Tag: Immigration

National News Roundup: Week 19 (May 28-June 3)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The news… appears to be slowing down a bit this week? I’m not sure how that happened, though I’m glad to be given a chance to catch my breath. That said, we did see some really big headlines, even if I don’t fully understand why some of the moves made this week. It’s like trying to follow a chess game where one of the players is drunk. And concussed. And there are cartoons happening in the next room.

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 also contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — still a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

On Russia and News:

Somewhat mercifully, we’re back down to “just” The Russia Collusion Investigation this week in terms of constitutional crises in the news. The ongoing threats to the First Amendment and the Emoluments Clause haven’t gone away, though, so please still call your reps about them! In the meantime, here’s your weekly wtf about all things Russia:

Your “Normal” Weird:

  • Covfefe Conspiracy. Trump got way too much attention this week for tweeting “Despite the constant negative press covfefe” just after midnight. While Twitter had a field day, conspiracy theorists insisted that “covfefe” means “I will stand up” in Arabic (which, spoiler, no it doesn’t). Meanwhile, Sean Spicer insisted that “a small group of people know exactly what he meant,” which would be ominous if it didn’t seem more likely to be a bald-faced lie.
  • Communications “Shakeup.” Apparently as part of promised “shakeups,” Communications Director Mike Dubke resigned this week. It’s unclear when his last day will be and why exactly he tendered his resignation, although it looks like he actually entered it before Trump’s trip abroad. Spicer apparently will be covering his duties in the short term, with fewer media briefings in general. The decision to leave is particularly striking when considered against the extremely low staff numbers among this administration, which has only filled 39 of 559 executive branch appointments.
  • Travel Ban Blues. Trump has filed a petition with the Supreme Court to reinstate the ban, and Justice Kennedy will probably cast the deciding vote on whether the court hears the case or not. If the Supreme Court does decide to hear the case, this will be an incredibly important case for evaluating how independent our judiciary’s functioning has remained at its highest level. That said, the Supreme Court might very well decide to wait until somebody — anybody — actually makes a decision about the order itself on the merits of the case. (Meanwhile, Trump referred to the order as a “travel ban” again this weekend in a set of tweets about recent terrorist action in London, despite the fourth circuit literally reviewing statements like this to make the determination he’s appealing this week. Hopefully whatever court does consider the case itself will take note; the ACLU certainly noticed it, at the very least.)

The Bad:

  • Paris Accord Withdrawal. The unquestionably biggest news this week is that Trump said he plans to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accords, which are a voluntary agreement signed by 195 out of 197 countries (including us, obviously) in 2015. The purpose of the accord is to engage in practices to limit carbon emissions and slow the spread of climate change. Only two world countries do not participate in this accord — Nicaragua, which felt the accords did not promote radical enough changes to energy practices to preserve the planet, and Syria, which was distracted by a bloody civil war at the time of signing. Trump claimed that the agreement was “negotiated poorly” and too costly for Americans. Per the terms of the accord itself, however, the United States cannot actually exit until 2020, which makes this move as symbolic as it is ill-advised.
  • International terrorism. This was a very rough week on the international stage regarding violent attacks. Kabul, Afghanistan saw multiple instances of terrorism; first when a car bomb near a German embassy killed and injured hundreds of people, and again when blasts went off at a well-attended public funeral. There was also a terrorist attack at London Bridge, killing about seven people and injuring many others. London police responded to the scene extremely quickly, fatally shooting the attackers within eight minutes of the incident’s start and likely saving many lives in the process. (President Trump was equally quick to spread rumors, promote his travel ban, and harass the mayor of London for engaging in appropriate public relations with denizens.) Though the Taliban has denied responsibility for the attack in Kabul, the government blames the Taliban’s Haqqani network for both attacks; the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the one in London. It is important to note that both of these violent attacks during Ramadan reflect a perversion of mainstream Islamic law, which teaches that Ramadan is a deeply spiritual time for fasting and reflection. The attack in Kabul, which happened while people were praying and observing funeral rites during daylight hours, is particularly counter to the mainstream tenets of the faith; the Afghan President acknowledged this in his statement about the Wednesday attack.
  • Trump Exempts Staff from His Own Ethics Rule. Remember that Ethics executive order that Trump issued a few months ago about obvious conflicts of interest for government employees? Yeah, apparently neither does he, because he’s issuing waivers on it left and right. The most problematic waiver on the list is a “blanket waiver” for contact with news outlets, which they want to use to keep Steven Bannon in contact with Breitbart News, but there are seventeen waivers issued all told. Needless to say, the Office of Government Ethics is not impressed, and plans to push back on this practice.
  • But Her Emails. Trump apparently instructed national leaders to call him on his personal cell phone, which is a pretty significant breach of security protocol because the line is not exactly secure. So far, apparently only Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, has actually taken him up on this offer, and I can only imagine how that phone call went. I bet Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto probably has a few choice things he would like to say to Trump on a secure line, though.
  • Texas Lawmaking At Its Finest. A Texas state legislator called ICE on protesting constituents this past week, citing “f*** them” as his reasoning (and yes, that is really an actual quote repeated by one of the legislators involved). Then for a follow up act, he got into a fight with multiple outraged fellow legislators, which ended with him threatening to shoot one of them in the head. He’s now in protective custody.

