Healthcare – Page 10 – National News Roundup

Year 6, Week 19 (May 22-28)

May 31, 2022 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

There are quite a few odds and ends from the last week or so that didn’t quite make it into the draft on Wednesday, though thankfully we’ve seen a fairly quiet Memorial day weekend. You can think of today’s draft as the tail-end mop-up–the stories are still worth tracking, but they’re bits and bobs of larger pieces.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a panel!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

Beyond primary elections, we did see a few more developments on the Election Rejection front. Here’s what I have for you:

Insurrection Updates. Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas was in the news again for pressuring elected officials to ignore elections, this time in Arizona. Meanwhile, news also broke that a senior State Department official met with election deniers about overturning election results on January 6, and House Panel testimony suggests that Trump expressed support for hanging Pence, so that’s fun. Finally, the D.C. Circuit blocked the House panel from obtaining RNC records as part of its January 6 investigation.

We also saw a few odds and ends of Biden Rebuilding, though not as many as I might have hoped. Here’s what has happened:

Administrative (In)action. Biden was in the news regarding a plan to order minor police reform and some collaborative initiatives on the anniversary of George Floyd’s death. (Though it was overshadowed by Uvalde news for obvious reasons, this did indeed happen on Wednesday.) However, despite a Presidential trip to Uvalde on Sunday, we haven’t seen much follow-up on police misconduct during the shooting. That said, he did open a DOJ investigation, which we’ll talk more about below.

Your New Normal:

State of the COVID-19. We have already talked some about the fifth Covid wave, which doesn’t seem to be deterring Americans from traveling over Memorial Day weekend because Murrica. This past week also saw some more studies about the nature of long Covid, which hopefully heralds more research to come. More specifically, studies this week confirmed that Covid vaccines do not prevent long Covid, though they do provide a bit of protection. There is also research that suggests that long Covid might be more common from minor infection, because most diagnosed cases occur in people who weren’t hospitalized during their initial infection. Finally, and speaking of hospitalization, the White House is trying to figure out ways to get Paxlovid to more people to prevent death during the current wave.

The Bad:

Uvalde Updates^. The Uvalde story unquestionably saw the most movement, and the developments remain extremely upsetting. By Thursday, several outlets had picked up the thread about police inaction at the shooting site, noting the deleterious role that police play in shootings in general as well as the myriad ways the police messed up in Uvalde in particular. Eventually, after several narrative inconsistencies issued by police were clarified, we had a clearer timeline of events: The shooter was inside the school and unengaged by police for almost 90 minutes while students called 9-1-1 repeatedly and parents begged officers to go inside. As I mentioned above, the U.S. Department of Justice is opening an investigation into the police response. Depressingly, this is the only federal initiative moving forward right now, as the Senate adjourned on Friday without voting on either of the two background check bills that have already passed in the House. (Before leaving, the GOP also blocked voting on a domestic terrorism bill that was a response to the Buffalo shooting.) Nonetheless, Senate Democrats say that they’re working on bipartisan legislation. There were also a few stories about how many mass shootings have occurred in 2022, which in total average more than one per day–and the Washington Post reported that another fourteen have occurred in the past week. Finally, the NRA held its annual convention this weekend in Houston, which involved a lot of repeating disproven talking points while teachers protested outside.

The Good:

Recent Labor Resilience. We did see some positive labor news over the past week or so. The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team finalized a deal that closes their pay gap and creates equal pay with men’s soccer, which is really exciting. There were also several unionizing victories for Starbucks franchises. Finally, Vice reports that Raven software QA voted to form the first AAA video game union in the country.

So that’s what I have for this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this inquisitive octopus and a more functional government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved 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 opinions on word puzzle games!

Year 6, Week 18 (May 15-21)

May 26, 2022May 26, 2022 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The NNR this week comes with a content warning–we have several stories that show a shocking cultural disregard for children’s wellbeing. I have marked the stories that involve child endangerment with a caret (^) symbol, so that you have the ability to skip them if you need to. Please take care while reading, and take care of yourself.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I guess after six years I’m conceding that I’m a journalist, but I summarize news within my areas of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a campaign!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

The name of the game for Election Rejection is, ironically, primary elections, but they’re still unfortunately quite topical. Here’s what I have for you:

Primary Blues. Since we’re a bit off our normal schedule, I’m bringing you news from not one, but two primary election dates, and much of it is a hot and/or fraudulent mess. North Carolina chucked local orgy aficionado and sitting Congressperson Madison Cawthorne after an extensive smear campaign from his own party, and down in Georgia, former Senator and full-time racist David Perdue enjoyed a similar table-turning. In the PA Senate primary, Trump-backed gremlin Mehmet Oz heads to a recount with hedge fund flavored David McCormick, though election rejection guy Doug Mastriano definitely won the gubernatorial GOP bid. The setbacks of these Trump-backed candidates highlight the fight currently happening within the party, especially as sitting officials in Georgia who refused to overturn 2020 results such as Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary Brad Raffensperger remained in the race. Meanwhile, five GOP candidates in Michigan were punted from the gubernatorial race because they committed election fraud to get themselves on the ballot, forging the necessary signatures to qualify.

I also have a lot for you on the Biden Rebuilding front, because we’re doing a dive into the formula shortage. Here’s what has happened:

Infant Formula Shortage.^ A shortage of infant formula in this country has been coming to a head for several months, but we saw a particular amount of movement this week, which makes it a good time to unpack it all. Essentially, only four companies in the U.S. make modern infant formula, and we have major restrictions on importation as well. These facts started a cascading failure in February when the FDA shut down a plant that produced much of company Abbott’s formula supply. The shutdown absolutely needed to happen, because unsanitary conditions were basically poisoning the supply, which resulted in four documented cases of infection and two infant fatalities. But while Abbott jerked the FDA around, declining to acquiesce to governmental requests, there was no real backup plan in place for replacing the lack of production. This exacerbated an already-existing shortage. Eventually this week, Biden invoked the Defense Production Act and began ordering importation from Europe, but these are only very temporary stopgaps. Abbott’s plant in Sturgis has now reached an agreement with the FDA, but it will take two months for them to start producing formula again. It’s a very rough and harrowing time for families that is unlikely to be fixed in the next few weeks.

Your New Normal:

State of the COVID-19. We have more information about the next COVID wave, brought to you courtesy of yet another dominant subvariant, and it’s… not great. Federal officials say that in many places in the US, we should all be masking. However, their messaging makes it clear that they don’t think they can make us, likely because Murrika freedom lawsuits suggest that they in fact cannot. This, predictably, means more rising cases.

