In honor of the Green New Deal, let’s talk climate change. 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record, behind 2015, 2016, and 2017. This could lead some to think things are cooling down again; but if you look at the graph above, you’ll see many spikes followed by a few cooler years. But the trend is still up. Here’s some food for thought:

• There were 14 weather and climate disasters in the U.S. in 2018 that cost $1 billion or more each.
• Climate change and natural disasters cost the U.S. over $91 billion and 247 human lives in 2018.
• 73% of Americans believe that climate change is real. That’s up 10 points from just three years ago.
• The Trump administration concludes in the National Climate Assessment that global warming is “transforming where and how we live and presents growing challenges to human health and quality of life, the economy, and the natural systems that support us.”
• So climate change is no longer something we have to look forward to. It’s here now.
• Global emissions are at their highest level.

Will the Green New Deal fix any of this? Time will tell.

Here’s what happened in politics last week…

Missed from Last Week:

1. Correction: For several weeks I’ve been referring to Trump’s nominee for Attorney General as Andrew Barr. It’s actually William Barr.

State of the Union:

1. Trump gives his “unifying” State of the Union address, but beforehand he lunches with a group of television anchors where he blasts a host of Democratic politicians.
2. I won’t get into the whole address, but a few highlights are below. Here’s the full text, with the New York Times annotations.

• • He starts with a unifying message, but moves into some partisan issues like the Mueller investigation, the border wall, and late-term abortion.
  • He starts out fairly truthful, but the false statements increase as he goes on. I find this odd, because there’s no reason to fudge his economic numbers right now.
  • His two main points are the strong economy and the border crisis that he says necessitates the wall.
  • He says the economy will crash if the Russia investigations continue or if Congress blocks the withdrawal of troops from Syria.
  • He says there can’t be any legislation as long as there are also investigations.
  • He says he’ll end the HIV epidemic in the U.S. by 2030 and will include paid family leave in his budget.
  • He notes the increase in women in the workforce and in Congress, which elicits a huge response from the Congressional women, many of whom dressed in suffragette white.

3. Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic candidate for Governor in Georgia, delivers the Democratic response. Her focus is voter rights.

Border Wall/Shutdown:

1. The Trump administration continues to issue new waivers on environmental impact reviews to replace and add fencing at the border.
2. The National Butterfly Center files an emergency restraining order against constructing the wall across their reserve.
3. Mick Mulvaney blames Democrats for refusing to fund the wall… which Republicans have also refused to do for two years.
4. Negotiations over border security are close to agreement, with funding for new technology, more border patrol agents, and fencing in certain border areas. Border security would be funded at around $2 billion, which Trump says he’ll accept. There’s no mention of a wall.
5. And then what happened?? Budget negotiations to avoid another government shutdown are stalled. Again. We have until Friday to come to an agreement.
6. And now they’re on track again.

Russia:

1. Congress delays Michael Cohen’s testimony until February 28 “in the interest of the investigation.”
2. Federal prosecutors in New York subpoena documents from Trump’s inaugural committee. They’re looking for info about donors (including foreign donors), vendors, contractors, payments, and bank accounts.

• • The subpoena includes documents related to fundraising activities. Rick Gates, who’s already pled guilty in a case related to Paul Manafort, headed up Trump’s fundraising operation.

3. Federal prosecutors in New York request interviews with senior members of the Trump Organization.
4. Adam Schiff, the new Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, announces new hearings into whether Russia or any other foreign government has leverage over the current administration, potential obstruction into investigations, and whether the administration has tried to influence U.S. policy in favor of foreign interests.
5. The House Intelligence Committee sends Mueller transcripts of previous committee interviews in the Russia investigation. They had been unable to comply with Mueller’s request until Republicans finally seated all their members on the committee.

Legal Fallout:

1. The South Dakota U.S. Attorney indicts Paul Erickson on charges of wire fraud and money laundering. Erickson was dating Maria Butina and helped her get access to the NRA and to political operatives in the GOP. These charges are unrelated to Butina’s espionage charges—it seems he was just bilking everyday people out of their money.
2. The House Ways and Means Committee holds their first hearing on requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns. The committee plans to request Trump’s tax returns under an IRS provision that allows it.
3. A federal judge orders the DOJ to release redacted versions of the search warrant for Michael Cohen’s home and office.
4. This story oh-so-weirdly fits in this section. Jeff Bezos accuses American Media, Inc. (parent company of the National Enquirer) of trying to extort and blackmail him.