The Good:

And that’s all I got! (It almost ends up feeling short and sweet to me, though my trusty resident editor informs me that this is not universal.) There is a lot to track in the upcoming weeks, so I doubt we can get used to it. Catch you next week!

National News Roundup: Week 18 (May 21–27)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This past week was a major sine wave; we had some big wins but we also had some really rough sailing. (Sailing…wave…see what I did there?). The news is still coming in at a rocket-fueled rate, so who only knows where we’ll be this time next week. For now, the Russia section stays in place, though I’m broadening it to talk about Constitutional issues generally, because that doesn’t seem to be slowing down much (and we now have at least three different potential Constitutional crises in play).

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 also contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — still a lawyer, not a spy! — 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 Contenders:

It’s starting to get legitimately hard to keep track of all the various unconstitutional things happening, so this new section is probably here to stay. Your handy-dandy neighborhood legal generalist turned announcer is here for you — let me just get my megaphone…

Okay, are you ready? Yeah, me neither, but here we go. In the first corner: The Russia Collusion Investigation! Come for the sketchy backdoor dealings, stay for Flynn’s likely flight from the country!

In the second corner: Remember the Emoluments Clause? Still a thing, at least on Constitutional paper!

  • Oh, That Pesky Constitution. The by-now-traditional weekly “I can’t believe I’m not making this up” award goes to the Trump Organization announcing that it’s not going to bother to comply with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Specifically, the organization noted that compliance “is impractical” and “would impede upon personal privacy and diminish the guest experience of our brand.” Unsurprisingly, Elijah Cummings (ranking Democratic member of the House Oversight Committee) shot back a very angry three-page letter explaining how and why this was unacceptable. The legal dream team suing Trump over this issue, meanwhile, has probably already mailed Cummings a fruit basket and a subpoena.

And in the third corner, because technically a ring has four of them: Reigning champion Free Press!

Which the first two contenders are joining forces to beat down; ouch, that’s gotta hurt. Here’s hoping the First Amendment team can tag in partner Judicial Enforcement before it’s too late!

Your “Normal” Weird:

  • Official Word on Haitian TPS. The Department of Homeland Security announced this week that it plans to extend Haitian temporary protected status — but only until until January 2018. This six-month extension is considerably shorter than the customary eighteen months, though it does give Haitian families — some of whom have been living here in the United States for seven years — more time to plan. The move is probably intended to be a compromise between letting the status expire outright and extending it through the normal process. Either way, it’s an odd move likely to leave literally everyone displeased, as is the way of compromises.
  • Poverty State of Mind. Ben Carson continues to be a walking font of bad quotes and no housing experience, this time announcing that “poverty is a state of mind” that people can overcome “in a little while” if they have the right mindset. Needless to say, people were less than impressed by this opinion; my favorite is the person who wants to know if they can pay their rent with the power of positive thinking. (Also, though Carson’s statement was laughably, painfully asinine, I do want to make an important subtext into text here: Simply rising to the top of the waiting list to access the public housing offered by Carson’s department frequently takes several years. It is irresponsible and concerning in the extreme to hear the director of the program publicly deny that reality, and it doesn’t really matter whether he honestly believes what he is saying — his words belie a fundamental lack of concern and empathy for his department’s recipients either way.)
  • Who Wants to Be an FBI Director? Apparently not many people, if the list of candidates withdrawing from consideration the position is any indication. Most notably, Joe Lieberman and Richard McFeely withdrew from consideration this week, despite being among the four candidates to interview at the White House. This leaves only two interviewed candidates in the running from an original list of about fourteen — acting director Andrew McCabe and former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating. The withdrawals may put former Republican Rep Mike Rogers back on the list, since he’s apparently popular with the FBI, if Trump doesn’t want to appoint McCabe or Keating; we’ll have to see what happens from here. At any rate, having six people drop out from consideration on a position this high-up in government is incredibly bizarre, and speaks to how little people now want to work with this administration.

