Trump caps off the week with an interview with 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl. In the interview he says even though he mocked her at a rally, he treated Blasey Ford with respect; says it doesn’t matter whether Blasey Ford was telling the truth because “we won”; misrepresents both NATO and the EU; and blames Obama for both the family separation policy and the current environment of divisiveness in the U.S. And finally, this: “Lesley, it’s okay. In the meantime, I’m president–and you’re not.” (Neener-neener-neener) I wrote up more highlights from the transcript, if you’re interested.

Here’s what else happened last week…

Russia:

1. While Russia was pressing forward with their trolling campaign in our 2016 election, Rick Gates requested proposals from Israeli company Psy-Group on ways to use social media to manipulate those elections. Proposals included:

• • Creating fake online identities to influence 5,000 delegates to the Republican National Convention.
  • Opposition research and intelligence activities on Clinton.
  • Exploiting existing divisions and sowing further division among opposing factions.
  • Planting disinformation among Republican delegates and voters in the primary elections.

2. Though the proposals have surfaced, there’s no evidence the campaign acted on them. Donald Jr. did meet with the company’s owner, though.
3. Andrew Miller, who worked for Roger Stone and is refusing to testify in Mueller’s case, filed a suit to invalidate Mueller’s prosecutorial authorization. He lost and is appealing, because he says now that Kavanaugh’s on the bench, he feels better about his chances.
4. Court documents show that Paul Manafort lobbied Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) as part of his lobbying for Viktor Yanukovych, a former Ukraine pro-Putin president. In 2013, Rohrabacher started to advocate for Yanukovych. Rohrabacher and Manafort met that year, and Manafort made a small donation to Rohrabacher’s campaign.
5. In response to a lawsuit against the Trump campaign that they illegally conspired with Russians to orchestrate the release of Clinton’s hacked emails, the campaign argues that the First Amendment protects their “right to disclose information – even stolen information.”
6. Trump and Rod Rosenstein finally have their meeting. It turns out Trump won’t be firing him, at least not right now.
7. Dutch security services catches four Russian hackers trying to hack into the Netherlands-based Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). One of their laptops is linked to the hacking of an investigation into Malaysian flight MH-17 and to the hacking of the World Anti-Doping Agency. The phones they were using were activated near GRU headquarters.
8. Republican funder Peter Smith raised $100,000 in 2016 to obtain Hillary Clinton’s stolen emails. He then directed the money to the “Washington Scholarship Fund for the Russian students” a few days after the email started leaking. The scholarship fund doesn’t appear to exist, and emails referencing the fund talk about email releases.
9. The U.S. government freezes all of Oleg Deripaska’s assets based in the U.S. Deripaska is a Russian oligarch who is knee-deep in Mueller’s Russia investigation thanks to his ties with Manafort.
10. Kirill Dmitriev, who was part of the infamous Seychelles meeting, reached out to at least three people in contact with the Trump transition team just before Trump’s inauguration.
11. Reddit’s CEO says that they’ve seen activity by suspicious Russian accounts over the past month.
12. Richard Pinedo, who pleaded guilty to felony ID fraud based on his work with Russian trolls, receives a sentence of six months in prison followed by six months of house arrest.
13. Someone throws a molotov cocktail into the offices of the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg, starting the offices on fire.
14. Trump’s legal team starts responding in writing to Mueller’s questions about any Trump campaign involvement in the Russian meddling in our 2016 elections.
15. Facebook purges 559 pages and 251 accounts that they say are hyper-partisan and post spam. Facebook only purged based on the ways these pages and accounts spread content, and didn’t take political leaning into account (according to Facebook).

Courts/Justice:

1. Trump says that Christine Blasey Ford made up her accusations and they’re a disgrace. He says Kavanaugh got caught up in a hoax set up by Democrats. Just a reminder, after Blasey Ford’s testimony, Trump said he found her credible.
2. During Kavanaugh’s swearing in, Trump says “On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure.” He also says, incorrectly, that Kavanaugh was proven innocent. Nothing was proven either way.
3. Kavanaugh takes his seat on the court.
4. GoFundMe campaigns for both Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh have raised over $600,000. Blasey Ford is using hers to pay for security and housing, since she’s unable to return to her home due to threats. The guy who started Kavanaugh’s campaign has been unable to work with Kavanaugh’s people to get him the money.
5. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill nominates Blasey Ford for a Distinguished Alumna Award for “speaking truth to power.”
6. FBI Directory Christopher Wray confirms to the Senate that the White House limited the scope of the investigation into Blasey Ford’s claims, but that it was normal procedure to do it that way.
7. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts refers over a dozen misconduct complaints against Kavanaugh to the 10th District Court of Appeals. The court is likely to dismiss the complaints now that Kavanaugh’s on the Supreme Court.
8. Senate Democrats agree to confirm 15 judges for lifetime appointments in return for Mitch McConnell letting them go home to campaign. The reasoning being that they all would’ve been confirmed no matter how long Democrats tried to drag it out, so they might as well cut their losses.
9. Fox News reports on leftist radical violence after the Kavanaugh confirmation, but in reality, politicians from both sides of the aisle are getting threats of violence and death.

Healthcare:

1. Trump places an op-ed in USAToday decrying what he calls the Democrats’ call for Medicare for All. Not only does he use debunked claims as proof, but he links to sources that dispute his claims.
2. Once again, the administration plans to take down the ACA sign-up sites for maintenance during the sign-up period like they did last year. The fact check is too long to include here, so here’s the link.

International:

1. According to Mike Pompeo, Kim Jong Un says he’ll let foreign inspectors take a look at the nuclear testing site he claims to have destroyed. But he won’t provide an inventory of their nuclear arsenal.
2. Nikki Haley resigns as U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and is leaving on good terms with Trump. She’s one of the few remaining cabinet members with approval from both sides.
3. Trump says that no one would be a better replacement for Haley than his daughter Ivanka, but he can’t appoint her because he’d be accused of nepotism.
4. The Turkish government releases American Pastor Andrew Brunson, whom they arrested along with over a dozen others in relation to the attempted coup against Erdogan’s government. The Trump administration is still working on releasing the rest, who they’re calling political hostages.
5. According to the Turkish government, Washington Post journalist Jamel Khashoggi was killed by a Saudi security team inside the Saudi consulate in Turkey. The Turkish government says they have audio and video recordings of the Saudi security team torturing and killing the journalist, and that the security team then dismembered Khashoggi to remove his remains.
6. Saudi Arabia denies that they’re behind this. Trump says even if they are, he wouldn’t sanction Saudi Arabia and definitely wouldn’t stop a deal to sell them arms. Just FYI: It’s not really a “deal” yet.
7. Trump says this happened in Turkey and Khashoggi isn’t even a U.S. citizen, so maybe we don’t need to do anything.
8. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio says that our “moral credibility” is on the line if we fail in our response to Khashoggi’s murder.
9. Then Trump threatens action if we do find that Saudi Arabia is responsible. So the Saudi government threatens to manipulate oil prices among other things. Then the Saudi stock market tanks and international businesspeople pull out of Saudi economic forums.
10. China detains Interpol President Meng Hongwei, whom they say they’re investigating for bribery.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Washington state abolishes the death penalty, the 20th state to do so. The state’s Supreme Court ruled that the penalty is applied unevenly. Duh.

Family Separation:

1. The Trump administration is looking into new ways to separate children from their parents at the southern border.
2. According to an ACLU lawsuit, the government actually is still separating families; they’re just doing it quietly.
3. State judges can hand over immigrant children who we separated from their parents to American foster families without notifying the children’s parents. Because immigrants were deported and coerced into signing paperwork they didn’t understand, they might have signed away rights to reunite with their kids.
4. Children as young as two continue to appear and testify in court with no representation or parents. How can a two-year-old testify as to their asylum request?
5. Officials gave a five-year-old child who was separated from her grandmother legal papers for her to sign away her request for a Flores Bond Hearing. She could’ve been deported if not for the months-long effort of advocacy groups.
6. A Phoenix shelter housing undocumented immigrant children separated from their parents closes after staff members were found to have abused the children. Southwest Key was already in danger of losing their license.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. The Trump administration proposes limiting protests near the White House and the National Mall, and possibly charging fees. Charging fees has already been deemed an infringement of the First Amendment.
2. Trump makes up a brand new, fake Senate bill in a campaign rally “Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders – and it’s a bill. And it’s called The Open Borders Bill. What’s going on? And it’s written by – guess who – Dianne Feinstein.” FYI: The bill doesn’t exist.
3. Contradicting what he told Congress, it turns out that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross did speak with Steve Bannon and Kris Kobach about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Ross also says the reason for the questions is to strengthen the Voting Rights Act, but emails contradict that, saying that the reason is to make sure undocumented immigrants don’t get representation. Ross is about to be deposed for a related lawsuit.
4. Following a speech in New York by the founder of the Proud Boys, an all-male, far-right hate group, violence breaks out between protestors and Proud Boys members. Police arrest three men, but it’s not clear whether they’re members of the Proud Boys or if they were protestors. The bigger question is why the New York Republican party a) thought it was a good idea to invite them and b) appears to embrace the Proud Boys overt racism.
5. Earlier in the day, anarchist symbols were spray painted on the building where the founder was about to speak.
6. A FOIA request shows that the ICE sweep in February in Oakland, CA detained 111 people who had no criminal convictions. Only 47 of the 233 who were detained had major criminal convictions. ICE said they were only going after known criminals.
7. EPA head Andrew Wheeler engages with and likes conspiracy theorist and racist content on social media. As recently as last week.
8. Melania says she’s one of the most bullied people in the world. Uh, how about this? And this?
9. Representative Kevin McCarthy introduces a bill to fully fund the wall, in an apparent attempt to bolster his chances at becoming the GOP House leader. The Senate is already indicating they won’t pass it.
10. 20 years ago this week, Matthew Shepard succumbed to his injuries from being beaten and left tied to a farm fence for being gay. Now his remains will be interred at Washington National Cathedral.
11. The MacArthur Foundation gives Pastor Williams J. Barber a $625,000 genius award for his activism against poverty and racism. They couldn’t reach him to tell him because he was being arrested at the time for protesting low wages in front of MacDonald’s headquarters.
12. Harvard University gives Colin Kaepernick the W.E.B. DuBois award for his work against racial inequality.
13. Seattle dismisses over 500 pot convictions after a court rules the convictions were unfairly applied to people of color. Again, duh.
14. A judge rules that Trump can’t deny federal funding to San Francisco over it’s sanctuary city policies.
15. A man who ICE detained while he was delivering pizza to a military base earlier this year is released, because it turns out that ICE had no reason to detain him.

Climate/EPA:

1. Here’s a little more on that UN report that found we have 12 years to address climate change to mitigate the most extreme effects.

• • Unless we make drastic changes within the next few years, we’ll see $54 trillion in damages.
  • We’ll see a major increase in food shortages, wildfires, and dying coral reefs within 20 years.

2. ExxonMobil plans to spend $1 million lobbying for a carbon tax and dividend program.
3. Hurricane Michael hits Florida’s panhandle as a category 4 storm, flattening much of Mexico Beach, FL and causing flooding and power outages from the panhandle up to the Carolinas. It’s the fourth most powerful storm to make landfall in the U.S., and it leaves 16 dead and 1.27 million without electricity.
4. The Senate votes to confirm a climate skeptic and former industry lawyer to the environment division of the DOJ.
5. The Trump administration plans to remove a federal ban on selling high-ethanol gas blends in the summer. These blends contribute to smog on hot days. The corn industry supports this, while the gas and oil industry oppose it.
   
6. The EPA disbands their panel of air pollution experts, which determines safe levels of pollution for us to breathe.
7. Elon Musk redeems himself a bit by donating money to Flint, MI schools for water fountains with filtration systems, so schools finally have clean drinking water.
8. The Supreme Court refuses to hear a lawsuit against an Obama-era ban on new uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, which mean the ban remains in place.

Budget/Economy:

1. The budget deficit for the 11 months through August rose to $898 billion. Spending increased by 7% while revenue only increased by 1%. Revenue from corporations fell.
2. After the Dow Jones falls by over 800 points, Trump blames the Fed for raising interest rates and calls the Fed loco. He won’t fire Jerome Powell, though.
3. Larry Kudlow says we shouldn’t take what the president says seriously. Ignore the tweets, ignore the rallies.
4. In all, the Dow Jones drops 1,800 points before starting its way back up.
5. After a federal judge rules against Betsy DeVos’s attempt to roll back Obama-era rules that protect students from predatory lenders, the Education Department says it will stop trying to delay the rules.
6. Ford plans to lay off around 12% of its global workforce as part of a reorganization. They say Trump’s tariffs, which have had a $1 billion impact on the company, are throwing a wrench into their reorg.
7. The DOJ approves the $69 billion merger between CVS and Aetna.
8. American weapons sales to foreign countries are up 33% from the previous year.

