I’m posting some long overdue recaps. Sorry for the delay. This was the month I became overwhelmed by the number of political happenings, and I lost the threads of the stories.

Trump is in a bit of a bind this week, with wanting to call the Democratic members of the House “do-nothing Democrats” and at the same time wanting to brag about all the things he’s accomplishing. He can’t accomplish a lot without working with House Democrats. But his coup de grace this week is this tweet: “IN REALITY THEY’RE NOT AFTER ME. THEY’RE AFTER YOU. I’M JUST IN THE WAY.” This goes beyond partisan politics and is incredibly divisive, even dangerous. I was reading a thread the other day about how Obama was the most divisive president. I welcome any comments pointing out what he ever said that comes close to the things like this that Trump says. The only thing anyone seems to come up with is his comment about clinging to guns and religion. One comment. Trump does this every single day.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending December 22…

Missing From Last Week:

1. Earlier this month, dozens of graves in a Jewish cemetery were vandalized with swastikas and antisemitic graffiti in France. There was a rash of antisemitic activity 2019 in both the U.S. and Europe, to the point where Jewish people go to lengths to conceal themselves.

Shootings This Week:

1. There were EIGHT mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 7 people and injure 44 more.

• • In Great Falls, MT, a shooter kills 3 people and injures 1 other. Police kill the shooter.
  • In San Antonio, TX, a shooter in a mall injures 4 people.
  • In Tuskegee, AL, a shooter kills 2 people and injures 2 more.
  • In Waynesboro, MS, a drive-by shooter kills 1 teenage boy and injures 6 other people.
  • In Edgard, LA, a shooter injures 4 people at an after-hours party at an elementary school. Weird.
  • In Chicago, IL, a shooter injures 13 people at a memorial celebration in a private home.
  • In Minneapolis, MN, a shooter kills 1 person and injures 7 others in an altercation that broke out in a parking lot.
  • In Baltimore, MD, multiple shooters injure 7 people in what appears to be a drive-by shooting.

2. Congressional leaders reach a bipartisan deal to fund research into gun violence for the first time in more than two decades. It has yet to pass both chambers.

Russia:

1. The State Department sends a letter to a Senate leader stating the administration’s opposition to Lindsey Graham’s bill that would impose new sanctions against Russia. The sanctions would punish Russia for targeting Ukraine, interfering in our 2016 elections, their attacks on its own dissidents, and their activities in Syria.
2. Former White House and government officials say they’re perplexed by Trump’s focus on Ukraine instead of Russia as the party that interfered in our 2016 elections. At one point, Trump told White House officials that he believes Ukraine is the guilty party because “Putin told me.” So if you were wondering whether Putin influences Trump’s thoughts, wonder no more.

• • After Trump met with Putin in July 2017 in Hamburg (at the G20 summit), he became more insistent that it was Ukraine and not Russia. Now we know why.

3. Here’s the genesis of the Ukraine theories:

• • In the summer of 2016, Paul Manafort suggested to Trump campaign aides that Ukraine was behind the DNC hack. (Multiple investigations by multiple agencies found the culprit was Russia.)
  • In early 2017, Putin claimed that Ukrainians helped Clinton in 2016, specifically Ukraine oligarchs. (One oligarch did donate millions to the Clinton Foundation, but he also donated to the Trump Foundation. There’s no evidence they helped her campaign.)
  • State-run media, Russia Today, pushed the theory that a DNC operative was in Ukraine working for the Clinton campaign to dig up dirt. (She was a DNC consultant working on her own to follow up on a lead she came across while working for another client.)
  • In April 2017, Trump alleged that CrowdStrike is based in Ukraine and is hiding a DNC server from the FBI. (CrowdStrike is the computer security company that investigated the hacking of the DNC computer, the owner isn’t from Ukraine, and there is no physical server.)
  • And that’s how you get a conspiracy theory, folks.

