This week, I’m thankful for much-needed vacations. Which means this week’s recap is short and sweet. I do want to highlight my favorite story of the week though…

In a meeting with Democratic Senators on tax reform, Gary Cohn fakes a bad connection to get Trump off the call. Senator Tom Carper said “We’re not going to have a real conversation here – can’t you just tell the president that he is brilliant and say we’re losing … the connection and then hang up?” So Cohn did just that.

If this is how advisors and members of Congress have to work with the president, what does it say about him? Anyway, here’s what else happened in week 44…

Russia:

1. Mueller is now interested in Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) over meetings he had with Julian Assange in August. The Kremlin regards Rohrabacher as an intelligence source, and values him enough to give him a secret code name.
2. In a sign he might be negotiating a deal with Mueller, Michael Flynn cuts ties with Trump’s lawyers.
3. Mueller adds Michael Flynn’s business partner to the list of people he’s investigating.
4. Jared Kushner’s role in the white house diminishes as he becomes further involved in the Russia investigation. Kushner says he’s just focusing on the important things and that there’s nothing to worry about.
5. The FBI knew for at least a year that Russian hackers were trying to break into many U.S. officials’ gmail accounts, but the FBI never bothered to warn the targeted officials about it.

Courts/Justice:

1. In yet another instance where state abortion laws ignore the the actual law, a federal court overturns Texas’s latest anti-abortion law.
2. Police chiefs in several cities are frustrated by the DOJ’S hands-off approach to the consent decrees agreed to under Obama. These decrees were put in place to help police departments deal with problems of injustice and systemic prejudice.

International:

1. Trump adds North Korea back to the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
2. In the midst of impeachment hearings, Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe resigns after 37 years in power.
3. About a dozen State Department officials formally accuse Secretary of State Tillerson of violating a federal law, in this case one to prevent enlisting child soldiers. He did this by excluding Iraq, Afghanistan, and Myanmar from a list of offenders.
4. A few weeks ago, the prime minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, resigned suddenly citing issues with Iran and Hezbollah. Now he says he’s not resigning yet. Apparently the Iran-backed president of Lebanon urged him to rethink it.
5. Despite coming out tough on Syria at the start of his term, Trump has pretty much ceded leadership on post-war planning to Putin. Putin hosts the leaders of Iran and Turkey in a planning meeting, and experts say Putin has won in Syria.
6. Terrorists bomb a Sufi Mosque in Egypt, killing at least 305 people. Trump responds by saying we need to build that wall.
7. Despite Clinton being criticized as Secretary of state for security issues, Tillerson not only refused to meet with his security director for most of this year, but he dismissed the director after one 5-minute meeting, leaving the security position empty.
8. The Trump administration announces that the Palestinian diplomatic delegation in D.C. will be shut down, but then changes its mind and says it can stay open for at least 90 more days. After the initial decision, Abbas refuses a call from Kushner, referring him instead to the Palestinian Authority’s representative in Washington.
9. Air Force General John Hyten, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), says if Trump made an illegal nuclear launch request, he would push back against it.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Even Congress gets a break over Thanksgiving…

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. While House Republicans oblige Trump’s request for hiring a large number of ICE officers, Senate Republicans don’t include funding for it in their version of the appropriations bill. Both houses included extra funding for Customs and Border Patrol though.
2. The U.S. votes against a UN resolution that condemns the glorification of Nazism, basically saying that the U.S. values freedom of speech over condemning hate speech. The only two other countries to vote against it are Ukraine and Palau.
3. Trump says what a great thing it is that women are speaking out about sexual misconduct (that is, except for those coming out against Roy Moore and those who came out against Trump himself).
4. For the second time, a federal judge blocks Trump’s ban on transgender troops. This judge says that Trump’s tweets on the ban were “capricious, arbitrary, and unqualified.”
5. Customs and Border Patrol confirms they were taken completely by surprise with Trump’s first executive order demanding a travel ban. It turns out that the Trump administration disobeyed a court order in its implementation of the initial travel ban.
6. The DHS apparently tried to hide a damning report from its inspector general and hasn’t been complying with oversight efforts.
7. A district court judge blocks an executive order that would cut funding to sanctuary cities, saying that Trump can’t change the conditions for funding that’s already approved by Congress.
8. Trump speaks at an event to honor the Native American Code Talkers who served in WWII, and in doing so repeats his standard attack on Elizabeth Warren by calling her Pocahontas. He’s roundly criticized for using a racial slur at this event.

