Tag: 2016 Election

Ho boy, this week’s news is weeeeird, y’all. Like, Weird Sisters Randomly Appearing levels of weird. And just like in that Scottish play, it’s unclear who will be in charge of what by the end of the week.

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 confirmation hearing! — 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 only saw a couple of instances of Casual Disregard of Governing Norms this week, but all of them were pretty major and majorly strange. Here are the main things to know:

• Kavanaugh Chaos Continues. Somehow, the Kavanaugh mess is only slightly more settled than it was last week, because we all hit rock bottom and started to dig. Though Kavanaugh still planned to testify today, it wasn’t going to be possible for his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, in part because she’d received credible death threats and needed time to set up safety protocols. Ford also expressed concerns about testifying without an FBI investigation, since Trump refused to grant her request, and in particular about the likelihood that she’d get a fair hearing without one. Both Trump and McConnell wasted no time in proving her right, discrediting her even as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley gave her more time to decide about testifying. Ultimately, a deal was reached for Ford to testify this upcoming Thursday. While all this was unfolding, one of Grassley’s aides resigned due to a history of sexual harassment, Kavanaugh’s friend Ed Whelan accused someone else of being the real assailant with zero proof and subsequently had to take a leave of absence, a second accusation that Kavanaugh committed sexual assault in college arose, a third accusation that Kavanaugh committed sexual assault in high school arose, and Montgomery County police indicated they may be starting an investigation against Kavanaugh. In response, Kavanaugh is coughing up calendars from 1982 and complaining that it’s all a “grotesque and obvious character assassination.” So all in all, the nomination hasn’t exactly been the midterm election boost the GOP was hoping to see.
• Trump vs the Attorneys General.* The less-bizarre news is that Trump continued to berate Sessions, this time with the passive-aggressive classic “I don’t have an attorney general” (because nothing says I’m A Functional Leader of the Free World like disowning key staff in interviews). But the larger and wilder news comes from memos written by Andrew McCabe, which seem to suggest that the deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein considered both secretly recording Trump when he first took office in 2017, and invoking the 25th Amendment to have him removed. Unsurprisingly, Trump appeared to be considering firing Rosenstein not long after this news broke, and though staff appear to have talked him out of it initially, there was a whole lot of confusion today about whether Rosenstein resigned (spoiler: he didn’t) or was about to be fired (and we’ll find out that part on Thursday, which you may note is the same day of the Kavanaugh hearing). The whole thing certainly raises a lot of questions, at the very least, and Democrats are justifiably pushing to protect the Mueller investigation by legislation again.

The Russia Investigation was a bit quieter than the other splashy headlines this week, but there was still some movement. Here are the main things to know:

• New Investigation Fronts.* There are a few different odds and ends that appear to have caught Mueller’s attention in the past week. First there was another Roger Stone associate contacted to testify before a grand jury, and it will be interesting to see if anything happens there. But Buzzfeed also reported that millions of dollars changed hands as a result of the infamous Trump Tower meeting, which is now being investigated by Mueller as well. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens from here.
• Declassification of Russia Investigation Docs.* Shortly after he declassified a bunch of Russia Investigation documents last week, Trump walked back his own declassification order. Which is probably good news for us, as well as good news for Trump — it’s just good for everybody all around — but the whole thing is puzzling to say the least. That said, the President’s version of events is that “key allies” asked him not to, which I’m taking to mean that Sean Hannity called him up and told him Fox News and Friends would be sad if he went through with it.

Your “Normal” Weird:

• This Week’s Weird Election News.* This was a really strange week on the election trail. Ted Cruz got some attention for his sketchy campaign strategy, which involved sending mail to people marked as a legal summons that were actually solicitations for donation. The practice capitalizes on elder voters’ confusion, which left some people wondering whether it was illegal, but the Federal Election Commission says there’s nothing in the rules saying he can’t confuse people this way. On the state level, a Minnesota state senator is suspending his re-election campaign after his daughter alleged that he sexually abused her for ten years. And in other family news, six siblings of an Arizona representative appeared in his opponent’s political ads, saying that their brother’s extreme far-right conspiracy theories were sullying the family name. Yeesh, it’s not surprising that Democrats are polling as having an advantage, given what’s apparently going on with GOP candidates.
• Opioid Bill Updates.* The Senate passed a bipartisan set of opioid bills 99–1 this week, which is frankly so rare by now that I’m astonished it happened. Even more weirdly, the legislation actually looks like a good starting place to combat the opioid crisis, though it’s far from a comprehensive fix to all of the root causes of the crisis. And even even more weirdly, Donald Trump supports the legislation, apparently because it will make it easier for Customs and Border Protection to screen mail packages for drugs. I’m not all that excited about CBP rooting through our mail, and I’m also legit freaked out by the Senate getting anything done, so into the Weird section this story goes.
• Ben Carson’s 15 Minutes of Infamy. Ben Carson was in the news a couple of different ways this week, and both of the stories were about par for the course with that dude. A few outlets reported that his department was full of rampant cronyism, rapidly promoting people who worked on Carson and Trump’s political campaigns with no experience and raising their salaries to six figures annually. But he was also in the news, in true Ben Carson fashion, for saying that the Kavanaugh accusations were part of a Socialist plot to take over the government — and next to that, cronyism looks pretty normal.

The Bad:

• Hurricane Hits Keep Coming. More news is coming in about Hurricane Florence, and most of it is seriously Not Good. The death count has climbed up to 42 people, and there are more tropical storms coming in as I type this. News also broke that two women seeking mental health treatment were left handcuffed in a sheriff’s van during the hurricane and both drowned. Meanwhile, the New York Times did a piece on living conditions in Puerto Rico on the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which are just as bad as you expect them to be.
• Immigration Updates. I know I keep saying this every week, but no seriously, immigration updates are really bad this week. The Department of Health and Human Services is again reporting that it lost track of about 1500 migrant kids, which might be in the news to justify reports of ICE arresting potential sponsors of migrant kids because the would-be sponsors were undocumented. Attorney General and discount Javert Jeff Sessions issued an order that limits judges’ authority to dismiss deportation proceedings to pretty narrow circumstances — and I seriously can’t stress enough how incredibly bonkers that is, it’s not like dismissing a deportation proceeding magically grants people status. But probably the biggest piece of immigration news this week is that proposed new public charge rules got released (all 447 pages of ‘em), although they aren’t published yet, and they’re pretty gross. The long and short of it is that immigrant populations will be penalized for legally accessing common benefits like health insurance while in the United States. The proposed rules pretty blatantly punish people for being poor and price-gouge people who come here on work visas, and they’re just bad news all around, and you’ll definitely hear much more from me on this topic once they’re officially published.
• Trade War with China.* A new round of tariffs against China went into effect alongside other sanctions, despite Walmart sending a letter to the President asking him to reconsider. And for some reason, Politico interviewed Steve Bannon about it, although he’s probably right that by this point these tariffs are “a scale and depth that is previously inconceivable in U.S. history.”

The Good:

• Census Citizenship Setback. In positive immigration news, a federal judge has held that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross must testify about the need for a citizenship question on the census, noting that “Secretary Ross must sit for a deposition because, among other things, his intent and credibility are directly at issue in these cases.” It was apparently also difficult to get information through other means, and Ross showed an unusual interest in the issue, so this is at least partially on him. But it’s a promising start!

So that’s what I have for this week, and it’s more than enough! For making it through all of that, you deserve this list of wholesome Twitter memes and an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week with more 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 delays on the Kavanaugh vote!

I leave the news alone for a week and a half and suddenly it’s all asbestos buildings, torrid Rick Gates affairs, and more tariffs than you can shake a stick at. Ye gods, clearly I need to stop taking vacations. (I kid, gentle reader! Please do not vacationnap me.)

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 CO2 emission — 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:

There was a lot of different forms of Casual Disregard of Governing Norms this week, and they cover a lot of different types of ground — but for the most part, they involve trampling the First Amendment in one way or another. Here’s what happened:

• Continued Threat to Our Free Press. Fed up with Trump’s repeated slagging on their honorable profession, some folks at the Boston Globe decided to call for a coordinated defense of American news media this week. More than 300 news outlets participated, publishing editorials defending the role of the free press in American democracy. Trump, predictably, doubled down, calling the media “the opposition party” (which I find kind of uniquely disturbing, personally, though your mileage may vary). But the Senate apparently felt differently, passing a unanimous resolution that “the Press is not the enemy.” It’s good to know that when the chips are down, half of Congress will pass a nonbinding piece of paper.
• Kavanaugh Incomplete Application. SCOTUS Nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing is scheduled to begin on September 4, which is only a few weeks away, and we’re still missing a lot of documents needed for a full review of his credentials. The National Archive thinks they won’t have a full list of documents before October, nearly a month after his nomination is scheduled to begin. Some Democrats are refusing to meet with Kavanaugh until the document issue is resolved, but it’s a mixed bag right now. On the plus side, one of the documents that did surface was about how impeachment-happy Kavanaugh was during the Clinton years, so maybe we’ll get lucky and Trump will withdraw his own nomination.
• Erik Prince War Plans.* Officials are concerned that Trump may be considering giving Erik Prince (remember him, of Blackwater fame?) the time of day — more specifically, that he might back Prince’s proposal to privatize the war in Afghanistan, despite a growing movement for peace in Afghanistan itself . Folks, there’s so much wrong with that sentence that I don’t even know where to start. I tried turning reality off and turning it back on again, but we’re all still here. I’m so sorry.

The Russia Investigation has calmed down a tiny bit, but honestly that’s not really saying much — I think Trump was just too distracted to do a lot of damage. Here’s the quick lowdown:

• Revoking Security Clearance for Funsies.* Apparently willing to make good on an earlier threat, Trump went ahead and stripped the security clearance of former CIA director John O. Brennan. Then for an encore, he started zeroing in on the clearance of little-known but actually-currently-serving official Bruce Ohr, who appears to be the first in a long wishlist of officials tied to the Russia investigation that Trump wants to cut loose. Unsurprisingly, past CIA directors are unimpressed by all of this, and thirteen former intelligence chiefs and 175 former State department and Pentagan staffers jointly signed a strongly-worded letter condemning the action. (Clearly these folks have been talking to the Senate.) Brennan himself, meanwhile, is a bit more willing to take direct action, and is talking about suing the President.
• Manafort and Cohen Charges. The Manafort trial is now in jury deliberations, after a truly wild ride through eleven days of testimony — with no witnesses brought by the defense at all. So it makes sense that eyes are moving towards Michael Cohen. And I’m here to tell you, his $20M fraud investigation kind of makes Manafort look good — though like Manafort, Cohen’s charges involve business dealings, the mind boggles at fraudulently obtaining that much money.
• Don McGahn Speculation. The New York Times reminded everybody this week that White House counsel Don McGahn has cooperated extensively with the Russia investigation, giving over thirty hours of interview, and nobody’s quite sure just what he said to Mueller’s team. The ‘everybody’ in that sentence apparently included the White House, which is now scrambling to respond. Unsurprisingly, for Trump himself this involved yelling on Twitter, and Rudy Giuliani handled it by telling Chuck Todd that “truth isn’t truth.” Then, for an encore, Giuliani admitted the purpose of the Trump Tower meeting was intended collusion on national television. So uh, I’d say they’re all handling it about as well as normal.

Your “Normal” Weird:

• Omarosa I’ma Record This. This has been quite a week for White House bombshells. Probably the most prominent right now was Omarosa Newman’s revelation that she recorded her firing in the Situation Room, as well as releasing a recording of campaign advisers discussing Trump’s use of the n-word — and the White House was unable to confirm no tape of him using the word, which is super confidence-inducing. The release of these tapes also led to news about the White House making all of its aides sign nondisclosure agreements, which a judge has already ruled won’t work as intended.
• White House Firing Redux. We also saw a couple of weird firings this week, which seem worth mentioning. A White House speechwriter was fired for appearing on a panel with a white supremacist (and admit it, the part of that sentence that surprises you is that he was fired). And FBI agent Peter Strzok was fired this week due to anti-Trump text messages he sent during the 2016 election, despite the bureau’s official recommendation that he be demoted.

The Bad:

• Immigration Updates. As we have grown accustomed in the past few months, this past week brought a significant amount of malicious negligence on the immigration front. News broke that ICE crashed a van full of separated mothers and then denied the collision occurred, and ICE is also in the news for detaining a man who was driving his wife to the hospital to give birth. A judge threatened to hold Jeff Sessions in contempt for deporting people who still had pending immigration cases. CBP is being sued for unnecessarily invasive search processes, many of which frankly probably count as sexual assault. And process is moving forward on a push to make it harder for legal immigrants to obtain green cards if anyone in their family receives benefits, including their citizen children — a fact that has Stephen Miller’s uncle publicly criticizing him in op-eds. Finally, and depressingly, the Washington Post reports that there are still 559 children separated from their parents as of last week.
• Tariff and Sanction Updates.* This was a big week for pointless tariffs, between China announcing 25% tariffs against the United States, and the U.S. doubling steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey. There were also a lot of sanctions, between the U.S. reinstating sanctions against Iran and imposing sanctions against Russia and against two Turkish officials. Turkey, meanwhile, is encouraging its citizens to boycott American electronics companies. Trump is competently handling this all over the place by claiming the tariffs will help erase debt and by encouraging people to boycott Harley-Davidson, which is responding to the steel tariffs by moving production overseas. There’s nothing like boycotting your own country’s companies to deal with international boycotts against your country, I always say!
• Captain Planet Villain Updates.* News broke last week that the EPA was again permitting construction with asbestos, a product famous for being carcinogenic. Internal emails show that this was done over the objection of lead scientists and lawyers in the agency — unsurprising, given how wildly unpopular and likely to be legally challenged this move is. Then for an encore, Trump announced that he plans to undo Obama-era clean air laws, which will release hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2 into our atmosphere — not surprising, considering who is in charge of the clean air office, but depressing nonetheless.

The Good:

• Disinvite the Right. A white nationalist rally in DC held on the anniversary of Charlottesville managed only a couple dozen supporters, who were quickly dwarfed by hundreds of counterprotesters. Even the mayor of D.C. issued a statement that a second Unite the Right was not welcome in her city. Somewhat miraculously, there were no reports of violence at all, most likely because the two groups were kept separated by significant police presence.
• Recent Court Resilience. There were several strong stances taken by courts in the past week. A Trump-appointed federal judge upheld the constitutionality of the Mueller investigation, marking the fourth time an attempt to challenge the Russia investigation has failed. And in positive immigration news, another federal judge ordered the administration to fully reinstate the DACA program, marking the third federal order to reinstate the program. (This also had the distinction of irritating Jeff Sessions, who I’m pretty mad at myself after this past week, so I consider that a noteworthy bonus.)
• Primaries News. There were a lot of exciting and groundbreaking developments in yesterday’s primaries in Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Connecticut! In particular, we saw the first transgender gubernatorial candidate for either party nationally, the first Black Democratic candidate in Connecticut, and the advancement of the first Somali-American woman to be elected into the federal race. All of these developments are worth watching, and I’ll try to keep track of them for you in November.

So that’s what I have for this week, as we play catch-up among the general confusion. Since the news leaves a lot to be desired, I’m also leaving you with this video of a penguin chasing a butterfly I’m now back to a normal schedule, which means you can expect me on the regular again; I’ll be back next week, and I hope you will be too. In the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me your plan for making it to November!

Okay, we’re now back down to only two forms of constitutional crisis, as Trump slowly walks back the Putin stuff — but two is more than enough, and it’s still the longest section in this roundup. We’re not out of the woods by any stretch, and as long as Trump stays in charge it’s important to keep on keepin’ on.

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 163-ft yacht — 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:

There was a lot of different forms of Casual Disregard of Governing Norms this week, and they cover a lot of different types of ground — but for the most part, they involve trampling the First Amendment in one way or another. Here’s what happened:

• Continued Threat to Our Free Press. A CNN reporter was barred from an open media event in the Rose Garden this week, apparently because they didn’t like the questions she had asked earlier in the day as a pool reporter. Animosity towards the press is not a new move for Trump, but this kind of retaliatory barring certainly is — and it’s not a great sign, especially given everything else going on. Other White House press corps members are showing rare solidarity in the wake of this early-stage censorship, and Trump, predictably, is doubling down. At the time that I write this, he has moved on to deriding the New York Times and the Washington Post, calling them both ‘very unpatriotic’ for doing their jobs.
• Revoking Security Clearance for Funsies.* And speaking of warning signs, we had another one this week as well — Trump threatened to revoke security clearance from former White House advisers who annoyed him. The move would hurt him at least as much as it hurts the advisers, because they retained clearance for a reason — it’s traditional for former advisers to consult as needed on national issues, and the remaining administrative staff have the collective institutional knowledge of a wet paper bag — which is why he probably won’t do it. But regardless of the practicalities, the mere threat was an autocratic move that left retiring GOP members like Bob Corker and Paul Ryan vocally unimpressed.
• Religious ‘Liberty’ Task Force. I had initially decided to screen this one out, but then Sessions opened his mouth again today and here we are. After a ‘Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom’ conference last week, Jeff Sessions today announced the creation of a ‘Religious Liberty Task Force’ to address the nonexistent problem of honoring our First Amendment freedom of religious expression, which again I note is not under attack at all. The move further promotes earlier October guidance that permits healthcare workers to refuse to help people based on their religious beliefs, either by refusing to prescribe hormonal medications or by refusing to treat transgender patients. I seriously cannot state enough how disingenuous this entire thing is, because it serves no purpose beyond granting people a license to discriminate, which last time I checked wasn’t a fundamental or universal Christian tenet, has been illegal for many years, and is becoming more permissible anyway under recent cases like the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.