The Bad:

Elementary School Shooting^. For the second week in a row, I am forced to report horrific gun violence, this time involving a highly fatal elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Though details are still settling, it appears that an eighteen-year-old man bought two AR-15 rifles on his birthday and a few days later shot his grandmother, fleeing that location by car when she called police. He drove his car to Robb Elementary School, crashing it in a ditch nearby and reportedly engaging police officers present, who declined to follow him into the building. Then he entered the school and barricaded himself in a room, opening fire with said AR-15, ultimately killing nineteen elementary students as well as two teachers and injuring several more people. Needless to say, this nauseating story highlights the massive amounts of preventable gun violence that plague America, which as I noted last week has become even worse during the pandemic. We’re also already seeing the by-now-familiar pattern of no Congressional corrective action occurring, which is very difficult to watch.

The Good:

Recent Pediatric Resilience. In light of the above stories, I thought it might be helpful to talk a bit more about progress on pediatric vaccination–there was a lot of it this week. Early data from Pfizer suggests that they may have created an 80% effective vaccine for children under 5 by adding a third dose. Meanwhile, both the FDA and the CDC have cleared booster shots for kids aged 5-11 for Pfizer as well. It’s important progress that hopefully heralds more movement soon.

So that’s what I have for this week, and I’m so sorry for the contents. For making it through, you deserve these porcine nommers, these suggestions for how to help Uvalde, and a country that is less heartbreaking. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved 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 articles on self-care because we all need them!

Year 6, Week 17 (May 8-14)

May 17, 2022 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

I’m running out of new ways to say that the news was actual garbage for another week, but nonetheless: The news was actual garbage for another week. Maybe I could just swap it up by typing it in a different language every roundup? Let’s be real, at this point you’d still know what I wrote. (Les nouveaux sont de vraies ordures, et le singe est sur la branch.)

Standard standing reminders still apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m mostly summarizing the news within my area of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not an email!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

We had a fair number of updates on the Election Rejection front, but they pretty much all suck. Here’s what I have for you:

Insurrection Updates. Yet another batch of bonkers emails was released this week, this time showing conservative lawyer John Eastman’s attempts to get legislators to toss absentee ballots through some kind of convoluted New Math scheme. Meanwhile, a final court decision means Marjorie Taylor Greene‘s officially allowed to stay on the ballot in Georgia, which I think we can agree is a loss for Georgia. And speaking of court decisions, Trump’s civil contempt will be dropped, but only if he pays the $110K total he owes–so let’s be real, he’s gonna stay in contempt of court. Finally, the Jan 6 House panel has graduated to subpoenaing 5 GOP legislators, including current House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, so that should be interesting.

In contrast, I don’t have a huge amount for you on the Biden Rebuilding front. Here’s what has happened:

Recent Biden Economy Stuff.* For another week, the biggest Biden news is that inflation sucks. This time, there’s renewed focus on sky-high gas prices, and also Biden insisting that the inflation is all MAGA America’s fault (which, to be fair, is probably extremely true.) But he also expanded a discount Internet program, which is pretty cool. And also cryptocurrencies had a total meltdown, much like everybody else experiencing 2022.

Your New Normal:

Reproductive Justice News. As predicted by prophecy, the Senate voted on reproductive justice protections this week, but the vote went 49-51 with Joe Manchin literally voting to block voting on it. The Senate did, however, successfully pass a bill making it harder to protest outside of SCOTUS judge’s houses. Meanwhile, Senator Warren and Rep Jayapal proposed a bill creating accountability of any kind for Supreme Court justices, but my guess is that one probably went straight into the circular filing cabinet, because I’ve heard exactly nothing about it being advanced at all. Aren’t Congressional priorities fun?

The Bad:

State of the COVID-19. COVID news this week was a bit quiet, beyond the official confirmation of one million deaths in the U.S. The Biden administration is also mailing another round of free COVID tests, this time 8 tests per household. Finally, a few outlets ran stories this week about misappropriated COVID relief funds, covering things like identity theft and, in Texas’s case, diversion to immigrant detention programs. (The Texas thing is particularly galling when you consider that Title 42 is restricting immigration because of COVID.)
White Supremacist Shootings (again). This was a truly awful week for gun violence. On Saturday, a white supremacist shot up a grocery store in Buffalo, NY, livestreaming the entire thing on Twitch as he did so, and resulting in 10 deaths and 3 injuries. We know the shooter is a white supremacist because he published a 180-page manifesto telling us he is, repeating the batshit “great replacement” theory that the alt-right propagates in campaign ads about white people being replaced by other cultures. Though the Buffalo shooting has gotten the most attention, there were two other racially-motivated mass shootings this week as well–on Wednesday, three women were shot in a hair salon in Dallas and on Sunday, five people were shot at a church in California. These shootings come on the same week as a report from the CDC documenting heightened gun violence during the pandemic; the report notes that gun homicides in 2020 were the highest in 25 years.

The Good:

Recent Medical Resilience. For a second week in a row, I’m excited to announce a long-awaited piece of good news: Scientists have identified a risk marker for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This is a huge breakthrough which opens up the long-term possibility of testing and treatment–and, of course, it’s also really valuable information for grieving parents. I’m gratified to be able to give you a bright spot in an otherwise dark news cycle.

So that’s what I have for this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this pouting Mastiff as well as a more consistently improved government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved 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 review of Our Flag Means Death!

Year 6, Week 3 (January 30–February 5)

February 8, 2022 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Well, another week has gone by, and the news really isn’t any better. I’m sorry to be the bearer of 2022, y’all. Hopefully we’ll get better luck next week.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m mostly summarizing the news within my area of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a pardon!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

As seems to be true every week, there are a lot of Election Rejection updates to report, and they’re full-blown bananas again. Here’s what I have for you:

Insurrection Updates. Most of this week’s news is about the GOP being a) completely behind Trump and b) completely off the rails–and yes, I’m aware I basically just typed the same thing twice. First there was the part where the GOP censured two prominent Republicans who are participating in the House panel because, apparently, the January 6 insurrection–an event that, I remind you, killed ten people–was mere “legitimate political discourse.” Unsurprisingly, Trump immediately congratulated the RNC for their decision. Of course, he was already engaging in witness tampering by dangling pardons for January 6 participants and publicly threatening Pence because Pence defended his decision to refuse to overturn the 2020 elections. Trump was also in the news this week regarding his multiple attempts to seize voting machines during his last days in power. We also got to read more about his charming habits of ripping up official documents that he was legally required to preserve in office and hoarding documents at Mar-A-Lago.

This was a weirdly quiet week on the Biden Rebuilding front. Here’s what has happened:

Blinking Biden. Other than news about Russia, which I’ll cover below, Biden stories were kind of an afterthought this week. There were, however, a couple of threads about how Biden is mad at his chief health officer, and about a COVID surge in ICE detention facilities. There were also a couple of stories about how Joe Manchin says that Build Back Better is dead, which I frankly feel is almost as much a statement about Biden as it is a statement about Manchin.

