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Year 3, Week 31 (August 18–24)

August 27, 2019October 20, 2019 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This week has basically been ten pounds of chaos in a five-pound can — it’s a rough ride featuring everything from rainforest arson to Trump deciding he’s The Chosen One. I’m sorry, this is in fact reality, but your ice cream is here for you and so am I.

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. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a Twitter tantrum! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

With the Mueller investigation over and the Senate and House both on a break, the Russia Investigation has been pretty quiet. But here’s what I have right now:

Subpoenas Ahoy.* The House Judiciary Committee plans to subpoena former Trump aide Rob Porter, who was apparently present for several obstruction of justice exploits mentioned in the Mueller Report. Porter makes the third person to be subpoenaed to testify, after the same committee subpoenaed former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and former deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn. All three are slated to appear on September 17, so that’s the date to watch here.

The name of the game this week was Disregard of Governing Norms, and oh, what a week it was. Here’s what I have for you:

Delusions of Grandeur.* Kicking off the chaos, we have all the news about Trump’s high opinion of himself. First he retweeted the esteemed opinion of a conspiracy theorist that Israeli Jews “love him like he is the second coming of God.” Then, riffing on that theme some more, he informed reporters that he is “the chosen one” to deal with looming trade wars. And for an encore, he told a room full of veterans that he thought about giving himself a medal of honor. (Apparently, nothing says “deserving of our highest award of valor” to him quite like “I dodged the draft and compare myself to Christ.”) These quotes are nauseating, but they also reflect an intentional disruption of our governing norms that shouldn’t be ignored.
Nukeicane Donald. Somehow, 45 literally calling himself the messiah isn’t the most bizarrely disturbing thing I’m writing about him this week, because Axios reports that he proposed flinging nuclear bombs into hurricanes as a means of dealing with them. (The writers really jumped the shark this week; it must be sweeps season.) Trump is calling this story fake news, which means odds are good that he actually did suggest it. Needless to say, this plan would cause radioactive tradewinds, so it’s not an awesome idea either way — although people have been suggesting it since Eisenhower’s day.
Recession Rodeo.* As a threat of recession continues to loom, 45’s behavior gets more and more extreme — and that, in turn, speaks to tossing more norms out the window. The nadir this week was calling the head of the Federal Reserve a “bigger enemy” than the President of China. But that said, we should probably be most concerned about him “hereby ordering” American companies to withdraw from China via Twitter amid rising tariffs. The market definitely reacted to that last one, dropping more than 600 points in one day, and though 45 doesn’t have the ability to legally enforce the order it sounds like he might try anyway.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Policy One-Eighty Patrol. There were some stunningly quick about-faces on some important issues this week which seem worth noting. The most extreme was 45’s amazing Appearing Disappearing Regret About Trade Wars with China — it’s not unheard of for politicians to change their stances on things, but a complete one-eighty in the span of a few hours is a bit much. He also reversed course on the subject of background checks for gun purchase, now seeming more reluctant to move forward on legislative changes. It’s been that kind of week, I guess.
Electoral College Dropouts.* New precedent out of the 10th Circuit this week found that the electoral college doesn’t have to listen to the popular vote it represents, or at least can’t be penalized for breaking faith in this case’s instance. Though I haven’t yet read all 125 pages of this case, I find the ruling baffling; the constitution is pretty silent on this topic but pledge laws have been protected by the Supreme Court for half a century. And no matter what the Supreme Court finds if they hear the appeal on this case, there’s a Washington Supreme Court case that compels electors — and they’re the ultimate authority on the Washington constitution, so that can’t be overturned by the federal case.
Joe Walsh What Now. Former Republican congressman and all-around tea partier Joe Walsh announced this week that he’ll be running for President as a Republican primary candidate, which I find baffling on a lot of levels. This isn’t so much the GOP rejecting Trumpism as a Trumpist rejecting Trump, so I’m not even certain his presence will split the GOP vote much. I guess it will be interesting, if nothing else?

The Bad:

Even More Hellish Immigration News. As has become the norm, there are a bunch more horrifying immigration updates this week. The administration announced that it wouldn’t provide flu shots to migrants in custody, which is a really serious problem given the appalling hygiene conditions in the camps. They then followed this up by moving to hold kids in camps indefinitely instead of placing them in sponsor homes as they’re required by law, and twenty states are suing over it. Meanwhile, Trump has started threatening to take away birthright citizenship yet again, which is just as flagrantly unconstitutional as it was the last seven times he brought it up. And news broke that the Justice Department sent white nationalist content to sitting immigration judges, and apparently has been doing this for months. (Relatedly, I learned a new antisemitic term from my government today, so that’s a thing that happened.)
Amazon is Burning. The Amazon rainforest is suffering massive wildfires as I type this, which have actually been going on for weeks but gained the world’s attention this week due to the mass circulation of photos of the damage. The problem has significantly worsened since the election of President Bolsonaro, who ran on a platform of allowing rampant deforestation (no, seriously), and the fires this year are the worst on record. This is likely to have devastating effects on our global ecosystem long-term, because the Amazon is an important player in delaying climate change.
G7 Summary.* Many of the topics of this weekend’s G7 summit have already been covered elsewhere in this roundup, but it was a veritable merry-go-round of messy topics and adult politicians behaving badly. Among the remaining lowlights: Trump trying to get Russia back in and insulting France again; UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisting that Britain shouldn’t have to pay for Brexit; and a sudden gate-crashing minister from Iran who turned out to be France’s party guest. There was also some apparent progress, such as a new trade deal with Japan, but those moments appeared few ad far between. And since the United States hosts the next G-7 summit, Trump’s already threatening to hold it at a property he owns in Florida, because of course he is.

The Good:

Recent Court Resilience. We did get some pretty awesome court news this week: The Ninth Circuit ruled that denying sexual reassignment surgery to prisoners with severe dysphoria violates the Eight Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. This is a major win for trans rights, because it means courts are viewing trans healthcare as medically necessary. I’m really happy to get to write about it.

So that’s what I have for this week, and good gravy, what even is the news right now. For making it through, you deserve this monkey reunion video and an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week with more (and hopefully better) news, and I hope you will be back as well — but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me more ice cream, cause we’re gonna need it!

Year 3, Week 30 (August 11–17)

August 20, 2019October 20, 2019 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Well, I got back from vacation and the nation was somehow even more on fire than I left it. (I swear I didn’t leave the stove on.) We’ll get through this and out the other side; it’s just going to take all of us pitching in to support each other.

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. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a trip to Israel! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

With the Mueller investigation over and the Senate and House both on a break, the Russia Investigation has been pretty quiet. But here’s what I have right now:

Impeachment Investigation (Non-)Update.* Now that Democrats’ support for an impeachment investigation has reached a party majority, and chairman Jerry Nadler has clearly stated that he is conducting a formal inquiry into impeachment, the topic is again an open question. At the time that I type this, Nancy Pelosi is still reluctant to move in that direction. But that could change if pressure keeps up in the future, so it’s anybody’s guess what will happen when Congress comes back from the break.

This week’s Disregard of Governing Norms news, on the other hand, sure had attributes. Here’s what happened:

“Moscow Mitch” Meme Gains Steam. The Democratic Party is definitely running with the “Moscow Mitch” moniker that started surfacing in the past few weeks, at least if Nancy Pelosi’s use of the term is any indication. Unsurprisingly, McConnell hates the term, because it draws attention to his recent reindeer games regarding election protections. So let’s make it the new 30–50 feral hogs, y’all.
Israel Intervenes. Trump pushed on Twitter for Israel to ban two House representatives who planned to visit this week, arguing that it would “show great weakness” if they were allowed to visit because they “hate Israel and all Jewish people” — which, by the way, is news to this Jewish author. Showcasing the special, special bond that Trump has with Bibi, Israel went ahead and banned them, using boycotting as a cover. Eventually they walked back the ban on Representative Tlaib at her request, on the grounds that her grandmother is a life-long West Bank resident and thus she could probably sic the UN on them for this nonsense. But Omar remained banned, and ultimately Tlaib said “thanks but no thanks” to a visit under their required conditions. (Though Trump and others have tried to claim she set them up, it’s more likely that she received political pressure not to repudiate boycotting in this context.)
Social Media Executive Order. The Trump administration announced that it plans to draft an executive order that would give broad authority to the FTC and the FCC to monitor and police online speech on social media platforms. You know all those times that someone told you that Freedom of Speech doesn’t apply to something, and a private actor’s removal of speech isn’t censorship, because the First Amendment only applies to government actors? That’s exactly what this executive order is designed to mess up, and we should all have something to say about it — as proposed it would be very, very bad for freedom of speech. We absolutely need to keep an eye on it.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Epstein Death. Shortly after reams of discovery were made public on his criminal case, Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell on Sunday. The death was originally declared a suicide, but Trump started accusing the Clintons of murdering Epstein to keep him silent (which would probably be a libel suit if we weren’t living in Bizarroland). Soon William Barr picked up the thread, and now there are ongoing DoJ and FBI investigations. And an early autopsy report revealed that his death is consistent with murder by strangulation, though the final report ruled that his death was a suicide by hanging.
Greedy for Greenland. This week’s “why am I typing this” award definitely goes to a news story that Trump asked aides about buying Greenland, apparently because he wants to mine it for materials. Greenland, quite understandably, has made it clear that it’s not for sale — although they did leave the door open to sell him resources. In all seriousness, folks, this story is super weird but I also think it’s very telling that Trump is asking about buying and selling entire autonomous territories like it’s a real estate deal; he clearly views people’s lives as commodities in a way that we definitely don’t want a President to view them.
Reproductive Rights Weirdness. Steve King was in the news this week for claiming that humanity might not exist without rape and incest, which was a terrifying view into his worldview that absolutely nobody asked for. (He also claimed the media owed him an apology because… reasons?) And King’s comment is a timely reminder of the nightmarescape currently looming over reproductive rights, between Planned Parenthood’s likely withdrawal from Title X funding as a result of the gag rule and Trump proposing more rules that let businesses discriminate on anything from reproductive rights to existing while trans.

