I don’t know which category this goes in, but it’s so symbolic of this administration, I’m opening with it. NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly interviews Mike Pompeo. When questions turn to Ukraine, Kelly asks Pompeo if he owes Marie Yovanovitch an apology. Pompeo says he didn’t come on the show to talk about Ukraine. Kelly says she confirmed with his staff that Ukraine was on the table. Pompeo gets super testy on air.

• After the interview, a staff member brings Kelly to Pompeo’s sitting room so he can yell profanities at her. He says Americans don’t care about Ukraine and couldn’t find it on a map (he dropped a few f-bombs in there). He then has a staff member bring in a blank map and tells Kelly to point to Ukraine, which she does (it’s a big county—not that hard to find).
• After the incident goes public, Pompeo puts out an official State Department statement blasting Kelly’s journalistic integrity and accusing her of lying. His statement also implies that she pointed to Bangladesh instead of Ukraine, which is laughable. I invite you to look at a map to see how far apart these countries are. Kelly’s been to Ukraine, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, and has a master’s in European studies; so it’s doubtful she pointed to a country in Asia.
• Kelly also the emails to back up her assertion that Pompeo’s staff was clear that Kelly was going to ask about Ukraine.
• Pompeo refuses to say whether he owes Yovanovitch an apology even after text messages arise indicating she may have been under surveillance by associates of Lev Parnas, and it’s doubtful he’ll ever own up and apologize to Kelly either. Of course, Trump congratulates Pompeo, saying he “did a good job on her.”

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending July 26…

Shootings This Week:

1. There were SIX mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 12 people and injure 22 more.

• • A shooting in Seattle leaves 1 person dead and 7 people injured. There were multiple shooters involved when a fight broke out near Pike Place Market.
  • A man in Vanceboro, NC, shoots and kills his wife and 3 children before killing himself.
  • A shooter in Hartsville, SC, kills 3 people and injures 3 more at a nightclub.
  • A shooter in Salisbury, NC, injures 6 people at an after-hours party at a restaurant. One of the injured is currently paralyzed.
  • A shooter at an event hall in Cape Girardeau, MO, injures 5 people.
  • A shooter at a residence in Newburgh, NY, kills 3 people and injures a three-year-old.

2. About 22,000 protestors show up for a gun-rights rally in Richmond, VA. Despite concerns of violence from hate groups and militia groups, the gun-toting crowd is peaceful.

• • While gun-rights activists were outside protesting, student activists from March For Our Lives were inside meeting with state legislators.
  • The Virginia Senate passes a red-flag gun law despite the protest. The law allows law enforcement officials to obtain court approval to remove weapons from someone deemed to be a danger to themselves or to others.

Russia:

1. Despite findings from previous investigations into the Russia investigations that the FISA warrants for Carter Page were valid, the DOJ reports that two of those warrants were not. The two in question were renewals, both approved in 2017. Andrew McCabe and Rod Rosenstein approved one, and James Comey approved the other.

• • A previous IG investigation did find missteps, some egregious, by the people requesting the warrants, causing the FBI to conduct a review of their procedures.
  • The FBI has until the last week in January to respond.

Legal Fallout:

1. The D.C. Attorney General sues Trump’s inaugural committee and business over the committee spending over $1 million for a Trump Hotel ballroom.
2. In the ongoing saga of Michael Flynn, he requests that he be sentenced with probation instead of prison time if he can’t withdraw his guilty plea.

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.

Healthcare:

1. Major cities in China cancel their New Year festivals to try to contain the Wuhan virus outbreak. The government restricts travel, especially around Wuhan. Travelers to the U.S. from China are being routed to five airports for screening upon entry into the U.S. WHO says it’s too early to declare a state of emergency.
2. Teachers at the elementary school on which a Delta flight dumped fuel file a lawsuit against Delta.
3. The Trump administration threatens to cut healthcare funding to California over the state’s requirement that insurance policies cover abortion. They timed the announcement with Trump’s appearance at the March For Life.

• • California’s law requires insurance providers to cover both medically necessary and elective abortions.
  • The administration indicates that they’ll target other states with similar coverage requirements.

4. Trump is the first president to speak in person at the March For Life. He singled out pro-life enemy number one, Ralph Northam, for his support of a late-term abortion bill. Northam’s words have been widely misinterpreted to back claims that doctors and parents are killing infants after they’re born. Northam was actually talking about what happens when what should be start-of-life decisions tragically turn to end-of-life decisions because the infant is born with a terminal disease.

• • The march organizers expected around 100,000 attendees, but some people say they were more people in attendance.