Your New Normal:

Land War Landmine.* Okay, this is super not my lane, but it’s important so I want to attempt to touch upon it. The short version is that this is a tense time regarding Russia, as there are a lot of signals to suggest that Russia may invade Ukraine in the near future. Unsurprisingly, Russia is saying otherwise, and argues that the U.S. stationing troops in Eastern Europe is unnecessary. But the U.S. troops are actually there reinforcing NATO troops that were already deployed to respond to Russia’s military buildup, so obviously that’s an oversimplification. Needless to say, this is a tense time and we’ll want to keep an eye on this.
Black Lives Still Matter. I am extremely disheartened to be writing about not one, but two police shootings in the last week. The lion’s share of media coverage is going to Minneapolis, where police fatally shot 22-year-old Amir Locke in his own home while serving a no-knock warrant for a completely different person. His parents are justifiably calling the act an ‘execution,’ and though no-knock warrants have been paused in the city, there are still no charges pending at the time that I write this. As the Washington Post notes, there was also a fatal police shooting in Tennessee, where nine police officers surrounded and shot a man holding a box cutter named Landon Eastep on I-65. And both of these stories are on top of the bomb threats being called into historically Black colleges and universities, which have been their own source of terror for Black communities over the last month.

The Bad:

State of the COVID-19. COVID news this week is… a lot, y’all. The U.S. has now officially lost 900,000 lives to COVID, which, in case you were wondering, is way more than any other country with reliable access to vaccines. It’s an incredible indictment of our handling of the virus, especially because nearly half of those deaths occurred after vaccines became available. Meanwhile, our brand of ignorant nonsense is now also infecting Canada, where a week-long vaccine protest with bonus white supremacy flavoring has caused a state of emergency in its capital city of Ottawa. But in more positive news, Moderna was fully approved this week by the FDA, and Pfizer thinks it is nearing completion of a vaccine for children under 5.

The Good:

Recent Inmate Win. California was in the news this week because the state is closing down its death row, signaling that the state’s moratorium on executions is likely to be permanent. It’s a small step in the grand scheme of things, but honestly this week has been so awful that I’m glad I have anything good to report at all.

So that’s what I have for this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this snow-loving mop as well as a more consistently improved government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved 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 hope for a functional water heater!

Year 5, Week 52 (January 9-15)

January 18, 2022 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

As I write this on Martin Luther King Jr Day, I am thinking about all his family is doing to further his work regarding advocacy for voting rights and reformation of the filibuster. It’s hard to feel like we’re making progress, as Mr. King notes in his op-ed, particularly given the voting rights news below. But the voting rights fight is not over, and we owe it to our fellow Americans to keep it up.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m mostly summarizing the news within my area of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a COVID test!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

As seems to be true every week, there are a lot of Election Rejection updates to report, and some of them are even promising. Here’s what I have for you:

Insurrection Updates. The Justice Department had a busy week–they announced the creation of a new unit to address domestic terrorism, and for an encore they charged the head of the Oathkeepers with seditious conspiracy for his role in January 6. Also in January 6 news, the panel has begun to subpoena social media, which has the capacity to prove very interesting over the next few weeks. They’re also still negotiating with Mike Pence about interviews while Kevin McCarthy refuses his own interview request, which is probably going to mean another subpoena. Meanwhile, Trump hung up on the good people at NPR when his narrative was questioned on the 2020 election, and is also back to pestering courts to halt the NY AG investigation, which he claims is a political attack.

2024 Election Rejection News. Though it’s depressingly early for this nonsense, we’re also already seeing a lot of concerning groundwork for 2024. The biggest story is that the RNC is now refusing to work with the org that runs Presidential debates because the latter refuses to make various changes to the format per Republican demands. Lindsey Graham also had a soundbite on Fox News this week about how he won’t support McConnell anymore as Senate leader unless McConnell “ha[s] a working relationship with President Donald Trump,” referring to Trump in the same interview as “the leader of the Republican Party.” This is an incredibly striking thing for a sitting senator to say about his own congressional leader, but it’s even more disturbing in context–Trump has been out of office for over a year, and has not even formally announced plans to rerun. (I’m not gonna lie, I had to double-check the date of that article before linking it, because it reads like a 2019 fever dream.)

We did also see a bit of progress on the Biden Rebuilding front. Here’s what has happened:

Biden’s Omicron Microprogression. The Biden administration announced several supports regarding testing this week. On Monday, it announced that private insurance companies will now be required to reimburse the cost of antigen testing starting on January 15. He also said he would provide 10 million free tests to schools on a monthly basis, explicitly to ensure schools remain in-person and open during the crisis. Finally, he’s also deploying military medical personnel to six states to address hospitalization crises, which we’ll talk more about below.

Your New Normal:

Recent Senate Dysfunction. As I mentioned above, most of the Senate dysfunction this week is about federal voting rights legislation to combat increasing state laws designed to suppress votes. Though Biden expressed support for blowing up the filibuster, unsurprisingly Sinema and Manchin are both refusing to cooperate. Senate leader Chuck Schumer is now talking about exploiting a loophole to skip the filibuster argument altogether, though this process has been kicked out to Tuesday due to the combination of a winter storm and a positive COVID test.(For those of you wondering about Build Back Better, by the way, I’m sad to report that it now seems pretty dead in the water.)

The Bad:

State of the COVID-19. All around the country, case rates are still in the stratosphere as I type this, and high hospitalization rates are prompting some providers to begin enacting crisis standards of care again. In many states with the earliest infections, death rates are also climbing. Nonetheless, Dr. Anthony Fauci and related officials are starting to treat the virus as endemic for vaccinated populations, saying that it is highly transmissible but nondeadly. And as foreseen by prophecy, the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s work vaccination mandate as unconstitutional, because apparently workplace safety is unamerican.

The Good:

Recent Medical Resilience. I do have a bit of positive medical news for you as well. Maryland saw the first successful organ transplant for a human patient using a genetically modified pig heart, which is potentially groundbreaking news for organ transplant. And in less groundbreaking but still edifying news, Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli is now officially banned from the pharma industry for life, as well as out $64M, per a final court settlement.

So that’s what I have for this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this Shiba Inu food critic as well as a more consistently improved government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved 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 wind right here in a jar!

Year 5, Week 51 (January 2-8)

January 11, 2022 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

COVID news has center stage for yet another week, with everybody trying to make sense of this latest chaotic surge. We have more information on some things, and less on others, but I’ll do my best to boil it down for y’all.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m mostly summarizing the news within my area of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a subpoena!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

As you might expect on the one-year anniversary of January 6, there are a lot of Election Rejection updates to report. Here’s what I have for you:

Insurrection Updates. This week marked one full year since the insurrection, which means it was on a lot of people’s minds–including Biden’s, as he gave a speech to mark the occasion. There’s still a great deal going on with the investigation, and in turn a great deal being uncovered; in particular, there has been a lot of news this week about Mike Pence and Sean Hannity‘s anticipated cooperation with the panel. And, of course, outlets are also talking about Jim Jordan’s refusal to do the same. But on the criminal side, sentencing has been noticeably lenient. And speaking of courts, since several entities are suing Trump for his role, we’re back to arguing about whether he has immunity.