The Bad:

Even More Hellish Immigration News. Immigration news has been truly awful over the past couple of weeks, and somehow it just keeps getting worse. The long-awaited new rules on public charge were officially published this week, and as expected they disproportionately punish indigent immigrants for existing. In the process, they also force many lawfully present immigrants to choose between necessities such as health care and food and permanent immigration status. (The administration defended this practice by saying Emma Lazarus’s famous poem on the Statue of Liberty should only include those tired and poor who “can stand on their own two feet” and were “people coming from Europe.”) Additionally, the shooter in El Paso disclosed that his attack was motivated by anti-immigration sentiment, not that this was really in doubt, and an ICE employee drove his truck into a crowd of protesters in Rhode Island. There were also massive immigration raids at a food plant in Mississippi, apparently in response to a successful lawsuit about work conditions, which resulted in 680 arrests on the first day of school. The Ninth Circuit partially reinstated the (illegal) proposed restrictions on asylum entry, which came down around the same time the Washington Post reported on unsafe conditions for asylum seekers forced to wait in Mexico. And for an encore, the administration is trying to decertify an immigration judges’ union, because of course they freaking are.
Mass Shooting Aftermath. In the aftermath of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, we have no closure but lots of mess. Trump visited both sites for photo ops, of course making the trips all about him. Then he expressed half-hearted support for gun control while Congress considered five different bills on the subject and several Democratic candidates released comprehensive plans. Meanwhile, there were further arrests in both El Paso and Ohio due to concern about copycat crimes.
Recession Threat.* A threat of recession looms large in the news cycle this week, with reports of sluggish growth early in the week forecasting a massive market drop on Wednesday. Though this wasn’t the first bad day the Dow has had in the past few years, it is the first time since 2007 we’ve seen an inverted yield curve, which many people view as a serious warning sign — apparently including Trump, if his Twitter tirade is any indication. It’s a predictable outcome of irresponsible economic policy, but it can be hard to predict when it will hit or how bad it will be, which is making a lot of people nervous. Needless to say, the Trump administration is insisting it won’t happen, but we should all be keeping an eye on this.
Endangered Species Further Endangered.* The Trump administration weakened foundational wildlife protection rules this week, presumably just in case anybody’s wife really needed that grizzly skin coat. (I’m lying, it’s about oil, because of course it is.) The changes are particularly frustrating because they come shortly after a UN global assessment report stresses the importance of preserving biodiversity. Some days, it really does feel like we’re being governed by Captain Planet villains.

The Good:

Cyntoia Brown Released. After spending literally half her life behind bars, Cyntoia Brown was released from custody this past week when her sentence was commuted. Brown was originally sentenced at age 16 for killing a man who paid to have sex with her; she maintained the act was self-defense and prosecutors claimed it was a robbery gone south. Brown’s case had become a symbol for better protections for sex-trafficked minors in general, and her commuted sentence is a major win on that front.
Recent Court Resilience. There were several promising court cases in the past week or so, which is only a partial balm to everything else but it’s at least a start. In DC, a judge awarded $700,000 to a college student heavily doxxed by neo-Nazis, creating valuable new precedent about the actual harm created by serious Internet harassment. And in lawsuit news, 13 states are suing the Trump administration over their rollback of the Clean Air Act while another 18 other states and several advocacy groups are suing over the new public charge rules.
2020 Primary Colors. Presidential hopeful John Hickenlooper announced he is officially dropping out of the 2020 race, though apparently he may run for the Senate instead (and more power to him, we need people to do that anyway). Between that and five candidates emerging as fundraising frontrunners for the September debates, we may be finally seeing an actual primary begin to take shape. We should continue to watch this, obviously, but it’s exciting to see order start to form from chaos.

So that’s what I have for this week, and good gravy, what even is the news right now. For making it through, you deserve this primer on zero-proof beverages and an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week with more (and hopefully better) news, and I hope you will be back as well — but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me a kudos for surviving a nine-hour Ikea trip!

National News Roundup: Year 3, Week 27 (July 21–27)

July 30, 2019June 7, 2020 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This week has a lot happening, and much of it can feel like a shell game designed to hide the ball from view — because it is. I’ll try to keep folks posted on everything going on, though some days it’s hard for me to keep my eye on the ball as well — those cups move really fast! (But we all do our best.)

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. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a policy change! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

It’s another week of heavy movement on the Russia Investigation front, and some of the news has major implications. Here’s what’s going on right now:

Mueller Testifies. Robert Mueller testified before Congress for seven straight hours on Wednesday, in back-to-back hearings with the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. Though his testimony largely stuck to the bounds of the report, he made it clear that Trump was not exonerated by said report — even going so far as to confirm that he believed he could not charge a sitting president, but that Trump potentially could be charged upon leaving office. He also made it very clear that he was deeply concerned about foreign meddling in the 2020 election cycle, and had many things to say about Wikileaks. And it’s clear that at least one committee was listening, if the news below is any indication.
Impeachment Investigation.* The House Judiciary Committee opened an impeachment investigation on Friday, and despite Nancy Pelosi’s continual reticence, committee head Jerry Nadler has suggested that he wants this to be the opening act to impeachment itself. The investigation includes a petition requesting information from Mueller’s grand jury proceedings, suggesting that the move relates in part to Mueller’s testimony. And it’s not really that surprising, because more and more House Democrats started to seriously consider impeachment after Mueller testified — at the time that I type this, we’re nearing a party majority.
Election Protection Escapades.* Despite Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday, and the movement on impeachment, we have not seen the same success with attempts to protect our 2020 election cycle from Russian influence — mostly because Mitch McConnell keeps blocking his colleagues’ attempts to do something proactive. And that’s bad news bears, because even without Mueller’s testimony we would probably want to respond to news that Russia targeted election systems in all 50 states during the 2016 election. (Trump is technically responding to this news, in that he’s replacing the head of intelligence, but that’s not even the same postal code as what I meant.)

This week’s Disregard of Governing Norms news is just repeated installments of the Trump Is Horrible Show, but we have to pay attention to it anyway because it has implications. Here’s what happened:

Executive Hacks. Trump made a lot of scary statements about his own executive powers this week. First he said he could wipe Afghanistan off the face of the earth as a proposed end to the ongoing war, which left Afghanistan quite reasonably asking “excuse me, you could what now?” Then he followed that one up by announcing that Article II of the Constitution gives him “the right to do whatever I want,” presumably because somebody told him that actually, no, he can’t just bomb Afghanistan cause it’s Tuesday. And to punctuate that point, he vetoed a resolution intended to stop him from selling arms to Saudi Arabia and then sued Congress about his taxes.
Executive Attacks. There was also a lot of Twitter sleight-of-hand this week, which seems like it should get its own section. The most obvious example is his extended fight with Elijah Cummings, who got permission to subpoena White House officials this week and also got repeated rounds of 45 racism in response. Then Al Sharpton spoke up and got a face full of racism also, which Mick Mulvaney defended by saying Trump was just “fighting back” against “lies.” But Trump also threatened to ‘declare antifa a terrorist organization,’ which is confusing on at least three different levels; the antifa movement isn’t a specific organization and also it only exists as a counter to fascism, which means no antifa action is targeting a general civilian population. This is a particularly concerning move for its implications under the Patriot Act — which permits forfeiture and life imprisonment of designated terrorists, and probably was designed to detract from Barr’s decision about capital punishment — but more on that below.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Seal of Disapproval. The other other weird Trump news of the week is that he spent 80 seconds in front of a doctored Presidential seal designed to mock him — specifically containing the double-headed Russian imperial eagle and a set of golf clubs as well as the Spanish phrase “Trump is a puppet.” The guy who created the seal apparently has no idea how Trump ended up in front of it, because he has no official affiliation with the campaign at all (and is a former Republican himself). I… got nothin’, y’all.

