Since we’re at the half-year mark, here’s a status update courtesy of Politico (plus a few extra):

• Healthcare: Stalled for now, likely dead.
• Infrastructure: This has moved to low place on the totem pole, with no signs of movement.
• Tax Reform: Uncertain. Congress can’t do much with this until they pass a 2018 budget, which conservatives are already talking about killing.
• Government Spending/Debt Ceiling: Behind. This needs to get done by the end of September.
• The Wall: Stalled with the spending bill and budget, though companies are beginning soil tests to figure out the required structure of the wall.
• Immigration: The ban is in place, sort of. It’s unclear where they are on analyzing and updating the vetting process.
• ISIS: A strategy just came out that is very similar to Obama’s.
• Supreme Court: A conservative judge, Gorsuch, is firmly in place.
• Climate: This is probably where the most progress has been, though states and cities are able to mitigate. Trump announced our withdrawal from the Paris accord, and Congress has rescinded a gazillion environmental protections. Zinke is looking at which national monument designations he can remove or shrink. Also, the cabinet is full of global warming deniers. So things aren’t looking so great for the environment.

Russia:

1. Revelations from the Russia/Trump Jr. meeting reveal that one of Russia’s goals in all this was to get the Magnitsky act repealed (in other words, sanctions).
2. Robert Mueller asks the White House to keep all documents around the above meeting.
3. Both Manafort and Trump Jr. make a deal with congressional committees to avoid a public hearing and instead to testify privately.
4. Two weeks before Kushner released the emails about the meeting, the Trump reelection campaign paid $50,000 to Kushner’s attorney.
5. It turns out Trump had a second meeting with Putin after their official 2 1/4 hour official meeting; this one was informal and lasted around an hour. The meeting was at a dinner at the G20, and the only other person speaking with them was Putin’s interpreter (though the other leaders and diplomats were around).
6. Trump says he and Putin talked about adoptions, which we now know is code word for sanctions.
7. Trump says he wouldn’t have nominated Jeff Sessions if he would’ve known he was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
8. Trump warns Mueller against expanding the scope of his investigation to include financial and business transactions. The next day, we learn that Mueller is investigating business and real estate transactions between Russia and Trump businesses and associates.
9. Trump’s team of lawyers look into ways to undermine Mueller and his investigation, as surrogates make the talk show rounds to throw doubt on both.
10. Trump wonders if he can pardon his family and even himself. His lawyers are looking into it. There’s no real precedent, though documents from Nixon’s hearings could provide some guidance.
11. He later asserts that he can pardon himself, saying he has the complete power to pardon his family, aides, and himself.
12. The Senate Intelligence Committee thinks the Trump campaign digital team might have assisted Russians by boosting and helping to target fake stories. They’re investigating, but not likely to get help from companies like Facebook.
13. Manafort’s troubles keep growing. Mueller is investigating him for possible money laundering involving contacts in Russia and the Ukraine, and before joining the Trump campaign he was millions in debt to pro-Russia interests.
14. Trump’s personal lawyer, Mark Kasowitz, steps down as head of the legal team. The legal team’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, quits over disagreements about smearing Mueller and over all the infighting in the White House.
15. After Jeff Sessions denied any meetings with Russian operatives, we learn that he did meet with their ambassador to the U.S. After Sessions admitted to that meeting but denied they spoke about campaign or policy issues, intelligence intercepts show that they did indeed talk about such things (according to the ambassador).
16. The House finally reaches agreement on a Russia sanctions bill that would require congressional approval to lift sanctions on Russia.
17. Susan Rice meets with the Senate Intelligence Committee, likely around unmasking U.S. names in intercepts.
18. In case you were wondering, the special investigation into Bill Clinton headed by Kenneth Starr concluded that not even the president is above the law and therefore can be prosecuted. So yes, Trump could be prosecuted if Mueller’s investigation finds any illegal activity.

Courts/Justice:

1. Jeff Sessions reverses a policy that made it harder for local law enforcement to confiscate property of people who are merely suspected of a crime. Not charged, not indicted, not found guilty. Just suspected.
2. The Senate confirms John K Bush to a lifetime appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He once compared abortion with slavery, saying they are “the two greatest tragedies in our country.”

Healthcare:

1. Two more senators oppose the revised healthcare bill and it is effectively dead.
2. In [what I thought was] a last-ditch effort, Mitch McConnell tries to push for a repeal-only bill that would delay actual repeal for two years (that is, after next year’s midterm elections). But it would repeal the mandate immediately, causing turmoil in the marketplaces. This doesn’t fly either.
3. This is similar to a plan the Republicans passed in 2015 under reconciliation, but they knew Obama would veto it. That they can’t pass it now makes me think they were bluffing the last times they tried to repeal it in full or in part.
4. Republicans play with a plan to stop supporting portions of the ACA to make it fail. This throws a curve ball into the insurance markets, so we can expect higher costs and fewer choices next year. Trump alternatively supports and rejects this.
5. Trump hosts Republicans for lunch to talk healthcare, telling them they should work on repeal through the August recess. He says every American should have a good health care plan, apparently not understanding that repealing the ACA leaves us with no plan. He also issued not-so-thinly veiled threats to Senators who are holding out.
6. If the senate actually repeals the ACA without any replacement, the CBO estimates that 32 million more people will be uninsured.
7. In an interview Trump says, “Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan.” TWELVE DOLLARS? Try $12,000, if you’re lucky. This possibly explains the disconnect between the Republican plan and the actual reality of insurance. A Republican defended him saying he doesn’t need to know every detail. Some think he’s mixing up health insurance with an ad for life insurance that plays on Fox.
8. The Department of Health and Human Services releases a fake score of Ted Cruz’s amendment to the healthcare bill. The CBO has had trouble scoring it because Cruz’s office won’t respond to questions.
9. Legal experts request an investigation into the Department of Health and Human Services’ use of ACA funds to create a propaganda campaign against the ACA. They allege that HHS used funds designated to provide helpful information about the ACA. Some of the videos they produced highlighted personal stories caused by states not accepting the Medicaid expansion, and some caused by misunderstanding patient rights under the law.
10. The Trump administration ends ACA contracts that helped shoppers get insurance through the exchanges. This, along with shortening the sign-up period, minimizing information campaigns, and creating anti-ACA propaganda, indicates that they are ready to force this ship to sink.
11. But then, this effort just won’t die. By the end of the week, McConnell is still looking to pull something together for a vote. Senate Republicans plan a vote on whether to begin debate on a bill. Though there is confusion over which bill is actually going to be up for a vote.
12. Democrats say certain wording in the bill needs to be removed because it doesn’t comply with reconciliation rules… but how do they know which bill they’re voting on?
13. Trump says the healthcare bill will put money in the pockets of middle- and low-income earners, but the $700 billion in cuts will likely go mostly to the most wealthy.

International:

1. Trump recertifies the Iran nuclear deal after a few hours of arguing with his national security advisors. This needs to be recertified every 90 days.
2. He then puts together a group of White House staffers to come up with reasons not to recertify the Iran nuclear deal when it comes up next time around, bypassing the State Department. And apparently not judging it on what actually goes down over the next three months.
3. Trump ends the CIA’s ongoing program to arm and train Syrian rebels fighting Assad, something Russia’s been wanting for a while.
4. The EU threatens to remove Poland’s EU voting rights in response to Poland’s government’s plans to put the judiciary branch under full political control.
5. Tillerson shuts down the war crimes office of the State Department.
6. Trump’s nominee to head the Import-Export Bank has previously said he’d like to shut it down. No surprise here, based on recent experience.
7. Trump nominates Jon Huntsman as ambassador to Russia.
8. A strategy document outlining the Trump administration’s approach to defeating ISIS indicates that they plan to pretty much carry on with Obama’s approach without having learned from his errors.
9. The administration puts the kibosh on travel to North Korea.

Legislation/Congress:

1. House Republicans working on the defense spending bill remove an amendment that would have repealed the 2001 Authorization of War. The amendment had bipartisan support in the Appropriations Committee.
2. Texas Governor Greg Abbott calls a special session of Senate to push through Republican initiatives, including a bathroom bill, abortion bills, limits on local ordinances, school vouchers, voter fraud investigations, and restricting union dues, among other issues. This draws community protests and criticism from local officials.
3. The House Appropriations Committee approves the destruction of all remaining wild mustangs in the U.S.
4. Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee files a no-confidence resolution against Trump, citing 88 reasons he’s unfit for office. This will not pass the House.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Six months later… When immigrants take the oath of citizenship, the welcome letter in their citizenship packet is still signed by Obama.
2. The Supreme Court upholds a Hawaii judge’s ruling that extended family is exempted from the travel ban, so grandparents, nieces, and other relatives of U.S. residents can enter the country. However, the court struck down an exemption for certain refugees.
3. Kim Davis’s refusal to issue marriages licenses to same-sex couples ends up costing Kentucky $224,000 in legal fees and costs.

Climate/EPA:

1. California passed a bipartisan bill to extend the state’s cap-and-trade program. Far-left says it doesn’t go far enough; far-right says it’s too restrictive on businesses.
2. The Army Corps of engineers says it’ll need the rest of 2017 to perform a court-ordered environmental review of DAPL. They’re suing to keep the pipeline running during the review.
3. A study ordered by Energy Secretary Rick Perry showed that, contrary to Perry’s claims, solar and wind power don’t reduce the reliability of the electric grid. In fact, the power grid is more reliable today than it’s ever been.

