Quote of the week:

“I love my previous life. I had so many things going. I, actually, this is more work than in my previous life,” Trump said. “I thought it would be easier. I thought it was more of a — I’m a details-oriented person I think you would say that. But I do miss my old life. I like to work so that’s not a problem but this is actually more work.”

Anybody who thinks presidenting is easy — in fact anyone who doesn’t think it’s just about the hardest job in the world — has never really paid attention to our government.

Russia:

1. The Senate Intelligence Committee adds more staffers to help investigate Russia ties after they are criticized for the slow pace of their investigation.
2. The slow pace also generates a bigger push for an independent investigation (73% of Americans want one).
3. Rep. Jason Chaffetz says that it appears Michael Flynn broke the law in accepting foreign money for appearances and lobbying because as a retired Lieutenant General he is required to obtain permission.
4. Sean Spicer shifts blame to the Obama administration for having given Flynn security clearance, though Obama had also fired Flynn. Meanwhile, the White House refuses to turn over the documents requested by the oversight committee, something Spicer denies.
5. The Defense Department inspector general also launches an investigation into Michael Flynn.

 

Courts/Justice:

1. Arkansas forges ahead with their executions, killing three more inmates this week.
2. Trump says he’ll get rid of the requirement that employers provide birth-control coverage to their employees, but the DoJ indicates that they intend to continue fighting for that coverage.
3. The Senate confirms Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General, and he’ll be taking over handling of the Russia probe.
4. We learn that the DoJ, in a 180-degree turn, has withdrawn a primary claim against a Texas voter ID law. The DoJ until now has maintained that the law was written with discriminatory intent, a reversal that indicates the DoJ’s new position toward protecting minority interests. Or toward not protecting those interests.
5. In response to a California judge ruling against Trump’s financial threats against sanctuary cities, Trump says he’s considering breaking apart the ninth circuit court of appeals, apparently unaware of presidential limits.
6. In the ongoing conflict between North Carolina’s Republican legislature and its new Democratic governor, the legislature is trying to pass bills that would strip Governor Cooper of his ability to fill seats on the state court of appeals. In response, conservative Republican Judge J. Douglas McCullough steps down a month before his required retirement date to allow the governor to appoint someone to fill his seat. He is so opposed to the Republican antics that he is willing to have a Democrat replace him on the bench.

Healthcare:

1. The GOP works again to revise their healthcare bill so they can bring it to a vote, this time catering to the interests of the Freedom Caucus.
2. Changes to the bill give states more flexibility, letting them apply for waivers to some provisions. This includes rules around pre-existing conditions, patient age, prescription drug coverage, and mental health coverage.
3. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, government costs would actually increase by $2.3 billion if they stop paying the ACA subsidies (as has been threatened in order to make the system fail).
4. 79% of Americans say Trump should try to make the ACA work instead of trying to make it fail quickly. 50% of Americans don’t have faith in the replacement plan for the ACA.
5. The UN sends a letter to the Trump administration warning that repealing the ACA without a robust replacement that ensures coverage is available to all could violate our obligations to international law.
6. The House fails again to pull together enough votes to repeal and replace the ACA. The latest iteration got the Freedom Caucus on board, but lost moderate Republicans.
7. Rep. Warren Davidson tells a woman at a town hall that her son isn’t skilled enough to have insurance coverage. When later asked about it, he reiterated that healthcare coverage is something we have to earn.

International:

1. French President Hollande throws his support behind Emmanuel Macron in next month’s elections, calling on voters to reject far-right candidate Marine Le Pen.
2. All the Senators are bused up to the White House for a briefing on North Korea by Rex Tillerson, Jim Mattis, Dan Coats, and General Joseph Dunford.
3. Trump says that there could be a “major, major” conflict with North Korea. While most Senators and news media agree the situation is bad, Fox News says tensions are at a “fever pitch.”
4. North Korea launches yet another ballistic missile test. Like the last one, this missile also fails.
5. Secretary Mattis travels to Afghanistan to figure out how to handle the issue of Russia supplying the Taliban with weapons.
6. In retaliation for Syria’s chemical attack, the U.S. imposes new sanctions against them.
7. A Russian spy ship collides with a freighter and sinks in the Black Sea.
8. The Trumps host Mauricio Macri, the president of Argentina, and his wife at the White House.
9. Trump invites Philippine strongman (and human rights violator) Rodrigo Duterte for a White House visit.
10. In continuing his moves to stifle dissent and free speech, Turkish President Erdogan fires around 4,000 government workers, and bans access to Wikipedia and certain TV shows countrywide. Remember Erdogan is the guy Trump called to congratulate on his win in consolidating power.
    