The Bad:

Even More Hellish Immigration News. Immigration news remained really awful for yet another week. The latest is a new regulation that dramatically expands the practice of fast-tracked deportations that skip immigration court entirely — a particularly concerning development given the growing number of horror stories about ICE detaining U.S. citizens, because the practice makes it much, much harder to observe and correct agency abuses. Meanwhile, Trump threatened another travel ban and more tariffs to force Guatamala to agree to an asylum deal that will be a bad scene for everybody involved, including the United States. And the Supreme Court cleared the path for this administration to divert military funds for the border wall, though only while the appeal is pending.
SNAP Cold Snap. The Trump administration proposed several cuts to SNAP benefits, commonly known as “food stamps,” in the past week — most of which are cruel or unnecessary, though they will apparently save the administration about $2.5 billion by increasing food insecurity. The proposed changes including lowering income eligibility to 130% of the federal poverty level and ending automatic eligibility through means-testing, and suffice to say my professional opinion of these changes as a person who works towards health equity is that they are butts.
Barr Reinstating Capital Punishment. Attorney General William Barr reinstated federal capital punishment this week, ordering dates set for the first federal executions in almost two decades. All five of the inmates scheduled for execution have been convicted of heinous crimes, and one of them is a white supremacist, but the move is very concerning for its racial implications nonetheless — there are a lot of studies that show that wrongful conviction is a serious concern. Frankly, I wouldn’t trust this administration to apply a stamp, let alone apply rules of law to the correct people. And that’s before we throw in Trump threatening to classify the antifa movement as terrorists.

The Good:

Recent Court Resilience. A judge in California has already blocked the severe restrictions on asylum put in place by the Trump administration last week, stating that it is Congress’s job to decide who is categorically eligible for asylum under our existing law and the proposal didn’t honor current law. And that kid from Covington Catholic who was suing the Washington Post hit a brick wall this week when his case was dismissed because it completely lacked merit and also because he lied in his complaint.
Protest Progress in Puerto Rico. After many days of protest to force the corrupt governor to resign, Puerto Rico saw victory on Wednesday night, when the governor announced that he is resigning effective August 2. This is a big deal, because it shows the real change that organized protest can bring.

So that’s what I have for this week, and it’s more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this excellent cover of Old Town Road and an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week with more (and hopefully better) news, and I hope you will be back as well — but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me a full night’s sleep so I can feel all fancy!

National News Roundup: Year 3, Week 26 (July 14–20)

July 23, 2019June 7, 2020 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

You know, occasionally people will remark on how I’m able to stare into the news void so much without getting jaded, and I don’t know what they mean — but then I look at a dog and pony show like this past week’s media circus and I’m somehow still amazed by how Extra it is. So I guess y’all have a point. (That said, I’m not sure if that’s a comment on my resilience, on 45’s smoke and mirrors, or both. It’s probably both.)

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

After a few weeks of quiet, we saw some significant movement on the Russia Investigation this week. Here’s what I have for you:

Investigation News Redux.* The House decided this week to hold William Barr and Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt of Congress. It’s a move full of sound and fury but likely signifying nothing, since there likely won’t be any real-world consequences for it. Meanwhile, Roger Stone was banned from social media entirely because his judge was so annoyed that he kept refusing to comply with his gag rule. And more evidence surfaced that Trump was directly involved in all stages of the Stormy Daniels payments, suggesting that Hope Hicks lied to Congress on the subject — but no new charges will apparently be forthcoming.
Al Green Goes Rogue. Rep. Al Green filed articles of impeachment this week due to Trump’s recent racist statements about the House Squad (which I’ll cover in more depth below). Given Pelosi’s objection, it’s not surprising that the House ended up tabling the articles — but some congress critters who support impeachment took Pelosi’s side because they want to hear Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday first and fold that information in. So we may see a return to this topic after that happens.

There was mostly just one gigantic story on the Disregard of Governing Norms front, but it’s quite a saga. Here’s what happened:

Trump Racism Rodeo Continues. After last week’s aggressively racist twitter rant against ‘The Squad,’ Trump and some of his fellow Republicans doubled down multiple times in an ongoing ball-and-shell game where, as far as I can tell, the ball was either his ties to Epstein or the Squad’s actual point about the camps. First Kellyanne Conway asked a journalist to define his ethnicity before she would answer his question. Then the House eventually censured Trump over his statements by a party line vote, but not before holding a vote about whether Pelosi was allowed to call Trump’s racist comments ‘racist’ on the House floor. Trump responded by making (planned) further racist statements about Omar at a rally, which led to a crowd chanting, “Send her back!” for a full thirteen seconds. Trump defended the crowd’s chanting while a whole bunch of Republicans decried Democrats as antisemitic or launched into overtly racist and violent remarks. Meanwhile, Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell refused to directly answer questions about racism (in McConnell’s case, regarding his own wife, who is an immigrant of color). Then Trump put a bunch more antisemitic words in the Squad’s collective mouths and we all got Racism Bingo.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Epstein Horrorshow Continues. Jeffrey Epstein continued to be in the news this week, despite Trump’s best efforts otherwise, for everything from his relationship with Trump to the weirdly permissive (and sometimes gross) practices of jail staff the last time he was held. By the end of the week, he was asking for bail to be set, presumably on the assumption that his judge hadn’t yet heard the seven different ways the man’s an obvious flight risk. (It turned out the judge had, though, because his request for bail was denied.)
Rand Paul Refuses. Rand Paul was in the news this week because he more-or-less single-handedly blocked a bill to fund workers’ compensation for 9/11 first responders — which, disturbingly enough, is not the most abjectly callous thing I’m gonna type this week. The block is temporary, but the latest in a long line of delays for survivors of the 9/11 attacks, some of whom passed away from hazard-induced cancer before the first vote. It’s a sad low from a government full of sad lows, even though it’s only a temporary setback, and I hope the remaining survivors are given compensation soon.

The Bad:

Even More Hellish Immigration News. Just like literally every other week, immigration news this week has established new lows. The latest is that Trump is considering refusing all refugee applications for FY20; is changing questions on the U.S. citizenship exam; and plans to dramatically expand the practice of fast-tracked deportations that skip immigration court entirely. Meanwhile, CBP was in the news for literally telling a three-year-old girl with a heart condition to pick which parent gets to stay in the U.S. while her family’s asylum claim is pending. But in more positive news, the ACLU has already filed a lawsuit on the proposed rule that would effectively end asylum at the Southern border and has announced they’ll sue over the expedited removal proposal as well. And organized protests have been occurring all over the country, both outside ICE detention facilities and otherwise.
Title X Gag Rule Goes Into Effect. The Trump administration announced abruptly on Monday that starting now, clinics receiving federal dollars cannot refer women for abortions at all — a proposed rule that is the subject of still-ongoing litigation, but which has been permitted to proceed by a recent appeals court decision. Several states have decided to just stop receiving federal dollars instead of enforcing the gag rule, which means reproductive care will continue as normal in many places. But it’s still frustrating to see this rule go into effect.
DOJ Fails Eric Gardner. The DOJ was in the news this week for refusing to prosecute the New York officer who negligently killed Eric Gardner in 2014. This news would be frustrating enough on its own, but reporting makes it clear that Attorney General William Barr made the call against the recommendation of his own civil rights division. Needless to say, black lives matter regardless of what Barr has decided about it, but this is a blow to the movement nonetheless.

The Good:

Recent Court Resilience. In the wake of national attention after a judge concluded that a defendant in an alleged rape case was “from a good family” and therefore shouldn’t be sentenced, the New Jersey Supreme Court has ordered mandatory training for every judge on the bench. The judge in question has also resigned, and the court similarly recommended the removal of a judge who inappropriately asked a complaining witness in a rape case if she ‘could have closed her legs.’ It’s definitely not the end of the conversation, but it’s promising to see judicial authorities acknowledge that official action is needed to change judicial culture.
Protests in Puerto Rico. Protests have been going strong in Puerto Rico for multiple days now, as people take to the streets by the thousands to push for their corrupt governor’s resignation after his extremely damning chat messages were leaked last week. Denizens also organized an impeachment committee on Saturday, and yesterday he announced that he won’t run in 2020. But Puerto Ricans want him to resign, and frankly I don’t blame them.

So that’s what I have for this week, and it’s more than enough. For making it through, you deserve these videos of Broadway performers singing in the streets during last week’s blackout and an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week with more (and hopefully better) news, and I hope you will be back as well — but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me your completed bingo card to win a prize!

National News Roundup: Year 3, Week 25 (July 7–13)

July 16, 2019January 12, 2021 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

My sense this week is that much like my car, we’re all out of gas right now. It’s okay to rest and refuel, folks — in fact, it’s important, because this dystopia is an ultra-marathon and we all get tired sometimes. Take the time you need and come back ready to fight. (In the meantime, sloth party at my place!)