Sadly, we’re still not seeing as much progress on the Biden Rebuilding front. Here’s what has happened:

Biden’s Omicron Abiding. Biden Omicron news continues to be disappointing for another week. Although Fauci had signaled last week that maybe the CDC would start to require tests after five days of quarantine, the Biden administration quickly put the kibosh on that line of thought. They instead seem to signal that living with COVID is going to be our “new normal,” resisting pushes to close schools and implying that omicron response is a state problem. By the end of the week, the administration was tweeting that people should just use Google to find COVID tests, and I think it’s safe to say that’s a new low for everybody involved.

Your New Normal:

Recent Senate Dysfunction. There is not a lot more Senate news, as far as I can tell, beyond Senate leaders indicating that they will blow up the filibuster if they don’t move the voting act forward by January 17–which we should definitely support, because voting rights are extremely important! But this didn’t stop Joe Manchin from having another couple of soundbites about how he won’t support the Build Back Better Act, not that anybody’s even talking about that right now.

The Bad:

State of the COVID-19. COVID is, of course, the lion’s share of the news for another week, and a lot of it is pretty bleak. We’ve had another truly astronomical jump in cases, reaching 1.1 million new cases in one day in the U.S. as I type this. Hospitalizations are also skyrocketing, highlighting the need to take this variant seriously even though it often causes less severe infections. Complicating matters further, studies suggest that rapid tests may not be fully reliable in the first days of infection, though PCR tests remain difficult for many people to get. And somehow, while all this is going on, SCOTUS heard another case about vaccine mandates and seems to be resisting enforcing them in non-health settings. But I do have a sliver of good news, which is that Pfizer boosters for ages 12-15 are now officially approved by the CDC.

The Good:

Black Lives Still Matter. Sentences were released this week for the Ahmaud Arbery murder trials, and all three men were sentenced to life in prison. Notably, the judge asked the courtroom to sit in silence for one minute before releasing the sentences, noting that it was only a fraction of the five minutes that Arbery was running for his life. This sends a powerful message regarding white supremacist murder, and one that our country obviously still needs.

So that’s what I have for this week, and I think we can agree that it’s more than enough. For making it through, you deserve these puppies’ first grooming session as well as a more consistently improved government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved 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 hours in the day!

Year 5, Week 46 (November 28–December 4)

December 7, 2021 Kara Hurvitz1 Comment

All three of this week’s major stories are exceptionally bleak, and the news has been a slog for months. That creates predictable struggles–we’re all running out of steam, but we’ve got swaths more to iron out. It’s okay if you need some time to regroup; the burnout struggle is very real. The NNR and I will be here when you get back.

Standard standing reminders still apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m mostly summarizing the news within my area of expertise. NNR summaries often contain some detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise–I’m a lawyer, not a House panel!–but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. And, of course, for the things that are within my lane, I’m offering context that shouldn’t be considered legal advice. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Cleanup in Aisle 45:

There’s more Election Rejection to report this week, and it’s still all over the map. Here’s what happened this week:

Insurrection Updates. After being threatened with a bad time last week, Trump former chief of staff Mark Meadows did eventually start cooperating with Congress, and will appear before the Jan 6 House panel sometime soon. Meanwhile,his contemporary Jeffrey Clarke is pleading the fifth in response to threats of being held in contempt himself. (The panel has already interviewed 250 people and expects to be holding public hearings beginning next year.) And on a related tangent, news also broke this week that Trump’s first positive COVID test was before the first Presidential debate, which means he knowingly endangered Biden’s life by refusing to wear a mask during the debates before vaccines were available.

All things told, this was a pretty quiet week on the Biden Rebuilding front. Here’s all I have for you:

Biden Administration Updates. The biggest news for the Biden administration this week is that GOP members threatened a government shutdown over his vaccine and testing mandates, though a stopgap measure was passed and signed into law by the week’s end. Meanwhile, the House GOP is wrangling with the latest blatant bigotry parade from Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebart, concerned that attempts to rein them in could muck with their midterm elections.

Your New Normal:

Michigan School Shooting. A student in Michigan opened fire on his classmates on Tuesday, resulting in four fatalities and eight major injuries. As details slowly leaked out, more and more attention was drawn to the shooter’s parents, who had been called into the school that day to discuss concerns about their son’s behavior. Eventually, the parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter; the shooter himself was charged with a count of terrorism as well as murder. Both the shooter and his parents are in custody as I type this, the latter held with a $500,000 bond due to their attempt to evade arrest. Despite the unusual charges involved, I place this story under Your New Normal because it is the 29th school shooting this year and the 21st since August 1. Despite the prevalence of shooter drills in American schools, gun violence remains a major systemic educational problem.

The Bad:

State of the COVID-19. The main COVID news this week is again the omicron variant, which was identified in the U.S. as of Wednesday. At the time that I type this, it has been found in seventeen states and it’s believed the mutation may have been here for weeks already. Early studies suggest that omicron may be three times more likely to cause reinfection than delta, possibly because it shares genetic material with the common cold. Needless to say, this may signal new restrictions in our future, which is disheartening given the mass tantrums about vaccine and mask mandates we were already seeing. Nonetheless, early research does not suggest that omicron is more dangerous than previous variants; it’s just more contagious.

Forced Birth News. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday for a very high-profile forced birth case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, regarding a Mississippi law that makes abortion illegal at or after 15 weeks. The law, along with a Texas law that was heard earlier this season, are both intentionally and blatantly unconstitutional under current legal precedent, which is commonly referred to as “Roe v. Wade” precedent. Nonetheless, in oral arguments on Wednesday, the current Supreme Court appeared to signal that it was planning to overturn about sixty years of settled precedent. If that happened, it would substantially limit reproductive healthcare in about half the states in the country.

The Good:

Recent Election Resilience. We did have a couple of pockets of positive election news this week. Here in Massachusetts, a special election in the North Shore resulted in the first Democrat to hold the seat since 1848. And in Georgia, Atlanta elected Democrat Andre Dickens to be its next mayor.

So that’s what I have for this week, and I’m sorry, there are no news refunds. For making it through, you deserve this wildlife social hour as well as a more consistently improved government. I’ll be back next week with more restructured and improved 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 warm socks because this apartment is cold!

National News Roundup: Year 2, Week 25 (July 8–14)

July 17, 2018 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The name of the game this week is ‘toxic weirdness,’ because we’re looking at a week that is deeply wild even by our current low standards. A lot of the strange stuff is also very, very damaging, so it’s worth paying close attention and discussing how to respond. (Except for Paul Ryan’s car getting eaten by woodchucks, which is just hilarious.)