5. According to the U.S. Department of labor, women incur healthcare costs 80% higher than men, even though doctors treat women’s medical issues less aggressively and less quickly. Women wait longer in waiting rooms, and they’re still told that their pain is due to emotional stress.
6. Executives at pharmaceutical company Insys are finally heading to jail for their role in the opioid epidemic and their irresponsible marketing activities.
7. The Supreme Court refuses to expedite a lawsuit that could end the ACA, so now it won’t be decided until after the presidential election.

International:

1. Trump invites Benny Gantz, a political opponent of Netanyahu’s, to Washington (at the same time, Trump invites Netanyahu to the White House). Gantz considers declining, but in the end, agrees to come. Gantz is worried it’s a political trap set by Netanyahu. They’ll meet about the U.S. Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. Pence says both are invited to the White House.
2. The UN International Court of Justice rules that Myanmar must take emergency steps to protect Rohingya Muslims from violence. The country must also preserve any evidence of potential genocide. Myanmar has committed atrocities against its Rohingya Muslim citizens for decades. There are around 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees in camps in Bangladesh.
3. Greece appoints its first female president.
4. The Director of National Intelligence fails to send a report on Jamal Khashoggi’s killing to Congress, as required by the National Defense Authorization Act signed into law in December. The report identifies those responsible for Khashoggi’s murder.
5. The protests in Iraq, which started in October, escalate this week. Demonstrators block highways and force government offices to close. They want a new prime minister. Iraqi forces launch a major crackdown at Tahrir Square. At least one protestor is killed and dozens more are wounded.
6. Protests start up again in Bogota, Colombia, against the right-wing government.
7. Protests continue in Lebanon, India, and Hong Kong.
8. 
Chilean students protest their version of the SAT.
9. Recent protests in the U.S. include the Women’s March, the March For Life, and the pro-gun rally in Virginia.

Iran:

1. After Iran retaliated with airstrikes for the U.S. killing of General Soleimani, Trump initially said there were no injuries. Then we learned there were about a dozen troops with concussive injuries. Now the total of troops diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries is at 34.

• • Some have already been cleared for active duty.
  • Trump said they just had some headaches, but the effects of brain injuries are wide-ranging.

2. Trump says Obama designated General Soleimani as a terrorist but didn’t do anything about it. This is mostly true, though the designation restricted Soleimani’s ability to travel and complete financial transactions. The designation wasn’t intended to be used as an excuse to kill a general of a foreign government.
3. A bipartisan effort in the Senate to follow the House’s lead and limit Trump’s war powers with Iran stalls during the impeachment trial.
4. Seemingly as a result of tensions with Iran, CBP is illegally deporting Iranian students who have legal permission to be here.
5. Following Trump’s attack on Soleimani, our European allies start talking about cutting some ties. Britain considers cutting back its defense ties with us. Germany says the U.S. alliance with the EU isn’t that important anymore.
6. Three rockets hit the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad, injuring one person.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is ruffling some feathers in a small town on a Canadian island on the border with Maine. The community has enjoyed an easy back-and-forth relationship with the U.S., but now CBP is intercepting and opening their mail and refusing to give a reason.
2. In case you were thinking the Muslim Ban and Trump’s actions against Iran don’t affect real, everyday people, at least 16 students with permission and all the necessary approved paperwork to attend college in the U.S. have been deported with no reason given.

• • One was removed despite a court order commanding he be allowed to stay, and he was removed to France before his lawyers could stop it. The judge says he can’t do much about it since the student is now outside of the U.S.
  • This leaves colleges and universities holding the bag trying to figure out how to continue their students’ education while also getting them back to the U.S.
  • The process students go through to get their paperwork in order can take a year or longer.
  • The ACLU is seeing an uptick of Iranian students getting stopped at Logan Airport in Boston.

3. And now Trump wants to expand the Muslim ban to include these countries: Belarus, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania. Remember when they said it would be a temporary 90-day ban while they worked out a better vetting process? It’s been a year and a half since the Supreme Court upheld the travel ban.
4. Texas still officially recognizes Confederate Heroes Day the Friday before Martin Luther King Day. Wow.
5. Utah bans LGBTQ conversion therapy, the 19th state to do so. The practice is widely discredited.
6. New Jersey becomes just the ninth state to ban gay and transgender “panic” defenses, which the Governor says are rooted in homophobia.
7. Britain’s House of Commons votes against legislation that would ensure refugee children can reunite with their families in Britain. The House of Lords previously passed protections for refugee children in their Brexit legislation.

• • The House of Commons also stripped rules protecting the rights of EU citizens in Britain.
  • The House of Commons can override the House of Lords, so it looks like hyper-nationalism and racism will win out in this battle.

8. Trump names Rodney Scott to Border Patrol Chief. The previous chief admitted to being a member of a private Facebook group for CBP agents that turned out to be racist, anti-immigrant, and misogynistic (and the previous chief was a woman!). Scott is reported to be a member of the same group.
9. The Trump administration gives visa officers more leeway to stop pregnant women from visiting the U.S. because they might be having anchor babies. Add pregnant women to the growing list of unwelcome immigrants. We already limit Muslims, the poor, refugees, asylum seekers, Middle Easterners, Central Americans, and Africans.

