budget for their respective agency by 5%.
  10. On the plus side, job openings hit a record high in August.
  11. Looking back over the year, big banks did the best as a result of the GOP tax reform. They saw the most profit of any other industry.
  12. Volvo says it might move some of their current U.S. manufacturing operations to China.
  13. China has been importing around 330,000 barrels per day of U.S. crude oil. Those imports were down to 0 in August.
  14. Mitch McConnell says he won’t bring the renegotiated NAFTA deal to a vote until next year.
  15. China criticizes the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union, especially with the trade wars going on. Trumps says the UPU, which is 144 years old, makes it easier for Chinese nationals to ship illicit drugs to the U.S.

Elections:

  1. DHS reports an increase in the number of cyber attacks attempted on U.S. election databases, and they don’t know who’s behind it. Yay for safe and secure elections.
  2. Georgia uses amateur handwriting analysis to determine the authenticity of voter registrations and ballots.
  3. Officials in Gwinnett County Georgia have rejected around a third of the absentee ballots cast so far. Over half of those thrown out were from African Americans or Asian Americans. On top of that, officials didn’t notify the voters whose ballots were rejected as required by law. Instead, these voters found out from CNN. Gwinnett is the most diverse and populous county in Georgia.
  4. So far Georgia has purged about 8% of the voters on their rolls.
  5. Officials in Jefferson County Georgia make a group of senior citizens get off the bus that was taking them to vote early. The Senior center was worried that it was a partisan event because a Democrat helped organize the event with a non-partisan voting advocacy group.
  6. U.S. intelligence and law enforcement voice concern about ongoing attempts to interfere with our elections by Russia, China, and Iran—both in the midterms and the 2020 presidential race. But still they’ve seen no signs of them being able to interfere with our actual votes.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Elizabeth Warren announces the results of her DNA test, which show she has Native American ancestry going back 6-10 generations. Trump mocks her; Lindsey Graham mocks her; Fox mocks her. WTH? Who even cares? Why is this a thing?
  2. Also, cue the amateur scientists who estimate that this makes her 1/64 to 1/1024 Native American. Except that’s not how genetics works and for some reason it took days for anyone to talk to an actual geneticist and correct the record. She could have far more than 1/64 Native American DNA or far less than 1/1024.
  3. Trump calls her a complete and total fraud. He refuses to give $1 million to a charity of her choice, even though he said he would if she got a DNA test and it showed Native American heritage. Also, donating the million was his idea, not hers.
  4. Even though Warren says she doesn’t claim tribal affiliation, the chairman of the Cherokee Nation criticizes her use of a DNA test to find out if she does have Native American heritage.
  5. A group of free-press advocates sues Trump to block him from using his office to retaliate against the press. They say that Trump’s threats and use of regulations and enforcement powers for this purpose are unconstitutional.
  6. Trump again praises Montana Republican Representative Greg Gianforte for assaulting a Guardian journalist before his special election last year. “Anybody who can do that kind of body slam, he’s my kind of guy.”
  7. The Trump administration abruptly replaces the acting Inspector General for the Department of the Interior. This is the person who will handle all the current investigations into Ryan Zinke’s potential ethical lapses and she has no investigative experience. But that turns out to be OK, because she resigns shortly thereafter.
  8. The previous Inspector General just released findings that Zinke tried to get around or change policies to justify trips with his wife that were paid for by the taxpayers, including a trip to Turkey.
  9. Don McGahn leaves his post as White House Counsel. He was going to leave later in the fall, but Trump already announced his replacement, Patrick Cipollone. Cipollone was a DOJ lawyer under Bush Sr.
  10. Remember the fire in a Trump Tower condo earlier this year where the guy died? The Trump Organization sues his estate for $90,000 in unpaid maintenance fees.

Polls:

  1. Apparently forgetting the uproar over Obama locking Fox out of one press event, 44% of Republicans think Trump should be able to shut down news agencies for “bad behavior.”
  2. 49% of Trump voters think men face a lot of discrimination in American. In fact, they think men face more discrimination than LGBTQ folks (41%), African-Americans (38%), and women (30%). Cray.
  3. Only 25% of Americans think Kavanaugh told the truth in his hearings. 35% approve of his confirmation and 43% disapprove.

Week 81 in Trump

Posted on August 13, 2018 in Politics, Trump

You can see the constant growth of GDP over the past 10 years, with a few blips. The biggest change has been our perception of growth.

