Puerto Rico – National News Roundup

National News Roundup: Year 2, Week 13 (April 15–21)

April 24, 2018 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

After a zillion years of Bad News Bears, I’m just not sure what to do with the mostly-weird-and-somewhat-good news cycle I have in front of me this week. It’s like watching it rain fish after weeks and weeks of drought — sure, you were planning to make fish stew tonight, but what just happened? And is that fish even safe to eat?

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 tax collector! — 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 had only one real instance of Casual Disregard of Governing Norms. That said, that one instance was pretty concerning. Here’s the deal:

Pompeo’s Recent Adventure.* Mike Pompeo’s full confirmation vote is not scheduled until sometime this week (although he managed to squeak through committee today by the skin of his teeth). But that apparently didn’t stop him from secretly heading to North Korea over Easter, which we learned about this past week. If he was there as a nascent Secretary of State, beginning delicate diplomatic work before there’s even a confirmation hearing is both abnormal and deeply concerning. If he was there as the current director of the CIA, it’s a major breach of protocol that the public learned about a likely classified trip from the Yutz-In-Chief’s big mouth. Either way, this is kind of a nightmare and we should be calling our reps about it.

It was also a pretty quiet week on the Russia Investigation front, but there were a few things of note. Here’s a summary of the main things to know:

Russia Sanctions Roulette.* After U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley indicated that we would be imposing more Russia sanctions on television, an apparently-watching Trump forced her to walk the statement back. A White House official tried to cover by saying she was ‘confused’. Haley is really not known for getting things wrong, so that seems unlikely — although in this instance perhaps she was confused about whether Trump watches shows other than Fox News.
Mueller Protection Process. The Senate is still fighting about a Mueller Protection Bill, with McConnell publicly stating we don’t need it and other Republicans publicly stating they’ll force a committee vote, at the very least. As fun as it is to watch McConnell’s own party go turtle-hunting, the Mueller protection bill is pretty serious, so here’s hoping it reaches the floor. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote at the beginning of this week, so we’ll likely see more developments on this front in the near future.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Pruitt Petition. As the Office of Management and Budget investigates whether Scott Pruitt broke federal laws by ordering his bonkers sound-proof phone booth, 170 Democrats and 4 Republicans have introduced resolutions in the House and Senate calling for his resignation. The petition is definitely more statement than intended action at this point, since the resolution only has forty Senators on board — not the whole Democratic bloc, and they’d need another Republican to join. But it’s a startling (and apparently historic) number of cosponsors, so the petition does definitely make its point.
Your Apparently Weekly Sex Scandal Update. There’s still a lot of white noise on the sex scandal fronts, which I’m guessing is an intentional effort on Stormy Daniels’ part — though honestly, there are worse things in the world than making people continue to care about this lawsuit. Ex-Playboy model Karen McDougal settled her contract case and now can talk about things to her heart’s content. Meanwhile, Stormy Daniels has offered $100,000 to anyone who can use a forensic sketch to identify the man she says threatened her in 2011. Since those aren’t exactly super accurate, she’s probably trying to keep the publicity ball rolling rather than expecting results. But she says she now has 1,500 leads, so it’s successful on at least one front so far.
Michael Cohen Updates. Things are a mess for Michael Cohen after his spectacular cascading failures in court last week. There’s lots of speculation that he’ll flip on Trump, his attempt to delay the Stormy Daniels suit failed when the judge refused paperwork filed on his behalf, and everything else going on forced him to drop the defamation suits against BuzzFeed and FusionGPS. Gosh, it’s so sad when legal systems function properly.
IRS Ires Us. The IRS made a lot of people cranky this week when the electronic filing system crashed on tax day, scaring the dividends off of a lot of last-minute filers who were told the system would come back online December 31, 9999. (These filers were, thankfully, given extensions.) But the last-minute filer crowd did not include Donald Trump, who simply asked for an extension (because of course he did). I don’t think anyone’s surprised that Trump didn’t file, especially because he did the same thing last year, but it’s still not exactly Presidential.