4. U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is investigating the Russia investigation for Attorney General Bill Barr, requests emails, call logs, and other evidence regarding John Brennan’s role in the investigation.
5. Rick Gates receives a sentence of 45 days in jail, to be served on weekends. He must also pay a $20,000 fine for conspiracy against the U.S. and for lying to the FBI and Robert Mueller. He’s on three years of probation and must serve 300 hours of community service. Gates cooperated extensively with the investigations, and could have received nearly five years in prison otherwise.
6. Paul Manafort is sent to the hospital after experiencing a “cardiac event.” He’s released soon after and is back in federal custody. He’s suffered poor health since his arrest.

Legal Fallout:

1. Cell phone records support Summer Zervos’ account of her allegations of sexual assault against Trump, at least as far as time and location go.
2. A New York judge dismisses mortgage fraud charges brought by the state against Paul Manafort, saying the case violates double-jeopardy rules. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is working to make sure Manafort does his time even if Trump pardons him for federal crimes.
3. A newly released report finds that a Washington State Representative, Republican Matt Shea, took part in an “act of domestic terrorism” when he helped plan the 2016 takeover of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

• • He participated in at least two other armed standoffs against the U.S. government.
  • He has also condoned violence against his political opponents.
  • He is suspended from the House Republican caucus. Shouldn’t he be in jail?
  • He refuses to step down.

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this too long, so I moved it out into its own post. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Courts/Justice:

1. The Senate confirms 12 more Trump-appointed judges. This brings the total for 2019 to 20 circuit judges and 67 district judges. He’s had over 170 federal judges confirmed so far in his term.

Healthcare:

1. A U.S. Court of Appeals strikes down the individual mandate of the ACA as unconstitutional and orders a lower court to review the ACA to see how much of the law must go down with the mandate.

• • The lower court previously ruled that the entire ACA should be struck down.
  • This puts people with pre-existing conditions in jeopardy of not being able to obtain health insurance (yet again).

2. Food inspectors warn that under Trump’s new rules, pork won’t be inspected as closely as normal, if at all. The new rules reduce the number of federal inspectors and allow plant employees to inspect the carcasses themselves. There are no requirements that the employees be federally trained.

• • Multiple inspectors have filed whistleblower reports.
  • This affects about 90% of the pork in the U.S.

3. Kentucky’s new Democratic governor rescinds the state’s work requirements for Medicaid.

International:

1. The annual survey by the Council on Foreign Relations shows that foreign policy experts and U.S. government officials consider more scenarios to be in the top tier of security risk than at any time in the past 11 years. The issues mostly center on Trump’s inconsistency in the Middle East, but also include North Korea; migration from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala; tensions between Russia and Ukraine; and conflicts with China in the South China Sea.
2. UN climate negotiations fall apart over the uncertainty of American involvement and a rift between developing nations and fast-growing economies (like China and India). Foreign leaders are hesitant to make any moves before finding out whether Trump gets re-elected in 2020.
3. Britain’s elections all but ensure that Brexit will happen, giving global economies a little more certainty (even if it’s not the certainty they wanted). That, along with an easing of the U.S. trade war with China, bolsters business confidence for now.
4. Britain’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, says his priority is to leave the EU by January 31, 2020. Britain will then need to renegotiate all their trade deals.
5. After both the House and Senate vote to recognize the Armenian Genocide, the Trump administration says their view on it hasn’t changed from Trump’s previous statements where he didn’t recognize it as genocide. Trump says he’s a big fan of Turkish president Erdogan, and the White House convinced different senators to block the resolution three times.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Less than two days after the House impeaches Trump, Speaker Pelosi invites Trump to give his State of the Union address on February 4.
2. The House passes a bill to lower prescription drug prices and allow Medicare to negotiate prices. Medicare can then use those savings to expand other healthcare coverage for seniors.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

1. File this under “what goes around comes around.” A judge in Texas has been quoting from a legislative provision created by House Republicans in 2014 to stymie Obama’s budgetary authority. The provision requires the president to clear any reduction in funding with Congress.
2. The top Democratic senator on the Armed Services Committee, Jack Reed, requests an investigation into the contracts to build the border wall in light of the information coming out about North Dakota company Fisher Industries.