• • AMI releases texts that show Bezos was cheating on his wife.
  • So Bezos starts his own investigation into how AMI got his texts. He suggests it was politically motivated, but is also looking at his mistress’s brother as the culprit.
  • Bezos says AMI threatened to release nude photos and racy texts between him and his mistress if he didn’t drop his investigation.

5. Some background:

• • Bezo’s Washington Post not only employed Jamal Khashoggi but has been relentless in reporting on the incident. AMI has been talking with Saudi Arabian financiers to help shore up their business.
  • AMI entered into a plea agreement with federal prosecutors last year in which they agreed to commit “no crimes whatsoever” for three years.
  • So now federal prosecutors are once again investigating AMI, this time to determine whether they violated the cooperation agreement by committing a crime.

6. Federal prosecutors are investigating three major lobbying firms to determine if they should’ve been registered as foreign agents for their work with Paul Manafort for the former president of Ukraine.

• • This is major because of the high-profile players involved, both Democrat and Republican.
  • It has lobbyists anxious because the investigation underscores the crackdown on lobbyists who have lucrative deals with foreign entities.

Courts/Justice:

1. The number of federal appeals court judges nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Senate is more than any other president at this point in their term, with 30 so far.
2. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker testifies to the House Judiciary Committee. He says he hasn’t spoken to Trump about Mueller’s investigation. Not surprisingly, it was another nutty hearing with lots of grandstanding.

• • While he’s being questioned by the committee Chair (Jerry Nadler), Whitaker tells the Nadler that his five minutes are up.
  • Whitaker didn’t want to testify without a guarantee that he wouldn’t be subpoenaed. He testified anyway.

3. Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes her first public appearance after her recovery from surgery.
4. Missouri’s Supreme Court orders new limits on how long a suspect can be held without a hearing and the amount of cash bail they can be charged. The effects of the cash bail system are onerous and lasting, especially for low-income people.
5. William Barr makes it through the Senate Judiciary Committee so now the full Senate can vote on his nomination to Attorney General.

Healthcare:

1. The Supreme Court temporarily blocks a new Louisiana law that placed tight restrictions on clinics that perform abortions. If left in place, the restrictions will close most abortion clinics in Louisiana.
2. Though Trump pledges to stop the HIV epidemic in the U.S. within ten years, already in his term he’s cut almost $1 billion in global funding to fight HIV/AIDS, he’s rolled back patient protections for people with [the pre-existing condition of] HIV, and has cut health benefits for the LGBTQ community that were put in place under Obama.
3. Ironically, just this week the Department of Heath and Human Services announces new proposals that would allow medical practitioners to withhold treatment based on closely held religious or moral beliefs, which is likely to affect the LGBTQ community.
4. Utah’s State Senate passes a bill to override the vote of their residents and replace the Medicaid expansion plan that voters approved last November. According to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, the voters’ plan would add coverage for about 150,000 low-income residents; the Senate plan would add coverage for about 100,000 and would cost $50 million more in just the first two years. Idaho’s GOP legislature is trying something similar. Maine’s Governor did the same a year ago.
5. The Massachusetts lawsuit against Purdue Pharma alleges that the company devised a strategy to become the end-to-end provider of pain relief. The plan, called Project Tango, was that they’d sell both addictive opioids AND the drugs to treat the addiction.
6. The board members of Purdue Pharma, mostly members of the Sackler family, netted over $4 billion in profits in the process.

International:

1. Gen. Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command (in the MidEast), testifies that Trump didn’t consult with him before making the decision to pull troops out of Syria and Afghanistan.
2. A new report from the Pentagon’s Inspector General asserts that ISIS will likely take back lost territory if the US withdraws from Syria. ISIS will also use our withdrawal as part of a PR campaign declaring victory against us.
3. Trump says that officials will soon announce that we have taken back 100% of the ISIS-claimed lands in Syria and Iraq. ISIS still holds territory in Afghanistan, Libya, Africa, and the Sinai.

• • His plan is to remove all U.S. troops from Syria by the end of April, and to move a couple hundred troops from Syria to Iraq to keep an eye on Iran.

4. The Trump administration refuses to release a report to Congress on whether Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince was responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
5. Rep. Michael McCaul (TX), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, releases a statement criticizing the administration’s handling of Saudi Arabia and the Khashoggi murder. He says they failed to meet the requirements of the Magnitsky Act and calls on them to comply.