The Bad:

Puerto Rico Without Power (Again). Puerto Rico is without power (again? still?) after experiencing an island-wide blackout this week. Experts estimated power restoration could take anywhere from 24 to 36 hours, and the island didn’t have 100% capacity when this happened in the first place. At least one enterprising resident is taking this opportunity to set up solar power, and frankly that wouldn’t be a bad plan for the whole island from here.
Confirmation Biases. Jim Bridenstine, non-scientist NASA nominee extraordinaire, was confirmed along party lines this week. Since Bridenstine didn’t even enjoy full Republican support at first, this is not exactly good news. And speaking of flipping Republicans, we can thank Rand Paul for Pompeo’s progression to the full Senate floor, since he flipped only minutes before committee vote after refusing to endorse him as Secretary of State. That one is not yet finalized, though, because the full Senate has yet to vote. So here’s hoping.
Waffle House Shooting. Four people were killed in Nashville when an assailant with an AR-15 started shooting up a Waffle House. The shooter was apprehended today and is in police custody, although he is not cooperating with questioning. Needless to say, this is the latest in a deeply upsetting and ongoing trend of gun violence in public places, and the whole country mourns another senseless tragedy.

The Good:

Recent Court Resilience (Part 1). There has been an incredible uptick in court-related resilience in the last week — so much so, in fact, that I’m separating the stories into suits and court opinions. On the law suit side, the DNC made major news this week when it filed a lawsuit alleging Russia, Wikileaks, and the Trump campaign conspired to disrupt the 2016 election. I admit I wasn’t sure what remedies they were seeking when I first read this, particularly because the 66-page complaint alleges everything from copyright infringement to RICO conspiracy to trespass to misappropriation of trade secrets. But apparently, the DNC was successful with this technique in the aftermath of Watergate, so there’s precedent for it. Meanwhilie, Sandy Hook parents are suing Alex Jones for defamation after he claimed that the sentinel tragedy never happened and they were crisis actors. I honestly hope they take him to the cleaners, because casting doubt on their horrific lived experience is utterly heartless.
Recent Court Resilience (Part 2). The other side of the courtroom has been busy too this week. The 7th Circuit affirmed a federal district court decision making the administration stop penalizing ‘sanctuary’ cities by withholding funding, reasoning that the rule was an unconstitutional overreach and Chicago was likely to succeed at trial. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court also upheld a boundary on immigration law, finding that a law mandating deportation for “crimes of violence” without a clear definition of what that meant was unconstitutionally vague. (We also got the added bonus of watching Trump get mad at Gorsuch for siding with the majority, despite the fact that the opinion was based on a Scalia case, and that’s always a good time.) Also voter fraud commissioner Kris Kobach was held in contempt of court and the 2nd Circuit held in a slip opinion that the Department of Transportation has to follow its own laws about car emissions. All in all, a good week for courts working the way they’re supposed to.

So that’s what I have for now, and I’m going to enjoy the relative respite while it lasts before the dumpster fire starts back up again. I’ll catch you next week, and if you need anything before then, feel free to ping the National News Roundup ask box — send me questions! Send me feedback! Send me fire extinguishers!

National News Roundup: Year 2, Week 2 (January 28-February 3)

February 6, 2018 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

By Erikamthompson (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

You know, when I watched Captain Planet as a small person, I had a reasonable expectation that I would not grow up and become governed by cartoonishly inept and morally bankrupt Saturday Morning villains like Hoggish Greedly, Looten Plunder, and Zarm. And yet I read the news this week and think, well, here we are.

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 Planeteer! — 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 the Russia Collusion Investigation front this week, and most of it is absolutely wild in one way or another. Here’s a nuts-and-bolts summary:

Russia Sanctions Stalled. Last Monday was the deadline for President Trump to implement sanctions against Russia that were passed by overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress — and Trump has declined to do it, saying that the threat itself is a “deterrent” and merely releasing a list of Russian oligarchs. But Trump had already signed the legislation in August, which means he’s in direct violation of law right now by refusing to implement them. With midterm elections on the docket this year, and an ever-growing bevy of information suggesting Russia definitely did attempt to interfere in the 2016 election, this apparent violation of law is very serious. We need to be calling our representatives about this, particularly because Senate Democrats don’t seem too pleased about this either.
The Neverending Nunes Efforts.* (Oh-whoa, oh-whoa, oh-whoa…) Folks, I cannot stress enough how bonkers, corrupt, and straight-up unAmerican most of this story is. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee voted Monday night to release an infamous three-page memorandum written by Committee Chairman Devin Nunes. The memo predominantly alleges that the FBI abused their authority to track a Trump campaign adviser in 2016 — though why Nunes would know that, I have no idea, because he’s supposed to be recused from the Russia investigation. Trump had five days to review the document and decide whether to prevent it from going public, but he was calling for its release before the House even voted (despite Sessions warning him that releasing the memo to the public would be “extraordinarily reckless”) — so it’s not surprising that he opted to release it by Friday. The memo summarizes a FISA report over fifty pages long, and because the summary was released without declassifying the report, it’s an incomplete picture at best and we have no way to know if Nunes was even accurately reporting. As SNL put it, “It’s like when you see a blurb for Transformers V and it says ‘It blew my mind . . .’ when the full quote is ‘It blew my mind that God allowed this.’” And sure enough, the FBI says the memo has ‘material omissions of fact,’ and the memo itself doesn’t even paint all that convincing a picture — the main gist of it seems to be “Since the DNC paid for the Steele dossier, and its author spoke to the press/hated Donald Trump, the FBI can’t consider anything it says” (which, spoiler, is not how indicia of reliability works in warrant proceedings). And even if those things were true, the Steele dossier didn’t trigger the initial investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia; Papadopoulos literally getting drunk and leaking to an Australian operative several months earlier did. All told, the background leading up to the memo release and the memo itself both point to a blatant attempt to discredit the Russia investigation and the FBI itself, and not even a particularly well-executed one; it’s no wonder that Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from it.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Amazing Amazon Healthcare. The bizarre and bombastic news broke this week that Amazon, JP Morgan, and Warren Buffet’s organization Berkshire Hathaway are teaming up to provide healthcare to their private employers, a risk pool that equals nearly 500,000 people. It’s not yet clear what this is going to mean for healthcare, although the drop in insurance company stock seems to imply people don’t think it will be good. The news comes on the heels of CVS buying Aetna, Apple launching a Health Records app for the iPhone, and Optum buying DaVita Medical Group — all shakeups that make Healthcare Finance note “It’s safe to say some kind of change is coming, though we don’t know exactly what it will look like yet.”
State of the Union: Not Great, Jim.* Trump delivered a milquetoast State of the Union this week, full of lies and platitudes (and a few dog whistles) but ultimately signifying next-to-nothing. Also, some of it honestly made no sense (I’m looking at you, Claim That Deregulation Increases Accountability). It’s a bit tough to read the tea leaves of the next year from his address, but it seems a safe bet that the economy and manufacturing jobs, aggressive immigration restriction, and an overhaul of infrastructure will all come up as policy points in the near future. At least, that’s my best guess; when fact-checking institutions say the man lied literally every four and a half minutes it’s hard to say. Although at least one common prediction has already come true — Trump did indeed immediately lie about how many people comparatively watched his speech.
Garbage Truck Collision. In this week’s truly weird (and sad) news, an Amtrak train carrying a bunch of GOP lawmakers collided with a garbage truck this week. It says something about my friends, the GOP, and the past year that nearly everyone I know had the same reaction to the breaking news: “Is the garbage truck okay?” And the sad news is that it wasn’t; though there were no major injuries on the train, the collision resulted in six injuries and one fatality among the crew on garbage truck’s side.
Bills to Watch. There are a couple of different bills I suggest watching between now and Thursday, when the government may or may not shut down again. The first is a bipartisan immigration bill introduced by Senators McCain and Coons today, which — props to them — appears to be a mostly clean bill with no funding for a wall, increased interior ICE enforcement, or any other bonkers provisions (beyond increasing security at the border itself, which is not ideal but is unfortunately realistic). Naturally, the lack of utterly irrational and xenophobic provisions means that Trump is already badmouthing the bill, implying that the bipartisan group would need a veto-proof majority for this bill to go anywhere. The other important bill to track is the Mueller protection bill, which similarly appears likely to split Congress down the middle as well. But given the utterly crackerjacks circus around Releasing the Memo, it’s not a safe bet that this is an issue actually dividing the country — in fact, polls show that the majority of Americans understand how important it is that Mueller have protection to do his job. So we’ll have to see who prevails on that, unfortunately, and hopefully all the news in the Russia Investigation column will make legislators more cautious.

