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National News Roundup: Week 39 (October 15–21)

October 24, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

I saw an article that described this week as a “terrible week for Trump.” Needless to say, as a general rule, a bad week for Trump is a good week for the rest of America, and this week appears to be no exception. Though we’re not out of the woods by any means — in fact, some really concerning things did happen this week — we reached a bit of a summit in the slow slog back to a healthy country. It’s nice to have some news to report this week that’s actually good.

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 Facebook staff! — 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 was pretty all over the map this week — the short version is that the investigation is working, kind of, but what we’re learning is not awesome:

Best Fake Russian Propaganda in Texas. A surreal story hit this week about an extremely effective Russian propaganda machine on Facebook that was successfully convincing Texans they wanted to secede from the country. The group had over 225,000 followers and was only taken down last week, which is kind of horrifying. Perhaps most importantly, they reached out to a real, existing Texas secessionist group and asked them to participate in anti-Hillary rallies during the 2016 election. So that’s…. a thing that happened and fooled almost a quarter million people.
Social Media Ad Disclosure. In light of the first news item of the week, it’s not surprising that Congress has introduced a bill to force social media platforms to disclose who buys ads. The bill, called the Honest Ads Act, would require social media platforms to conform to the process used for television and radio ads. It would also require tech companies to maintain a record of who purchases ads, which is not surprising since destroyed records have been a real issue in the Russia investigation.
Sessions (Lack of) Testimony. Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week regarding Trump, Comey, Russia, and a variety of other investigation-related things. Credible outlets issuing live coverage pretty much uniformly reported that he cited privilege and dodged questions about most of these topics, although Sessions did disclose that he has not met with Special Counsel Robert Mueller at all. And, most notably from my perspective, he refused to commit to avoiding jailing reporters for doing their job, which I can’t believe isn’t getting more air time. All in all, it was very noteworthy testimony based on what he didn’t say.
Social Media to Testify. And speaking of both social media and testifying, Twitter and Facebook are both scheduled to testify before congressional committees on November 1. (Well, their general counsel, at any rate; trying to get the apps to testify probably wouldn’t be very fruitful!) It will be interesting to see what happens with their testimony, to say the least.

This has really not been a good week on the Threats to Civil Rights front either:

Somehow We’re Still Talking about the NFL.* The latest is that Trump launched a petition against the NFL because it won’t make a rule forcing players to stand. Though the owner of the Jaguars thinks Trump is jealous of the league, I think this is much more about testing boundaries to see when and how he can successfully silence voices of color — in part because he’s testing boundaries First Amendment issues of every stripe right now. I’m honestly kind of pleasantly surprised that the NFL isn’t playing ball with him. (See what I did there?)
DeVos Has No IDEA. Betsy DeVos rescinded 72 guidance documents this past week that provide special education protections under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Rehabilitation Act. It’s a particularly obnoxious move given her apparent “confusion” on the topic during her confirmation hearing as well as a recent Supreme Court case requiring more guidance on the topic for schools, not less.
Immigrants Need Not Apply.* Among other challenges faced by lawful permanent residents who immigrate to this country, this administration recently implemented challenging delays to service in the military and a full bar to service for some branches. They are no longer allowed to enlist in some part-time branches, and cannot begin basic training before lengthy background checks are completed. Because military service opens the door to many types of opportunity and career advancement in this country, policies that bar people from enlisting have a variety of collateral consequences. Simply put: It’s one more form of discrimination on the pile.

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Trump Reality Show Continues. I’m not going to dwell, simply because the most sensationalist chest-thumping seems like a vacuous distraction rather than a credible threat. But this week Trump continued the ongoing reality show, issuing more threats to McCain after the latter criticized his bonkers foreign policy and badly botching condolence calls after several soldiers were lost in Niger. Adding to the surreal reality-show feel of current politics, Dubya also said his piece about Trump (although he declined to mention him by name at any point). It’s been strange, y’all.
Tax Reform News.* The Senate passed a tax reform initiative this week along partisan lines, squeaking out the bare minimum of votes needed despite bloc opposition from Democrats (and Rand Paul). I place this under the ‘weird’ column rather than the ‘bad’ column for several reasons: First of all, few people have even seen the bill, despite its success on the floor; as this first fact suggests, the bill is being rushed for a variety of reasons (which I can only hope to speculate about, since the Hill is a such bizarre quagmire right now). But they are using the reconciliation process — which you may remember from the summer’s ACA Repeal Greatest Hits — to pass Go and collect their $200 without working with Democrats. And that process is inherently kind of tricky and complicated, which makes it odd that they are trying to rush and also use it. Senator Corker’s recent outbursts have caused some pundits to speculate that tax reform is the only thing keeping the GOP on board with Trump’s egregious and dangerous Presidency; if they’re right, the tax reform efforts are also odd because they’re being treated like a final hurdle to impeachment.