Budget/Economy:

1. It’s Made in America week, but Homeland Security allows an additional 15,000 H-2B visas (for low-wage, foreign workers). The reasoning is that these workers help American businesses to prosper.
2. As Trump pushes Made in America week, the administration also tries to defund a Labor Department agency that helps American workers compete fairly in the global market.
3. The Trump administration announces their NAFTA objectives, which so far mostly seem to be around tougher enforcements. Trump says that the current deal is good for farmers and ranchers, but maintains that it is bad for manufacturing.
4. The House releases a budget plan this week that increases defense spending more than Trump’s plan, cuts domestic spending less, and assumes a lower rate of growth. It also pushes options for private plans in place of Medicare.
5. At the same time, the Senate Appropriations Committee announces funding levels that are relatively in line with the current levels, giving House moderates more ammunition.
6. The House budget bill pretty much cancels trumps budget provisions for school choice vouchers.
7. Mexico signs a trade deal with Brazil, which means the U.S. is no longer their sole provider of corn. They’re working on another deal with Argentina. U.S. corn sales to Mexico are already down 7% this year.
8. Canada finalized a trade deal with the EU that will cut into U.S. sales of processed goods to Canada.
9. The U.S. signs a deal with China that’s been decades in the making and that will allow the U.S. to sell rice to China.
10. Infrastructure, which IMO is the one thing that might get bipartisan agreement, is stuck behind other legislative issues, including the budget, the debt ceiling, tax reform, and immigration laws. It’s not looking like it’ll happen anytime soon.

Elections:

1. A South Carolina State Election Commission report says there were about 150,000 attempts to hack into their voter registration system on Election Day last year.
2. The Illinois State Board of Elections says they were being hit by hacking attempts 5 times per second, 24/7, from late June to mid-August 2016. Hackers accessed around 90,000 voter records.
3. The Election Integrity Commission holds its first meeting. Commission member Hans von Spakovsky, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who is actively looking for massive voter fraud, hands out copies of his voter fraud database. To put voter fraud in perspective, the database contains around 1,000 prosecuted cases over the past 15 years. That’s fewer than 70 cases a year out of more than 100,000,000 votes (so conservatively, a .00007% incidence). A quick check of his database shows that several of those cases were by candidates, not voters, so the rate of actual voter fraud is even lower than that.
4. Cory Booker introduces a bill to repeal Trumps executive order on the voter fraud commission and to block federal funds from being used for it.
5. Obama’s cybersecurity team had a plan in place to minimize damage caused by any last-minute cyber attack efforts by the Russians on election day.

Miscellaneous:

1. Sean Spicer resigns upon Trump’s hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as communications director. Scaramucci is the senior vice president and chief strategy officer at the Export-Import Bank.
2. Scarmaucci’s hiring took most everyone in the White House by surprise.
3. Scaramucci starts deleting old tweets and social media posts that spoke against Trump or the RNC. At least he’s being transparent about it. He announced he was doing it saying his views have evolved, after which social media users furiously comb through and save his old posts. The internet is forever folks.
4. And no wonder he’s doing this. He “called Hillary Clinton incredibly competent and appeared to be at odds with his new boss on issues such as gun control, climate change, Islam and illegal immigration …”
5. Doctors diagnose John McCain with aggressive brain cancer, the same one that both Ted Kennedy and Beau Biden had.
   
6. Trump says Akie Abe, the wife of China’s prime minister, didn’t talk to him at the G20 dinner because she doesn’t speak any English. But she speaks it pretty well.
7. In areas of Texas where Planned Parenthood facilities closed and abstinence-only sex ed is taught, the teen abortion rate has increased 3%. Meanwhile, the nationwide trend has been decreasing.
8. Trump nominates Sam Clovis as head of science at the USDA. Clovis is a former radio talk show host who doesn’t have a background in science. This, even though the role is only available to scientists according to congressional rules. He also denies anthropogenic global warming.
9. As a way to address problems around the opioid epidemic, a judge gives Tennessee inmates an option: early release or long-term contraception (vasectomy for men or contraceptive implant for women).
10. Jared Kushner failed to disclose over 70 assets on his initial financial disclosure. He’s updated the disclosure over 30 times since March. This affects Ivanka as well as the disclosure includes family members.
11. An interesting legal battle is brewing between federal agencies over ExxonMobil’s alleged violation of Russia sanctions. The violation occurred in 2014 under the helm of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Exxon was fined $2 million. In response, Exxon named Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in a legal complaint.
12. Tillerson hires consulting companies Deloitte and Insigniam to help with the State Department reorganization.
13. New Hampshire becomes the 22nd state to legalize pot.
14. One reason for the slowdown in the vetting process for Trump’s nominees is that we’ve never had so many nominees with such complex financial holdings and conflicts of interest. Several of them dropped out because they got frustrated with having to comply with the ethics rules.

Polls:

1. Only 45% of Republicans believe that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer during the elections. Even though he not only said he met with Russians to get dirt on Hillary, but also tweeted out the entire email thread.
2. A Bloomberg poll finds that 61% of Americans think we’re headed in the wrong direction, and 55% view Trump unfavorably.
3. Trump’s approval is at 36%, lower than any other president at this time. His disapproval rating in 59%.

Stupid Things Politicians Say:

1. OK. This isn’t really stupid, just something to think about. Ben Carson says:
   “Let me put it this way. I’m glad that Trump is drawing all the fire so I can get stuff done.”
   So maybe we should be paying more attention to what the federal departments and agencies are actually doing instead of to what Trump isn’t getting done.