Author: Kara Hurvitz

Hi there! If you're reading this, you're probably wondering who I am and why you should listen to me. (It's a fair cop.) So here's a little about me: I'm an advocate, educator, and activist with degrees in law and social work. By day, I help people access needed health care and health care coverage. By night, I fight crime--nah, just kidding; I write the NNR and related essays. Why the NNR? Well, I want to do everything I can to help folks stay informed, connected, and empowered during this difficult time, and this project lets me put work I already do to good use. Plus, I get to snark about the news and current administration. Everyone wins!

National News Roundup: Week 13 (April 16–22)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

After a few weeks of stuttering on a bad news cycle like a scratched CD that nobody uses anymore, we appear to have settled on… a week of dark carnival funhouse mirrors (though the emphasis is definitely more on ‘dark’ than ‘fun’). I guess we’re in a weird news week? Maybe we’re starting the whole thing over. You know what, we haven’t bombed anybody this week, so I’ll take it.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. Somewhat improbably, this week involves no news outside my expertise, so no need to worry about asterisks this time. I can’t decide if it’s good or bad that I don’t need them. At any rate, onto the news!

The Weird:

  • Deported DREAMers and Court Karma. The first DREAMer with active DACA status to be deported brought a lawsuit this week against both CBP and USCIS, and the facts being alleged are as sad as they are alarming. Apparently he left his wallet (and therefore his papers) in a friend’s car, CBP wouldn’t let him get them when they stopped him at a taxi stand, and he was deported within three hours of being detained. For those of you not familiar with the terminology, DACA is a status that is basically a fancy way of saying “we promise not to deport you because you came here as a kid,” so having that status and still getting deported so quickly is… pretty much the definition of a broken promise, and it’s not surprising that the gentleman is suing. What is surprising, and kind of darkly hilarious, is that the case has been assigned to Judge Gonzalo Curiel — and if that name rings a faint bell, it’s probably because Trump put Curiel on the map last year by claiming the “Mexican” judge was a “hater” who couldn’t be impartial on the Trump University case. (Curiel, by the way, was born in Indiana, because being racist and also wrong is pretty much Trump’s calling card.)
  • The Bill O’Reilly Fire. I want you all to know I’m mad that I finally have to write about Bill O’Reilly, which I’ve managed to get out of covering for weeks, but I suppose I can’t be mad about the reason — Fox News finally fired Bill O’Reilly after his giant pile of sexual harassment claims led to massive sponsorship hemorrhage. Proving that fact is stranger than fiction, and also that Fox News likes giving icky people money, he got a $25M severance package at the same time he got the boot.
  • Who’s Number 1 in Number 6? Okay, admittedly like three people reading this will get that Prisoner reference if I’m lucky. But independent of my bad taste in cult classics, the special election in Georgia’s Sixth District, for Tom Price’s old seat, was sadly inconclusive this week — Jon Ossoff fell just shy of the 50% vote needed for a conclusive victory, which means he and Karen Handell are both headed to a June 20 runoff vote. The Sixth District is traditionally very conservative, though, so a 48.1% vote for a Democrat is significant even though it’s not conclusive.
  • Jason Leaves the House. Speaking of elections, apparently House Oversight Committee Chairman and Resident Jackass Jason Chaffetz has announced he won’t be running for re-election in 2018, and possibly won’t even be finishing his current term. I wish I could claim that he’s stepping down in a fit of embarrassed patriotism, given the mounting evidence of collusion with Russia that he kept swearing didn’t exist, but the reality is even stranger: He wants to be a television star. Or possibly governor of Utah. Apparently either one of these is an acceptable goal for a politician who quits mid-term in the post-Trump age.
  • Ubiquitous Unicorn Chasers. In other surreal pop culture news, all the awful things happening in the world have caused people to seek out more literal unicorn chasers, which I can respect even if I also don’t want to put any of those things in my face. Never one to be left out of the action, Starbucks started slopping this Lisa Frank nightmare into a cup, which I’m reliably informed tastes about as good as it looks. Unsurprisingly, it’s already off the menu. Which I’m a bit sad about, because I’m enough of an armchair mixologist to find constantly-changing color interesting, and I wanted to try one. For science.
  • Business Racism As Usual. Trump signed an executive order this week that he’s saying will Make American Businesses Great Again. The practical implication, among other things, is that it limits access to H1-B working visas; it looks like they will eventually mostly only be accessible to highly-educated and specialized workers. What I can’t figure out on this from a casual glance, and will probably examine more closely once we’re done moving house, is where he put the loophole for his own businesses — given how heavily Mar-a-Lago and other Trump resorts rely on immigrant labor, I know he must have left one somewhere.

The Bad:

  • Visitor Throw-down. In what I can only describe as either blatant fascism, abject pettiness, or both, the White House has dug in its heels about refusing to make visitor logs accessible to the public. They have also started closing the sidewalk to the public. Apparently our ‘populist’ Commander-in-Chief really doesn’t want to have to deal with common folk knowing what he is up to. Democrats, meanwhile, have responded by attempting to make the White House release its logs through introducing legislation, which is appropriately named the MAR-A-LAGO Act.
  • Wall Fighting on the Floor. A new form of the AHCA, funding for the fabled Wall the Mexicans Were Going to Pay For, and funding for the existing ACA are all among the things expected to be duked out on the Congressional floor this upcoming week. Trump and Sessions are already loudly announcing that Democrats will have shut down Congress if they don’t agree to fund the wall; in what I’m sure is purely coincidence, literally nobody but Trump and Sessions wants Congress to pay for this wall in the first place. I’m not sure it will actually come to a government shut down, but the sheer brazenness of trying to force all of Congress to pay “for now” is as noteworthy as it is appalling.
  • Trump Trumps Himself. Nothing about this story is surprising, but somehow it has to be seen to be believed anyway — Trump called Turkish President ­Recep Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on successfully curtailing the rights of Turkish citizens through a rigged referendum. The State Department, in contrast, noted irregularities in the referendum voting process. The apparent motivation for Trump’s split from the State Department? Trump Tower in Istanbul. By the way, the congratulatory call also gives Trump something in common with Hamas, because that’s a club everybody wants their Islamophobic President to join.
  • The News from France. This has been a very eventful week in France — a terrorist attack on the major boulevard in Paris left people uncertain and on edge, especially as the nation geared up for an election cycle this upcoming week. The favored candidates (both of whom advanced after Sunday’s vote) are centrist Emmanuel Macron and French Trump equivalent Marine Le Pen, and the latter’s xenophobic platform is almost certainly helped by an attack by an Islamic extremist. The voting will continue this week, and I’ll definitely continue to keep folks posted.
  • Sessions Continues to Hate Brown People. Jeff Sessions had a busy week of scaring and deriding brown people, as is becoming his new routine. First he called Hawai’i “an island in the Pacific” (instead of, you know, a recognized state) when trying to insinuate that decisions coming from the 9th Circuit are invalid. Then he followed that up by threatening several jurisdictions he considered sanctuary jurisdictions, for good measure. If I start ranting about this Keebler reject’s twisted views on being a lawyer or a member of the human race, we’ll be here all night, so I’ll courteously conclude this paragraph and move on.

The Good:

National News Roundup: Week 12 (April 9–15)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Hello, and welcome to the hangry and extra-snarky Passover edition of National News Roundup! The news is still dark and sucking like the quiet vacuum of space — in fact, I think it’s even worse than last week, which is saying something. Let’s try for best out of three, I guess?

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. This week involves a bit less news outside my expertise, which also means fewer off-road adventures, but those that exist are still signaled with asterisks. Okay, caveats over; keep your comfort food at the ready, because here we go.