The Bad:

Immigration Updates. There was a lot more immigration news this week, and the best I can say is that some of it is mixed rather than abjectly bad. There was another ICE sweep at places of business this week, which seems to be a new recurrent theme; 77 businesses in northern California were raided by ICE for their employment records. The companies were given three days to produce records. Meanwhile, ICE also announced an official courthouse policy, which can be approximately summarized as “damn right we’re going to arrest people at their criminal court dates, that’s like the easiest way to find immigrants we know.” (They did say, however, that they will generally not arrest family members or arrest in civil matters, at least according to their policy.) In slightly gentler news, the Department of Homeland Security decided to extend Syrian TPS for another eighteen months this week as well, but simultaneously announced that no new enrollment would be permitted despite (or perhaps because of) the desperate circumstances in Syria. As a result, the 6,900 people who were granted TPS and have remained in the United States since October 2016 — in other words, before Trump was allowed to touch anything — are protected as long as they don’t leave; the millions of displaced people seeking to enter the United States are out of luck.
Problems for Puerto Rico. FEMA had to be shamed into changing plans after it announced it would stop distributing food and water in Puerto Rico on January 31. Though it announced it will continue a transitional period, it’s unclear what the new timetable will be. And this, of course, is on top of the mess created by PREPA filing for bankruptcy in the middle of setting up an electrical grid, which caused bonds to plummet to thirty-five cents on the dollar. All of this is only slightly ameliorated by HUD’s announcement of $1.5 billion in disaster recovery grants to rebuild housing this week — though on the plus side, out of everyone in this administration’s rogue gallery, Ben Carson is definitely the guy voted Least Likely To Notice if Puerto Rico Just Uses His Grant to Turn the Power Back On.
Environmental Infractions “R” Us. We haven’t focused on environmental infractions in a while here at the roundup, and that is an oversight because I assure you, there are several — though today’s updates really just boil down to “Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke continues to be The Actual Worst Human Being.” Some of the highlights that prompted today’s Captain Planet comparison: a) misappropriating wildlife funds to pay for a helicopter tour; b) planning to drill in some off-shore locations and not others for the extremely technical reason that Well They Aren’t Florida; c) repealing fracking regulations designed to preserve health and safety on publicly owned lands; d) launching an expensive overhaul of his department that has been criticized as “more like a dismantling than a reorganization,” and e) retaliating against whistleblowers in his department (which is super illegal, in case anyone was curious). And speaking of things legal challenges to sketchy behavior, several state attorneys general are threatening to sue him over the arbitrary offshore drilling decisions; California is suing him over the fracking decision as well. I should probably start a running count, because I doubt those will be the last lawsuits of his tenure.

The Good:

So Long, Good Luck.* We’re seeing the backsides of several sketchy people this week, and it’s comforting to know that these things do have actual limits. My favorite on the list is the withdrawn nomination of Kathleen Hartnett White — apparently being a climate-change denier with no science experience who doesn’t understand how oceans work does, in fact, make you unqualified to head the Council on Environmental Quality by 2018. But several of my colleagues are more excited about the news that Trey “Are You Sure We Can’t Pin Benghazi On Her?” Gowdy is not seeking reelection, which I think is equally fair. And, rounding out the rear, CDC Director Brenda Fitzgerald resigned this week to spend more time with her many conflicts of interest, presumably in anticipation of the new Secretary of Health and Human Services cleaning house.
Chatty Orca. Scientists in France taught an orca whale to repeat human speech, getting her to say the words ‘hello,’ ‘Amy,’ and ‘one, two, three.’ I recognize that this isn’t actually national news in any sense of the term; I just figured that after the Zinke section, you might enjoy hearing news about biology that didn’t end in tears. Keep up the good work, Wikie!

And that’s all the news that I have for now; I think we all agree that it’s more than enough! I’m still holding out hope for a good news cycle, which we most emphatically did not experience this week. But either way, I’ll be back next week with more news, lovingly seasoned with snarky sardony.

National News Roundup: Week 37 (October 1–7)

October 10, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

FORTEPAN / Saly Noémi, via Wikimedia Commons

This week started out really rough and ended up really strange — we had a lot of very traumatic and troubling events in the earlier half of the week, but by the end of the weekend Trump was taking credit for inventing the word “fake.” It’s sort of like being stuck in a horror movie where the killer stabs someone on Monday and then comes back on Friday to ask the survivors “What’s the deal with soap?” (Also, I know the news cycle has practically become minute-by-minute these days, but this is ridiculous.)