The Russia Investigation is still overclocked and going strong, too — no quieter than it was last week, which is really saying something:

• Your Weekly Cohen Collisions.* Michael Cohen continued to stay in the news this week in the wake of his recorded conversations with Trump (which, by the way, CNN went ahead and aired). His main follow-up was to claim that Trump knew about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russia well ahead of its actual date — and that Cohen would be willing to testify about it for Mueller’s investigation. Trump has denied this many times, and he has continued to deny it this week, but Cohen is a pretty credible inside source. It will be interesting to see what happens from here, to say the very least.
• Trump’s Russia News. We appear to be reaching the point where Trump and Russia can’t go a week without being in the news together, and this week is no exception. First outlets began reporting that Mueller is scrutinizing Trump tweets as part of his ongoing obstruction investigation, which has to be the worst document review ever (and I sure hope his legal aides have a ready supply of Tums and blood pressure medication). But this news hasn’t stopped Trump and Putin from continuing to publicly plan another meeting, this time with Putin inviting Trump over to Moscow. And Giuliani has taken another dive into the deep end of Questionable Lawyering, taking to the news circuits to claim collusion isn’t a crime. And while all of that is happening, Manafort’s trial starts on Tuesday — the first trial stemming from charges brought by Mueller, but almost certainly not the last.
• Infuriating Articles of Impeachment. And speaking of the Russia investigation,the Freedom Caucus blatantly tried to throw a spanner in the works by introducing articles to impeach Rod Rosenstein — which, thankfully, Ryan tossed out the window about thirty seconds after their introduction (but I’m mad about them anyway). The move was purely a political ploy to discredit the one guy who can legally dismiss Mueller, and it speaks volumes that they even tried it; there was no way these articles were going to make it to the floor in the current political environment. They must be getting desperate.
• First Known Russian Hacks of 2018.* This week brought us the first documented Russian attempt to hack the 2018 elections, with an unsuccessful attempt on the system of Missouri Dem incumbent Claire McCaskill. But after that didn’t work, news outlets began to report that Russian efforts are shifting to messing up the power grid, which would definitely be a significant disruption in states that use electronic systems. And on the lo-fi end of things, we also learned that indicted operative Maria Butina dined with at least one U.S. representative before her indictment. So ‘hacking’ is a bit of a moving target, really.

Your “Normal” Weird:

• The Resistance Goes Rogue on Republicans. This was a pretty active week for the Petty Platoon section of the Resistance, on account of a lot of people took it upon themselves to embarrass, harass, or break the stuff of prominent conservatives. First there was the Massachusetts Democrat who inexplicably got booked on Fox News and decided to make the most of it, using the time to directly tell Trump where to stick his border separation policy. Then Sasha Baron Cohen inexplicably got Georgia representative Jason Spencer to drop his pants and yell racial slurs on camera (which his public record would suggest wasn’t especially difficult). Unsurprisingly, the Governor of Georgia was unimpressed, and Spencer ended up resigning ahead of his term end. And on the vandalism side of things, Trump’s star on Hollywood Boulevard was smashed in again. Incredibly, the vandal turned himself in and apparently got bailed out by the last guy who smashed up Trump’s Hollywood star, and TMZ filmed people getting into a fistfight next to the busted-up star a few days later. Last but not least, someone untied Betsy DeVos’s 163-foot yacht and set it adrift on Lake Erie — which I’m sure she’s real mad about, because repairs will cost a quarter of a year of college tuition and now her family no longer has a matched set of ten multi-million-dollar yachts.
• Bailout for Farmers.* In light of the difficulties the trade war is causing American farmers, Trump announced a $12B bailout this week. Like much that Trump does, it appears to be the worst of both worlds — the bailout will create dependence on Europe to buy our surplus, but still permit Trump to go forward with his whackadoodle trade wars. And some outlets are saying that soybean farmers weren’t even doing that poorly in the U.S. in the first place. So there’s a lot to question here.
• Social Media Slump.* Facebook and Twitter are both having rough weeks on Wall Street, because it turns out farming out data to political groups and being a megaphone for megalomaniac Presidents (respectively) is bad for business. Honestly, the only thing strange about this story is that there are consequences for anything anymore at all, but I’m sure next week we’ll be reading about a big Twitter bailout.