The Weird:

  • The Great Disappearing Reappearing Same-Sex Marriage. North Carolina legislators in the House introduced a bill repealing recognition of same-gender marriage in their state this week, because… Gorusch, presumably? Actually, it’s not entirely clear why they thought this was a good idea, as the House speaker so candidly notes; the Supreme Court wasn’t exactly ambiguous when they issued a directly contradictory ruling just two years ago. He jettisoned the bill citing ‘constitutional concerns,’ which is a bit like telling the legislators not to throw lit matches into the ocean due to ‘presence of moisture.’ Some things, apparently, are not their own obvious deterrents.
  • Trump Can’t Keep Track of Who He’s Bombed. I wish I were making this one up — well, okay, I wish I were making up almost all of the headlines this week, but this one definitely wins some kind of Most Like a Roald Dahl Villain prize. In an interview with Fox Business this week about last week’s decision to bomb Syria, Trump could remember “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen,” which he apparently was eating at the time, but not which country he was bombing while he ate it. Though, to be fair, this is Trump. He also could have been lying about the cake.
  • Secret Agent Man(afort). Actually, the real secret on this one is whether Manafort, who ran Trump’s campaign for a time, is going to register as a foreign agent or not; the news doesn’t appear to agree on this point (but sources agree that he was doing work for Ukraine). It sure is fun how many of the people Trump directly relies or has relied on since his campaign literally represent other countries, amirite?
  • Separation of Church and Police State. Alabama introduced state legislation this week to grant churches the power to organize police forces, which has passed in its Senate. Yes, you read that right. No, we didn’t repeal the Establishment Clause while you weren’t looking. I guess they figure their next Governor will need extra help behaving.
  • ICE Reports On Ice. More about why this is weird rather than simply good below, but the Department of Homeland Security has put its reports on sanctuary jurisdictions on hold for now. This appears to be at least in part due to jurisdictions filing complaints about errors in the data, though there might be other things at play as well.

The Bad:

  • United: Come for the Police Brutality, Stay for the Scorpions. By now, most of us have seen the incredibly disturbing video of a passenger being brutalized by Chicago Police because he refused to ‘volunteer’ to give up his (legally purchased) seat on a United Airlines plane. The passenger, David Dao, has issued statements through his lawyer saying he never wants to fly again and has memory loss due to concussion; the airline’s stock value also plummeted this week. Then, just for extra confirmation we’re all living in an Onion article, reports came out of a passenger stung by a scorpion on one of their flights the same day. And they didn’t even turn the plane around. I miss the days when they were too busy breaking guitars for this kind of thing.
  • Another Shooting in California. There was another school shooting this week, this time in California. “Only” three dead and one injured — apparently it was a domestic violence murder-suicide that happened to get a couple of kids caught in the crossfire. There’s a much larger conversation to be had here about escalated risk of violence at the point when survivors leave abusers, but for now I’ll just note that this story and the one above it pretty much set the tone of news for this entire week.
  • Gorsuch Swearing. Gorsuch was sworn in this week, and if you have no ipecac syrup at your house you can try reading the official White House statement to induce vomiting instead. The part where he clerked for the Supreme Court Justice who swore him in (Justice Kennedy) was kind of cool, though, if you ignore the Good Ole Boys aspect of it all.
  • Sessions Suspends Forensic Science Commission Session. I know, I know, I should be prosecuted for that headline. But apparently they won’t be able to bring me in, because in a move that even Forbes dislikes, Sessions is ordering the end of an independent commission working on forensic accuracy in criminal prosecution. He hasn’t put any other form of policy review in place instead; he just… disbanded the commission that was supposed to be working on it. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the news suggests our Attorney General — the highest prosecutor in the land — doesn’t care about making sure the correct people are prosecuted for crimes. And in more I-can’t-believe-I’m-writing-this news, this isn’t even the most disturbing thing Sessions did this week.
  • Sessions Border Bombshell. So what’s the thing that trumps our Attorney General not caring about prosecuting the right people? That would be his prepared statements and memorandum about immigration enforcement, which he released on Tuesday. They aren’t what I’d call a fun read — in fact, they deserve a content warning — so here’s a quick summary: He wants police to prioritize felony prosecution of a whole host of things involving immigration, he wants to add more immigration court judges in the next two years, and he wants to stop releasing people prior to deportation at all. The whole tenor of the remarks and orders was very harsh and not necessarily fully legal, and perhaps the quickest way to summarize the whole thing would be to note his use of the word ‘filth’ to refer to actual human beings. Also, there’s some language about “impeding investigation” becoming a felony, making me wonder if they are suspending the reports because they are laying groundwork to just start prosecuting city officials.
  • Spicer Studies World War II (DeVos Edition). Perhaps people didn’t pay more attention to Sessions because Sean Spicer’s adventures in fascism were simply so much louder. First he claimed that Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” which was a pretty spectacular claim all by itself (spoiler: yes he did). When asked to clarify, he explained that Hitler was different because he didn’t use gas on his own people; he used it in “Holocaust centers.” By the end of the week Spicer appeared to have realized that “it was a mistake to do that.” Personally, I suspect the only part of Spicer’s statements that was an actual accident was the part where he revealed how this administration views the Final Solution.
  • Replacing Repeal-and-Replace Repealed. Trump is now saying that they will return to repeal-and-replace plans for the Affordable Care Act after all, though there aren’t a lot of specifics about what that means yet. We do know that he’s threatening to withhold subsidy payments, and I recommend CAHC’s analysis for a thoughtful-as-usual explanation of what that means. (In short: It’s a bad plan.)
  • The Mother of All Bombs (That Aren’t Nuclear).* On this one the headline pretty much says it all; Trump dropped “the mother of all bombs” on Afghanistan in an effort to cripple ISIS, killing at least 94 people. It’s looking increasingly like this was a message to North Korea, to make sure the country understands that Trump might bomb them too (and leading a former ambassador to observe that he’s “trying to out-North-Korea North Korea”).
  • Court of Appeals Judge Body Found. Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a judge on the top court of New York, went missing and was found dead this week. Though there were no signs of trauma on the body, the location of the body suggests heavily that foul play was involved. She had written a decision granting right of same-sex couples to adopt this past summer, and was a widely-respected judge known for liberal pragmatism in general. She was also the first black woman ever to serve on the court.
  • Your Weekly Authoritarian recap. Amy Siskind notes a lot of things beyond what I’ve touched upon above.

The Good:

  • Kansas Cuts it Close. The Kansas special election did go to the Republican candidate, but by only 7 points — which is way lower than is customary for that district. It’s widely regarded as a win for Democrats even though it isn’t, you know, a win for Democrats.
  • Pulitzer Praise. Trump may not like the New York Times, but the people who award the Pulitzer prize sure did — for the same attention to Russia’s activities that makes Trump dislike them (among other reasons). The Washington Post was similarly rewarded for its attention to Trump’s charity scandals during the campaign season. Presumably both the Pulitzer and pissing off Trump are measures of doing something right in the journalism world.
  • Saturn Life Support. Plumes of gas emitted from one of Saturn’s moons suggest that it might have the right conditions to support life, which is pretty exciting!
  • Tiny New Giraffe Friend. April the Improbably Famous Pregnant Giraffe gave birth on Saturday to a tiny male calf! Her son’s name will be subject to viewer vote, so no news on that front. Though I suppose that means you can potentially Be the Giraffe Name You Wish to See in the World! And I recommend watching the videos on the first link, because we can all use a giraffe chaser on a week like this.