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

It was actually a pretty quiet week for the Russia Investigation, all things considered, but we did see a couple of things. Here’s what happened:

Criminal Contempt News.* The House will vote this week on whether to hold William Barr and Wilbur Ross in criminal contempt of Congress. It’s a move full of sound and fury but likely signifying nothing, since there aren’t any real-world consequences for it. Still, I’ll keep you posted.
Waiting for Mueller. We’ve all spent a lot of time waiting for Muellertime like we live in a Beckett play, and the House Democrats have apparently decided to lean into it. After subpoenaing him for an emoluments case, the House announced an additional week delay to allow for a longer and more thorough information-gathering process. So we’ll see where we are in a week, I guess. (We always find something, eh Didi?)

We did see a couple of bizarre actions on the Disregard of Governing Norms front, in contrast. Here’s what happened:

Racist Trump Tantrums. Sunday morning, the president went on an aggressively racist twitter rant against ‘The Squad’ of congressional freshmen, who just so happen to all be women of color. The first rant suggested they “go back” to the “crime-infested” countries they were “originally from” (and never mind that three out of four were born here in the U.S.). This prompted a rare moment of solidarity in the Democratic party, along with another round of Twitter refusing to enforce their own policies. Trump, meanwhile, ratcheted up the stochastic terrorism by insisting that the House freshmen “hate our country,” the mainstream media struggled with using the word ‘racist,’ and the GOP shuffled their collective feet and mumbled excuses.
Census Fight Continues. We’re in a second week of weird census news. After two judges rejected the administration’s attempt to sub in new attorneys on the case, Trump looked like he was conceding the point a second time, saying he’ll just get the data from existing records. But some experts (including me) think he’ll try for a Round 3, especially because he’s considering throwing over his buddy Wilbur Ross — so I’ll keep folks posted.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Epstein/Acosta Mess. After Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for his involvement in sex trafficking of minors, people began to question the sweetheart deal that was put in place for him a decade prior under Alexander Acosta — who went on to become our Secretary of Labor. Continuing the sketch parade, Trump had publicly supported Epstein’s behavior in the past, was accused of raping a teen at one of his parties, and publicly praised Acosta in response to growing calls for the secretary to resign. Nancy Pelosi refused to consider impeaching Acosta (big shock there), saying that Trump will handle it if he wants to, and Attorney General Barr also refused to recuse from the inevitable investigation. Around the same time that allegations of witness tampering started coming out in the Epstein case, Acosta finally just resigned. (Personally, I think he was probably scapegoated to keep everyone from looking too closely at Trump’s role in the whole thing.)
Weird Health Law News. This was a weird, bad week for healthcare news, I tell you what. First a federal judge blocked a Trump order that would have required pharmaceutical companies to disclose how much their drugs cost in their advertisements — no, I don’t know what the catch was, either, so I regretfully report that we may have to be sad about the administration’s loss here. Meanwhile, a federal appeals court also heard arguments on the court case challenging the Affordable Care Act, which would potentially create all kinds of chaos if the lower court decision is affirmed. So there’s a lot of uncertainty and I’ll keep an eye on this.
2020 Candidate Exchange Program. Only a day after Eric Swalwell dropped out of the Democratic primary and pledged to run for Congressional re-election, random billionaire Tom Steyer announced his own candidacy on a climate action platform. Thank goodness he was here — otherwise, we might have had a primary field with fewer than two dozen candidates…

The Bad:

Even More Hellish Immigration News. After threatening that more ICE raids would occur this weekend, the administration left everybody to stew in their own anxiety, arresting a few people in a handful of cities but mostly just using a culture of fear to keep people on edge. Meanwhile, the camps remained in the news, as Mike Pence visited and said how great CBP staff were while more reports of officers sexually assaulting kids trickled in. Then to cap off the week, Trump announced he wants to effectively end asylum at the southern border, which is definitely very illegal and likely to be successfully challenged in our court systems. That said, the back-and-forth created by decrees followed by legal challenges can create a lot of difficulties for asylum seekers, who need to apply within one year of arriving and will be stuck in limbo until it’s overturned — this is likely to mess up a lot of people’s claims in the short term, which is probably the point.
Emoluments Loss. An appeals court blocked one of the emoluments cases from going forward this week, claiming that Maryland and DC had no standing to sue on this issue. (Incredibly, one of the three judges on the panel was appointed by Trump, which explains why I can’t follow the legal logic here at all.) Thankfully, there’s still at least one emoluments case that has been allowed to proceed, so this isn’t the last we’ll see of this issue.

The Good:

Recent Court Resilience. A federal appeals court ruled this week that Trump cannot legally block people he disagrees with on Twitter, because it violates the First Amendment. (Of course, two dudes immediately turned around and sued AOC under the same legal theory, but that’s a cost of doing business in 2019.)
Champion Celebrants. When the US Women’s soccer team won the World Cup, beating the Dutch team 2–0 to secure America’s second consecutive World Cup and the team’s fourth win ever. Members of the team used their platform to raise awareness of the class-action lawsuit they filed in March against the U.S. Soccer Federation, citing gender discrimination in pay and support. The parties allegedly reached an agreement last month, but the USWNT players brought the lawsuit back to the spotlight by using copies of the suit as victory confetti. Because they are soccer baller.

So that’s what I have for this week, and it’s more than enough. For making it through, you deserve these calves with knitted earmuffs and an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week with more (and hopefully better) news, and I hope you will be back as well — but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me better news from our interior!

National News Roundup: Year 3, Week 24 (June 30 — July 6)

July 9, 2019January 12, 2021 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The immigration news section remains on fire, but the rest of this week was nowhere near the horrorshow of the previous few weeks. Of course, this is rather like walking into a house and saying, “well, only one of these rooms is ablaze” — we can’t just sit and enjoy the mesquite flavor in the next room; we still have to act.

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. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a subpoena! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

It was actually a pretty quiet week for the Russia Investigation, with the closest news technically being about Trump’s finances. Here’s what happened:

Trump Tax Return Attempts.* House Democrats officially began a lawsuit for Trump’s tax returns this week, hoping to get enforcement for the subpoenas that the administration ignored earlier in the year. In the meantime, New York’s governor has officially signed the bill that allows Congress to access his state tax returns, which are expected to be nearly identical to the federal ones. So either way, we may have more movement on this soon.
Subpoena Party. In apparent response to last week’s decision allowing the emoluments case to proceed, Congress went a little subpoena-happy. It’s a subpoena party, and three dozen of Trump’s closest business friends are invited! (I’ll definitely keep folks posted on this news as it develops.)

In contrast, there was a lot of Disregard of Governing Norms stories this week, and they cover a fair amount of ground. Here’s what happened:

Trump Visits North Korea.* As he left the G20 summit in Osaka, Trump became the first U.S. President to set foot in North Korea — though in true Trump fashion, it was a lot of high drama for only a few minutes before they crossed back into South Korean territory. That said, the whole thing did result in resuming nuclear talks, which created a more positive gloss on an otherwise not very illustrative trip (but more on that below).
Census Fight Cluster. This story has become so weird as the week went on that I honestly wasn’t sure where to put it, but it’s certainly a deviation from government norms. After the administration missed its own printing deadline for the 2020 Census forms, the Department of Justice started out conceding that they couldn’t put a citizenship question on the 2020 census due to the time crunch. However, after Trump tweeted that he wanted to postpone the census to add the question, the judge dragged the DoJ attorneys onto a conference call and told them to explain themselves — prompting the team to say they found a way forward despite the logistical issues. Then Trump started talking about passing an executive order to get the question out, because he apparently failed Civics 101, and the whole legal team was swapped out en masse without a stated reason. So now the DOJ has Consumer Protection staffers as the new set of attorneys, and who even knows where we go from here.
Fourth of July Fervor. The biggest single kleptocracy story this week is definitely Trump’s Fourth of July celebration, which was a bizarre power grab from beginning to end. We began the week with Trump announcing that he wanted tanks for a military Fourth of July parade this year, diverting millions from park funds to pay for it despite still owing millions for his inauguration. Just for added insult, he also set up VIP passes for Republican donors (and only Republican donors), turning the entire thing into a partisan event that likely violated the Hatch Act. Eventually the Pentagon got him to back off of the tank plan, before he could do any damage to either the public safety or the roads. But the event was still very odd, from the torrential rain to Trump’s inexplicable statement that Revolutionary War troops “took over the airports.” Although on the plus side, the latter resulted in some truly great Internet memes.

Your “Normal” Weird:

G20 Lowlights.* I touched on a lot of the Russia investigation implications of Trump’s G20 trip last week, but wanted to spend a few minutes on the other noteworthy happenings today as well. Though the U.S. and China did resume trade talks, Trump also heaped praise on Saudi Arabia, insulted the host country, brought Ivanka along, and refused to back another climate change deal. So not what I’d call a successful summit, all things considered, even if it did have some positive notes.
Amash Announcement. Libertarian representative Justin Amash announced via op ed that he’s leaving the Republican party this week, proclaiming the GOP is “in a partisan death spiral” in the process. (You may recall Amash as that guy from the GOP who was calling to impeach Trump, though he also left the Freedom Caucus over it.) Folks started speculating immediately that he likely planned to run in the 2020 election, which is easier to do if he’s not a member of Trump’s party-and sure enough, he indicated he hasn’t ruled it out.