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 bitcoin — 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:

This week, all the Casual Disregard of Governing Norms was seriously on steroids — there’s a lot going on, and almost all of it is off-the-wall intense. Here are the main things to know:

SCOTUS Scouting, Part II. Trump announced last Monday that he was tapping Brett Kavanaugh as his next pick for the Supreme Court, though Justice Kennedy will remain in the seat until the end of the month. And while the whole selection process was strange, over the course of last week this entire story got way stranger. Though Kavanaugh’s credentials look fairly traditional on paper, news outlets began to report that Kennedy retired in exchange for his former clerk’s nomination — and that’s a serious problem if true, both because Supreme Court justices aren’t supposed to be able to pick their replacements and because it has major implications for cases like Trump v. Hawaii. And on top of that story, news hit that Kavanaugh had hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt as recently as 2016, but that debt inexplicably vanished in 2017 — despite no changes in his salary or job status. So while all we have are some sketchy-looking pieces of a much larger jigsaw puzzle, they’re not exactly painting a pretty picture.
Further Erosion of Actual Law and Order. This was not a great week for due process or law enforcement, I tell you what. First Trump pardoned two ranchers convicted of arson, who just so happened to also have sparked an armed occupation of a federal park when they were convicted back in 2016. But surely that’s not relevant to his decision to pardon them. After all, if you look at all of Trump’s pardons from the past year or so, the majority — Scooter Libby, Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza, the Hammonds — it’s not like he’s systemically issuing pardons designed to erode rules of law for targeted crimes such as ignoring court orders, perjuring oneself in court, and committing campaign finance fraud. Oh wait, no, it’s the other thing, where Trump is definitely doing that. And the same week, a DoJ attorney claimed in court that Guantanamo Bay could legally hold the same prisoner for a hundred years without ever charging them with anything. So it’s just been raining observed legal procedure all around this week.
California DA Calling for Crime. A California District Attorney was suspended this week for, among other things, insinuating that sitting Congresswoman Maxine Waters should be shot. Folks, I need to unpack this a bit to explain why it’s so toxic that it merits going in the Constitutional Crisis corner, because it definitely does: A man who upholds and enforces criminal laws for a living — a government official in a profession that requires upstanding behavior at all times, I might add; you are expected to behave as an attorney 24/7 when you pass the bar — just advocated murdering his own sitting federal representative and he didn’t get fired for it. This indicates that in a lot of places, on local as well as federal levels, something is very, very wrong.
Strzok Shouting Match. Former FBI staffer Peter Strzok testified before Congress this past week, but it didn’t exactly go well — though he had a clear message, which seems more-or-less borne out by time, the hearing devolved into shouting matches several times. All in all, I’m inclined to agree with Strzok’s assessment that the whole thing was just pageantry, but just the fact that the GOP and an FBI staffer were yelling at each other really shows how much our government has changed in the past few years.

The Russia Investigation was hyperactive, too — after a couple of relatively quiet weeks, it feels like a lot of things are happening at once.

Manafort Goes to Regular Person Jail. Paul “I Got Sent to Jail for Witness Tampering” Manafort was apparently not in an especially secure or strict pretrial detention center, because first he complained about being two hours away from his lawyers — but when a transfer was granted, he then complained about being transferred away from his “VIP” detention center. And having read details about his prior detention center, I can see why he didn’t want to leave; incredibly, he had his own phone and laptop and was sending his attorneys emails. What I can’t understand is why he was complaining about anything involving his setup when he clearly had optimal conditions to rack up another witness tampering charge. At any rate, since he’s now more able to go through all of the documents with his attorneys for eight hours per day — again, a thing he wouldn’t ordinarily be easily able to do — we can expect his state charges to go forward soon.
Your Data is Likely to Get Eaten by a GRU. Okay bear with me folks, because this is technical and long and out of my lane but also really important. Mueller’s team released indictments for twelve Russian officers of a foreign intelligence agency called GRU, which is basically the hacking arm of the Kremlin as far as I can tell. These individuals’ units used spearphishing to get data from the Clinton Campaign as well as the DCCC and DNC networks in a coordinated attack — one that Putin pretty much definitely knew about, and probably ordered. Incredibly, the indictments note the first instance of hacking Clinton’s emails “on or about July 27, 2016,” which — super-coincidence! — is also the same day Trump told Russia to hack Clinton’s emails. GRU then used false identities to disseminate all the information they scooped out of Democrat computers, reaching out to the Trump campaign under an alias and reportedly fielding at least one GOP candidate’s request for dirt on their opponent before sending the info along to “Organization 1,” which I’m pretty sure was Wikileaks. The charges in the indictment include Conspiracy to Commit an Offense Against the United States, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Conspiracy to Launder Money, so it will be interesting to see what happens from here to say the least.
Courting Russia in Helsinki. The GOP and Trump’s connections to Russia definitely look extra shady in light of the news above, particularly because several GOP congresspeople visited Russians currently being sanctioned and the White House is demanding more information on the FBI’s practices during the 2016 election. But the most condemning thing to happen was definitely Trump meeting with Putin literally the very next business day after the news came out, despite Democrats entreating him to postpone the meeting. Once in Helsinki, his grand plan for putting Putin in his place involved calling America ‘stupid’ and throwing the FBI under the bus in favor of cozying further up to the autocrat, praising Putin’s offer to coordinate on investigation into his own interference on American elections, and just generally, as the AP noted, changing ‘America First’ to ‘Me First.’ The FBI was forced to issue a statement about their investigations while Putin literally told the press he wanted Trump to win the election — and given the past week, I can’t imagine why.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Your Week in Trump Weirdness. Even ignoring the backdrop in the paragraph above, this was a particularly weird week to Trump-watch. First he insulted Germany, claiming that Angela Merkel was “captive” to Russia, because projection is a helluva drug. Then he yelled at NATO, demanding that they change their defense practices, and then proclaiming himself a “very stable genius” when they didn’t follow suit. Then for an encore, he criticized Theresa May repeatedly while visiting the UK, called literal recordings of him doing it ‘fake news,’ and announced that the European Union was a ‘foe’ of the United States. I seriously got nothin’, y’all.
Stormy Daniels Is Arrested For… Things? Stormy Daniels was arrested in a strip club in Ohio for allowing ‘touching’ while dancing, only to see the charges dropped the very next morning. There’s a lot I don’t understand about this story — why did she even have a two-night gig dancing in Columbia, Ohio? Why were they sending undercover police officers to watch her dance in a sting operation? What was even happening here? But if it’s more than a blip I’m sure Michael Avenetti will tell us all about it, in excruciating detail, so I’ll keep you posted.
Which Man’s Car Would a Woodchuck Eat (If A Woodchuck Could Eat Cars)? Paul Ryan apparently got back to his home in Wisconsin and discovered that a family of woodchucks had eaten his car while he was gone. Though, as CNN notes, Paul Ryan hasn’t driven himself anywhere in three years, so this might not have even been the work of contemporary woodchucks. (But either way, somewhere an antifa Disney Princess is singing the best protest song to her woodland friends.)
Nonbinding Senate Tariffs Resolution. The Senate opted to make its voice heard about Trump’s tariff habits this past week, passing a resolution saying that he shouldn’t be able to do that unilaterally anymore by overwhelming majority. Unfortunately for all of us, probably including Trump, it’s not a binding resolution. And though it does technically send a message to Trump, he’s proven himself so uninterested in what anyone who isn’t him or Fox News has to say that it’s not likely to do much. But at least the sentiment is vaguely edifying.