National News Roundup: Week 11 (April 2–8)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This past week was really rough — quite bluntly, we were due for a bad news cycle, and we absolutely got one. (In fact, a particularly keen observer might notice that these write-ups only ever issue on Mondays during rough news cycles, because I need the extra day to wrack my brain for that spoonful of sugar to help the horridness go down). The news sucked, and as of Monday afternoon, it still is sucking. It is my fervent hope that this will pass.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. This week involves a bit less news outside my expertise, which also means fewer off-road adventures, but those that exist are still signaled with asterisks. Also, I am cognizant of the fact that this news review is going out on the first night of Passover, which is a holiday I usually observe; I will re-release the summary mid-week for those who are at seders tonight. Okay, caveats over, and now I give you a moment for the Ceremonial Retrieval of Comfort Food.

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Okay, are we ready to roll? Let’s get this show on the road…

The Weird:

  • Susan Rice Dreams.* Okay that title is admittedly because it amuses me, but a vivid hallucination would certainly explain this past week’s middle-of-the-week attempt to distract the free press — Trump decided that the wiretapping from Obama really did happen, and it was Susan Rice’s fault. This was pretty summarily dismissed by most outlets as the attempted distraction that it was, because there’s nothing to suggest illegal wiretapping at all. It’s pretty clear that the administration quickly understood the strategy wasn’t working — more on that below.
  • Bannon Conundrum.* Bannon has officially been removed from the National Security Council as of this week. “Why isn’t this good news?” I hear you asking, to which I respond: It’s the very fact that we’re not sure it’s good news that makes it weird news instead. I’ve heard people speculating that as a top adviser, Bannon maintains all the clearance of the NSC with none of the oversight. But that said, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Bannon’s star is waning while Kushner’s is rising — which is presumably what prompted this hilarious outburst — so I’m honestly not sure if he’s about to goose-step on out of the White House or not. One can dare to hope, though.
  • Blackwater Basics.* Just in case you forgot how bizarrely incestuous the entire Trump administration is, surprise, Betsy DeVos’s brother turns out to be the Blackwater guy! Oh, and he created a back-door channel to Russian staff for the Trump administration in January, because of course he did. Though by the end of the week, I think this story was mostly forgotten, given how the rest of the week went…
  • Repeal-and-Replace Rodeo. Even I had a hard time tracking the half-baked attempts to make repealing the ACA relevant again this week. I think this CAHC summary says it best: “The smash hit adventure epic The Quest For 216 (votes) continues, and Congress did not manage to get any kind of ACA repeal/replace bill to the finish line before all getting the heck out of Dodge yesterday and today. But . . . the idea now is that if they hit on the magic formula to get the votes (and, more importantly, get the commitments before putting a bill on the floor), Speaker Ryan could call the House back into session during the break to vote on something.” So there you have it.
  • Pepsi in Politics. In what I (and apparently some news outlets) can only describe as a stunningly off-base attempt to monetize Black Lives Matter, Pepsi released an ad this week for a hot second featuring What’s-Her-Name Babyface Jenner and The Deescalating Power of Pepsi. Or, more accurately, The Deescalating Power of Being A White Girl In Front of a Police Officer. As you can imagine, the Internet had a lot to say about this, and the ad was pulled very quickly — the real mystery here is who approved such an obviously ill-advised ad in the first place.

The Bad:

  • Nuclear Gorsuch.* We’re leading with the heavy hitters this week — folks, in my opinion this headline is the single biggest and most important thing to know happened in the past seven days. Note that I’m saying that on a week when we also bombed Syria (and more on the latter below, but stay with me here). The order of operations went something like this: The Democrats filibustered the Gorsuch vote. The Republicans didn’t have 60 votes, which have always been needed to overcome a filibuster and vote in a nominee to the Supreme Court. The Republicans responded by changing the rules so that only a simple majority was needed — a change colloquially known as “the nuclear option,” which was already done for Cabinet appointees in 2013 (and we are reaping the oh-so-fun results of that with cabinet members like Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions, who would not have been confirmed under the old rules). Gorsuch was, of course, confirmed under the new rules, but that’s not the important thing here (and liberals in the back, let go of your pearls long enough to let me explain). Using the nuclear option for Supreme Court nominees was an incredibly foolhardy decision that could literally wreak havoc for generations — it’s so serious, in fact, that an op-ed in the Washington Post this week sincerely called Mitch McConnell, who pulled the trigger, “the man who broke America.” You know how much fun we are having with Sessions and DeVos? (If not, let me tell you about the party that’s been happening on both of those fronts below.) They serve “at the pleasure of the President,” which means the very next President can (and probably will) kick them right out the door. Supreme Court Justices, in contrast, serve for life, and their decisions frequently outlast them — one the Supreme Court decides something, it’s the law until a subsequent Supreme Court overturns them, and that can take decades. And now any incompetent muppet can be rammed through the Senate without bipartisan support, which previously wasn’t possible. Gorsuch is conservative but competent, if you ignore the plagiarism allegations; the next nominee could be a judicial Betsy DeVos. It’s a brave new world of eroded checks and balances.
  • Oh Also, We Bombed Syria.* Trump abruptly announced that chemical weapons were a step too far on Thursday, noting that “no child of God should ever suffer such horror,” and launched fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles at the country. Since it was a pretty severe about-face for a dude who wanted to ban all Syrian refugees indefinitely to suddenly bomb said refugees because they were dying, and also he didn’t consult with Congress (although he did warn Russia), both his actions and his words made a lot of people very nervous. I personally suspect The Onion has the right of it, and this is military theater in the style of Clinton’s Somalia bombing during the Lewinsky scandal. If so, it appears to have worked, so bully for him I guess; watch this space for more updates.
  • All’s Fair In Pay and the Workplace. Though it’s not quite as earth-shattering, Trump also revoked the Fair Pay order put in place by the Obama administration, which, as this Independent headline so succinctly put it, “mak[es] it easier for men to sexually harass women at work and get away with it” (though it also makes it easier to pay women a lower wage). Raise your hand if you’re surprised by this point.
  • Blue Livelihoods Matter Y’all. Sessions ordered federal review with dozens of law enforcement agencies noted for particular police abuses, noting that “the individual misdeeds of bad actors should not impugn” the remaining police force. In what’s apparently signature Sessions fashion, he requested a 90-day delay on finalizing changes to police procedure in Baltimore that were supposed to be heard by a judge 3 days later, which I might characterize in strictly legal terms as “a total jerk move.” So, that’s what Sessions has been up to, per my reference above.
  • Let Them Eat Debt. His lovely education counterpoint, Betsy DeVos, meanwhile, has been issuing guidance about student loans permitting loan companies to charge rates so exorbitant that some companies are hastening to note that they won’t do it, and clarifying that the Department of Education doesn’t really have to honor loan forgiveness programs put in place ten years ago for public service. So that’s what she’s been up to, and it’s equally charming.
  • Your Weekly Authoritarian recap. Amy Siskind has a lot to say this week, surprising nobody, and I recommend reading it.

The Good:

  • 7th Circuit Civil Rights. The main good news of the week was a case that came out of the 7th Circuit, holding that discriminating against lesbians was a form of discriminating against women — an idea that may seem obvious, but from a legal perspective is a new and extremely promising line of precedent for further suits. I’m really curious to see what happens on this case from here, and I will definitely keep folks posted.
  • What’s Cooking in Special Elections. Surprisingly, both Kansas and Georgia are showing signs of potentially going blue in special elections, according to The Cook Political Report — though Georgia is of course more of a possibility than Kansas. In fact, they are calling the Georgia special election “a toss up,” which is pretty awesome for a county that has been Republican since dinosaurs roamed the earth. The Kansas election is tomorrow, though, so hopefully we’ll know more soon! (The Georgia election is not until April 18, so there’s more time on that one either way.)
  • Major Deportation Public Defense Landmark! This past week, New York set up the country’s first public defense program for deportation proceedings. This is an incredibly big deal, and I’m really excited about it — we’ve never before had any jurisdiction that guaranteed representation for anyone facing deportation from the country. I would love to see other locations follow suit, and I’ll definitely keep folks posted on this.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print — thank everything; half that amount of bad news would have been enough! Catch you all next week, hopefully with better tidings.