The Bad:

• Immigration Updates. Family reunification efforts are still scrambled after the 30-day deadline has come and gone, with 711 children still in custody due to poorly-managed databases and partial deportation of families. Outlets are reporting the number of people given no chance to stay with their children may be as high as three-quarters of adults deported during the last couple of months, despite administration claims to the contrary, and news is also trickling in of rampant sexual abuse of people in ICE custody — including children in shelters as young as six years old. But none of this is stopping Trump from threatening to shut down the government if he doesn’t get a wall funded in the next two months (for the zillionth time), despite the real consequences this could have on the 2018 election. So it’s just a stunning display of callous mismanagement all the way down.
• Fraudulent Loan Forgiveness Mess. Betsy DeVos proposed this week to redesign a loan forgiveness program that provides relief for defrauded students. Though she’s been on the side of lending companies for a while now, this one is a new low, because students only qualify for the program if their school was closed or found fraudulent, and under the proposed new rules students aren’t guaranteed relief even if their school is forced to close while they attend. The proposal notes that “Postsecondary students are adults who can be reasonably expected to make informed decisions,” proving that Betsy DeVos has never actually met a college freshman, and is probably thinking more about the $13B this would return to the federal budget. But if this seems overly harsh to you, I urge you to remember that — per the beginning of this roundup — DeVos’s family literally owns ten multi-million dollar yachts, and speculate about how many times in her life she’s probably taken out a loan.
• Who Needs Endangered Species Anyway?* The Department of Interior introduced proposed rules for identifying endangered species, which are exactly as obnoxious as you would expect them to be — literally noting that they want to change the rules to make logging and drilling easier, and blithely ignoring the many species successfully rehabilitated by the Endangered Species Act. Basically, if you had managed to forget in the past few weeks that our Department of Interior was still run by a Captain Planet villain, Ryan Zinke is here to remind you.

The Good:

• EU Tariffs on Hold.* We are apparently holding off on imposing more tariffs against the European Union, so that’s one fewer global entity we’ve goaded into trade war with us. Sadly, this is probably related to the fact that they’re going to buy our surplus soybeans, and they pretty clearly are waiting to see if he’ll reverse course, but you know what, so are we so that’s totally fair.
• Recent Court Resilience. A federal district court decided to move forward with a lawsuit alleging that Trump has violated the Emoluments Clause due to his practices surrounding the Trump Organization and the Trump International Hotel in DC. It’s the first time a court has ever permitted this type of case to move forward against a sitting President, and it may or may not force a conversation about whether people can sue a sitting President in general. That said, the historic nature of the decision probably says more about this sitting President than it does about the court, because the plaintiffs used 200 years of legal history to conclusively prove that the alleged actions do fall within what the Founding Fathers would have considered ‘emoluments.’ (Remember, Jimmy Carter gave up his peanut farm, and even Richard Nixon let his assets go — we’ve never had a sitting President still controlling business interests before.)
• Is There Life on Mars?* European scientists discovered evidence of a 12-mile long underground lake on Mars this week, though the body of salt water’s presence has yet to be confirmed. If its presence can be confirmed, it would reopen the age-old question of whether the planet could support life. And even if this turns out to be a big lot of nothing, it gave me an opportunity to quote David Bowie, so it goes in my good column!

Last but not least, the Roundup itself has some news as well this week. Since both my researcher and myself are traveling over the next couple of weeks, I’ve decided to not to attempt to kludge news together on the road — which means I unfortunately need to go dark for a couple of weeks after this roundup. But fear not, intrepid reader, because I leave you in the very, very capable hands of (freely available) current events giants, on whom I regularly rely myself!