I came across an article in the New York Times that reinforced for me how quirky our perceptions of the economy are. We don’t look so much at actual income, taxes, spending, or the stock market, and we give way too much credit (or blame) to the president. From the article:

“In the 18 months before Mr. Trump moved into the White House, 3.7 million jobs were created, seven in 10 Americans said they were doing fine or living comfortably and the economy grew. In the 18 months since, 3.4 million jobs were created, seven in 10 Americans said they were doing fine or living comfortably and the economy grew. Stubbornly slow wage growth and wide income gaps have spanned both periods.”

So people who complained under Obama suddenly think everything has changed for the better, while those who were praising Obama are now wary of the booming economy. We’re living in a weird time when economic successes don’t improve the popularity of a president from either party.

Anyway, here’s what happened in politics last week…

Missed from Last Week:

  1. Trump goes to Ohio to stump for the Republican candidate in a special election, and gets mad at LeBron James and calls him stupid in a tweet. In OHIO. Trump goes on to tweet how great it was that his candidate won by a landslide. Except that he didn’t. It should’ve been a landslide Republican victory in this district, but it’s so close ballots are still being counted.

Russia:

  1. Here are this week’s highlights in the Manafort Trial:
    • Rick Gates takes the stand, and testifies that both he and Manafort were involved in tax evasion schemes, bank fraud, and hiding money abroad. He also admits to embezzlement from Manafort.
    • Gates admits to filing false tax statements on Manafort’s behalf, and to giving accountants false information at Manafort’s request.
    • Gates says that Manafort used a network of offshore accounts to receive money from Ukrainian businessmen.
    • Gates also says that Manafort was shocked when he had to pay $215,000 in taxes, and complained that Gates was supposed to protect him from that.
    • Evidence shows that Manafort tried to cash in on his influence with Trump to help fix his financial problems. Also, Trump’s relationship with Manafort goes back to at least 2013.
    • The defense tries to portray Gates as a serial liar—not surprising.
    • When a defense attorney questioning Rick Gates asked a question about his time at the Trump campaign, prosecutors object. Prosecutors argue they need to protect the secrecy of an ongoing investigation and limit disclosure of new information, implying that Gates is also cooperating with Mueller in the Russia investigation. The judge seals the transcript for that discussion.
    • Witnesses testify that Manafort promised a Chicago bank CEO various positions in the Trump administration in return for loans. The CEO had even called government officials to get information to prepare himself for running the Army.
    • The judge in the case has been pretty critical of both parties, but especially toward the prosecution. At one point the judge did say that he himself was out of line and that the jury should ignore what he said.
    • The prosecution was supposed to wrap up on Friday, but due to delays in the court, prosecution will likely wrap up on Monday.
    • One of the accountants who testified last week is fired when her current company learns of her questionable activities for Manafort.
  1. A judge holds Andrew Miller in contempt of court for refusing to testify before the grand jury. Miller is a former aide to Trump associate Roger Stone who has already lost his appeal to block the subpoena to testify. Miller’s lawyer says that their appeal is designed to challenge the constitutionality of Mueller’s appointment.
  2. Kristin Davis, the Manhattan Madame, is scheduled to testify before the grand jury in the Russia investigation. Rumor is it’s because of her ties to Roger Stone.
  3. The Democratic National Committee obtains court approval to serve a summons to Wikileaks through Twitter! Some background:
    • The DNC filed a lawsuit against the Trump campaign, the Russian government, and Wikileaks alleging a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.
    • The lawsuit is likely a way to obtain and expose evidence and information that otherwise would be kept secret.
    • This isn’t the first problem they’ve had serving a subpoena. They also can’t get past Jared Kushner’s Secret Service to serve him and they judge denied their request to serve him by mail.
  1. Florida Senator Bill Nelson says that Russian hackers have breached some of Florida’s election servers and he requests resources for additional security. Nelson and Marco Rubio wrote to local elections officials to warn them of the threat.
  2. Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) meets with Russian officials in Moscow, and then invites some Russian lawmakers to visit Washington.
  3. The Trump administration adds new sanctions against Russia for the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter living in England.
  4. A leaked Russian document shows that during their summit, Putin lobbied Trump on nuclear arms control, particularly in space.
  5. Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is caught on tape at a GOP fundraiser where he talks about the GOP strategy to impeach Rod Rosenstein and implores attendees to help make sure Democrats don’t win in November because then the whole impeachment of Rosenstein will go away. The reason the House has to wait to impeach, he says, is that if they impeach now the Senate will have to drop the Kavanaugh hearing to take up the Rosenstein impeachment. He also says that Republicans in the House are the only ones protecting Trump from the Mueller investigation.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Despite not getting the full set of requested records on Brett Kavanaugh, the Senate schedules his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court Justice seat to start on September 4. Even if his full record is disclosed, it will be impossible for Senators or the public to review it by then. But this keeps with McConnell’s plans to get him confirmed before the midterms.
  2. Kavanaugh once argued that it’s OK for the president to ignore laws that they don’t think are constitutional, at least until a court declares otherwise.