National News Roundup: Week 10 (March 26–April 1)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed by how much the news just continues to escalate every week — we’re ten weeks in, and somehow I still can’t believe some of what I’m writing in this summary. A lot of major players are galvanizing right now; if our national news were a television show, we would definitely be gearing up for a season finale. Let’s just hope we’re all living in a genre that is at least somewhat kind to its residents.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. Just like last week, this week involves a fair amount of foreign policy news, which is outside my expertise as a legal generalist focused on domestic indigent populations. I hope folks are up for some offroad adventures! (They are signaled with asterisks, and I won’t be offended if you skip over them.) Also, an additional caveat this week: I threw out my back impressively badly on Tuesday, resulting in a hospital visit and a several-day vacation to A Nice Drug-Induced Haze Land Where None of This is Happening. As a result, this week’s news summaries will be a bit less in-depth and I particularly urge you to review supplemental news as well this week. Okay, caveats over. Let’s get this week’s installment of Mad Max: Fury Road in gear!

The Weird:

  • Immigrant Improvements and Sanctuary Showdowns. It’s been an incredibly mixed week for immigrants, both nationally and here in my home state of Massachusetts — I’m including a brief summary of the latter at the end of the news. On the positive side of things, Secretary Kelly has moved away from his threat of separating families at the border, and the odds aren’t looking great on whether Republicans can get Congress to fund the wall. But now that there’s an official report on “sanctuary jurisdictions” (which is to say, governments that aren’t cooperating with ICE demands) in the U.S., everybody’s throwing down over it. Sessions announced that sanctuary jurisdictions will no longer be eligible for Department of Justice grants to assist with criminal law enforcement, an announcement which prompted Seattle to sue the administration (for, what, the third time in two months?). It also caused Bristol county sheriff Thomas Hodgson to opine to Congress that sanctuary jurisdiction elected officials should be arrested, nicely illustrating why so many local people seriously hate that guy.
  • Intelligence Rodeo.* I’m seriously starting to think the ongoing intelligence landscape needs its own roundup, though I’ll summarize best I can: Jared Kushner was tapped to testify about his ties to Russia; the White House is attempting to block Sally Yates from testifying about what she knows; Nunes really did get his info last week from a White House source, which is, uh, not good (and making people call for either his recusal, ethics violation charges, or both); the Senate Intelligence Committee is attempting to pick up the pieces of the stalled House investigation; Flynn offered to testify in exchange for immunity, but the Senate wasn’t having it and the House was noncommittal; and Comey apparently wanted to write an op-ed about the investigation back in 2016 (but was not permitted by the White House to do so, because it was a freaking op-ed). Oh, also, questions being asked about Flynn testifying had Trump so rattled that he left the room instead of signing two executive orders on trade matters (though he did sign them eventually, much to everybody’s disappointment). Also, the exact timeline of the unfolding Nunes saga has been very confusing, so here’s a good summary from the New York Times.
  • It’s My Party and I’ll Tiff If I Want To. In a move that surprises, well, nobody, Trump appears to have more-or-less declared war on the Freedom Caucus that refused to play ball last week, threatening to put them in the same bucket as Democrats. It’s a remarkably poor move from a traditional politics standpoint, and it will be interesting to see what happens on that front long-term. But the Democrats cleaned house this week as well, reminding us that they are a deeply fractured party too.
  • Gorsuch Guessing Game. Schumer has announced that he will filibuster the Gorsuch vote, but two Democrats have already indicated that they will vote for him and McConnell is trying to get Republican senators to go nuclear. The vote got delayed one week on Monday, so this will be an interesting week on this front for sure.
  • I Don’t Want Dinner with You Either, Pence. Mike Pence came up in the news a fair amount this week for announcing that he and his wife have a rule that he doesn’t eat meals with other women without her present. I’ll spare you a lengthy analysis of why this kind of rule hurts women professionally, and simply note that the feeling’s mutual.
  • Leggings Gate. Two teenaged girls were barred from flying on United Airlines this week because the airline said their leggings violated the dress code for “pass travelers.” Yes, really. No, I didn’t know they have a dress code either. At any rate, Twitter was very angry about it.

The Bad:

The Good:

  • MAR-A-LAGO Act. This is more amusing news than good, strictly speaking, but Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced a bill they are calling the “Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act.” It would force the White House to reveal logs of visitors at all locations where official business occurs, and why yes, that would include the Mar-A-Lago resort, why do you ask? (The bill is frankly a good idea, with or without the pointed title.)
  • Georgia On Our Minds. The Georgia special election is shaping up to be a very interesting election, with Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff showing a real chance of flipping Tom Price’s old seat. We won’t have concrete news on the election results until April 18 or later, but it’s an interesting race to watch, and I’ll try to remember to circle back in a few weeks.
  • Revitalized ACA. Now that it’s looking less likely that the ACA is going anywhere, several states are revisiting the subject of expanding Medicaid — including Kansas, which should be an interesting showdown between the legislative and executive branches. Unfortunately, that’s the last of the straightforward good news I have on tap this week, though there’s some good schadenfreude for local readers below. If you aren’t local, feel free to read or skip at your leisure, and catch you next week!

Eastern Corridor Corner:

A rash of local news about national issues is prompting a new subsection this week, because boy howdy, did a lot happen here on several fronts:

  • ICE arrested multiple greencard holders in Lawrence this week as they showed up for routine appointments, which is a pretty dramatic change in posture and suggests we may see more aggression from them here in MA in the future.
  • Relatedly, things in Brockton exploded because there was a very widely-spread rumor that ICE planned to raid, which ultimately was announced by a state representative for the area on Facecbook. I don’t believe there was an ICE raid on Thursday, but since raids rely heavily on the element of surprise, this might be because ICE knew it would be hard to round up a wary and forewarned population.
  • Mayor Walsh gave a brief announcement and raised the transgender pride flag over the Statehouse, which was presumably in response to legislation being considered for trans rights but also happened to be when the “free speech bus” that roams the nation spewing hate speech was nearby; and
  • The mayor of Somerville, Joseph Curtatone, publicly called Sheriff Hodgson a “jack-booted thug”’ in response to his statement to Congress, and dared him to “Come and get me”. I admit the whole thing made me kind of miss living in Somerville, but either way, it’s a great way to close out this week’s news!

National News Roundup: Week 9 (March 19–25)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

What an incredibly weird week we just had — I’m not even sure what happened for half of it, though that might be because foreign policy is not generally my bag, professionally speaking. That said, I can glean enough to know that this past week was less of a Willy Wonka terrorboat and more of a Six Flags wild mouse, which some weeks is the best we can expect.

Standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. As noted above, though, this week involves a fair amount of foreign policy news, which is outside my expertise as a legal generalist. But it is also important, so I hope folks are up for some offroad adventures! (They are signaled with asterisks, and I won’t be offended if you skip over them.) Also, I can’t claim to make this week’s news make sense even when it was within my area of expertise, though I’m happy to reap the benefits. Okay, onward to the news.

