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

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

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

The stock reminders: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. I may touch on news I think folks should know that is outside my area as a legal generalist, but if we undertake any offroad adventures I’ll do my best to signal that for you upfront by giving that headline an asterisk. Okay, warning label over. Onward to the news.

The Weird

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

The Bad

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

The Good

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

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

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

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

As always, we start with the stock reminders: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. I may touch on news I think folks should know that is outside my area as a legal generalist, but if we undertake any offroad adventures I’ll do my best to signal that for you upfront by giving that headline an asterisk. Okay, warning label over. Onward to the news!

The Weird

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

The Bad

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

The Good

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

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