International:

  1. Trump signs an executive order to reimpose the sanctions on Iran that were ended when we entered into the JCPA with them. He threatens any countries who try to work around the sanctions.
  2. As the Turkish Finance Minister announces a new plan to help the Turkish economy, Trump tweets that he’ll double the tariffs on steel and aluminum coming from Turkey. And the lira tumbles, reaching a new low against the dollar. President Erdogan asks supporters to save the lira by cashing in their U.S. dollars and euros.
  3. A little background on what’s going on here:
    • We froze assets of certain Turkish officials because Turkey’s detaining an American pastor.
    • Turkey has a plan to buy advanced missile systems from Russia.
    • One of Turkey’s biggest banks is implicated in working to get around American sanctions against Iran.
    • Turkey is mad at us for using a Kurdish group to help fight ISIS.
  1. A Saudi-led airstrike in Yemen hits a school bus, killing dozens of children. Saudi Arabia denies this, saying they targeted and killed the people who executed an attack on civilians.
  2. We learn that senior national security officials urged NATO ambassadors last month to complete their joint communiqué before the NATO summit actually began. They thought this might prevent Trump from upending any agreements. Trump still asked whether an attack on one NATO country was really an attack on us all. I’m sure that wouldn’t even be a question if we were the one attacked.
  3. Tens of thousands of Jewish and Arab demonstrators march in the streets in Israel to protest Netanyahu’s new “Jewish State Law.” Some say the law gives non-Jews second-class status. Others say the move goes against democracy.
  4. Oh, and by the way, Saudi Arabia is now feuding with Canada over Canadian tweets in support of human rights aimed at Saudi Arabia. Seriously. Who fights with Canada? But this one’s getting intense. Ambassadors have been expelled or recalled, and Saudi Arabia stopped flights to Toronto and they’re recalling Saudi students studying in Canada.

Family Separation:

  1. The Trump administration gives the ACLU over 400 phone numbers of parents who haven’t been reunited with their children yet. The ACLU accuses the government of deliberately withholding the numbers to prolong the reunification.
  2. An ICE truck carrying mothers separated from their children at the border crashed into a pickup on July 17. ICE denied the incident for three weeks even though there is an accident report.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Government Accountability Office releases a report showing that Customs and Border Patrol’s plan to build the wall is lacking in information, will run into cost overruns, and will take longer than expected. The current plan fails to take into account things like logistics, terrain, and ownership of border lands. CBP also didn’t think about where barriers would actually be useful.
  2. A furious judge orders the plane carrying a deported mother and child back to their country to turn around and bring them back. They were in the middle of the pair’s deportation hearing. The judge threatens Jeff Sessions with contempt of court if this continues.
  3. Melania Trump’s parents get their U.S. citizenship through family-based migration. Or as Trump calls it, chain migration (and which he wants to eliminate for everyone else).
  4. Melania’s attorney criticizes Trump’s position on family-based migration, calling the attacks unconscionable. This is the same attorney that represented Melania’s parents.
  5. For the second time, a court rules that Trump can’t bar certain transgender people from serving in the military.
  6. Trump tries to get ahead of the white nationalist rally in DC by tweeting out condemnation of all kinds of racism. Again he fails to mention white supremacy or Nazis by name, and he also implies that other kinds of racism are a problem in the U.S.
  7. Steven Miller has come up with yet another way to prevent people from becoming U.S. citizens. He’s working with Trump to change the rules to prevent someone from getting a green card or citizenship if they’ve ever received any kind of assistance, like ACA or CHIP healthcare benefits or SNAP food benefits. This would affect people who have already been here for years and are currently going through the approval process. Now’s probably a good time to remember that J.K. Rowling was once on food stamps.
  8. White nationalists hold a Unite the Right rally in Washington D.C. to mark the one-year anniversary of their march in Charlottesville where counter-protestor Heather Heyer was killed by a self-proclaimed Nazi sympathizer. Charlottesville denied them a permit this year.
  9. Rally organizer Jason Kessler expected 400 people, but it was closer to 40.
  10. In contrast, over a thousand counter-protestors (some peaceful, some not) showed up to stand up against racist hate.
  11. The white supremacist and white nationalist movements have splintered over the past year. Instead of Charlottesville being pivotal in elevating those movements in the U.S. dialog, the rally backfired and has caused many members to be outed, ostracized, and even fired. It also backfired in that it increased the enthusiasm on the other side to fight racism and discrimination.
  12. At the first preseason NFL games, players continue to protest by taking a knee, raising a fist, or staying off the field during the anthem. Also, as it turns out, the courts decided long ago that you can’t force a patriotic act on anyone, ruling that it’s better for them to choose to do it.