The Weird:

  • James Comey and the Hearing of No Secrets.* So James Comey went firmly on the record about all kinds of bonkers things at his hearing this week, noting that the FBI is investigating both Russian interference in the election and also the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia in the election process (!). (He also said that there was no evidence of Obama tapping Trump Tower, but that feels like an afterthought in light of everything else going on.) The whole thing is admittedly a less interesting read than anything involving a basilisk, but consider reading his two sections of the hearing transcript anyway, because it kind of needs to be seen to be believed.
  • …wasn’t the weirdest intelligence news this week.* That honor belongs to Devin Nunes, who decided to go on record and claim Trump’s story about wiretapping was substantiated with zero evidence. He also bypassed the intelligence committee to go straight to Trump with the news, which he then defended with a half-hearted apology. Then McCain got in on the action to opine that Congress can no longer be trusted to have appropriate intelligence oversight, which was a fun thing to hear the same week Comey announced an investigation into collusion with Russia. Also, later Nunes went back on the story due to lack of evidence.
  • Collusion Betting Brackets.* No lie, I’ve started to see folks put together brackets betting on who is going to end up in prison for high crimes first — probably because there is just so much news on it this week. There’s the week’s latest Flynn bombshell, which involves more-or-less kidnapping enemies of the Turkish state for “covert extredition,” Stone’s knowledge of wikileaks in advance, and Manafort working to aid Putin, then volunteering to share what he knows (presumably in a bid to avoid imprisonment). Also, the leading Democrat on the intelligence committed indicated that he has information on Trump’s direct collusion with Russia, though there are no specifics on that though. Oh, and Flynn didn’t sign Trump’s ridiculous ethics pledge, which barely seems worth mentioning against this kind of larger backdrop.
  • Angela Merkel’s Infinite Patience.* This week’s ridiculousness involved Trump giving her an invoice for Germany’s use of NATO resources, despite the fact that a) Trump famously hates NATO for fun and profit, and b) as Merkel correctly notes, NATO doesn’t work that way. This also happened the same week that Tillerson snubbed NATO for China. Frankly, the only thing surprising about any of this is that Trump could remember what NATO was doing twelve years ago.
  • The Wacky World of the AHChoo Vote. This past week in healthcare was honestly pretty scary while it was happening, but now that it’s over it’s just a big ole bowl of schadenfreude flakes. Basically, both the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus and more moderate Republicans refused to play ball, which continued throughout the week despite increasingly disturbing attempts to make the AHCA more to the Freedom Caucus’s liking (and Presidential threats regarding consequences). This was in part because constituents made their strong dislike of the bill known, which moderate House members realistically assessed as far more of a threat to their 2018 election prospects. The vote, which was originally scheduled for the seven-year anniversary of the ACA for spite reasons, got pushed back to Friday. Then Ryan pulled the vote on Friday because he didn’t have enough support for the bill to pass (and because Trump essentially made him), saying that “we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.” And I’m just so broken up about that as a healthcare professional, let me tell you.
  • Gorsuch A Circus. The twenty-hour Gorsuch hearing took a far weirder set of twists and turns than expected, though predicted results are far more…well, predictable. Highlights include the Supreme Court of the United States issuing a decision on 10th circuit precedent during the hearing, Schumer unexpectedly pushing to filibuster, and Gorsuch calling 19th-century lawmakers ‘racists’. Mostly, though, this hearing was a three-day slog where Democrats tried to get an angle on Gorsuch and he didn’t give them one, and also people were generally still mad about Merrick Garland. That said, though, Schumer did ask to delay the vote in light of all of the bonkers collusion news going on elsewhere on the Hill.
  • “I’m President and You’re Not.” I bet you already know that this is a direct quote rather than parody, because by now we’re all used to the Toddler-in-Chief’s outrageous interviews. But, uh, this sure is a thing he said nonironically to TIME magazine this week.

The Bad:

  • Adjusting the Privacy Settings.* The Senate voted this week on repealing an Obama-era Internet privacy rule that went through along party lines — the resolution will pass privacy reins over from the FCC to the FTC and prohibit the FTC from creating the kind of stricter standards for Internet privacy that the FCC had created. The provision still needs to go through the House, though, so we’ll see what happens to it.
  • Brown Bear, What Do You See?* (I see a mean bill coming for me.) Okay, okay, theatrics aside, the Senate also voted this week to permit more aggressive hunting of predators such as bears and wolves in Alaska, permitting them to be hunted aerially and in proximity to their cubs. Unlike the first bill, this one has already passed in the House, which means it will be finalized if/when Trump signs it into law (which he’s expected to do sometime next week).
  • Electronics Travel Ban. Though the travel ban was slapped down last week, immigration experts can tell you that the unpleasantness is far from over. Trump put another travel restriction in place this week, this time specifically on what electronics can be brought aboard flights to and from eight Muslim-majority countries. The ban, however, only applies to foreign airlines, rather than U.S.-owned companies, which is prompting some media sources to speculate it’s not about terror at all.
  • Sanctuary Slamdown. The Department of Homeland Security put out their first report on sanctuary jurisdictions this week, which was a fascinating and informative read on multiple levels. It was issued around the same time that news outlets began reporting that ICE is targeting sanctuary jurisdictions, presumably as part of a two-pronged “embarrass and/or harass into compliance” campaign. (Note: Though Boston is listed in the third section of the report, there are still no reports coming in of ICE raids in this area.)
  • Supremacy Stabbing in NYC. A middle-aged man in New York City, Timothy Caughman, was fatally stabbed this week simply because he was black (and in the wrong place at the wrong time). We know this because the person who stabbed him turned himself into police and told them so. It’s honestly a pretty heartbreaking story, as well as a bellwether of the emboldened hatred this administration has fostered.
  • Your Weekly Authoritarian Recap. Amy Siskind continues to tell you what’s happening in Trump’s America, and this week was a particularly chaotic slog.

The Good:

  • North Carolina Checks Itself (Hopefully Pre-Wreckage). Remember how the governor of North Carolina refused to give up power, and then eventually dramatically stripped gubernatorial power for his successor on his way out the door? In what is apparently becoming the new normal process, the North Carolina high courts called foul on that this week. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next, as a practical matter — particularly because North Carolina has proven such an interesting testing ground in other ways.
  • Special Education win. Though it made the most headlines for its connection to Gorsuch, the case SCOTUS decided this week was fairly big news in its own right! The short version is that it confirms that all schools must provide a meaningful attempt to education children who need special education based on the individual children’s circumstances. This decision is likely to be particularly meaningful for children in public school as we see further changes to the entire system in the upcoming year, so I’m pretty excited about it.
  • They Started Using Singular They: The AP Stylebook is including use of the singular ‘they’ pronoun in its guide moving forward, which is an interesting change from a literary perspective.
  • Big Trucks and Healing Potions. Oh, and speaking of interesting literary devices, Trump also took a break from his busy ACA-killing schedule this week to take photos behind the wheel of a giant truck. Predictably, a new meme was born, and the Internet’s response was pure gold. Between that and the #GOPDnD trend on Twitter, it’s been a good week for memes. And I encourage you to lose yourself in them, because they are hilarious and you’re now done with this week’s news!

National News Roundup: Week 8 (March 12–18)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

We were due for a good news week in the cycle, and this was a pretty good week — as long as Trump’s budget gets kicked to the curb and we don’t go to war with North Korea. So, you know, your mileage may vary.

Standard disclaimers still apply; I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. I may touch on news I think folks should know that is outside my area as a legal generalist, but if we undertake any offroad adventures I’ll do my best to signal that for you upfront by giving that headline an asterisk. Disclaimers over, let’s look at the poisoned apple pie served up this past week.