The Bad:

The Good:

  • Voting Rights Win. The Supreme Court published a really important opinion on voting rights this week, affirming the North Carolina appeals court’s view of illegal gerrymandering in two districts 5–3 (with Gorsuch, who was not yet a justice during oral argument, recused). The court held that racially motivated redistricting is unconstitutional even when those districts also reflect political party affiliations, and rejected the government’s ridiculous argument that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 required racially motivated redistricting. Basically, the court said that race can’t be the strongest consideration in redistricting, and it also can’t be used as a proxy for political affiliation. The case potentially paves the way for more robust voting rights protections by linking racial discrimination to party affiliation, especially because redistricting needs to be done for 2020. Texas, you’re on notice now.
  • Travel Ban Still Illegal. The fourth circuit upheld an injunction put in place on the travel ban by a federal district court this week, leaving the stay on enforcement in effect. The opinion is very long — about 200 pages, all told — but it focuses primarily on the Establishment Clause in its substantive reasoning, saying the Executive Order “drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination” and the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their constitutional challenge. Much like earlier court cases, the fourth circuit case focuses on the extensive public statements made by the President and his advisers to determine a bad faith intent to discriminate against Muslim people in both executive orders. Sessions has indicated that he plans to appeal the order to the Supreme Court.
  • Modest Sanctuary City Win. Sessions issued a memo finally defining just what “sanctuary jurisdiction” actually means, and backing off of previous threats to cut funding in the process. The memo was likely in response to a recent federal court opinion that found the order unconstitutional. The new version applies only to federal grants from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security (though that still covers a lot of ground), and specifically defines sanctuary as “jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply with [federal law requiring disclosure of legal status to federal officials].” This means that cities fighting with the federal government about whether to hold individuals on “immigration detainers” are not considered “sanctuary jurisdictions” on that basis alone. This new version will probably still be challenged in courts, because restrictions on grant funding are traditionally a legislative matter. In the meantime, we now have a definition of what compliance is actually being mandated, and many, many grant recipients can breathe a bit easier because their funding is not tied to the provision at all.

Though it may not be immediately obvious, all of these court cases are really big wins, especially the voting rights case; for now, it seems apparent that our court system is still functioning normally, and is taking steps to limit the ongoing creep of fascist infrastructure and preserve free elections and religious freedoms. It will also be very interesting to see what the current Supreme Court does with the growing body of travel ban cases.

And that’s all the news at this very moment, though I bet that will change within an hour of posting. Onward we row along…

National News Roundup: Week 17 (May 14–20)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The recurrent theme I’m hearing from everyone about this week is “Well that sure was an eventful four months of news!” The news on the Russia investigation has grown so many heads that it’s getting its own section this week, but the remainder is in its normal weird-bad-good format. I did my best to keep this weekly update manageable; can I have a less chaotic news cycle next week for my prize? (Spoiler: Probably not, if the last couple of days are any indication. And that’s a good thing, despite my whining, because losing momentum would mean bad things for democracy.)

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 also contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — still a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

On Russia With News:

It has been an absolutely bonkers week yet again on the Trump Tells Us About Trump and Russia front, and it can be really hard to keep up with the constant updates. Here’s a Biggest Hits list for those playing the home game.

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Bad:

  • Trump’s First Education Budget. The Washington Post has previewed documents outlining Trump’s first proposed education budget, and it sucks exactly as much as you expect. In addition to placing way too much emphasis on school choice, the budget also ends public service loan forgiveness and cuts hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for school mental health services, after-school programs, advanced coursework, and who only knows what else. It does not, however, change special education budgeting, presumably because he hasn’t gotten to that part yet. An official release of the previewed documents is expected on Tuesday as part of a much larger budget plan.
  • Net Neutrality Threatened.* The FCC voted to roll back net neutrality regulations from the Obama era this week. This is good news for the cable industry, but likely bad news for most consumers, and it’s looking likely that Congress will end up involved. The FCC vote marks the likely beginning of a much longer process, and we can probably expect to hear much more about net neutrality in the coming months.
  • Black Lives Still Matter. It’s been another rough week in white supremacist violence. First and foremost, Richard Collins III, a 23-year-old lieutenant and member of ROTC due to graduate, was stabbed to death in an apparent hate crime on Saturday. Police have apprehended and charged a local suspect with first-degree murder based on video footage of the attack. The suspect was a member of a facebook group called “Alt-Reich Nation,” and police are saying the attack was unprovoked — the victim and assailant didn’t even know each other. Also, House Rep Al Green (D-Tx) received multiple lynching threats after calling for Trump’s impeachment on the House floor this week.

The Good:

I do have a couple of pieces of News Roundup news this week, which is below; other than that, we’ve reached the end of this past week’s news. I hope. But this week upcoming week is looking incredibly full of stuff as well, so expect a long summary this time next week as well!

National News Roundup news of note:

National News Roundup is being moved to a Monday release (on purpose and consistently, as opposed to on occasion and in a haphazard fashion). This is in part because news cycles have become extremely accelerated, and the weekend has stopped being a slow point in the news cycle; it’s also partially to accommodate my work on the Activism Newsletter (which you should check out as well, if you want suggestions on how to react to the news you read here!).