Climate/EPA:

  1. In response to Trump blaming California’s fires on the state’s own water policies, Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director of Cal Fire, says: “We have plenty of water to fight these wildfires, but let’s be clear: It’s our changing climate that is leading to more severe and destructive fires.”
  2. The EPA is planning to start allowing the use of asbestos in manufacturing again. Remember the story a few weeks ago about how a Russian asbestos company started putting Trump’s face on their packaging? Well now you know why. There are nearly 40,000 asbestos-related deaths each year.
  3. The Trump administration defends its move to reverse Obama’s fuel efficiency standards by saying fuel efficiency is dangerous for drivers. How you might ask? Because if we get better mileage, we’ll drive more. Which I guess is more dangerous...
  4. Puerto Rico finally admits that the death toll from Hurricane Maria is most likely over 1,400, way higher than the original claim of 64.
  5. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the EPA must act on its own research and finalize the ban on chlorpyrifos within 60 days. The court says the findings are undisputed that the chemical is unsafe.
  6. A court awards $290 million to a groundskeeper who says his cancer came from Monsanto’s Roundup pesticide.
  7. Bayer might be regretting their recent takeover of Monsanto; their stock drops 11% after the above decision, and there are at least 800 other cases pending.
  8. Monsanto denies the harmful effects of Roundup and says they’ll appeal.
  9. The Bureau of Land Management says it’s looking at opening up oil and gas leases on BLM land in California. There’s been a moratorium on drilling in these areas for the past five years. In one county, residents are trying to pass a ballot measure that would ban fracking and exploration in San Luis Obispo County.

  10. A toxic algae bloom, called the red tide, is moving up the west coast of Florida and killing off fish and other sea creatures (like dolphins, manatees, and turtles). This happens every year, but this year is particularly bad. Governor Rick Scott has slashed the budget for fighting pollution and climate change and has reduced statewide oversight of polluters. Polluted discharge from lakes and streams can cause or worsen algae blooms.

Budget/Economy:

  1. When Betsy DeVos’s yacht was vandalized a few weeks ago, we learned that it’s registered in the Cayman Islands to avoid taxes. Here are just a few other current and past officials doing a little offshoring: Elaine Chao, Wilbur Ross, Jay Clayton, Gary Cohn, Rex Tillerson, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Steve Mnuchin, Randy Quarles, Tom Barrack, and of course, Carl Icahn.
  2. And speaking of Wilbur Ross, he’s being accused of siphoning over $120 million from business associates.
  3. Trump posits that the revenue made from his new tariffs will help pay down our $21 trillion debt. In order to do this, tariffs would have to generate at least $800 billion this year, and they’re expected to generate $40 billion.
  4. Missouri voters reject the “right to work” laws that were passed last year. Right to Work laws weaken unions and give workers fewer options to ensure they’re being treated fairly.
  5. Element Electronics, one of the last companies left in the U.S. that assembles general-use TVs, announces they will shut down because of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese parts. Their VP says he hopes the shutdown is temporary.
  6. Trump threatens Canadian officials with tariffs on Canadian cars if they won’t give us the trade deal we want. He also seems to be playing Canada against Mexico by saying that negotiations with Mexico are coming along.
  7. China announces additional tariffs of 25% on $16 billion of American goods.
  8. A cargo ship carrying $20 million worth of soybeans has been drifting around the Pacific Ocean since the trade war started. They got caught right in the middle, having launched the ship before the tariffs were announced, but not arriving in China in time to beat the tariffs. Soybean prices haven’t rebounded since the tariffs went into effect.
  9. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will no longer routinely check up on lenders for violations of the Military Lending Act. This act protects military service members from being taking advantage of by lenders in numerous ways, including predatory lending and price gouging.
  10. Trump cuts staff for the Office of Financial Research, a group created after the Great Recession for the purpose of identifying future financial risks.