The Bad:

9/11 Executive Order Part 2. With very little fanfare, Trump signed an executive order on Friday that piggybacked on a 2001 order responding to 9/11. The 2001 order declared a state of national emergency in response to recent terrorist attack and granted the President power to recall retired troops into service. Trump’s order also declares a state of emergency, Because Reasons, and allows him to recall up to 1,000 retired Air Force personnel, because the branch apparently has had staffing issues for some time. The order’s vague reference to an ‘emergency’ is very concerning, given that no obvious terrorist-based emergency has happened; some readers are also interpreting it to permit recall of other branches as well. (And if you’re noting the staffing shortages referenced in this section and asking yourself why this administration is also limiting who is allowed to serve based on citizenship, I too am asking that.)
Water Struggles in Puerto Rico.* Puerto Rico still does not have clean water, and desperate denizens are starting to try their luck at hazardous waste sites. Though CNN is claiming the water is safe to drink, health officials remain very concerned about its consumption for obvious reasons. The EPA has placed guards at some of the Superfund sites while it conducts more testing of the water.
California is Still Burning. As I write this on Monday evening, wildfires are still burning in California wine country, though fires are being reported as 90% contained. Experts are estimating at least 8,400 structures have been damaged, including some schools, and the death count has risen to 42 people. Experts think the fires will be out very soon, and I really hope they are right.

The Good:

Courts are Having None of this Nonsense There were several very prominent court wins this week, and they are all very edifying! Federal district courts in both Hawaii and Maryland have suspended the new travel ban, finding that the changes to the order do not overcome the issues that have plagued the ban since its inception. (And if you’re confused about the ridiculous number of versions of this ban, ABC has your back with a helpful summary and timeline.) But we also heard from the federal district court judge who was handling Joe Arpaio’s case; she held that his pardon does not vacate his conviction. The language of that four-page opinion is satisfyingly crisp; I particularly enjoy her note that the pardon “does not blot out guilt.”
ACA First Aid. Only a few days after Trump announced that he won’t be covering ACA subsidies moving forward, bipartisan senators reached a deal on a stabilization package that would fund the subsidies for two years. Though there are still a lot of uncertainties, and Republican response was predictably mixed, experts appear to be cautiously optimistic about the likelihood that this will both pass and fix a number of issues long-term. This week also saw the introduction of the Protect Access to Birth Control Act, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; it overrides Trump’s attempt to limit the coverage mandate. (Interestingly, Senator Patty Murray was an author of both bills.) And though it’s not a legislative action per se, the IRS has announced they will strictly enforce insurance disclosure mandates this year — a move that will likely help stabilize markets a bit and encourage people who can afford health coverage to seek it. All of these actions signal continual commitment to retaining the ACA from legislators.

And that’s what I have; some good, some bad, overall a bit less horrifying than normal. But the news is still moving very quickly, so daily news summaries like WTFJHT remain a very good idea for the foreseeable future. Let’s see if we can keep this streak going!

National News Roundup: Week 38 (October 8–14)

October 17, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Still Life — A Boot on a Newspaper, by Ernest Blaikley [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Preparing a draft on Sunday night, I turned to my editor and unironically said, “Oh wait, I’m not done with the Constitutional Crisis section yet, because I need to add a note about Larry Flynt under the Russia Investigation header.” As a friend of mine observed to me today, “This may or may not be the darkest timeline, but it’s sure as hell the weirdest.” (Although my money’s on both being true, for the record. I recommend comfort foods.)