The Bad:

Even More Hellish Immigration News. Immigration news continues to be the horror nobody wants that just keeps on giving. The day after House reps described horrifying CBP station conditions, the DHS Inspector General issued a detailed report that corroborated many of their statements — and is the second report of this type in three months. (Against that backdrop, it’s not surprising that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has issued a statement of disgust.) News also broke that CBP has known about the secret CBP agent facebook group for years, and that the administration is levying half-million dollar fines against people who evaded deportation by seeking sanctuary — and might also go after people who gave them shelter. To cap off a real banner week, Trump issued more statements that he plans to have additional ICE raids soon, and ICE was in the news for using facial recognition software to mine state drivers’ license databases for data. Because yeah, nothing says “you can trust us to do this responsibly without a warrant” like detaining citizens and another round of papers-please raids.
Iran Tension Update.* Iran continues to violate the 2015 nuclear deal, racking up yet another violation on the heels of last week’s breach. Analysts with far more expertise than me are saying that Iran’s statements are political pressure rather than a true attempt to create a nuclear bomb — it’s an attempt to get the U.S. to back off or to get Europe to step up. Nonetheless, we need to keep watching this carefully.

The Good:

Recent Court Resilience. There were several great developments on court-related fronts this week, most of which were really encouraging. The charges against Marshae Jones, the woman in Alabama who was indicted for manslaughter when she was shot in the stomach, have officially been dropped as I type this. We also learned that several states are suing the EPA for stricter asbestos regulations. In court order news, a federal judge has blocked indefinite detention for asylum seekers, saying they must have a bond hearing while their case is pending because they have a constitutional right to due process. And the ‘conscientious objection’ medical rule was delayed until at least November due to a pending legal challenge in California. Hooray progress!
Culling the Dem Herd. Democrat Presidential hopeful Eric Swalwell announced he is dropping out of the U.S. 2020 race but will seek re-election to the House, marking the first cull of our 24-person herd. Though he’s the first, he definitely won’t be the last, and it’s encouraging to see candidates returning their attention to other 2020 elections.

So that’s what I have for this week, and it’s more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this close-up view of sand and an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week with more (and hopefully better) news, and I hope you will be back as well — but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me better news from the border!

National News Roundup: Year 3, Week 23 (June 23–29)

July 2, 2019January 12, 2021 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Despite the conclusion of Pride, this week’s news isn’t exactly rainbows and sunshine — the thunderstorms yesterday felt like appropriate ambiance. Things are pretty grim but we’ll get through this, if we take action and just keep swimming. I’m here if anybody needs anything.

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. This week’s news contains some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a subpoena! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

We have a bit more than average Russia Investigation news, and most of it is fascinating in one way or another. Here’s what I have for you:

Mueller and Conway Subpoenas.* Both Robert Mueller and Kellyanne Conway were in the news for subpoenas in the past week, with apparently mixed results. Mueller will testify in an open session with several House committees on July 17, having clearly decided to comply once a subpoena was at play — and immediately following this announcement, Trump started accusing him of crimes. Meanwhile, Kellyanne Conway no-showed for a hearing on Wednesday as part of a much larger tug-of-war between the administration and the House, so the House responded by voting to subpoena her. We can expect this to be much messier than the process with Mueller, though Conway has not yet issued a public statement as I write this.
Trump and the Russian Investigation (Again).* Trump brought up all kinds of things relating back to the Russia investigation when he met with Putin at G20, from joking about Putin’s election interference to comments about “getting rid” of journalists. But while he was in Japan joking about it, Jimmy Carter was saying that he thinks Trump didn’t actually win the 2016 election. (For those of you playing the home game, Carter saying this is no joke; the Carter Center has been doing election work for thirty years and he can be considered an expert on this topic.)

We saw a couple of Disregard of Governing Norms stories this week, and they’re about what we’ve come to expect — which is its own problem. Here’s what happened:

Trump Transition Team “Red Flags.” It’s been almost an afterthought, but leaked documents about the Trump transition team were in the news this week. Apparently Pence outsourced vetting to the RNC, who had all kinds of things to say about members of the Trump team — many of whom went on to join the cabinet and were eventually forced out due to scandal. It’s yet another reminder of how many different ways the Trump administration is pushing our boundaries on what is acceptable government behavior.
Trump Assault Conversation Continues. As we mentioned last week, the prominent writer who accused 45 sexually assaulting her noted in the piece that he had already been accused of such acts sixteen times to no effect. After Trump resorted to saying she ‘wasn’t his type’ in an attempt to discredit her as well, friends of Carroll’s came forward with more information about their recollections from the time of the event, and Carroll reiterated her observation that “nothing happens” when people report. And she’s pretty much right; as RollingStone reminds us, none of these women have seen any formal inquiries result from sharing their stories — even though the first allegations happened before he was President. That’s probably why Trump feels comfortable using defenses like “she’s not my type” (as opposed to “I don’t assault people”), and when you stop and think about that, it’s pretty disturbing.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Iran Tensions Simmer on Low Heat.* Tensions with Iran were reduced to a simmer after Trump drew back from the brink of attack, satisfying himself by issuing sanctions instead. That said, the relative calm is not for lack of yelling on Trump’s part, because he sure did post blustering tweets about how he would “obliterate” Iran if they stepped a toe out of line. It’s more likely things have quieted because Europe and China are backing away slowly, ignoring Trump’s sanctions in an effort to encourage deescalation from Iran — which seems to be working, for now at least.
Dem Debates Take 1.* The first two Dem debates happened in the past week, and, well…they happened. Takes on who performed how are all over the map, but early polling suggests that Warren and Harris did particularly well, with Harris’s decision to challenge Biden on busing paying off for her. (A few others performed well in initial polling as well.) Conversely, Biden suffered for his lack of preparedness on the busing issue, or at least for his mention of states’ rights and self-censorship. You can (and should) read fact-checking reports on both debates online, though I’d steer clear of most of the op-eds, and we’ll all know more when we learn who qualifies for the next round at the end of July.
Twitter Gets Upstaged. Twitter announced this week that they’re going to start putting a warning label on Trump tweets (okay, they said ‘tweets in the public interest,’ but we all know what they meant). They also said that tweets so labeled will be downrated so that they circulate less. And all this would be noteworthy, or at least moderately exciting, if they didn’t announce this in the same week that the popular knitting social media site Ravelry announced a straight-up ban of all support of Donald Trump from their platform, saying that supporting him is an open expression of white supremacy and that they cannot truly have an all-inclusive space if they permit said speech. So, y’know, you might want to up your game, Twitter.

The Bad:

Even More Hellish Immigration News. Immigration news remains awful, and this week comes with its own content warning. Members of the House visited a CBP facility in El Paso and observed unsafe living conditions, saying that one woman was told by CBP to drink out of a toilet. Frankly this is kind of easy to believe, because on the same day ProPublica reported excerpts from a secret CBP facebook group so dehumanizing that it’s honestly nauseating, and the Inspector General reported that CBP agents are arming themselves at border stations because they fear riots. News did break that the interim head of CBP is stepping down, but it’s not clear whether anything will actually be done to improve things — Congress passed the worst possible version of a humanitarian aid bill this week, which puts virtually no conditions on the $4.6B they’re handing over to CBP, the Department of Defense, and ICE. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the DACA case next year, and that’s vaguely terrifying given how they handled the past week’s cases (but I’ll get to that below). And ICE arrested a student in apparent retaliation for reading a poem about them in public. About the best thing I can say on this front is that federal judges are still giving the administration hell, with one judge blocking construction on the wall and another ordering CBP to allow medical providers into the camps. There are so many things that we can and should be doing to address all this news, and in particular I want to draw folks’ attention to national #ClosetheCamps protests happening tomorrow. As always, I’m happy to remain a resource on this.
Horrifying Alabama Case.* In addition to the SCOTUS cases mentioned above, Alabama was in the news for indicting a pregnant woman shot in the stomach and charging her with manslaughter. Notably, the actual shooter was not indicted for anything, with prosecutors claiming that “the only true victim in this was the unborn baby.” Reproductive rights advocates are saying that this is an early example of pregnancy criminalization, and they are absolutely right — we knew to predict this type of thing, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
SCOTUS Nightmares. The Supreme Court issued the last decisions of the term this week, and they range from “unfortunate” to “truly horrorshow.” The most coverage has gone to the court punting on issues of gerrymandering, saying it’s a political question and therefore ‘beyond the reach of the federal courts.’ This will leave several states with severe gerrymandering in place (although some have separate challenges at the state level) so it has very real political implications, and it’s understandable that it is receiving this level of attention. And the citizenship question is staying off of the 2020 census (at least for now), which is moderately good news even though the decision is a chaotic mess. But I want to spend a few minutes on a case that got very little attention, but I genuinely think is indicative of serious issues with our system: With very little fanfare, the court shot from the hip to overturn a basic search and seizure protection that was only established in 2013. The decision is legal gibberish that completely abandons several basic principles of law, including the principle that judges don’t rule on things that were waived as arguments — the government in this case literally conceded that the warrant exception created didn’t apply and the court created it anyway. This is a big deal, even though it impacts such a marginalized population — arguably because it impacts such a marginalized population — when it’s a clear sign that the institution’s fidelity to itself is breaking down.