11. The State Department wants to vet any remarks made by Nikki Haley before she speaks.

Legislation:

1. In yet another move to pretend Obama’s presidency never happened, Trump signs an executive order to review our national monuments (federally protected and owned land). In fairness, this affects all monuments, not just those designated by Obama; however Trump has specifically pointed out those that were designated by Obama as inhibiting development. He can either abolish the designations or make the monuments smaller.
2. The next day he tweets “As families prepare for summer vacations in our National Parks – Democrats threaten to close them and shut down the government. Terrible!” A little disconnect?
3. In response to the executive order, clothing maker Patagonia threatens legal action.
4. The FCC proposes rules to weaken net neutrality. More than 800 leaders of U.S. start-ups signed a letter to Ajit Pai, FCC chairman, asking that these rules not be changed. In brief, net neutrality forces ISPs to treat all packets of information equally. For example, they can’t charge Hulu more for data than Netflix or YouTube, and they can’t slow down one person’s data so another’s can flow faster.
5. Trump signs an executive order around agriculture, which instructs Sonny Perdue (Secretary of Agriculture) to review regulations and identify unnecessary rules that can be eliminated. It creates a new task force to make recommendations on existing food and agriculture policies that could hinder profit-making of agribusiness.
6. Trump signs an executive order to encourage offshore drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, making federal waters available for oil and gas leasing. Many cities and states have their own laws around this, so parts of the Atlantic may still be off limits.
7. Despite his criticism of executive orders, especially of Obama’s use of executive orders, Trump ends the week with 32 executive orders under his belt, the most of any president in their first 100 days since WWII.
8. Trump ends his first 100 days having signed 29 pieces of legislation from Congress, 11 of which do nothing more than repeal Obama-era rules and regulations.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-semitic incidents are up 86% the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year. Only around a third of those were the hoax bomb threats against Jewish community centers.
   
2. The Trump administration awards GEO, a company that donated almost half a million dollars to his campaign, the contract for a private immigration detention center.
3. A federal judge blocks the Trump administration’s attempts to cut funding to sanctuary cities. Trump accuses his opponents of “judge shopping.” Once again, the administration’s words come back to haunt them. They previously said they would wield funding like a weapon and bring sanctuary cities to their knees, among other threats. The judge took their statements into account in his ruling.
4. Mexico expresses concern that the border wall could violate a 47-year-old treaty between the U.S. and Mexico, and also that a wall could worsen flooding in some areas. The decision could be left up to international courts if Mexico protests the wall based on the treaty.
5. Trump and Republican leaders butt heads over LGBTQ protections versus religious rights. Trump wants protection policies to remain; Republicans favor restricting those policies based on religious liberty. Trump has in the past professed support for protecting the LGBTQ community.
6. Homeland Security creates a new agency, Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement or Voice, or VOICE, to assist families of victims of crimes by undocumented immigrants, even though undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than citizens. Some of their work appears to duplicate work already being done by states and localities, such as VINE, or Victim Information and Notification Everyday.
7. Of the undocumented immigrants targeted for deportation in the days after Trump took office, around half had either no criminal offenses or minor traffic offenses. The number of immigrants picked up represents about a 32% increase over the previous year.

Climate:

1. Energy Secretary Rick Perry endorses renegotiating parts of the Paris agreement instead of simply withdrawing from it.
2. Protestors against Trump’s climate policies march in cities across the country on Trump’s 100^th day in support of science-based policies that support our health and the health of the planet.
3. The night before the climate marches, the EPA removes its scientific climate change website from public view. The site is archived, and they say they’re updating it to match the new direction of the agency. This causes great concern in the scientific community, but we’ll see whether the info gets put back up.
4. Because of climate change, coffee production has been in a deficit for the past 4 years. Meanwhile consumption is reaching an all-time high. But not to worry; scientists are on it, working on plants that can withstand disease and grow with less water.
5. Ice roads in Canada are freezing later and melting earlier than before, reducing the window in which isolated residents can travel and goods can be trucked. The roads take longer to freeze and the ice isn’t as thick, making it more dangerous for travel.