The Bad:

ACA Freeze. Possibly in response to reports of its relative strength, the Trump administration meddled with the ACA again, freezing billions in payments and claiming the action is in response to a February court case. The freeze may seriously mess up risk adjustment, which is a pretty popular aspect of the program — unsurprising, because this always seems to happen to the popular aspects of the program — but we’ll know more after a court case heard in late June comes back with a ruling.
Immigration Updates: Still Horrible. The main immigration news to know this week is that only about half of the 107 kids under the age of five taken from their parents were returned in time to comply with the court order, in part because the administration is saying that many of the parents are ineligible to get their own kids back, generally due to having a criminal record of any kind (spoiler: We don’t consider that a bar to having custody of your own kids generally here in the U.S.). The Department of Justice also admitted that they may have separated a citizen family for an entire year, and we also started hearing horror stories of young children not recognizing their parents when reunited after long separation. So, while things are slowly getting better, it’s still full of nightmare fodder.

The Good:

Immigration Resilience. In an unsurprisingly rapid turn of events, federal judge Dolly Gee has already denied this administration’s attempts to change the Flores settlement to permit jailing of kids. In her decision, Judge Gee (correctly) noted that changing the order to allow jailing of kids, when the order is literally about how the government can’t jail kids, “would constitute a fundamental and material breach” of the agreement. Which is sort of like a government official noting that the sky is blue, but right now we have way too many officials claiming the sky’s whatever color Russia says it is, so I’ll take it.

And that’s the news this week, and good job and my condolences for making it through the whole thing; your reward is David Tennant with some muppets 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 your color commentary on what the heck!

National News Roundup: Year 2, Week 3 (February 4–10)

February 13, 2018 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Ernest Blaikley [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The news this week is an exercise in information overload, and most of it is utterly inane and/or terrible. There’s so much information, in fact, that I’m bending my rules slightly and kicking some of the more minor stories out a week in an effort to make this a more manageable maze. I’ll do my best to guide you through it, but bear with me folks; this will be a long one.

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 color guard! — 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:

This was another week with a metric ton of news on All Things Russia, and most of it is absolutely wild in one way or another. Here’s a nuts-and-bolts summary:

See, This Is Why We Needed Russian Sanctions. Further news broke this past week that Russians successfully hacked U.S. voter systems in multiple states before the 2016 election — not just Illinois, as had been previously reported. Meanwhile, tracking has suggested that Russia is already meddling in the 2018 elections as well, at least according to a report from Rex Tillerson. Tillerson says it’s important to confront Russia about these actions, so we can all sleep safer knowing that Trump keeps refusing to do anything because “the threat of sanctions will be their own deterrent.”
Trump is the World’s Worst Client. In will-he-or-won’t-he-interview news, Trump keeps claiming he wants to talk to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, despite increasingly inventive attempts at persuasion otherwise from friends and the poor schmoes tasked with representing him. But the likelihood is high that he can’t avoid it anyway, given the legal precedent set by the Supreme Court when Richard Nixon tried to weasel out of providing a copy of his infamous tapes. The best his beleaguered counsel can probably do is set the form of questioning — so they may end up stuck handing him a pen and hoping for the best.
Trump Power Trip. The past week was, bluntly put, a difficult week for Team I Would Like Some Assurance We’re Not Secretly Russia. First Trump “jokingly” accused Democrats of treason while giving a speech in Ohio, for the extremely compelling reason that they didn’t clap for his meshuga policies during the State of the Union address. Then he followed that one up with literal marching orders, asking the Pentagon for a giant military parade. (It’s an idea he apparently took from France, but it doesn’t feel very Macronesque when it happens the day after he equated failure to clap with treason.) As you can imagine, nobody was especially excited to drop money on a parade because a draft-dodger said so, and Democrats are introducing bills in both the House and Senate to block the millions in funds this would take to implement. Amusingly, the bill title — the PARADE Act — stands for “Preventing the Allocation of Resources for Absurd Defense Expenditures.”
The Neverending Nunes Efforts.* (Oh-whoa, oh-whoa, oh-whoa…) Apparently I named the headline in an apt way last week, because somehow the Nunes memo saga is still going on. At the beginning of the week, the House Oversight Committee unanimously voted to allow Democrats to release a rebuttal memo — presumably because the Nunes memo itself was so appallingly amateur hour. But by Friday, Trump had blocked the release of the rebuttal, insinuating that he might release it if he gets to decide how much it says (and if that surprises you, you need to read the other headlines in this section again). Meanwhile, Nunes is claiming that the FBI font was too small for him to read, and that’s why his memo is riddled with inconsistencies and and errors. And Politico also broke the news that Russian bots successfully popularized the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag on our social media as recently as last week. And I became increasingly convinced we’re all in the Bad Place.

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Amazing Bouncing Dow.* It’s been a very strange week for our economic markets, folks. First the Dow dropped over 1,000 points last Monday, only to gain about half of that back and then drop another 1,000 points on Thursday. The drops are historic in terms of sheer numbers, though the Dow had grown so large that they were less significant in percentage — but they still total nearly half the growth the Dow has experienced since Trump took office. As I understand it, market correction like this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it might mean a serious drop soon, particularly because the conditions mirror those preceding a 24% drop in 1987. At this stage, it’s probably too early to tell, though many analysts are likely more adept at reading these particular tea leaves than I am.
Porter Portents. White House aide Rob Porter resigned amid multiple allegations of spousal abuse this week, but not before the White House vouched for him multiple times. Despite Trump being among those defending Porter, somehow this is resulting in heat on Chief of Staff John Kelly — perhaps because of mounting evidence that Kelly knew about the abuse and gave him increasing responsibility anyway. That said, he’s also blaming Porter’s current girlfriend, because why not blame a conveniently-placed woman too while we’re at it? Kelly has offered and then unoffered to resign as a result of all of this; I’m torn between yelling “BYE FELICIA” at his potentially-retreating head and worrying about what kind of evil muppet would likely replace him.
Battling Budgets. After shutting down for a paltry six hours on Friday, Congress did indeed sort itself out on the CR issue. The resulting bill funds the government for another two years, assists the military and a variety of nondefense programs, funds relief efforts, and raises the debt ceiling. (It did not, notably, contain any provisions about DACA.) Against this backdrop, it’s a touch baffling that Trump released his own budget proposal today, after signing the other budget provisions into law on Friday. Just like last year, it’s 160 pages of garbage that threatens to eliminate Big Bird, dramatically reduces access to public benefits, and yet somehow still manages to overspend. Just like last year, Congress isn’t going to touch it — but it does give us a good picture of what the administration might prioritize in the next year. Unfortunately, the benefits piece looks extremely likely to come up soon; more on that below.