The Good:

Scoring Goals Under Pressure. Soccer midfielder and all-around rockstar Megan Rapinoe announced this week that she would definitely not be going to the White House when her team won their upcoming World Cup quarterfinal match, except her version maybe contained more expletives. She then proceeded to score two amazing goals in the quarterfinals and pose like a purple-haired god at the jeering French crowd, which is the kind of self-possessed big energy I’m here for in 2019. After the game, Rapinoe reiterated that she wouldn’t retract anything she said about Trump — except the expletive, because it made her mom sad. Then just for extra excellence, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez invited Rapinoe to tour the House on Twitter, which Rapinoe accepted. With a party emoji.
Recent Court Resilience. Despite the SCOTUS news above, there were some good federal cases this week as well. In addition to the immigration cases listed, a federal judge allowed the emoluments case against Trump to go forward again, thwarting yet another attempt by this administration to make the unjust enrichment suits go away. I’m sure they’ll try again, but it’s still good to see the courts remain firm on this.

So that’s what I have for this week, and it’s more than enough. For making it through, you deserve this cat in a sailor suit and an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week with more (and hopefully better) news, and I hope you will be back as well — but in the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box, which is there for your constructive comments. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me better news from the border!

National News Roundup: Week 4 (February 12–18)

February 20, 2017October 21, 2019 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

I’ve been corralling the news into neat little paragraphs for about a month now, and I’m here to tell you, this past week is definitely the weirdest week of news we’ve had yet. Seriously. Between Trump declaring war on the public press, Trudeau explaining quantum computers, Flynngate (or should that be Flynn-a-lago?), and the Russian sub spottings on the eastern coast, writing the recap this week feels a bit like playing Surrealist Bingo. And I didn’t even win anything.

The stock reminders: 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

Public Enemy Number 1: The Free Press. This week’s “I Wish I were Making this Up, What is Even Happening” award goes to Trump announcing that the free press is “the enemy of the American people.” And, in case anyone was still curious about whether Trump super hates the media enough to sincerely say this (spoiler: he does), White House chief of staff Reince Priebus thinks we should take him at his word on this one. I guess I need to add this to the Trump attacks on the First Amendment list.
Mar-A-Lago Pay-to-Parlay. By several accounts, in response to North Korea’s very real ballistic missile threat, our imminently sensible President took phone calls from the dining area at Mar-A-Lago, which maybe wasn’t the most secure location ever. Apparently at least one guest took a selfie with the aide carrying the nuclear football, which we know because the whole thing ended up on someone’s Facebook page. Disturbingly enough, this might not have even been the biggest security breach, because staff also were using cell phone flashlights that might contain spyware to review documents. So basically, if you can afford the $200,000 membership fee, you might get to hear state secrets? So that’s cool.
You Almost Sunk My Battleship!* Okay, not really. But a Russian spy sub was spotted off the coast of Connecticut this week. And Trump threatened to shoot it out of the water during Thursday’s press conference. So, you know, the title is nearly accurate. As well as terrifying.
Word Salad Fib Factory Press Conference. Trump held a spectacularly mind-numbing press conference on Thursday, ostensibly to announce Alexander Acosta as his replacement nomination for Puzder but in reality to complain and show off his impressive casual lying skills. (My favorite was the part where he said that drugs cost less than candy bars, showing he’s out of touch with both the war on drugs and enjoyment of American processed chocolate. Although the part where he told a Jewish reporter to sit down and shut up when the reporter tried to ask about the JCC bomb threats all over the country — because some of his favorite people are Jews and he got 306 electoral college votes — was a close second, if an encore of a previous presser performance.)
Trump Avoids Intelligence (in All Sense of the Term). Earlier this week, it came out that Sally Yates tried to warn Trump about the Flynn/Russian contacts issue several weeks ago. Which he ignored, because… reasons? This revelation, among others, began an intense will-they-won’t-they among Republicans in the Senate and the House about whether to further investigate the ties to Russia generally on this matter. Meanwhile, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz has made it clear that he will not investigate unless someone drags him kicking and screaming, and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes thinks the $64,000 question in all of this is why Flynn’s phone was tapped. Also, Trump thinks “the real story” is that his people are leaking like sieves, surprising no one. Also also, there’s been a huge back and forth about whether the intelligence community has started withholding information from Trump on purpose, due to concern that his administration is compromised.
Terminate the EPA Bill: Now with Text! Some summary text was added to H.R. 861, the bill introduced on February 3 to terminate the Environmental Protection Agency. The text is pretty much just clarifying exactly what’s on the tin: That it’s a bill to terminate the EPA effective December 31, 2018. There’s no reason to believe this bill will survive committee, but it’s completely bonkers that it even got introduced. The House has been hopped up on bonkers brew pretty much nonstop since beginning the current session, though, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by anything they do at this point.
Try to Guess Trump’s Position on Israel, I Dare You. Somehow, in the past week, Trump both rejected the two-state solution that American politicians have been embracing for decades, and still managed to tell Netanyahu to cool it on settlement progress, leaving literally no one happy with him or his approach to Middle Eastern conflict resolution. Despite this, he apparently remains confident that he’ll single-handedly create peace in the Middle East, armed with the power of MURRIKA.

The Bad

More on ICE. Several more ICE headlines happened this week; a DREAMer on the DACA list was picked up as a collateral arrest in one of the raids, and in Texas an alleged abuser tipped off ICE and got the undocumented survivor picked up halfway through the hearing for the restraining order against him. Also, numbers from last week’s raids have come out, and ICE picked up and detained an estimated 600 people total in one week.
Prosecutor, Recuse Thyself. Sessions is refusing to recuse himself on the Russian investigation, which he’s technically allowed to do (but it’s incredibly ill-advised and tacky). Democrats are putting increasing pressure on him, as the article notes, and we’ll see if it gets us anywhere.
The National Guard Shouldn’t Be This Scary. There was a leaked memo this week that discussed using the National Guard to round up undocumented immigrants in eleven states. The document was signed by Secretary Kelly, but the White House distanced itself from the memo (although it did say it might consider authorizing this kind of expansion in the future). Personally, I’m not convinced the entire thing wasn’t an intentional leak to terrorize immigrant populations, but either way, it sounds like we can put this particular rumor to rest for the moment.
Budget Woes (for Everyone But Trump). Trump’s incredibly petty and asinine plan to cut the budget for all relatively cheap things that bring people joy or safety in life saw forward movement this week, because Trump’s pick for budget director was confirmed by the senate. (And lest you think I’m being overly dramatic, things on the chopping block include Sesame Street, the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, legal services funds, Violence Against Women grants, Americorps funds, and several other human interest streams of funding that individually make up 0.003% of the national budget or less.)
Ryancare, um …doesn’t. Republicans finally offered a policy brief of a plan to replace the Affordable Care Act this week, with Paul Ryan’s “A Better Way” proposal leading the charge, and surprise surprise, it leaves a lot of indigent people out in the cold as well as potentially revamping Medicaid itself. As expected, the plan outline places heavy emphasis on health savings accounts (which essentially require the participant to fund their own coverage, albeit tax-free); it also proposes use of tax credits by age instead of income (which many indigent people can’t use), federal financing for medicaid on a per capita basis, and a lot of provisions that essentially leave structure decisions to the states. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the plan more-or-less guts many of the intended purposes of the Affordable Care Act; it’s much more concerned with driving down government costs than treating healthcare as a basic necessity. And honestly, I don’t even see a lot of evidence that this will drive health care costs down generally; it just shifts who ultimately is responsible for them back onto the consumer. Speaking as someone who works with a department of a safety net hospital, I honestly felt gross reading the primary source linked above, and I recommend starting with the second link if you aren’t up for swallowing a bunch of Republican propaganda.
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.
Checking the Cabinet: Pruitt was confirmed as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, despite literally having suits against the agency pending right now (booooo). Mnuchin was confirmed by a narrow margin as well. As noted above, Mulvaney was confirmed as budget director. Bizarrely, I have no other bad cabinet news from this week, in large part because…

The Good

Puzder and Department of Labor NoTP: Apparently sufficiently few people wanted the Labor Department to be a gross, sexist extension of Hardee’s that Puzder withdrew his nomination this week. Trump ended up putting forward Alexander Acosta, a surprisingly competent and notably not-anti-labor choice, as his replacement nomination, which obviously has not yet been voted upon by committee.
Out Like Flynn. I know, I know, I used the same terrible play on words two weeks in a row. But I presumably will never do it again, because Flynn resigned this past week! Right after I sent out last week’s recap, annoyingly enough. There is a now a short list of three people Trump might call on to replace him, which no longer includes former General Petraeus.
A Day Without Immigrants. Restaurants in cities throughout the country shut down on Thursday to show denizens “a day without immigrants.” Though ultimately industry response to the protest was mixed, here in Boston a large number of restaurants put out statements in support of the movement.
Justin Trudeau Explains Quantum Computing. Arguably not really national news, but still worth the price of admission. Think of it as your reward for making it through this roundup, because you’ve now read all the news that was fit to print!