The Weird

  • Standard Microwaves Cannot Be Used As Spy Cameras. This appears to be news to Kellyanne Conway, who asserted otherwise in an interview on Sunday (which she said to support Trump’s assertions that Obama monitored Trump Tower, because of course she did). She claimed afterward that her words were taken out of context (and, somewhat incredibly, that she’s “not in the job of having evidence,” though that’s another story), but looking at the context makes it clear that they weren’t.
  • Remember Trump’s Taxes? Apparently investigative reporter David Cay Johnston had a copy of Trump’s tax return from 2005, but in the 90 minutes before Rachel Maddow could present it on her show, the White House released the 2005 tax return. This has been generally treated as great ado about nothing, as Trump’s taxes for this year were squeaky clean, but it demonstrates just how easily Trump could release this information if he wanted to. Also, how salty various news outlets collectively can be about cable news. Oh, we all learned the phrase ‘over-the-transom,’ so that’s a fun silver lining.
  • The Call Came From Inside (Russia’s) House. The Justice Department has issued criminal cyber charges against two Russian intelligence agents relating to the heist of 500 million Yahoo user accounts in 2014. The indicted FSB officers — Dmitry Dukuchaev and Igor Sushchin — are part of the cyber investigative arm of the FSB, which is officially responsible for investigating computer intrusions in Russia.
  • No, Really, Our Muslim Ban Is Not Anti-Muslim! The Trump administration’s revised travel ban has been blocked on two fronts (more about this in The Good) and the Justice Department has filed an appeal in an effort to salvage the ban. Sadly, no one yelled “SEE YOU IN COURT!” on twitter this time.
  • Hey Angela, Check Your Microwave. Trump tried to involve German Chancellor Angela Merkel in conversation about his wiretapping accusations against the Obama administration, referring to reports that the NSA had tapped Merkel’s phone in 2010. Wisely, Merkel ignored him.
  • But He Tapped My Wires! Really, I think this New York Times article says it best: “No matter how many officials, even in [Trump’s] own party, dismiss his unsubstantiated claim that President Barack Obama secretly tapped his phones last year, the White House made clear on Thursday that it would stand by the assertion.” Good luck with that.

The Bad

The Good

  • Congressional Budget Office Condemns the Trump-Ryan Healthcare Plan. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the Republican healthcare plan would add 24 million uninsured people by 2026. The White House maintains that the CBO’s assessment is wrong, but the unfavorable analysis has alarmed people and it barely squeaked through the Budget Committee (with three conservatives voting against it). So it continues to be an uphill road for everyone’s least favorite healthcare bill.
  • No Darkest Dutch Timeline. Unlike us, the Netherlands had the sense to avoid electing its dangerously fascist frontline candidates this past week, though some conservative candidates did win seats. So no darkest timeline over there, but maybe a vaguely dim one. Still, were I Dutch, I would consider it a win to avoid my own national Brexit or Trumpaganza.
  • Honolulu Judge Blocks Revised Travel Ban. The new Trump travel ban is just the old Trump travel ban with fancy shoes, so it presents more-or-less the same Constitutional violations. Hawaii sued accordingly, and a judge issued a restraining order to stay the travel ban nationwide. You can read the full ruling online, and particularly enjoy the part where the judge spanks this administration repeatedly with the Establishment Clause starting at page 30.
  • Republicans vs. Trump’s Budget. Nobody likes the discretionary spending budget the Trump administration drafted, and I pretty much mean nobody. In addition to uniform Democrat opposition, Congressional hawks want more spending at the Pentagon, while other conservatives hate the rural support programs getting cut. And nobody wants to pay for the freaking wall. Even Trump’s closest allies say this isn’t going to fly. Trump, meanwhile, called the budget “sensible and rational,” showing that he doesn’t know what either of those words mean and cannot work with his own party (but we knew that already). Obviously we need to keep tracking, but it’s ultimately appearing very unlikely that this will pass in its current form.
  • McDonald’s Hates Trump’s Tiny Hands. Well, probably it’s actually hackers who hate Trump’s tiny hands, given the aggressively neutral tweets usually put out by the account. But for twenty-five glorious minutes, this distinctly anti-Trump tweet was proudly pinned at the top of the McDonald’s twitter feed. Which probably annoyed the heck out of him, considering his long love affair with fast food.
  • About That Wiretapping… According to the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, there’s no evidence that the US government ever had Trump Tower under surveillance. (Comey also repeated this today in his hearing, so it will be interesting to see what the administration does with that.)
  • Maryland Judge Also Blocks Revised Travel Ban. Per a judge in Maryland, when you go on record as saying your travel ban is anti-Muslim, it’s very hard to sound believable when you say your travel ban isn’t anti-Muslim. (The judge in Hawai’i noted this also.) The ruling supports the Honolulu decision, ultimately making it harder to enforce the travel ban without a SCOTUS decision. That said, as noted above, the first decision is being appealed, so we’ll see what ultimately happens with this round of Trump vs the Judiciary.

And one last bit of news I saw fit to print: I’m going to be out of town next weekend at a memorial service, so I won’t have a standard news summary for you. But I will send you some key headlines, and then we can get back to normal (for some definition of normal!) the following week. Take care until then, and don’t burn down the Internet in my absence, please!

National News Roundup: Week 7 (March 5–11)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Travel ban, ACHA, and Russia, oh my! Buckle in, y’all, because we had another bad news week right on schedule, and this one’s pretty much a Gish Gallop of awful. Standard disclaimers still apply; I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. I may touch on news I think folks should know that is outside my area as a legal generalist, but if we undertake any offroad adventures I’ll do my best to signal that for you upfront by giving that headline an asterisk. Okay, disclaimers over, and I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to your inbox.

The Weird

  • Sounds Nice where Pruitt Lives.* Perhaps this one goes in the ‘bad’ column, but I’m still having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that it happened, so we’ll say it’s weird news instead — the head of the EPA went on the record as saying that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do” and as a result, he “would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.” He also said some strange things about carbon dioxide emissions, while he was at it. I have zero background in science, but even I can tell that Pruitt is clearly not inhabiting the same reality the rest of us. It sounds nice where he is, though.
  • SCOTUS Punts on Opining re: Trans Inclusion in Schools. Okay, admittedly this isn’t actually that weird, but SCOTUS sent a case about whether a seventeen-year-old could use a boy’s bathroom in his school back down to the circuit courts again. The case posture had been influenced by the guidance just withdrawn by Sessions, so it’s not surprising that it went back down. Hopefully we’ll hear more soon.
  • Don’t Buy Any Conestoga Wagons from Ben Carson. Ben Carson made the news in his first week, which surprisingly was not due to running HUD into the ground. Instead, folks focused on statements he made comparing slave transport by cargo ship to opportunistic immigration. Then he doubled down, so that was fun. And that’s about it for the weird news, because it’s really just terrible turtles all the way down.