You can also send feedback, including both opinions on release dates and opinions on news generally, by leaving a comment below or at the community page of the Patreon tip jar. Good luck with the upcoming news cycle, and I’ll catch you all next week if not before!

National News Roundup: Week 16 (May 7–13)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This is, without a doubt, the weirdest news week I have ever seen. And I’ve been compiling news for y’all for seventeen weeks now! Folks, as soon as Trump fired FBI Director James Comey mid-investigation, we veered into uncharted territory. Now it’s all star sightings, compasses, and calling Congress repeatedly from here.

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 contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — I’m a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

The Weird:

The Bad:

The Good:

  • France Avoids Electing LePen. France, unlike the US, managed to avoid electing a fascist in their national election this week, opting for centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron instead of National Front candidate Marine LePen. The sound victory came despite a hacking effort to sabotage the centrist candidate. Apparently the French learn from history better than we do, which is good to know; experts say Macron’s victory can be attributed to France’s history with fascism and with the National Front specifically as well as skill and luck on Macron’s part.
  • A Round of Applause for Yates and Clapper. Sally Yates and James Clapper testified about collusion with Russia this week before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee. There were a lot of highlights, but biggest takeaway is that Yates warned the White House that Flynn was potentially compromised. The full testimony is a very interesting (if complex) read, and an important first step for investigative action; now that Comey has been fired, the Senate and House investigations may have more momentum than the FBI investigation.
  • Climate Change Challenge Tanks. Somewhat improbably, the Senate voted against rolling back Obama-era protections regarding methane release this week. Apparently Lindsay Graham, Susan Collins, and John McCain all voted against it! Also, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed an international declaration recognizing climate change. I’m honestly not sure how any of this happened, but I’ll take the good news coming in anyway.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to email, at least for now; stay tuned for further developments!

National News Roundup: Week 14 (April 23–29)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

My friends, we have seen a very elusive creature this past week — the fabled good news cycle. In particular, we saw some significant strides on both the investigation into collusion and protecting vulnerable immigrant populations. Although we also saw a lot of deeply weird stuff. I guess that’s what happens when you drink unicorn frappuccinos for good luck.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. This week does contain a few headlines outside my expertise, but all my off-road adventures will be marked with asterisks. Onto the news!

The Weird:

The Bad:

The Good:

  • Sanctuary Preserved (For Now). In what I would characterize as the biggest news of the week, a federal district court judge issued an injunction against the government regarding its threat to cut funding for sanctuary jurisdictions. Just like with the other two court cases, it’s a temporary injunction rather than a permanent ban, and just like in the other two, the court cited public statements made by officials in its rationale. That said, the judge did make perfectly clear that there are serious potential constitutional problems with the order. The decision is extra exciting because it marks the fourth piece of the immigration executive orders to go into limbo indefinitely, following the travel ban, funding for the wall, and the reports that would identify sanctuary jurisdictions in the first place.
  • I’d Like To Report a UFO. Fed up with VOICE’s role within the propaganda machine, activists have started calling the hotline number to report criminal aliens like Darth Maul and Invader Zim. The effort was apparently sufficiently successful to jam up the phone lines, which are no longer working properly. Though this is a particularly clever form of activism, it goes in the ‘good’ column because the VOICE program is exploitative and dangerous, and gumming up its wheels for any length of time should be celebrated.
  • No One Likes AHCA, Apparently Including Congress. Attempts to revive the AHCA this week failed miserably, in part because it’s still a fetid cesspool of a policy and in part because it became known that Congress was exempting itself from having to follow it. It remains to be seen whether they’ll try to revive this bill a third time. I doubt it will give the policy any charm.
  • Bizarrely Productive Voting Happened: Despite threats to the contrary, Congress managed to vote to avoid shutdown on Friday. Then they voted on a more long-term budgetary plan on Sunday, and it was deeply impressive just how much the King of Negotiation failed to successfully negotiate. There’s no funding for the wall, domestic spending increased, Planned Parenthood funding remains, the EPA’s funding goes down only 1%, and military spending fell far short of Trump’s proposal. The whole thing was so unapologetically against Trump’s agenda that I’m honestly kind of wondering where they put the hidden catch. But for now, I’m going to turn off that part of my brain and celebrate how uncannily non-damaging this week has turned out to be! I encourage you to do the same, but save some of the ice cream in the freezer — I suspect we’re going to need it later.

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

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

The Weird:

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

The Bad:

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

The Good:

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

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

The Weird:

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

The Bad:

The Good:

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

Eastern Corridor Corner:

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

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

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

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

The Weird:

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

The Bad:

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

The Good:

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

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

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

The Weird

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

The Bad

The Good

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

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

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

The Weird

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

The Bad

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

The Good

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