National News Roundup: Week 3 (February 5–11)

February 14, 2017October 21, 2019 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Some great stuff happened this week! Admittedly, also some not-so-great stuff. But all in all, there’s a lot more positive news this week than there have been in previous weeks, so I’ll take it! Also, I went a little overboard with the alliteration this week — sorry I’m not more sorry about that. The news is also a little late this week on account of a sinus infection laying me low yesterday, and that part I am sorry about.

As always, we start with the stock reminders: 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

Trump vs. the Media, Round ???: I’m already tired of saying “I can’’t believe I’m not making this up” when it comes to Trump and the media, but here we go again. First Trump famously claimed on Monday that the media was covering up terrorist attacks for their own gain. The White House then doubled down with a list of terrorist attacks that had been underreported, and about half the list involved zero deaths. The same day, incidentally, Trump also literally said that “any negative polls” about the immigration ban are “fake news.” White House official Sebastian Gorka followed up by explaining that “until the media understands how wrong it is [to “attack a duly elected President in the second week of his term”], we are going to continue to say, ‘fake news.’” In other words, “exercising your First Amendment right to critique our President now makes the President of the United States tell everybody on Twitter that you’re fake news.” Yup, that sure is a thing I had to write. Welcome to the Trump Administration.
Nordstrom (Accidentally) Takes On The World: The unfolding saga of Nordstrom, Ivanka Trump, and Half the Current Administration would be the stuff of soap operas, if soap operas were also running the country. I’ve already written some about it, but the very short version is that Nordstrom dropped Ivanka’s line of clothing and accessories and the Trump Machine was not happy about it. Oh, and also, Nordstrom’s stock climbed more than 4% afterwards, so make of that what you will.
Mitch McConnell Misstep: Mitch McConnell accidentally created a new liberal meme this past week when he cut short Elizabeth Warren’s reading of Coretta Scott King’s letter to Strom Thurmond during the Sessions debate. McConnell relied on a senate session rule regarding decorum towards senators to shut her down (though the letter was ultimately read into the record anyway by multiple male liberal counterparts). After being banned from the debate, Warren took to twitter, where she was quickly hailed as a feminist hero. I put this news in “the weird,” rather than either “the good” or “the bad,” because McConnell lionizing Warren like that was such a rookie mistake that I’m still scratching my head over it.
Ethics EO Evades Ethics Edict*: (Try saying that ten times fast!) Very early last week, Trump issued an EO about strengthening ethical commitments of executive branch employees. I put off discussing it because I wanted to check some anomalies I spotted when I compared it to Obama’s similar EO — it looked like it was giving lobbyists permission to immediately work in the executive branch, which to my knowledge had not been previously permissible, and also cited provisions I wasn’t familiar with. It turns out that I don’t need to look that up after all, because Pro Publica has helpfully laid all of it out for us this week. It’s an interesting insight into what is usually a dry topic, and I recommend checking it out!

The Bad

Papers Please: ICE conducted raids in at least six states this past week, creating checkpoints, entering homes, stopping at work places, and generally terrifying immigrant populations. The raids have already resulted in the detention of hundreds of people across the U.S. This is likely the beginning of enforcement of one of the President’s less focused-on executive orders, which largely targeted undocumented populations. I wrote a bit yesterday about the history of immigration raids under George W. Bush, and many immigration organizations have excellent reading materials on this topic.
Blue Lives Matter: Trump signed three executive orders this week, all relating back to crime or assault on police officers in some way. I plan to write more about them sometime this week, since they are all well within my wheelhouse — I had hoped to have this done before now, actually, but being ill derailed my plan to yesterday. At any rate, this administration would like you to know that they Value Law and Order and Blue Lives Matter. And a group of over 175 police chiefs and prosecutors would in turn like you to know that This Administration’s EOs Are Poorly Constructed (No, really; they issued a report and everything. It contains phrases like “antiquated law enforcement tools” and “risks wasting taxpayer money” and “law enforcement officers are not mental health or addiction professionals.” It’s surprisingly great, go read it.).
No Way In*: Yemen has withdrawn U.S. permission to run ground raids after last week’s botched attempt. It’s unclear whether this is tied to the immigration ban or not, because last week’s raid would presumably be reason enough all by itself. It’s also unclear what, if anything, the U.S. government will do with this information.
In (Hot Water) Like Flynn*: National security adviser Michael Flynn is in pretty hot water right now for discussing Obama’s sanctions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which would be illegal although also hard to prosecute. For bonus funtimes, Flynn reported to Pence multiple times that he had not disclosed this information when meeting with Kislyak, which prompted Pence to report that the topic had not been discussed as well. Even worse, former acting A.G. Sally Yates apparently tried to warn the administration about this before she was dismissed, and it remains an open question whether anyone else (besides Pence, who everyone agrees was straight-up lied to) was in on this. No action has been taken by the administration to dismiss Flynn from his position, which doesn’t exactly help the administration’s credibility on this issue. In related news, CNN has also corroborated some of that infamous dossier, including some of the information that led to the sanctions in the first place.
Checking the Cabinet: There were some more Cabinet appointments this week, and none of them are what I would call “good for the agency involved.” Betsy DeVos just barely squeaked through her confirmation vote and is now our Secretary of Education, though Senators voted 50/50 and Pence had to cast the tie-breaking vote. Jeff Sessions was confirmed as Attorney General as well, though his vote was almost as close (at 52 to 47, and for those of you who are doing the math in your head right now, yes, that does mean that a Democrat voted for Sessions — Joe Manchin, from West Virginia.). Tom Price was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services, also by a 52–47 vote.
Autocratic State of the Nation: As always, here is the Amy Siskind link to Your Week in Authoritarianism. Some, but not all, of her work is reproduced here. I recommend checking out her summary as well — she has a broader scope of political expertise than I do by far.

The Good

9th Circuit Showdown: The Ninth Circuit heard a challenge to the stay of the immigration ban this week, after the Justice Department challenged last week’s District Court order from Seattle, which granted a temporary restraining order enjoining the executive branch from enforcing the travel ban while the court decided its constitutionality. In response to the government filing its appeal, literally hundreds of people filed amicus briefs supporting the stay of the ban, including tech companies, law professors, diplomats, and national security officials. The Ninth Circuit unanimously decided to leave the stay in place, stating that the federal government had not made its case for a suspending the restraining order. Though the scope of the holding was narrow — it only applies to a procedural question about whether the TRO remains while the District Court decides the underlying case — it’s still extremely exciting to confirm that the ban will remain on hold for now.
The Road to Impeachment Begins with a Single Step: House Representative Jerrod Nadler filed a resolution of inquiry with the House Judiciary Committee this past week. It’s the first step toward an indictment by the House of Representatives, which in turn is the first step of the impeachment process. That said, it’s far from a guarantee of impeachment; it’s simply an attempt to get information from the executive branch so that people in the House can make an informed decision about whether to pursue things further. But the resolution needs to be acted upon within fourteen working days of when Nadler filed it, so hopefully we’ll know more within the next few weeks. In the meantime, feel free to do a little dance. I know I did.
Britain Debates the Donald: In an interesting and rare display of partisan opinion, the Speaker of the House of Commons has indicated that there will be a debate to decide whether Donald Trump will be allowed to address Parliament. The Speaker called this tradition “an earned right” and “not an automatic honor,” though Presidents Obama, Clinton, and Reagan all had the privilege of doing so on their visits to the UK. It will be interesting to see how this vote goes — I’ll keep y’all posted.

In the meantime, though, that’s all the news that’s fit to print this week!

National News Roundup Week 2 (January 29-February 4)

February 6, 2017October 21, 2019 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Hello again, friends! Buckle in, because this has been a weird, long, confusing, roller coaster of a week even by last week’s standards. We are living in Interesting Times, distinguished guests, and trying to guess where we go from here is like trying to read Keurig machine herbal tea leaves, so your guess is as good as mine.