Legislation/Congress:

1. The House holds its first gun violence hearing in eight years. What’s happened in those eight years? The Seal Beach salon shooting, Aurora theater shooting, the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, the Empire State Building shooting, the Sandy Hook shooting, the Washington Navy Yard shooting, the Charleston church shooting, the Waco motorcycle shootout, the Harris County shooting, the Roseburg shooting, the San Bernardino terror attacks, the Pulse nightclub shooting, the Dallas police shooting, the Mississippi shooting, the Plano football shooting, the Las Vegas shooting, the Sutherland Springs church shooting, the Parkland school shooting, the Santa Fe school shooting, the Pittsburg synagogue shooting, and the Thousand Oaks country bar shooting.

• • These are just the ones where eight or more people died (and I think I missed a few).
  • There’ve been 31 mass shootings so far this year (defined as 4 or more people shot in one incident).
  • There were 323 mass shootings in 2018.

2. During the gun violence hearing, Freedom Caucus member Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tries to switch the conversation to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. Two fathers of murdered Parkland children protest. So Gaetz tries to have them thrown out of the hearing.

• • For the record, mass shootings by undocumented immigrants are extremely rare. In fact, I haven’t been able to find one conviction yet, but I’m still looking.

3. The House Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change holds the first hearing on climate change in over five years. During those five years, the military has called climate change one of our greatest national security threats.

Family Separation:

1. A senior Health and Human Services official tells the House Energy and Commerce Committee that he warned three Trump appointees about the health risks of their plan to separate migrant families at the border. He first learned of the plan in February of 2017.

• • Now the administration says that taking children away from their sponsors to reunite them with their families would be too traumatic. You know what’s really traumatic? Being taken away from your family in the first place!
  • The HHS Deputy Director of Refugee Resettlement says this about why kids shouldn’t be removed from their sponsors:
    “Disrupting the family relationship is not a recommended child welfare practice.”
    I don’t even know how to dissemble that. These people are monsters.
  • The administration says it would be impossible to find all the separated children because it would be too hard and cost too much.

2. Currently, there are thousands of children separated from their families (we’ll never know exactly how many because they kept no records), and these children might not ever be returned. Can you imagine that? How far would you go to get your child back?

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. The governor of New Mexico, Lujan Grisham, orders a withdrawal of most of the National Guard troops deployed at New Mexico’s southern border. She says they’re only here on a “charade of border fear-mongering” by Trump.
2. Our troops at the border have been stringing concertina wire just along the top of existing fencing, but now they’re also putting it along the entire height in some areas.

• • Nogales, Arizona adopts a resolution that condemns using concertina wire as a deterrent at the border. They say it’s an indiscriminate use of lethal force, and demand that it be removed.
  • The mayor of Nogales sits down with CBP officers to discuss why he wasn’t notified this was going to happen. CBP says there are rapists, murderers, drug dealers, and lots of fence jumpers. This was news to the police chief.

3. Even though CBP is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the world, they are only able to process about 10 asylum seekers a day at each port of entry. With 5,100 waiting in Tijuana alone, people could be stuck there until summer.

• • Mexican border cities like Tijuana don’t have the resources to handle the influx, which is creating dangerous conditions. American relief agencies are down there helping out, so no matter how you look at it, Americans are paying for this.
  • In Tijuana, they moved the migrant camps so far from the border that they can’t walk there—it’s a 30-minute drive.
  • Several lawsuits are pending against CBP because they’re illegally turning away asylum seekers at ports of entry.

4. There are seven lawsuits against the administration for their attempts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. In one case, a federal judge blocked the question and that case is awaiting Supreme Court consideration. In another case, a district judge declined to block the question.
5. Tennessee legislators introduce the Natural Marriage Defense Act again. It’s failed twice before, and would cost the state around $9 billion. The act would void the Supreme Court decision to allow gay couples to marry.
6. Tampa has a ban on gay conversion therapy for minors, but a judge rules that it violates the first amendment rights of therapists.
7. A federal judge says the Trump administration is discriminating against Puerto Ricans and violating their equal protection rights.