The Bad

  • AHCA (and other signs of illness). Well, the GOP revealed their new healthcare plan this week, and it’s no wonder that they kept it under lock and key — it’s a half-baked hodgepodge of terrible. The bill has caused significant strife within the Republican party, which is about the best thing I can say for it; some (like Senator Murkowski, for example) are concerned that the medicaid changes will leave their constituents high and dry, while others (like Senator Rand) are angry that the bill doesn’t go far enough. That said, it still passed through the Ways and Means committee in the middle of the night, so it’s sitting with the Budget committee now. Early analyses seem to agree that the bill will cause huge gaps in coverage and tank risk pools (which this surprisingly good infographic does a good job of explaining concretely); it also inexplicably contains several tax cuts that only impact wealthy Americans. You can read the text here, but it’s a long and miserable slog, so if you like yourself and don’t work in healthcare I’m not sure I would recommend it. This short-form summary hits most of the highlights, and this excellent lengthy summary goes provision-by-provision (and if you’re feeling snarky, this op-ed is a good, if slanted, summary as well). For now, be aware that most of the proposed changes (with the exception of the final tax credits provision and a few others) were in the plan outlined by Ryan a week or two ago.
  • Anti-Missile Mayhem*. We deployed an anti-missile program in South Korea this week, which landed us in some hot water with China. But this administration seems preternaturally good at wriggling out of incidents with China, so hopefully that will happen again?
  • Budget Cuts Ahoy. The growing list of things this administration is threatening to cut billions of funding from now includes both HUD and the National Guard, because apparently we don’t need either of those things as much as we need an expensive Great Wall of Mexico. Both of those articles make me want to throw plates at my walls, by the way, so read at your own risk — but neither plan has been finalized yet, so there’s still time to try to get them changed (which I suppose is a silver lining of sorts).
  • The Russian Plots Thicken. Honestly, if this were a movie I would say we have too many plotlines going at once — the plots haven’t so much thickened as cemented in the pan because they were left on the stove way, way too long. This week we learned that Trump met directly with Kislyak on the campaign trail, though he suffered the same amnesia afterward as the rest of his team (and can I just say, Kislyak must be the most forgettable ambassador on the planet). Apparently they discussed working together on addressing Syria, which definitely isn’t disturbing at all. Also, Trump and friends continue to claim he was being wiretapped by Obama (and we’re all already tired of the phrase “deep state”), which Comey officially asked the Justice Department to reject. Leading up the rear, the FBI is still investigating Trump’s ties to Russia, which apparently has reached a “new stage of investigation” (whatever that means). Oh, and Flynn apparently came out this week as a Turkish foreign agent. No, really. Kind of recontextualizes those “Lock Her Up!” chants he led, doesn’t it?
  • Sessions Cleans House. Sessions abruptly ordered all remaining U.S. Attorneys who were hired under the Obama administration to resign on Friday. I’m sure this definitely has nothing to do with last week’s recusal or numerous calls for his own resignation because he perjured himself in his confirmation hearing.
  • Travel Ban Redux. Trump signed a new executive order this week intended to put the travel ban back in place. The new version is basically a Diet Coke version of the original executive order — mostly the same provisions, with some of the most consequence-laden elements removed — and there are already several suits being brought about it.
  • Privatized Prison Party is Still the Worst Party. The FCC reversed course on a fifteen-year effort to cap the costs of phone calls in federal prisons, making it harder for people to afford conversations with family members being held. The Nexus-run company ‘Libre’ was also in the news, because its privatized GPS system is alleged to be causing confusion at best and outright fraud at worst among immigration detainees.
  • Autocratic State of the Nation. Amy Siskind’s weekly authoritarianism watch review is a miserable, scary slog this week, but you should read it anyway.

The Good

  • SCOTUS and Racial Bias. The Supreme Court may have punted on the issue of trans inclusion, but they did issue an opinion on whether racial bias can taint jury deliberations (spoiler: it can). The vote was 5–3, which means it created precedent despite the even number of justices, and can be cited in later cases. It’s an interesting case and a surprising decision, and after this week I’ll definitely take it.
  • Correspondence with Guest Costars. A political correspondent in South Korea made news this week because of his adorable surprise guests. It’s a pretty great video, and you should go watch it — now that we’ve reached the end of the news we can all probably use a nice unicorn chaser.

Didn’t We Do This Already? An Early Analysis of the Replacement “Travel Ban” Executive Order

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

(This is the umpteenth installment of a series of articles unpacking the many executive orders issued by the Trump administration. Click here to read the installment on this order’s predecessor, issued in late January. Though I am not an immigration specialist, I am a legal generalist working with indigent populations professionally full-time. This article is not intended to form an attorney-client relationship or constitute legal advice, though it is my hope that it will help people understand what is going on.)

Hello from my lunch break! The administration put out a new version of January’s “travel ban” executive order yesterday, as well as a fact sheet that reads more like a form template responding to expected interrogatories than anything else. To save you some antacid, and because I’m preparing summaries on this topic anyway, I figured I’d let you know what has changed and what has stayed the same.

Same Garbage, Different Day…

Here are the provisions that look exactly the same, in all their still-terrible splendor:

  • Three Months without Travel. There is still a three-month travel ban for nonimmigrants from six Middle Eastern countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen). You’ll note this is one fewer than the old one, and more about that below.
  • Refugees Still Not Welcome. There is still a four-month cessation of refugee acceptance from all countries. It’s still unprecedented and longer than the one after 9/11, and they are still limiting refugee entry in fiscal year 2017 to 50,000 (which is less than half the amount set by the Obama Administration for the year).
  • Fuhrer Exception Still in Place. You can still get an exception to the ban for “the national interest,” which is just as vague as it was the first time.
  • Fingerprints and Photographs. The enhanced screening, including biometric screening on entry and exit, is still in place.

…But they added some Febreeze to mask the stench.

Here are the major changes made in the new version, which make it slightly more palatable but don’t change the biggest underpinnings:

  • Six is the New Magic Number. Iraq is no longer included in the list of countries banned from entry. They explain this in the executive order, in way more detail than you probably care to read, but it basically comes down to saying that Iraq is a “special case.”
  • There’s a Set Start Date. The new provisions go into effect March 16, which is presumably as much to avoid an embarrassing repeat of January’s confusion as anything else.
  • Syria No Longer Singled Out. There’s no indefinite prohibition of Syrian refugees, who presumably can reapply with everybody else after the four-month window passes. Unofficially, there may still be a prohibition in place for most refugees until FY 2018, though, because we had already cleared half the new 50,000 cap set for FY 2017 by December 2016.
  • Legal Status Apparently Means Something Again. Folks who have U.S. citizenship, lawful permanent residence, or a previously-issued legal visa now are supposed to be exempt from enforcement (though, of course, it remains to be seen if CBP will comply with the provision).
  • “Religious persecution” priority has been removed. There’s nothing to say this won’t still happen unofficially, but it’s no longer an explicit part of the executive order.

For more reading on this topic, I recommend this article put out by the New York Times, which contains a good compare-and-contrast summary. And on that note, it’s back to the law mines for me. I’m hoping to draft another essay about detainee free labor in the near future though, so watch this space.

National News Roundup: Week 5 (February 19–25)

Kara Hurvitz1 Comment

Well, two weeks ago we had the good news week, and last week we had the weird news week… I’m afraid things have come full circle, and now we’ve arrived at the bad news week. I’ll do my best to keep it digestible, but this week’s news is… pretty bad (though it’s also important, so I recommend reading it carefully). You might want to get some cookies, baked goods, or adult beverages of your choice, Gentle Reader. The news and I will hold your spot until you get back.

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Okay, are you well-stocked and ready? Let’s get this show on the road. Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. I may touch on news I think folks should know that is outside my area as a legal generalist, but if we undertake any offroad adventures I’ll do my best to signal that for you upfront by giving that headline an asterisk. Okay, warning label over. Onward to the news!

The Weird:

  • ‘Last Night in Sweden’…nothing happened. Trump confused the entire nation this past week by making up a reference to terrorist activity in Sweden, which Sweden wasted no time in soundly refuting. Then, just to ice the cake, Trump admitted he actually got the whole thing from Fox News. So, that happened. Or didn’t, more accurately. Also, and on a related note, the Washington Post published some data indicating that Trump has publicly uttered at least falsehood every single day since he assumed the Presidency.
  • Sessions 1, DeVos 0. In a surprising turn of events, Betsy DeVos originally refused to cooperate with Sessions, and then Trump, on their efforts to hurt transgender kids. She ultimately capitulated, when presented with the option of either giving in or resigning. But it was a very strange half a day of grudging respect for her, I don’t mind telling you.
  • Put Me In, Prez! One of the weirder policy decisions from this administration — and this is saying something — is that Trump hasn’t been using the Secretary of State very much to set foreign policy, a fact that is starting to receive media attention. Instead, Kushner, Bannon, and Priebus have been attending meetings, prompting folks to start talking about a “shadow cabinet” (and I can’t even imagine how weird those meetings must be for everyone involved.). But Tillerson did get sent to Mexico for talks this week, with a Kelly-shaped chaperone. I don’t know about you, but I would not watch that installment of the Weekend at Bernie’s franchise.
  • Trump vs the Press, Round 2304203402. The latest in Trump’s ongoing battle with the free press is diminished access to press conferences, with the White House handpicking a “gaggle” of reporters who were allowed to receive their (fake) news without any cameras present. The organizations allowed access included Breitbart (of course), Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal. Organizations explicitly denied access included the Huffington Post, the New York Times, Politico, and CNN. The Associated Press and Time magazine were granted access, but refused to proceed once they learned their colleagues were being screened out. The Washington Post, in a fit of prescience, didn’t even bother to show up.