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 a lot of detailed analysis that’s outside my expertise — I’m a lawyer, not a football player! — 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:

The Russia Collusion Investigation saw a lot of movement this week:

But Her Emails (Take 2).* More information came to light on last week’s White House Aide Private Server story, and none of it is great. There was apparently a third email address on a private server that both Jared and Ivanka used (and failed to report using) while working as aides. This is understandably not thrilling Democrats — House rep Elijah Cummings is asking for a formal FBI review, and fellow reps Ted Lieu and Don Beyer wrote to White House counsel Don McGahn to request their clearance be revoked. Then, just for extra cake icing, the story broke that Ivanka Trump narrowly avoided a criminal indictment in 2012 when a Trump attorney convinced the New York District Attorney to drop the case. So that all happened.
Senate Findings.* The Senate Intelligence Committee announced its findings this past week, which is probably the biggest non-story to happen since the last update. Though mostly the committee simply announced that the investigation was ongoing, they did emphasize that they trust the conclusions of interference announced by the CIA and that Russian interference in American elections is likely to be ongoing as well.
Facebook, Google, and Mueller (Oh My).* A grab bag of other random stuff also happened this week! We learned a bit more about the role of social media in the election, more specifically that Google also aired the ads and that Russia targeted specific states with its social media misinformation campaign (though Facebook won’t release specifics because of the Mueller investigation). And speaking of Mueller, he’s been very busy; his team is investigating the reach of the Presidential pardon, hoping to preempt any kind of preemptive shenanigans, and met with the author of the infamous “pee tape” dossier (not that official news outlets are willing to call it that). Meanwhile, experts connecting dots are starting to see a pretty sketchy picture.

We also are still in a stalemate on the Threat to Free Speech front:

Trump Still Hates Sports. The bizarre battle between our President and the NFL continues for yet another week, with Mike Pence walking out of a game he conveniently decided to attend because players on the other team protested during the anthem (or, more accurately, because Trump told him to). By the way, as Slate notes, the political stunt cost taxpayers over $200,000, and that kind of publicly-funded race-baiting by a Presidential administration is completely unprecedented as well as a gross misuse of taxpayer funds. Basically, it’s an intentional and ongoing Presidential move to chill free expression that I’m tired of talking about even though it remains incredibly important that we pay attention to it.

Your “Normal” Weird:

House is Bad at Balancing Budgets.* The House narrowly passed a budget resolution this past week, and it’s exactly as terrible as you might expect. Major priorities appear to be cuts to entitlement programs, increased spending for the military, and an overhaul of the tax system to benefit wealthy taxpayers. That said, this resolution is far from codified law, particularly because the Senate’s drafting process is looking very different than the House’s, and the two legislative bodies ultimately have to agree on the same bill. The tax cuts are likely to raise the deficit significantly, which makes them unpopular with both some fiscal conservatives and most Democrats. We’ll need to keep watching and see what comes out of the Senate in the near future.
The Trump Show Continues. The Trump Administration Reality Show was particularly strange this week, especially towards the end of the week. The brightest gem in the collection was definitely Trump claiming he made up the word ‘fake,’ which I can’t even begin to guess about (though you have to admit, he does kind of redefine the term). But that bizarre behavior had lots of friends — there was also Trump’s absurd decision to pick a fight with Republican Senator Bob Corker, which is going to hurt him in at least three different ways politically (in addition to Corker’s incredible tea-sipping commentary and impromptu tell-all interview). And just to cap out an already deeply weird week, there’s now a three-way fight happening about who is the true First Lady of this administration, leaving Andy Cohen — the producer of ‘Real Housewives’ fame — to tweet that “Even I AM SPEECHLESS.”
Rex Tillerson Holds a Press Conference About Saying What We’re All Thinking. After news broke that Rex Tillerson called Trump a ‘moron’ at a Pentagon meeting and considered resigning over the summer, Tillerson and Friends ended up holding a press conference — and merely addressed the idea that he was about to resign, leaving whether he actually disparaged Trump’s intelligence as an exercise for the reader. Though some of the press were speculating that he might be another Friday Firing faux-resignation, Tillerson appears content to stay in his post until Trump literally fires him.
Tim Murphy Scandal Unfolds Like It’s 1998. Pennsylvania rep and All Around Slimeball Tim Murphy landed in hot water this week, when news broke that he was pressuring his mistress to have an abortion after she became pregnant with his child. Though he initially claimed he would simply not seek re-election, eventually he folded to mounting pressure and agreed to resign more promptly. Between someone actually being forced to resign over immoral choices and the whole thing taking weeks (rather than hours) to unfold, it was a very nostalgic sort of scandal!