Elections:

  1. Trump endorses Kris Kobach in the Republican primary for governor of Kansas. The race is so close, they have to do a recount, which is normally overseen by the Secretary of State. Who actually IS Kobach. He only recuses himself from the recount once public pressure builds.
  2. Kobach’s opponent and current governor of Kansas accuses Kobach of telling counties not to count ballots that were in the mail, which must be counted under Kansas law.
  3. A group of attorneys and politicians is suing Massachusetts, Texas, South Carolina, and California over their electoral college votes. The group says that the winner-take-all system (which most states have) disenfranchises millions of voters.
  4. Michael Avenatti says he might run for president. You didn’t think he was doing all this publicity out of the goodness of his heart, did you?
  5. Massachusetts passes an automatic voter registration bill. Six states have done the same this legislative season, making a total of thirteen states plus Washington DC that have automatic voter registration.
  6. Representative Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) is arrested on insider trading charges, and is forced to suspend his re-election campaign for Congress. I have lost count of all the scandals in the past two years at this point.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Federal prosecutors are investigating Trump’s one-time attorney, Michael Cohen, for tax and bank fraud, largely having to do with his taxi medallion business.
  2. Tribune Media ends merger talks with Sinclair Broadcasting and is suing them over the failure of the merger. Tribune accuses Sinclair of not holding up their contractual responsibilities to move the merger through FCC approval.
  3. After Alex Jones is banned from numerous social media sites, his supporters launch a harassment campaign against verified Twitter users, including several journalists.
  4. NASA launches the Parker Solar Probe, which will get closer to the sun than any manmade object ever has before. The purposes are to study how energy and heat move through the sun’s corona and to look at the movement of solar wind and energetic solar particles.
  5. Mike Pence officially announces the formation of a sixth branch of the military, the Space Force, by 2020. First the Pentagon will create a Space Command, with the ultimate goal of developing space technologies for military purposes.
    • Pence says we must have American dominance in space!
    • Last year, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis opposed the creation of a new branch of the military, but now he seems to be all in.
    • Critics say that space development is a peaceful collaboration between countries, and that there’s no reason to militarize it.
    • The Russian Embassy makes fun of the announcement with a tweet: “Good Morning, Space Forces!” with a picture of a rocket with a Russian flag. Not so funny, though, is that Russia also threatens to cut off the supply of rocket engines that we need for our existing space program.
  1. A Kentucky district judge who worked on Trump’s campaign is sentenced to 20 years for human trafficking involving minors.
  2. Omarosa Manigault-Newman releases a tell-all book about the Trump administration. She calls him a racist who uses the n-word and she says she has the tapes to prove it. Trump, in turn, calls her a lowlife.
  3. It turns out she does have some tapes, though their legality is questionable. But she releases one of Chief of Staff John Kelly firing her.
  4. An airport worker at Seattle’s Sea-Tac airport hijacks a passenger plane with no passengers, and then flies around for a bit doing some crazy stunts before crashing it into a sparsely populated island.
  5. Someone who worked at the New York Observer when Jared Kushner was in charge there says that Kushner used to have him remove articles that were critical of Kushner or his friends.
  6. We learn that three Mar-a-Lago members with no official government roles speak daily with Veterans Affairs officials and exert influence over policy and decisions.
  7. Media companies begin employing security for their journalists at Trump rallies.

Polls:

  1. Donald Trump Jr. shares an image of a poll that was faked to make Trump Sr.’s approval rating look 10 points higher than it actually is. Junior says it’s amazing what his dad can do. The original image shows Trump’s 40% approval compared to Obama’s 45% at the same time in his term. The doctored image inflates Trump’s rating to 50%.