Climate/EPA:

1. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ed Markey (D-MA) announce the outline for their Green New Deal. It’s vague on details but calls for a 10-year national shift away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy, upgrading buildings to be more energy efficient, working with farmers to reduce methane gases, and overhauling our transportation systems (including more high-speed trains and fewer planes).
2. Trump nominates David Bernhardt to succeed Ryan Zinke as Secretary of the Interior. Bernhardt is currently the deputy chief, and is a former oil lobbyist.
3. The EPA appoints several new Science Advisory Board members. One is a climate change denier, one denies the dangers of formaldehyde, one criticizes efforts to minimize radiation leaks at nuclear facilities, and one is skeptical about the dangers of lead to children.
4. 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record.
5. A new assessment says that at least a third of the Himalayan ice cap will melt by 2100 if we curb emissions now. If we don’t, two-thirds will melt.
6. Scientists discover a growing cavity about 2/3 the size of Manhattan in a West Antarctic glacier. Most of that ice has melted in the past three years.
7. Michigan’s governor becomes the 20th to join the U.S. Climate Alliance (New Mexico and Illinois also recently joined).

Budget/Economy:

1. Trump nominates David Malpass to lead the World Bank’s board. Malpass is an outspoken critic of the agency who says it creates “mountains of debt without solving problems.”
2. The GOP promised higher paychecks as a result of their 2017 tax reform bill, so the Trump administration pressured the IRS to change withholding rules so that less was taken out of paychecks rather than more. This was especially important to them in the run-up to the midterm elections. Now, people are surprised to find out they owe more at the end of the year than expected or that they’re getting a smaller refund. Because of all the obfuscation, I can’t tell yet whether taxes went up or down for most people.
3. The 30-year-old founder and CEO of Quadriga dies, taking his password with him. Around $137 million in cryptocurrencies are frozen and can’t be accessed. The founder’s poor widow has been searching for the password to repay the 115,000 affected people.
4. Trump tells upstate New York residents who are unhappy with the local economy to move somewhere else.

• • New York officials say tax collections are down about 50%, and that the GOP tax plan hit New York hard because of the limits on SALT deductions.
  • Trump says those limits shouldn’t hurt upstate New York because it only affects the wealthy. Reporters have to clarify for him the effects of limiting SALT deductions.

5. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposes weakening the rules that protect consumers from payday lenders. Just a reminder, the APR on these loans can end up being more than 1,000%.

Elections:

1. The Clark County Commission appoints two women to vacant state Assembly seats, making Nevada the first state to have a majority-female legislature.
2. A federal judiciary panel denies Ohio their request to delay a gerrymandering lawsuit that could force them to redraw their districts by 2020.

Miscellaneous:

1. Only 54% of Trump’s civilian executive branch nominees have been confirmed. On top of that, these are all only acting positions: Chief of Staff, Attorney General, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Interior, Office and Management and Budget director, and EPA Administrator. The administration has yet to fill more than half of the positions in the Departments of Labor, Justice, and Interior.
2. Ugh. What’s going on in Virginia? We have racist photos of the Governor, two accusations of sexual assault against the Lt. Governor, and the Attorney General said he dressed up as his favorite rap artist in the 80s and darkened his skin. And then it turns out the Majority Leader in the State Senate was the editor of a yearbook that contained a bunch of racist material. No one’s stepped down yet. Calls for Governor Northam’s resignation seem to be waning, calls for Lt. Governor Fairfax to resign are still strong, but I haven’t heard calls for Attorney General Herring’s resignation.
3. The Trump administration issues new rules on exporting weapons outside the U.S., making it easier to sell semi-automatic weapons, flamethrowers, and grenades, among others. These changes were originally considered under Obama, but were shelved after the Sandy Hook shootings.
4. A federal court rules against Ajit Pai and the FCC in their attempt to gut the Lifeline program, which brings high-speed internet to rural areas.
5. Where does Trump find these guys? Trump’s doctor performs a physical and writes a letter that concludes with “I am happy to announce the President of the United States is in very good health and I anticipate he will remain so for the duration of his presidency, and beyond.” This leads doctors across the country to wonder where they can get training in this kind of predictive medicine.

• • Last year his [different] doctor said he has incredible genes.

6. In the midst of a polar vortex last week, the heat and electricity goes out at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. It doesn’t get turned back on until crowds protest outside the center in the freezing cold for days.
7. And what’s wrong with sports fans? Police arrest over 30 people for sex trafficking during the Super Bowl in Atlanta. They also rescue four victims.
8. We receive another leak of Trump’s schedule. Mick Mulvaney is working hard to root out the leaker(s).
9. So far, Trump has appointed eight people to senior administration positions who are or were members at Mar-a-Lago.

Polls:

1. 34% of Americans think it’s OK to wear blackface as part of a costume.