Climate:

1. Trump has been complaining at his rallies about low-flow showerheads and toilets, as well as energy-efficient dishwashers. And voila. The Energy Department announces changes that will limit the government’s ability to place new efficiency standards on appliances.

• • Increasingly efficient standards are currently saving U.S. households around $500 per year. The new rules make it harder to keep increasing those savings.

2. The UN rules that countries cannot send climate refugees back to life-threatening conditions created by climate change.
3. The Trump administration finalizes a rule that removes environmental protections from streams, wetlands, and groundwater. Landowners can now dump pesticides into wetlands and build over them, among other things.
   1. The protections being removed were implemented based on 1,200 scientific studies.
   2. The new rule is already being challenged.
   3. This is just the latest in Trump’s efforts to repeal nearly 100 environmental protections.
4. The Interior Department approves a right-of way for Keystone XL development in Montana.
5. At Davos, Steve Mnuchin says youth climate activist Greta Thunberg should go take some economics classes so she can explain calls for investors to pull their money out of fossil fuels. He also sarcastically pretends not to know who she is.

• • How does the head of our Treasury not know that money managers are already doing just that? From BlackRock’s CEO: “The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance.”
  • There are two reasons to divest:

1. 1. 1. The theory of Economics of Welfare looks at the difference between private costs and societal costs. For example, we know that unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases that are going to cost us in the form of having the rebuild and replace infrastructure.
      2. With alternate and better sources of electricity becoming more available, fossil fuels will naturally fall out of favor.

• • Mnuchin’s wife tweets her support for Greta Thunberg.

6. China plans to ban plastic bags in major cities by the end of this year.

Budget/Economy:

1. Yet again, Trump threatens European countries with tariffs, this time at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This time it’s over European countries’ plans to tax major tech companies like Google and Facebook.
2. In a shift from his 2016 promise to protect Medicare and Social Security, Trump says he’s willing to consider cuts to the programs. His last budget proposed nearly $2 trillion in cuts for programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
3. Fair Isaac is changing the way it calculates your FICO score due, in part, to the record level of consumer debt. Those with high credit scores are likely to see it go higher. Those who are struggling with debt already are likely to receive lower scores.
4. The European Union reportedly does not plan to offer Britain a trade deal on par with their other trading partners, like Canada and Japan. The EU fears that Britain will try to get the best of both worlds by maintaining access to the EU single market while not following the same rules around trade that EU countries must follow.
5. Wells Fargo’s ex-CIO is banned from banking for life and must pay a $17.5 million fine over the bank opening fake accounts and unnecessary lines of credit for vulnerable clients.
6. The Fed’s injections into the repo market, which have been bolstering the stock market for four months, have caused the largest decline yet in the Fed’s balance sheet. And even with that influx of cash, Trump blames the Fed for the U.S. not having 4% GDP growth.
7. One side effect of Trump’s tariffs is a large increase in the price of aluminum to U.S. consumers and businesses. The sanctions against Russia-owned Rusal also increased prices. Nonetheless, Trump expands the tariffs by adding aluminum products like nails, staples, wires, vehicle parts, and so on.

Elections:

1. A 2019 voter roll purge in Ohio in 2019 removed thousands of active voters in error. Ohio’s Secretary of State calls for a reform of the process for cleaning out the voter rolls.
2. Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard sues Hillary Clinton for defamation for Hillary’s comments about a candidate being a Russian asset. Clinton did not mention Tulsi by name in her comments.
3. The impeachment trial pulls four presidential candidates —Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bennet—off the campaign trail at a crucial time for the Iowa caucuses.
4. At this point in the Democratic presidential race, 16 candidates have dropped out and these 12 remain in the race: Senator Michael Bennet, former Vice President Joe Biden, former New York City Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Representative John Delaney, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, Senator Amy Klobuchar, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Senator Bernie Sanders, billionaire Tom Steyer, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
5. There are three candidates on the Republican side: Donald Trump, former Representative Joe Walsh, and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld.

Miscellaneous:

1. An explosion at a Houston manufacturing plant kills two people and pushes nearby homes off their foundations. The explosion damages 214 homes and destroys 50. By the end of the week, the number of structures damaged increases to 450.

Polls:

1. A Pew Research poll finds that Democrats trust more news sources than Republicans. All U.S. adults overall trust more than Republicans as well. Looking at news sources that are trusted by 33% or more, all U.S. adults trust nine news source, Democrats trust thirteen, and Republicans trust two. Even though media consensus isn’t really a measure of news accuracy, I think the more sources you get your news from, the more accurate your view of the news is.