Puerto Rico:

1. Trump withdraws the USNS Comfort hospital ship from Puerto Rico, even though the island is still largely without power.

Budget/Economy:

1. 37 out of 38 economists say that the GOP House and Senate tax plans would increase the debt substantially faster than they would improve the economy. The sole economist who disagreed says he misread the question.
2. According to the Tax Policy Center, 50% of Americans would see higher taxes by 2027 in the Senate tax plan.
3. The house tax plan removes the $250 deduction teachers receive in order to buy school supplies; the Senate version doubles the deduction. (Remember that even with the deduction, teachers still pay most of this out of their own pockets.)
4. A CBO analysis finds that the Senate tax plan hurts the poor. Here are some highlights:
   • People making $30,000 or less would pay more in taxes starting in 2019.
   • Starting in 2021, people making $40,000 or less would pay more.
   • After a decade, most people making $75,000 or less would pay more.
   • Millionaires and people making $100,000 to $500,000 get tax cuts all around.
   • The healthcare changes in the Senate bill would disproportionately affect the poor.
5. The DOJ plans to sue to prevent the merger between AT&T and Time Warner. The DOJ requested that AT&T sell CNN as a precondition, but AT&T says no thanks.
6. After the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) steps down, his deputy director becomes the acting director. But Trump uses a presidential power that lets him fill vacancies and appoints Mick Mulvaney, who is also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. So now the courts will have to decide who will lead the agency.
7. The FCC announces plans to end net neutrality. This means that your internet service providers will be able to tier services much like your cable company, and this means you might have to pay to access your favorite sites. In response to states promising to protect net neutrality locally, the FCC also plans to prevent states from implementing their own net neutrality rules.
8. The legalization of marijuana in the U.S. has brought the price down by two-thirds. You’d think that would discourage the Mexican cartels, but they just moved over to shipping us more heroin instead.

Elections:

1. Trump pretty much endorses Roy Moore for Senate. He says, “We don’t need a liberal Democrat in that seat. He totally denies [the accusations], you have to listen to him also … we don’t need somebody soft on crime like [Doug] Jones.” Except that Doug Jones IS tough on crime. He prosecuted the KKK members who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church and he indicted the Atlanta Olympic bomber, for starters.
2. Kellyanne Conway’s comments get her in trouble again with the Office of Government Ethics. The office accuses Conway of violating the Hatch Act when she attacked Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones.
3. There have so far been at least three different efforts to discredit Roy Moore’s accusers and the press covering the story:
   • A Twitter account, which has since been deleted, started a false story about a Washington Post reporter offering money for dirt on Moore.
   • A group sent out robocalls pretending to be WaPo reporters and again offering bribes for dirt on Moore.
   • A woman associated with Project Veritas contacted a WaPo reporter saying Moore had impregnated her when she was 15 and helped her get an abortion. Her facts didn’t check out though, and reporters later saw her entering Veritas’ offices. (Fun fact: Trump has made donations to Project Veritas.)

These all show an incredible lack of understanding of how real journalism works, and should show everyone how vigorously major newspapers research their stories.

Miscellaneous:

1. One border patrol agent is killed and one badly wounded on the job, both apparently hit over the head and beaten.
2. Trump’s current pick to lead the 2020 census is a professor who wrote a book on why competitive elections are a bad thing, which signals an effort to politicize the census.
3. Representative Dave Trott (R-MI), who already announced he wouldn’t run for re-election, cites Trump as a factor in his decision.
4. New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman is investigating the FCC for a scheme to corrupt the comment process on net neutrality, saying public commenters impersonated 100,000s of Americans.
5. Trump spends Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago. Trump and the White House both say he’s working and very busy just an hour before he ends up on a golf course. Trump has golfed every 5.1 days of his presidency, even though he said he wouldn’t have time for that because he’d be busy working for us.
6. Trump’s charitable foundation is in the process of shutting down. He agreed to do this last year to avoid conflicts of interest, but the foundation has also admitted to self-dealing (which means funneling charity funds to yourself, your business, or your family). For example, Trump’s golf club in Westchester County used Trump Foundation money to settle a lawsuit.
7. Florida Democrat John Morgan says he’s leaving the party to be an independent, but also encourages Democrat Bill Nelson to leave Congress and run for governor.
8. And in completely non-political news, Charles Manson dies. This is huge for people my age (or at least for me), because we grew up with him as the boogeyman and got scared out of our wits by Helter Skelter. Good riddance, Chuck.