• • Aside from Fisher’s own controversial business dealings, ND Senator Kevin Cramer held up the confirmation of a Trump nominee for an Office of Management and Budget position over the Army Corps of Engineers panning the proposal from Fisher.
  • Fisher has a history of tax evasion, pollution citations, and environmental fines, and their previous CEO was charged with child pornography.
  • Fisher ultimately received a contract to build a portion of the wall.

3. According to a Fox poll, the wall is not a popular issue:

• • 68% of Americans approve of Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax compared to 44% who approve of the wall.
  • Over 50% of Americans want to see Trump impeached compared to 44% who approve of the wall.
  • Approval for the wall beats approval of a Medicare for All system by only 3 percentage points. This is the only thing on the poll that is less popular than the wall.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Stephen Miller has been trying to implement a plan to embed iCE agents in the refugee agency that’s responsible for caring for unaccompanied migrant minors. Thankfully, DHHS rejected this, but the department agrees to allow ICE to collect biometric information, like fingerprints, from adults who claim the children. So they’re stepping up their efforts to use migrant children to deport adults.

• • My two cents: If it costs over $700 per day to detain a migrant minor, why wouldn’t we want to release them to their family members, who will then take over the responsibility of supporting them? There are more effective methods of deportation.
  • Also, U.S. law restricts the use of our refugee program to deport undocumented immigrants.

2. ICE has been reopening deportation cases against Dreamers that have been long since closed. Some cases have been closed for nearly a decade, and don’t involve criminal activity. ICE confirms that they are reopening these cases.
3. After video at the Army-Navy football game catches West Point cadets and Naval Academy midshipmen flashing hand gestures that appear to be a racist signal, the internal investigations find there was no racist intent. The Army and Navy say the students were playing a silly game. The gesture is similar to an OK signal, and is considered to represent “white power.”
4. The Senate removes the phrase “white supremacist” from a House amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The phrase had been added to address the threat of white nationalists in the military, and was part of the screening process for enlistees.
5. Outgoing Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin, defends his pardon of a man convicted of raping a 9-year-old girl by saying that the child’s hymen was intact so there couldn’t have been any sexual assault.

• • Medical professionals say Bevin doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
  • The rapist served less than two years of his 23-year sentence. Bevin commuted sentences for other convicted rapists as well.

Climate:

1. Newly released emails show that a mining company collaborated with Alaska’s governor to lobby the Trump administration to approve a mining project deemed by the EPA to be a danger to the most valuable wild salmon habitat. And by “collaborated,” I mean the mining company told Governor Dunleavy exactly what to say and write to get the project approved.
2. A crane falls onto a barge near the Galápagos Islands, potentially spilling over 600 gallons of diesel into the water. The islands are a UNESCO World Heritage site.
3. The Trump administration blocks a rule to require Americans to use energy-efficient light bulbs.
4. Environmental groups sue the Trump administration over the loosening of rules that regulate chemical plant safety. This comes after an explosion at a Texas plant that injured several people.
5. Several states file a lawsuit challenging Trump’s release of the Clean Water Rule, an Obama-era regulation that clarified the protections around federal waterways.
6. Goldman Sachs say they won’t finance new oil exploration and drilling in the Arctic and that they won’t invest in new thermal coal mines anywhere.
7. A group of Eastern states releases a draft plan for curbing tailpipe emissions with a cap-and-trade program.
8. NOAA officials announce a $100 million program to restore seven coral reef sites in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. They’ll have to raise both public and private funds to do it.
9. Communities across the country, including some by military bases, are finding extremely high levels of PFAS in their drinking water. The Department of Defense is responsible for cleaning these sites up, but they’ve been slow to do it.

• • PFAS is a family of chemicals defined by carbon-fluoride bonds, which are the strongest bonds in nature. This means the chemicals do not degrade, but they do cause a host of health problems.