Elections:

1. Accusations of voter suppression abound in the weeks before the midterms.

• • The Supreme Court upholds a North Dakota voter ID law that could suppress the Native American vote. The law says you must have a street address on your ID, and a large portion of Native Americans only have a P.O. Box. County coordinators are working overtime to generate addresses for everyone (yep, they pretty much just make them up, so I’m not sure why that’s any more secure). They’re generating new IDs so fast, their machines started melting the IDs.
  • In Georgia, Secretary of State Kemp has been overseeing voter roll purges affecting mostly minority voters at a time when he is in the race for governor running against one of those minorities. Over the years, he’s purged 700,000 voters from the rolls.
    • 70% the 53,000 voter applications placed on hold this year are African-American voters.
    • Activists file a federal lawsuit against Kemp, saying his methodology is racially biased.
    • Kemp ran into legal trouble before with his “exact match” method of purging voters. Everything must match exactly, or the voter is purged or placed on hold. I worked in name and address matching for nearly 20 years. You have no idea how many different ways people can screw this information up.
    • Georgia tried the exact match system nearly a decade ago, but it was blocked in court due to violations of the Voting Rights Act. After SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act, Georgia reinstated the program.
    • Remember that Kemp refused federal assistance to bolster Georgia’s voting system in 2016 saying it’s ridiculous to think that Russia could break into their system. Hours later, someone called Kemp to let him know Georgia’s voter registration system was wide open to the public.
    • Mueller’s indictment against Russian GRU agents for hacking election systems specifically mentions their hacking attempt on Georgia’s system.

2. In good voter ID law news, Missouri’s voter ID law doesn’t hold up in court. This is the ninth time a court has found in favor of the voting rights group Priorities USA.
3. California’s motor voter program is not working as intended. First they found that around 23,000 registrations had errors, mostly minor and none including ineligible voters. Until now… when they found that they registered 1,500 ineligible voters due to human error. None were undocumented immigrants, but they were not eligible to register just the same. All the errors have since been corrected.
4. Two Arizona Republican field organizers used aliases to try to make a donation to Democratic candidate Tom O’Halleran from a Communist Party group in an attempt to link O’Halleran to far left politics. The campaign returned the money to the Republican field office where the two worked. And also, it’s a crime to donate under a fake name.
5. Federal officials arrest a man who planned to set off a 200-pound bomb in Washington’s National Mall on election day. He said it was to draw attention to his political belief of sortation, which is a way of randomly selecting government officials.
6. Sheldon Adelson donates $10s of million more toward Republican campaigns to hold on to their power in Congress. This comes on the heels of a report that Trump worked with Shinzo Abe to get Adelson a casino license in Japan. I do not want to hear another word about George Soros. Big donors exist on both sides.
7. You know who votes at a higher rate than U.S. citizens? Mexican citizens for one. And South Koreans. Also most of Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. So get off your butt and vote!

Miscellaneous:

1. From 2015 to 2018, Google exposed data of hundreds of thousands of Google+ users and didn’t tell us until now. Their response? They’re shutting down Google+.
2. Trump says he’s lost $2 or $3 billion since becoming president. Uh-huh.
3. Documents show that Jared Kushner has likely not paid federal income taxes for years. Though he made millions in income, he used depreciation on many of his properties to avoid paying taxes. Note that this is likely legal.
4. Hope Hicks, who left the White House in April, takes a job at Fox as Chief Communications Officer.
5. A Los Angeles judge dismisses Stormy Daniels’ defamation suit against Trump, saying the tweet in question was covered under Trump’s First Amendment rights since she’s a public figure. The judge also ordered her to pay Trump’s legal fees. Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, says they’ll appeal.
6. Kanye West visits the White House to meet with Trump about prison reform and gang violence. I don’t necessarily find this newsworthy, except that it got a little circus-like in the Oval Office and he did use some colorful language on live TV.

Polls:

1. 51% of Americans disapprove of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, compared to 41% who approve.
2. 53% support further investigation into Kavanaugh, while 43% are opposed.