The Big Three to Check:

• Matt Kiser’s WTFJHT (which summarizes domestic political news daily, including emailed subscription and web updates, and provides a one-sentence summary if you’re in a hurry);
• Amy Siskind’s The Weekly List (which summarizes weekly, as the name suggests, with a focus on authoritarian creep); and
• The Skimm’s Daily Skimm (which summarizes domestic and foreign affairs news daily, including emailed subscription and web updates, and I particularly recommend it for its coverage of foreign affairs).

Extra (Free) Sources if You’re Feeling Ambitious:

• The Washington Post’s Daily 202 (separated by topic, and a free newsletter available to non-subscribers);
• The Daily Kos (aggregate feed that updates more-than-daily — it’s something of a fire hose); and
• Current Status (aggregate feed that updates more-than-daily from Matt Kiser, and also something of a fire hose)

I’m so sorry to leave you folks, but I promise I’ll be back real soon! And when I return, I’m setting up more features for the Roundup, including a Real Life Newsletter, an inbox for corrections and submissions, and hopefully a forum for folks to talk to me and each other. Until then, keep on keepin’ on, and if you miss me, there’s always The National News Roundup ask box!

Much like a fever breaking, the news reverted back to its ordinary post-2016 form this week. Sadly, unlike when a fever breaks, I cannot tell you that you have dreamed the past four bizarre horrible weeks. But you still get a unicorn chaser at the end of the news, because I’ve decided I like unicorn chasers, so there’s that at least!

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 trade war — 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 had quite a week for Casual Disregard of Governing Norms, even by our modern low standards. Here are the main things to know:

• SCOTUS Scouting. Trump continued to narrow down his short list of SCOTUS candidates ahead of his plan to announce a pick at prime time on Monday, and they’re as horrifying as you suspect they are. Between the timing and the covert interviews, neither the likely candidates nor the process is anything like normal, and all of the candidates appear poised to interfere with proper analysis of the Establishment Clause. By the time that I write this, the list seems pared down to Raymond Kethledge, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh, but I’ll keep you posted.
• Visions of Venezuela Invasion. News broke this past week that Trump wanted to invade Venezuela last August, and was still asking about it in September — which, for those of you playing the home game, was around the same time he added the country’s officials to Travel Ban version 3.0. So part of the facts the Supreme Court just relied on to find the ban legal may have only happened as a way of talking the President out of invading another country. Cool cool cool, all of this is totally normal.
• Kentucky Governor’s Medicaid Meanness. The Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin, has cut dental and vision coverage for nearly 500,000 Medicaid recipients in response to a court’s decision that he can’t implement a work requirement for Medicaid. Though he’s claiming this is what he needs to do in order to balance his budget, this was part of his overhaul plan already, and his department is claiming it will stop when they get their way in court — so it honestly kind of sounds like he’s just mad that he has to give Medicaid to poor people. And that’s kind of your job as governor, Bevin, so you should probably start reading job postings more carefully before applying.
• Shine on You Crazy White House.* This week in new lows, the White House just hired ex-Fox News co-president Bill Shine to lead their communications team. The pick is concerning for multiple reasons — for one thing, Shine didn’t exactly manage Fox News well, because he was ousted in part for mismanaging Roger Ailes’s sexual harassment. But additionally, the decision to hire someone so closely affiliated further links a sitting administration to Fox News as an entity, furthering the impression that the network is official propaganda. Which, let’s be honest, by this point it kind of is, so at least it’s truth in propaganda advertising.

There were a couple of developments on the Russia Investigation front too. Here’s a summary of the main things to know:

• The Michaels’ Publicity Stunts. After Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenetti correctly identified Michael Cohen’s interview with ABC as a publicity stunt, he then followed up with a publicity stunt of his own. More specifically, he implied he may run for President in 2020, citing Trump’s lack of political credentials as an argument for why he, Avenetti, would be qualified. I, uh, don’t think charismatic incompetence is transitive that way? But good bid, dude.
• Meanwhile, In Russia… Eight Republican members of Congress traveled to Russia this week, opting to spend their Fourth of July courting the Kremlin on the same week that the Senate found it had interfered with our free elections. This would not have been a great look for the Republican party under the best of circumstances, but it wasn’t just the holiday that made their trip was particularly ill-timed — while they were over there, two more people in Britain were poisoned by the nerve gas used on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March. One of the two victims passed away early this morning, though the other is still in critical condition as I type this.