Some preliminary reminders before we take off, because a vague disclaimer is nobody’s friend: 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

Immigration Tug-of-war: Courts are Mostly Winning, Unless Maybe They Aren’t? The most important confusing thing to happen this week has been an ongoing battle of branches of government, occasionally with extra bonus infighting within the Executive Branch. Bear with me, because this is lengthy and confusing and I barely understand half of it despite studying law for a living: After Trump passed his extreme immigration executive order last Friday, federal judges around the country were happy to oblige the advocates launching into action. This resulted in holdings legally prohibiting first the practice of detaining lawful permanent residents, then the practice of denying detained people access to attorneys, and then ultimately almost all the provisions of the executive order. You would think that all of these holdings would make executive staff change their practices, and in some cases, you would be right; Homeland Security officially exempted lawful permanent residents after the first court holding. But in some cases, you would be fascinatingly, disturbingly wrong. Customs and Border Protections agents have continued to deny people access to attorneys (which eventually prompted the Virginia AG to file a motion to hold them in contempt, though the judge declined to grant it), and reports also began trickling in that CBP agents were coercing people to sign paperwork giving up their LPR status so that they could then be legally deported. This mixed posture can be partially explained by an apparent disagreement between Secretary Kelly and Steve Bannon, which thankfully did not end particularly well for Bannon, as well as some Department of State action that may or may not have been following the Executive pied piper. It was presumably not approved by Donald Trump himself, who largely handled this by tweeting about how the Seattle judge will be overturned (showing that he should give up his new career in fortunetelling, because the Ninth Circuit immediately proved him wrong). Oh, but he also did fire the acting Attorney General over all of this, after she declined to enforce the unlawful provisions of the Executive Order, saying that she “betrayed” the country over the (already found not to be lawful) “legal” order she didn’t enforce. So, you know. That’s happening. And will presumably be an ongoing saga for a while, especially if Trump’s continuous statements are any indication.
I Said Good Day, Mate! (and Other Phone Mishaps) Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, apparently we hung up on Australia this week because Donald Trump did not appreciate Prime Minister Turnbull reminding him that the U.S. had agreed to take 1250 refugees from an Australian detention center. This is in addition to President Trump threatening to invade Mexico over the ‘bad hombres down there’ (which presumably would be kind of hard with that wall in the way). Senator McCain took point on damage control, though presumably after this week that will be a Tillerson duty.
Never Forget what We Cannot Remember (because It Never Happened): Kellyanne Conroy continued to model what ‘alternative facts’ look like this week, this time citing a non-existent massacre to justify an unpopular immigration ban executive order. She later called it ‘an honest mistake,’ showing that in addition to not knowing what the word ‘fact’ means, she also does not know what the word ‘honest’ means. But by this point, the Internet had already had a glorious meme party, so the damage was more-or-less done.
Grunkle Donny’s Regulation Emporium. Continuing the general theme of “what even is happening in this administration,” President Trump kicked off the week with an executive order about regulations that was a little… baffling, to say the least. The basic theme is that agencies now need to repeal two regulations for every new regulation issued, although there are a bunch of reasons why this regulation was mostly symbolic, which is presumably why he also signed another executive order later in the week (and that one was not weird, it was just bad, so it’s discussed below).
You’re Hired! (Maybe) True to his reality television roots, Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nomination was rolled out with a dramatic prime-time announcement on Tuesday. I’ve heard several people call the nominee, Neil Gorsuch, a Scalia clone, which appears about accurate — much like the late judge he would be replacing, this judge is socially conservative, an Originalist, protective of fourth Amendment search and seizure requirements, and, most shockingly for the Trump administration, an actual federal judge with basic qualifications. The Democratic party appears fairly split about how to handle this nomination, which seems to be something of a Xanatos gambit — either the Democrats boycott a la the Garland nomination, in which case Trump gets to nominate somebody way less palatable and qualified while bad-mouthing the Democratic base, or they play nice, in which case the Republican party has learned that sheer bloody-minded obstructionism lands them Supreme Court seats. Schumer has indicated that the Democrats might also take Secret Door #3 and filibuster the nomination, especially in light of Trump’s recent anti-Judiciary tweetfest — which was last tried (unsuccessfully) with the Alito nomination. So I guess there are plenty of potential not-so-great options.
The Betsy DeVos Heisenstate: In addition to being my Negativland cover band, this is as good a descriptor as any for the neck-and-neck scramble happening on DeVos’s nomination. DeVos barely squeaked through her committee vote this week, which landed 12–11 along party lines. The plot thickened when Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski publicly announced that they would not support the DeVos nomination, bucking the expectation of a Republican party voting bloc. From there, it became a centrist Republican telethon free-for-all, with liberals calling all kind of Republican politicians looking for a third nay voter. If these efforts are unsuccessful, the Senate will be evenly split, which means the Vice President will cast a tie-breaking vote affirming — but if one more politician is persuaded to vote nay, DeVos will not be confirmed. This vote is scheduled to happen tomorrow, though it might be pushed back as far as Tuesday. So watch this space, I guess?
Rep Payee Proxy Debate: Speaking of confusing divides and strange bedfellows, both the NRA and disability rights groups celebrated a narrow House vote this week to repeal a measure involving gun background checks. The measure required Social Security to disclose when a person has a representative handling their money for them as part of the background checking process for gun purchase. The ACLU and other disability advocates disliked the measure because it exacerbated mental health diagnosis stigma, had no due process protection, and was overly broad, points which even the NRA respectfully raised.

The Bad

Nobody Likes Bannon’s Gross Seat*: Leading this week’s disturbing news is the fact that President Trump signed an presidential memorandum giving Steve Bannon a full seat on the National Security Council, a move which liberals and more centrist Republicans are describing with things like “radical,” “a profound shift,” and “stone cold crazy.” This is presumably because it’s a dramatic change from precedent — usually that seat is reserved for generals — and because it gives a confirmed white nationalist official authority over national security. House Democrats have already introduced a bill trying to kick him off.
It’s Hard Out Here for Goldman Sachs*: Also on the disturbing Presidential action front, Donald Trump signed an executive order authorizing a review of the Dodd-Frank regulatory body, a move that even a public sector attorney such as myself can tell is — and I’m going to use extremely technical terms here — probably not good. The provisions being reviewed were designed to curtail excessive risk-taking among “too big to fail” banks, and were passed in response to the Great Recession of 2008. Given Trump’s statements about intending to scale the entire provision back, this review is likely an opening salvo, though we’ll see if he manages to follow through with everything else also going on.
Checking the Cabinet: A flurry of Cabinet activity also happened this week, some of which honestly had to be seen to be believed. As mentioned above, Betsy DeVos received committee confirmation, as did Jeff Sessions (who was similarly split along party lines and is now similarly paused). Rick Perry and Ryan Zinke proceeded forward as well. Tillerson was confirmed as Secretary of State. When Democrats tried to boycott Price and Mnuchin’s committee votes, Republican committee members simply suspended the rules requiring a quorum and voted without them — so those two nominations are proceeding to full vote as well.
Violence in Quebec City (that is Likely America’s Fault) Six people were killed in a mosque in Quebec City this past week, in a fatal shooting that some American authorities are linking to similar violence in Texas. The Quebec government is investigating the tragedy as an act of terrorism.
JCC Bomb Threat Chicken, Round 3: Jewish community centers around the country got yet another round of bomb threats this past week, which makes three coordinated threat incidents in the past few weeks. Just like the other two rounds, the threats were later determined not to be credible, though Jewish organizations are working with the FBI.
Nineties Cartoon Villain Parade (Congress Edition)* In “I can’t believe I’m not making this up” news, a Republican representative from Florida has introduced a bill to terminate the Environmental Protection Agency. This comes on the heels of the House also voting to repeal a rule prohibiting coal companies from dumping waste into water sources. I never realized Captain Planet was a documentary, but I’m hoping to get my magical ring in the mail any day now.
Botched Yemen Raid Debrief* Among the tragedies of this week was a botched Yemen raid that killed 30 civilians, including an eight-year-old-girl who was an American citizen, and launched a military investigation. Trump apparently was not briefed in the Situation Room, and military personnel have suggested the mission was ill-advised because they went in compromised in their descriptions of what went wrong.
Authoritarian State of the Nation. Amy Siskind keeps a weekly tab of authoritarian acts in the United States, and has her own set of news from this week. Some of that work is reproduced here, but it’s worth checking out her summary as well — she has a broader scope of political expertise than I do by far.

The Good

(All) Boys Will Be Boys: In a rare bright spot of news this week, the Boy Scouts of America have announced they’ll be accepting transgender boys into their ranks for the first time in a century. As the article notes, this comes four years after accepting openly gay scouts and two years after accepting openly gay adult leaders. Progress!
Woah: The Merriam Webster Dictionary gave the ACLU a somewhat adorable spelling lesson this week, with some help from songwriter and genial pedant Jonathan Coulton.
Dressing Like a (Name-Taking) Woman: In response to leaked commentary about President Trump noting that he “likes the women who work for him to ‘dress like a woman,’” professional women all over the country responded by being awesome and photographing it. They captured sartorial choices from hospital scrubs to judicial robes to military fatigues to space suits to… basically everything that a woman might wear while kicking butt and taking names.
This Land is (Still) Your Land, This Land is (Still) My Land* A bill introduced by a Utah Congressman which would have authorized the sale of federal lands to private businesses got yanked this week, by the same congressman who originally introduced it. He explained this by noting, “I’m a proud gun owner, hunter and love our public lands . . . Groups I support and care about fear it sends the wrong message. I hear you and HR621 dies tomorrow.” …you know what, I’ll take it; at this point good news is good news.

And that’s it for this week — hopefully next week will be a little less interesting, though I’ll also accept “full of good news” as an option. Catch you all next Sunday, if not sooner!