Budget/Economy/Trade:

1. Trump issues a tax plan, which is more like a wishlist than an actual plan. In short, the plan:
   • Cuts corporate taxes for businesses of all sizes, from the biggest to mom-and-pop stores.
   • Cuts the top tax rate by 4.6 points.
   • Eliminates the ACA tax of 3.8% on top earners, bringing their total tax cut to 8.4 points.
   • Eliminates the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax (AMT).
   • Increases the standard deduction to help middle class earners (this might require eliminating other deductions).
   • Doesn’t include tax revenue to support the infrastructure plan.
   • Rejects the border tariff proposed by House Republicans.
   • Creates a loophole where people could create pass-through corporations and lower their effective tax rate to 15%.
   • Eliminates the state and local tax deductions from federal income tax.
2. Analysts say the economy would have to grow by 5% to make up for the budget shortfall.
3. The Tax Policy Center estimates the cuts will reduce federal revenue by $6.2 trillion over 10 years.
4. Mnuchin says he can’t guarantee that the middle class won’t pay more under the new tax bill but he says there should be no absolute tax breaks for the wealthy. Even though their tax bracket is dropping at least four points. I’m trying to work out the math here…
5. Analysts say that the economic policies in the tax plan don’t support policies in Trump’s trade and immigration plans. They say he needs an overall economic vision that brings all the different pieces together, a vision that is currently lacking.
6. Trump orders a 20% tariff on softwood lumber coming in from Canada, which is predicted to increase the cost of new homes. He argues that the lumber is unfairly subsidized which hurts lumber companies in the U.S., but this seems to be in response to an import tax Canada on U.S. dairy products processed in a certain way (the processing style was used as a way to get around NAFTA trade rules).
7. Democrats say they’ll stall the spending bill and risk a government shutdown if the healthcare vote happens this week.
8. On Wednesday, Congress leans toward signing a one-week extension to the budget to keep the government going.
9. Trump throws in a wrench by making demands to begin funding the border wall and to begin defunding the ACA (specifically the payments that help low-income people).
10. Trump backs away from his demands around the border wall and the ACA this go around.
11. Or wait, does he really?
12. Yes. Yes, he does.
13. Ryan says the spending bill will not include ACA payments that help lower-income people afford care.
14. Or wait, will it?
15. Yes. Yes, it will include those payments.
16. The House and Senate pass a short-term budget bill to prevent a shutdown. The vote didn’t hinge on any healthcare changes nor on any funding for the wall.
17. Also in the bill, the NIH will get a $2 billion dollar increase, a rejection of Trump’s cuts to the agency in his proposed budget.
18. The White House submits a draft proposal to withdraw from NAFTA. Republicans and Democrats in Congress both say hold up, wait a minute here.
19. Trump threatens to terminate NAFTA, causing shakeups in the markets, Congress, Canada, and Mexico.
20. After both Mexican and Canadian leaders phone Trump, he agrees not to terminate NAFTA. It seems that what actually convinced him, though, was Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, showing him map of the farmers who would be negatively affected by scrapping NAFTA and telling him that these are Trump voters.
21. The latest numbers show that the U.S. had sluggish economic growth last quarter at just .7%, the weakest in three years. Consumer spending was down as well. This might not have much to do with Trump, though, as we’re still on Obama’s budget.

Miscellaneous:

1. To add to Fox’s public image issues, a new class-action lawsuit against the media conglomerate alleges racial discrimination.
2. The Senate denies Breitbart’s request for permanent press pass credentials saying they need answers to more questions.
3. It’s another bad week for Alex Jones of InfoWars, who is in the middle of a custody suit. Chobani sues him for defamation after Jones linked the founder of the company to a sexual assault case and accused him of importing refugee rapists. And then Jones lost his custody suit.
4. The State Department removes a page on its website featuring Mar-a-Lago after criticism that it used government resources to basically advertise the resort.
5. The Senate confirms Alexander Acosta as Secretary of Labor.
6. Trump thought once he won, the press would be kinder to him.
7. Trump speaks at the annual NRA meeting in Atlanta, the first sitting president since Ronald Reagan in 1983 to do so.
8. Ivanka travels to Germany for a panel discussion on women’s economic empowerment, on Angela Merkel’s invite. The first day doesn’t go well as she’s forced to defend her father to a skeptical audience.
9. Ann Coulter is speaking at UC Berkeley. Then she’s not (UCB postponed for security concerns). Then she is (forget security, I’ll just speak in a public square). Then she’s not (she lost the support of the groups who asked her to speak). The primary catalyst here is the security concern with far right and far left extremist groups, but the issue quickly escalates into accusations of free speech infringement.
10. Paul Ryan is less popular than Donald Trump with just a 22% approval rating.
11. A new poll shows that most Trump voters do believe that Obama was spying on the Trump campaign.
12. And finally of note this week is this Politico story about press office lies. It seems the press were warned from the start that the White House would feed them lies just to mess with them. Staffers lie more for sport than for furthering any agenda; it’s all a game. Information is plentiful when you’re doing a story on palace intrigue, but not so much when it comes to actual policy. What they say off the record is far more accurate than what they say on the record, especially when it comes to TV appearances. For example, Spicer has lied or mislead 51 times in his briefings.