Your “Normal” Weird:

• Get Me Air Force One. A podcast host and Howard Stern associate best known as Stuttering John apparently managed to reach Trump on Air Force One this week by pretending to be Senator Bob Menendez, keeping him on the line for several minutes to discuss current events. (You know, given how long Trump has been buddies with Howard Stern, you’d think he would have recognized the guy’s voice.)The surreal story highlights the serious security risks created by lax administrative practices.
• Stunning the World Health Organization. The New York Times reported this weekend that the Trump administration tried to bully the the World Health Assembly into dropping an initiative on breastfeeding infants this past spring. Though the attempt ultimately was not successful, the threats to start a trade war if they didn’t back down are noteworthy nonetheless — especially because we did start up a trade war with China this week (but more on that below).
• Second Civil War Letters. After conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s bizarre announcement that Democrats were planning a civil war on the Fourth of July, Democrats everywhere started sending Second Civil War letters, which are exactly as hilarious as you’d expect. If you haven’t had a chance to check out the hashtag on twitter, definitely take a moment and do it now; I’ll play some violin music for you in the background.

The Bad:

• North Korea News. The intelligence coming out of North Korea is that it’s still stockpiling more weapons in defiance of the agreement to denuclearize, but trying to hide this from the United States — shocking nobody except possibly Trump. So now we’re back to sniping back and forth with North Korea and calling it diplomacy, which by now is familiar territory.
• Trade War is Officially On. We’re now officially in a trade war with China, having levied $34B in tariffs against them at the end of the week. China immediately retaliated, and though experts are saying that China might be in a worse posture than we are, it’s not going to be a party for us either. I’ll keep you posted on developments from here.
• Affirmative Action Chopping Block. The Trump administration repealed Obama-era guidance on race and college admissions this week, saying that they weren’t required under law. (Which is probably even true, but neither is jailing kids, and that didn’t seem to stop this administration from reaching for that star.) It seems safe to assume this isn’t going to be an awesome time for affirmative action, though to be fair, we knew that already.
• Immigration Updates: Still Horrible. The administration may have chilled very slightly on the immigration hatred, but that’s seriously not saying much. News broke this week that they were complying with the reunification order from last week by telling asylum seekers they have to choose between reuniting with their children and seeking asylum. And for those who do choose to seek asylum, Jeff Sessions has rescinded guidance that granted them the ability to work while they wait for a decision. Meanwhile, the administration already knows it won’t meet its obligation to reunite families with young children by the end of the week, and appears to have destroyed some of its own records about the separation policy. The number of migrant children being kept in shelters is now over 10,000, up 21% from where it was last month, and parents who have been successfully reunited with their children say their children have come back traumatized and unkempt. And just to cap it all off, the administration also started quietly discharging immigrant recruits from the military.

The Good:

• Immigration Resilience. A federal judge ordered the administration to release release over 1,000 asylum seekers currently being held, noting that the law requires them to be released within seven days if they’ve shown a credible fear of persecution. With all of the mistreatment of asylum seekers happening right now, it’s really valuable to have a court record and an order to follow the law.
• J20 Charges Dropped. The remaining charges against the final thirty-nine people arrested for protesting the inauguration were all dropped this week, rather than taking their cases to trial. Since these were the last of the DisruptJ20 group to be prosecuted, prosecutors have now wrapped up the entire matter with only twenty-one guilty pleas to show for their efforts to overcharge. This is good news for our democracy as well as good news for those thirty-nine people, because it would set a dangerous precedent to hold random protesters accountable for others’ actions.
• So Long, Pruitt. Scott Pruitt finally resigned this week, and incredibly, we somehow learned about more scandals on his way out the door (though he spent his entire resignation letter just complaining about people being mean to him). He apparently left some chaos in his wake, but until Trump replaces him with a hunk of coal named Carl, the EPA will be run by deputy director Andrew Wheeler, which Trump presumably thinks is almost as good.
• ACA Resilience. ACA enrollment is even higher than it was this time last year, with markets mostly staying pretty stable, which is pretty impressive given how many potshots have been taken at it in the last year. In light of the ACA’s continued state as a battleground, more and more states are taking steps on their own to leave the general structure in place should something happen to it. It remains clear that the ACA is popular and functional, despite the best efforts of the GOP.

And that’s the news this week, and good job and my condolences for making it through the whole thing; your reward is this Shiba Inu and human’s dance routine and hopefully an eventual better government. I’ll be back next week, and I hope you will be too. In the meantime, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box. Send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me nominations for unicorn chasers!