Budget/Economy:

1. Despite a strong national economy, poverty grew in 30% of counties from 2016 to 2018. At least one county in every state saw an increase in poverty. Still, the overall poverty rate dropped by one percentage point, from 13% to 12%. The biggest increases in poverty were in rural and Southern areas.
2. The House passes the revised version of NAFTA, with the changes they negotiated. The bill now goes to the Senate. The agreement isn’t much changed, but includes some of the provisions outlined in the TPP (which Trump pulled us out of).

• • The revised agreement updates country of origin rules for tariffs, labor provisions, access to Canada‘s dairy market for U.S. farmers, intellectual property rules, and digital trade rules. It also adds a sunset clause, so it expires after 16 years.

3. The stock market has a strong showing after Trump is impeached. I’m not sure what to take away from that other than that investors seem to be ignoring politics.
4. Two years into the Trump administration’s tax cuts, they haven’t started to pay for themselves and the deficit hit nearly $1 trillion for FY2019. Corporate tax receipts are down by more than 20% since 2017. Individual income tax receipts are up around 8%.
5. The tax cuts also didn’t boost economic growth as predicted.
6. The Supreme Court refuses to hear a homelessness case, which keeps in place a lower court ruling that protects the rights of the homeless to sleep on sidewalks and in public parks if no shelter is available. This thwarts some Western cities in their efforts to clean up their streets.
7. Trump signs the spending bill passed by the House and Senate after they remove wording requiring the prompt disbursement of future military aid to Ukraine. Trump signs the bill just in time to avoid yet another government shutdown.

Elections:

1. A federal judge allows Georgia to go ahead with its purge of around 4% of its voters from the rolls, but he also schedules an information hearing. Just a note, in my experience (which isn’t vast), most of the voters removed from the rolls have moved or are deceased, but a handful is surprised to learn they’re no longer registered to vote.
2. Facebook removes more than 600 accounts related to The Epoch Times for using fake identities created by artificial intelligence to push conspiracy theories in support of Trump.

• • The network was run by Vietnamese people posing as Americans, and had over 55 million followers.
  • Practitioners of Falun Gong run The Epoch Times, and they believe Judgement Day is coming soon and all Communists will be sent to hell.

3. North Carolina Republican Mark Meadows announces he won’t run for Congress again in 2020. He also implies he’ll be working with the Trump administration.
4. As the House votes to impeach Trump, he holds a campaign rally in Michigan. He says he’s having a good time, but he speaks for two chaotic hours, criticizing people he views as opponents and denigrating their appearance.

• • He complains about how modern toilets can’t flush and about modern lighting.
  • What Trump speech would be complete without bringing up Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, and James Comey?
  • He still complains about Hillary Clinton, which inspires chants of “Lock her up!” all over again. But then he praises Bill Clinton. Weird.
  • The crowd at least seems uneasy when Trump goes after the widow of former Michigan Rep. John Dingell.
  • He claims credit for us all being able to say Merry Christmas again… to which I can only say https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d7mTRaUmaE.

5. A Trump re-election advisor tells a group of Wisconsin Republicans that the GOP has traditionally relied on voter suppression to remain competitive in swing states. He adds that now that election laws have been relaxed, they won’t have to try so hard. He later says he meant that they’ve been falsely accused of voter suppression in the past.
6. A small group of conservative political operatives launches a super PAC to fight Trump’s re-election. They’ve already raised more than $1 million. It’ll be interesting to see if they stand behind the Democratic nominee, whoever that might be.

Miscellaneous:

1. Nancy Pelosi invites Trump to deliver his State of the Union speech on the House floor.
2. Actor Gary Sinise and his foundation take 1,750 family members of fallen troops to Disney World.
3. Boeing’s CEO steps down over ongoing problems around their Max 737 aircraft.
4. Trump gets pushback from his own party when he tweets that the media and Democrats are trying to make things difficult for the “United Republican Party.”

Polls:

1. Trump gets a little boost in approval on the impeachment vote, momentarily hitting its highest level since March of his first year.