The Bad:

Trump Went to Puerto Rico and it was the Actual Worst. Trump did end up taking a trip to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, which ended up being an odyssey of blatant mischaracterizations, surreal t-shirt-cannon style paper-towel launching, and countless offensive and tactless comments — but not very much actual help. After it was over, FEMA removed statistics about how much of the region has power and water (which, according to an official Puerto Rican website, is about 15% power and 55% water respectively, in case anyone was curious). Meanwhile, it’s unclear whether Congress will provide more aid to the island, which is still sorely needed post-visit. Though government responses have been sluggish, several nonprofit entities have been working tirelessly; I’ll write more about that below.
Trans Rights Should be Civil Rights. Sessions reversed course on another Obama-era protection this week, this time on a directive clarifying that gender expression is covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The directive gave protection against workplace discrimination for transgender Americans, which has effectively been removed; it’s realistic for trans Americans to expect that workplace discrimination based on their gender expression has effectively become legal again. The Sessions memo made it clear that this would be the Department position on all legal issues related to sex moving forward. Ordinarily I would put a pithy statement here, but I’m still really mad about it, so I’ll content myself with saying that it is not ideal.
Trump’s Alarming Non-Diplomacy with North Korea.* Trump continued his disturbing gambit with North Korea this week, saying that Tillerson was “wasting his time” on diplomacy. Meanwhile, Russia is apparently claiming North Korea has missiles that can reach the west coast of the US, and Trump referred to this week as “the calm before the storm” but wouldn’t say more about what that meant (though it was probably in reference to either North Korea or abandoning the Iran nuclear deal, which he’s expected to do next week). Though Ted Lieu opined publicly (and probably accurately) this week that Trump has “no strategy on North Korea,” Trump did tell military leaders this week that “our goal is denuclearization.” Hopefully he doesn’t intend to achieve that by goading Kim Jong-un into chucking his entire arsenal at us.
Continuing UN Embarrassment. The United States joined twelve other UN countries this week in refusing to condemn the death penalty for certain kinds of conduct — namely, apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations — when the penalty is applied in a discriminatory manner. The resolution passed anyway, by a sound majority of 27 to 12. What we did support was a failed amendment by Russia asserting that the death penalty was “not necessarily a human rights violation.” ‘Murrica.
What Is Even Happening in the EPA.* News broke this week (well, for some definitions of ‘broke’) that Pruitt does many things that hurt the credibility and functionality of the EPA, such as spending lots of time with industry executives and spending agency funds on questionable things such as frequent travel to his home state and a $25,000 phone booth (yes, really). But Trump managed to one-up himself with his pick for deputy director, who is a literal coal lobbyist. As in, “he was registered as a lobbyist two months ago.” What’s particularly noteworthy about this pick is that Bannon is no longer advising Trump and yet his nominations look identical to when he was — either Bannon actually does still have Trump’s ear, or Trump hates the EPA so much that he doesn’t need to have any kind of deconstructionist agenda to actively try to destroy it.

The Good:

NRA-Approved Gun Control Reform.* In the wake of the Vegas tragedy, Senator Feinstein introduced a bill this week that would ban bump stocks, which are a form of gun modification that allows a semi-automatic weapon to function as a rapid-fire automatic firearm. A similar bill is anticipated in the House this week as well. Though this is far from a complete guarantee of public safety, it has the rare distinction of being a restriction favored by the NRA — my cynical guess is that the association has its own reasons for not favoring weapon modifications, but at the moment I’m just grateful that the restriction is likely to go forward.
Outpouring for Puerto Rico. Though Puerto Rico is still in rough shape, and it’s unclear whether Congress will act further to help, the call is being answered by a lot of different entities. As Lin-Manuel Miranda notes, the Hispanic Federation is doing a lot of excellent work getting first responders on the ground in affected areas. The Royal Caribbean cruise line has been sending supplies and evacuating people. Florida has opened three disaster aid centers for displaced Puerto Ricans. Feeding Children Everywhere is sending 4.4 million meals in the next few weeks. The governor of Illinois has offered assistance from the Illinois Coast Guard. The USNS Comfort arrived on Tuesday, bringing thousands of beds and medical supplies. MoveOn.org has a national fundraising effort, and Pat Rothfuss’s nonprofit, Worldbuilders, teamed up with Mercy Corps to fundraise and coordinate relief as well. Though none of these things can take the place of more comprehensive federal government action, they all reflect the efforts and sentiment of a nation that stands with its fellow citizens. I continue to encourage folks to do what they can to help, either with one of the above efforts or through other means.

And that’s what I have, in all its terrible and deeply strange glory. Daily news summaries like WTFJHT remain a very good idea for the foreseeable future. Here’s hoping that next week brings better tidings!