The Bad:

  • Sessions Trumps Trans Students. As eluded to above, the White House withdrew guidance issued by the Obama administration this week, apparently at Sessions urging, that standardized inclusion of trans kids in public restrooms at schools. The administration leaves the question up to the states — because civil rights are a great thing to put up to a majority vote — and several states and cities have already issued statements that they will continue inclusive practices. That said, presumably several states are also quietly dismantling protections as I write this, and trans communities around the nation can expect to see fallout from the change.
  • The House Continues to Issue Bonkers Bills. The latest gem to have added text is a provision terminating the Department of Education. Presumably nobody consulted Betsy DeVos about this one, either.
  • Pence Handmaiden’s Tale Bingo Continues. Most of the recent efforts have been state legislation rather than federal, but the last week or two has not been great on this front. Between a Utah representative saying that equal pay was bad for families, an Oklahoma legislator calling pregnant women ‘hosts,’ and leaked provisions to defund Planned Parenthood while appealing the Affordable Care Act, it has not been a great week for feminist issues.
  • Delete Uber (again). Uber is yet again in hot water for appalling business practices, this time involving sexual harassment and hostile work environment. Apparently it’s not a very pleasant place to work if you are female and conventionally attractive. Who could have seen that revelation coming.
  • Pruitt’s Completely Surprising Friendship with Fossil Fuel. On a similar level of shocking revelation, some information about our new EPA head’s inappropriately chummy relationship to the fossil fuel industry as AG of Oklahoma came out this week. There’s not much to be done about it now, as far as I can tell, but it’s not exactly heartening.
  • Executive Order Memoranda Abound. The Department of Homeland Security put out clarifying memoranda on the two immigration orders still being enforced. The memoranda say more-or-less what we expected, but it still wasn’t fun to read. Also, some of the provisions in there about raids and enforcement in “sensitive areas” such as hospitals are… evidently not being followed, shall we say?
  • Jewish Boiling Point. Ten more JCCs received bomb threats this past week, and a major Jewish cemetery in St Louis saw desecration of nearly 200 graves. The ADL received a bomb threat this week, too. Trump eventually made a statement, which the Anne Frank Center immediately decried as a ‘pathetic asterisk of condescension,’ among other things. The Trump administration responded in true-to-form classy fashion. I responded also, though with considerably less blaming other people.
  • Two dead from racist shooting in Kansas. I don’t have it in me to come up with a snarky headline for this one — two men of Indian descent in Kansas were fatally shot by a racist perpetrator who thought they were Middle Eastern, and apparently yelled “Get out of my country!” while shooting them. About the best thing I can say about the entire affair is that two more people who were shot are recovering, and one of them was a random twenty-four-year-old who was not being targeted but attempted to physically subdue the shooter.
  • Federal Private Prisons Again Open for Business. AG Sessions rescinded an order from the Obama administration phasing out private federal prisons. I have to admit, I’m kind of vaguely impressed by how quickly and efficiently Sessions uses his position to stomp on civil and human rights. I guess he has a lot of prior practice.
  • Standing Rock No Longer Standing. The Standing Rock camp was razed to the ground this week, after the Trump administration gave the official all-clear to proceed forward. It culminated in 46 people being arrested, and several people reported tipis being cut open with knives and participants being threatened with rifles.
  • Autocratic State of the Nation. As always, here is the link to Amy Siskind’s weekly authoritarianism watch review. Some, but not all, of her work is reproduced here, and I recommend checking out her list.
  • CPAC Horror Show. Some truly horrifying things were said at the Conservative Political Action Conference this week. For one thing, Trump called his immigration enforcement machine ‘a military operation,’ leaving a scrambling Kelly to contradict him in talks with Mexico (and making me even more certain that the National Guard headline from last week was an intentional fake-out). But the real headliner was that Bannon straight-up acknowledged that this administration wants to gut the administrative bodies of the executive branch, noting that “[T]hese Cabinet nominees . . . were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.” In other words, you know how everybody kept saying that the three requirements for a Cabinet nomination were that you had to be rich, you had to be conservative, and you had to hate the administration you were being nominated to lead? Bannon just directly told us that theory was true. (Also, he kept calling the media ‘the opposition party,’ but that hardly seems noteworthy by this point.) Oh, but Richard Spencer got ejected for being subversive on the same day, proving that irony is not in fact dead.

The Good:

  • Milo and POTUS (Together Basically Never Again). In a somewhat darkly amusing turn of events, Milo Yiannopoulos was uninvited from… basically everything this week, from CPAC to Breitbart to his book deal, because of some comments he made regarding pedophilia of young boys.
  • Refugees Welcome (by some of us). Activists managed to hang a three-foot-high ‘Refugees Welcome’ banner on the Statue of Liberty this week, which is kind of impressive in its own right. The act was illegal, and U.S. State Park police are ostensibly working on apprehending somebody. Also on the subject of illegal asylum, Trudeau announced this week that he won’t halt the practice of accepting asylees who illegally enter Canada.
  • We Obamacare. Okay, fine, I shamelessly stole that pun from a protest sign yesterday, but that doesn’t change the fact that national support for the Affordable Care Act is increasing, which we’re also seeing play out as increased obstruction to repeal in both the House and Senate. Also, Boehner went on the record as saying that he doesn’t think a full repeal of the ACA is going to happen. Perhaps this is why Marc Rubio was caught lying to get out of town hall meetings this week on the topic, as his colleagues find it a difficult topic to address with constituents.
  • One-week Travel Ban Reprieve. The new travel ban that Trump claimed would be out this week was not issued, although we did receive indication that it will target the same seven countries as the old one. It will probably happen this upcoming week, but in the short term I’ll just be happy for small miracles.
  • Maybe We Can Move There?* Scientists discovered seven planets they describe as ‘Earthlike’ circling a nearby star. The ‘seven wonders,’ as NASA called them, are thirty-nine light years away and orbiting an ultra-cool dwarf (which I presume is a technical term) called TRAPPIST-1. I don’t know about you, but I’d consider the trip.
  • The DNC’s First Ever Latino Leader. The Democratic National Committee elected former Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez as the new Chairperson yesterday, in a vote so close they had to do it twice. Perez immediately made Keith Ellison, his neck-and-neck rival, into the deputy chairperson. Ellison urged people to accept Perez as a leader, noting that we “don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided.” Though I would have loved to see Ellison as the Chairperson, I happen to agree with him, and I wrote a similar message to Jewish Americans earlier today.
  • The Washington Post is More Metal Than Several Metal Albums. The Washington Post recently changed its motto to “Democracy Dies in Darkness” (for real — I can personally verify that it now appears as a tagline when you sign in to read articles). Perhaps impressed by how awesome this is, Slate wrote an article comparing the motto to fifteen different metal albums. There are some good albums in there, and you’re also now done with this week’s news, so if you like metal I recommend you go check it out!