The Bad:

Immigration Updates. At this rate, this section is just going to become a permanent fixture in the ‘bad’ column, because we seem to get more bad immigration news every week. This week’s news is another leaked regulation draft suggesting that it’s not safe for immigrants to access any public benefits, lest they be labeled a ‘public charge’ and denied permanent residence. As some advocacy groups point out, there are already rules in place limiting access to public benefits in the country; the proposed draft would extend those rules more indefinitely and apply them to parents seeking benefits for citizen children. This news comes alongside reports of people with valid lawful permanent residence claims being arrested by ICE when they report for their interview process, which is heartless, very unusual, and probably not legal; ICE is also now being sued for targeting activists in their arrest practices. Although, frankly, it kind of looks like ICE is just targeting literally everybody.
Benefits Beatdown. Trump’s disturbing budgetary vision statement has a lot of people worried about a lot of potential policy changes for public benefits. In addition to the public charge issue outlined above, there’s also a threat to create a work requirement for public housing (which happened fairly recently with Medicaid, and also with food aid, making this a very realistic possibility). There’s also a threat of creating lifetime benefit caps for Medicaid recipients, which is both a terrible idea and similarly plausible, and a threat to remove food choices from SNAP recipients. Advocates and activists in both housing and health fields are bustling, and I’m sure I’ll have more information and suggestions soon.
Unhealthy Healthcare. There was a lot of messed-up health news this week, so it’s as good a time as any for a summary. Trump nominated his current deputy chief of staff to be our new drug czar (yes, that’s a real title), continuing his weird trend of promoting his own staff to executive positions. Unfortunately, the man’s qualifications (other than “loyal to Donald Trump”) have yet to be seen — literally the only experience the man has regarding drugs is prosecuting people over them, and Trump’s moving the position’s oversight to the Department of Justice, which is a really bad sign. And speaking of prosecuting, there’s now a probe into insurance giant Aetna’s claim processing practices after a former medical director admitted under oath that they didn’t review medical records when denying claims — basically the industry equivalent of driving through town with your eyes shut and letting intuition tell you when to turn left. But, on the plus side, Purdue Pharma (purveyor of OxyContin, though you’re excused for thinking of basketball or chickens) has announced it will stop promoting opioids in light of the current epidemic — definitely because people are dying, and not because of the several state and municipal lawsuits filed to make them stop. And the Trump administration may or may not tackle rising drug prices. And last but not least, though you probably knew this already, the flu is uncommonly awful this year (but please get a flu shot anyway!).

The Good:

Nancy Pelosi Podium Adventures.* House minority leader Nancy Pelosi spoke for over eight hours on the House floor this week, using her position to create a makeshift filibuster over the lack of DACA progress. In the end, she ran out of things to say, but she did apparently set a new record for time on the House floor — and more importantly, she signaled to all of us that she was keeping Dreamers on her radar. Here’s hoping that translates to some kind of action in the next few weeks.
New Obama Portraits.* Continuing a contemporary tradition, the National Portrait Gallery unveiled portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama this week. Both of the Obamas picked their own artist for their respective works, resulting in striking and complementary but distinct styles for each portrait. Kehinde Wiley, who created Barack Obama’s portrait, set him in a garden scene full of flowers symbolizing his birthplace, his ancestry, and his political home. Amy Sherald, who created Michelle Obama’s portrait, painted her in abstracted form on linen instead of canvas. Both portraits are beautiful examples of African-American artistry.
Teamster Sanctuary. About 120,000 Teamsters in New York are organizing to become a “sanctuary union,” giving its members complex training designed to make them certified immigration badasses who know both their rights and everybody else’s. The decision follows an earlier resolution not to assist ICE in rounding up their members, but reflects a decision to escalate after one of their members was deported with no criminal history and green card applications pending.

For once, that isn’t all the news I have for now, but there was just too much of it for me to dump over your heads, Dear Readers. Here’s hoping next week is better, or at least quieter, though with this administration it’s anybody’s guess. At any rate, I’ll see you all soon!

National News Roundup: Week 45 (November 26-December 2)

December 5, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

You know how sometime in the last few months, there has probably been a point when I have said “comfort food at the ready” and then you read the news and thought “Wait, that wasn’t so horrible, maybe I’ve become inured to the true terribleness of our situation by my cocoon of low expectations”? This week, I am sad to report, will not be that week — it’s less “comfort food at the ready” and more “Sorry your friend Lando Collins sold you out but at least the carbonite makes the hurting stop.” If you get a moment, I really recommend reviewing materials on trauma resilience, emotional first-aid, and self-care this 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, but not the merger kind! — 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:

This week saw multiple really big stories on Russia Collusion Investigation front, though what will result from them remains to be seen. Here are the two main highlights:

Manafort Released. Mueller’s team agreed to Paul Manafort’s release pretrial at the beginning of the week, removing provisions requiring GPS monitor and limiting domestic travel. Although four properties valued at $11.46M have been offered as collateral, that doesn’t seem to much reduce flight risk of a guy with a net worth estimated over $50M. It was a move that baffled and infuriated me until the end of the week, when we suddenly got more context about what was going on with Flynn.
Flynn Plea Bargain. Michael Flynn struck a plea bargain on Friday, pleading guilty of lying to the FBI and assuring his full cooperation with the Mueller investigation — which so far has already included disclosure that Jared Kushner knew he was meeting with Russian officials. Trump responded by letting slip on Twitter that he knew about Flynn’s lies to the FBI before Flynn was fired, which people note suggests obstruction of justice — and then, in a wild twist, it turned out that Trump’s chief counsel had written the tweet. He then followed this up by claiming it’s not possible for the President to obstruct justice (despite Nixon literally being impeached for this in the 1970s). So I’m sure it’s an interesting time to work at the White House, at the very least.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Harassment, Politics, and You. This has been an utterly bizarre week in terms of Congressional harassment. In the early part of the week, Prominent House Democrat John Conyers stepped down from the House Judiciary Committee due to allegations of sexually harassing his aides. (He is being replaced by New York Democrat Jerrold Nadler.) Though Nancy Pelosi has been calling for his resignation, both he and Al Franken remain in their positions on Capitol Hill for now, and TIME is opining that we probably have only seen the tip of the Congressional harassment iceberg. Also, Veritas tried to catch the Washington Post in a sting operation with a fake Moore rape charge. Meanwhile, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi skipped a meeting with Trump this week because he insulted them and tweeted that it would be a waste of time. So of course he responded by putting two empty seats next to himself at the meeting, because harassment’s clearly the name of the game this week.
Other Trump Oddities (A Partial List). Though they are far from the most noteworthy things to happen this week, there was an awful lot of bizarre Trump behavior that got swept under the rug because so many other things are on fire right now. Among the highlights: Trump claimed the Access Hollywood tape was fake; apparently is still theorizing that Barack Obama was born abroad; tweeted videos from a British anti-Muslim extremist currently facing hate crimes charges; and insulted British Prime Minister Theresa May when she took exception to said shared videos.
Opioid Crisis Conway. Let’s see if I can make it through this section without vomiting in my mouth even a little bit. Jeff Sessions announced several bits of news about the opioid crisis this week, but the most obnoxious story is that Kellyanne Conway apparently is the official White House spokesperson for the opioid crisis. I really don’t have words for what a bad idea this is, so I’m just going to trust that y’all know why we maybe shouldn’t leave a debilitating national epidemic in the hands of a person with no relevant experience who already has another full-time job, thinks microwaves monitor people, and is under investigation for violating the Hatch Act. Let’s move on, before I strain something.
State Department Speculation.* Rumors circulated this week that Trump was about to oust Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and replace him with Mike Pompeo. (Pompeo is currently the head of the CIA, but the plan apparently also involved replacing him with Arkansas senator Tom Cotton.) This type of change would be what we in the legal field like to call “abjectly terrifying,” given the current delicate situation with Korea and both men’s reputations for being war hawks, and it also evidences a disturbing trend of normalizing Trump’s habit of ignoring Cabinet appointment procedure. But for now, both Trump and Tillerson are saying that no changes are imminent, and Tillerson made it through a potential Friday Firing intact for the time being. So I’m not quite sure what’s happening from here, but I’m going to keep my fingers permanently crossed that it doesn’t involve Secretary Pompeo.
CVS Bought Aetna. Yep, you read that right. CVS (as in the pharmacy convenience store chain) just agreed to buy Aetna (as in the health insurance company). I honestly have no idea what this even means; nobody in pharma has ever successfully bought the health insurance provider before. It’s possible it will lower healthcare costs, like the company says; it’s also possible that this will lock out competitors and make prices skyrocket. Maybe it will create porcine flight technology. I have no idea, y’all; this is really weird.

The Bad:

North Korea News (Again).* North Korea fired a ballistic missile again this past week, for the first time in more than two months. What differentiates this missile from the previous ones is that it was much more powerful; experts estimate North Korea can now successfully reach anywhere in the mainland United States. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is still stressing diplomacy, but we should all be watching this carefully.
How Not to Honor Veterans (Also A Partial List).* Trump was incredibly insulting to Navajo veterans at an event honoring them this week, receiving them with a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the background and pausing to call Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” in the middle of his statements for no discernible reason. (As several people on the Internet have noted, Pocahontas was Algonquin, Warren claimed to have Cherokee heritage, and Trump was honoring Navajos, so it’s a racist conflation of several different cultures on top of all the other forms of offense happening). The insult to injury is that the role Navajo code talkers played in World War II is a really remarkable and oft-overlooked part of our national history, which we of course didn’t get to hear about or honor because he was too busy using actual war heroes as a means to criticize Elizabeth Warren. Then, for an encore, he reduced the national monument known as Bear Ears, which has major tribal significance, by 85% — removing over one million acres all told. So now the Navajo Nation is suing Trump to preserve it, and moral of the story, if Trump invites you to the White House he’s probably about to do a jobby in your proverbial stew.
Senate Tax Reform News (Again Again). The Senate tax reform bill passed through committee by 12–11 along partisan lines this week, and then after some initial mishaps on Thursday, they passed the whole enchilada 51–49 at 2 AM on Saturday morning (with Bob Corker being the sole Republican holdout, since Collins, Murkowski, Flake, and McCain all came onboard). Folks, I won’t sugar-coat this; they passed this bill in the middle of the night with a bunch of its provisions scrawled in the margins and after refusing to give anybody enough time to read the thing. To say that this was not good governance would be a major understatement, and it’s deeply disappointing to see “moderate” Republicans fold like card tables to preserve their donations. About the best that I can say is that the Senate version has some major departures from the House version, and the House can’t rubber-stamp those changes (more on that below), so now it’s gone to conference committee, and that’s already off to a rocky start.
Travel Ban Back Online. Right alongside the tax reform news in the This Sure Is Hard to Stomach queue was the Supreme Court’s decision to remove injunctions on the travel ban today. Though the decision did not touch upon the merits of the case, it is the first time all the provisions of the final travel ban have been put back in play, and it’s particularly hard to swallow only a day or two after Trump retweeted viral anti-Muslim videos. I’m still halfheartedly hoping that SCOTUS wants to gather data to consider when pondering this case on the merits — a theory supported by the fact that Ginsberg and Sotomayor didn’t write out a full dissent — but it’s not a great day for Team People Who Don’t Hate Immigrants.

The Good:

An Australian Proposal. During a floor debate on codifying same-sex marriage in Australian Parliament (which was passed by referendum recently), an Australian lawmaker proposed to his long-term partner, who was watching from the gallery. The Australian House says this is the first time a marriage proposal of any type has happened on the floor, and it’s pretty cool that the first time it happened was in this context! Also, I want to live in a country where the Deputy Speaker’s response to something like this happening on the floor is “I should note for the Hansard that that was a yes, a resounding yes.”
AMT Owed. I’m not yet sure if this counts as good, or just hilarious, but New York Magazine reported today that the Senate accidentally screwed up a really major provision of the Tax Reform bill they just passed — which means the House can’t vote on the bill as-is without seriously angering donors. More specifically, here’s what apparently happened: An older version of the bill abolished the corporate Alternate Minimum Tax entirely, but in order to court hold-outs McConnell had to add a lot of expensive provisions. Since the bill can’t add more than 1.5 trillion to the debt in order to use the reconciliation process (and avoid a filibuster), one of the drafters put the AMT back into the draft. Only problem is, they forgot to lower it at all even though the whole point of this exercise was to create tax breaks, so they lowered the regular tax rate to 20% and then set the minimum tax rate at 20%! Obviously, going back to the drawing board means more opportunities to get moderate Senators and House members off-board. But even if we don’t see major gains from this, it’s still some good, good schadenfreude.

And that’s what I have this week — I’m super sorry about it all. But maybe Lando Collins will join the Rebel Alliance by Episode 6, if we can hold on that long…