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 firefighter! — 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 was unfortunately pretty stymied this week:

What Russian Sanctions? Trump missed his own deadline for implementing Russia sanctions this week, deeply aggravating the members of Congress who drafted the sanctions bill. The sanctions, as you may remember, were designed to force Trump to punish Russia for tampering in the election, but since he so obviously benefited from said tampering it’s unsurprising that he dragged his feet on this. Still very frustrating, though.
Social Media Scarpering. This week we learned that Twitter deleted data that would be relevant to the Russia investigation, which is frustrating to say the least. But there was evidence that Facebook isn’t really cooperating either, and took down thousands of posts that could have helped the investigation to minimize their role. So, uh… thanks, guys. That was helpful.
Yes, That Larry Flynt Ad Really Happened. You didn’t have a Nyquil-induced fever dream; Larry Flynt really did take out a full-page ad in the Washington Post this week offering $10M for “information leading to the impeachment and removal from office of Donald Trump.” Putting aside how fascinating it is that the guy who literally runs Hustler finds Donald Trump distasteful, I haven’t yet heard anything about leads from the ad. I promise I’ll keep y’all posted.

This has really not been a good week on the Threat to Free Speech front:

It’s Disgusting, All Right.* Trump threatened to take away NBC’s license over a story they ran this week, saying it was “frankly disgusting” that they are allowed to report things freely. Then he doubled down, saying that licenses “must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked.” The FCC had nothing to say about this veiled threat, which is less than comforting. We need to be calling our reps about this, because it’s a serious threat that we can’t ignore.
No News Is Bad News.* A guy who tried to cause an explosion in a North Carolina airport received surprisingly little media attention this week, despite being taken into custody and charged and despite being found with at least one explosive on his person. He presumably would have been in the news more if he weren’t white. This kind of underreporting is concerning and dangerous.

But on the plus side, there is a new dark horse in the Why Is He Still President? corner:

Are You Tired of Hearing about the 25th Amendment Yet? So there’s been a lot of talk this week about the 25th Amendment — Senator Corker’s infamous New York Times interview sparked much more discussion about the President’s various odd behaviors, and whether he might be Constitutionally unfit to lead. As some articles note, impeachment requires cooperation from the Republican party, and though the 25th Amendment has historically been applied to physical health, a lack of mental stability might prove a convenient out for Republicans with serious buyer’s remorse. Though some experts think it unlikely, weirdly, Steve Bannon is one of the proponents. Strange times, y’all.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Kelly Still Works Here. So Kelly gave a press briefing on Friday clarifying that he’s not getting fired, not firing anybody, and not quitting. Actually, what he said was that he “d[idn’t] think [he was] being fired today” and that he’s not quitting “unless things change.” Apparently, in today’s day and age, the fact that the White House Chief of Staff is “not so frustrated in this job that he’s thinking of leaving” is worth a press conference. Which… is not wrong, actually. Unfortunately.
United States Leaves UNESCO.* Continuing the Trump Administration Embarrasses Us At the UN theme, the Trump Administration announced this week that the United States is leaving UNESCO next year. This is actually the second time the US has done this, because Reagan made the same decision in the 1980s. Trump cited “anti-Israel bias” as his reasoning, which is particularly galling when you consider that UNESCO was created in direct response to World War II atrocities and publishes a Holocaust education guide.
SCOTUS Dismisses the Travel Ban Case. The Supreme Court dismissed the travel ban case this week, saying that it was moot because the original terms had expired. Without going too far into the weeds, needless to say, I don’t agree with this assessment when there’s a new, more permanent form of the (arguably same) travel ban in effect as I write this. There’s still a related matter pending, but it seems likely it will be dismissed as well. Though it seems likely there will be a legal challenge to the third travel ban, this is a frustrating and vaguely strange setback.
The Wall of the Deal. Trump is still trying to use Dreamers as a bargaining chip to get his wall funded, which is pretty much the literal opposite of a clean DREAM Act and as a result was summarily dismissed by Democrats about thirty seconds after he asked. Then he announced that maybe he’ll push back the March 5 deadline if nobody will cut a deal with him. His negotiation tactics are like a surreal version of Getting to Yes where you just spin a wheel and offer whatever comes up when it stops. Meanwhile, Senator Thom Tillis has introduced a bill that… might be making traction? It’s hard to say, honestly, with Trump spinning his Art of the Deal Wheel in the background every five minutes, but it’s worth watching.

The Bad:

More Natural Man-made Disasters. Deadly wildfires rage in northern California, forcing thousands to flee the area and killing over 40 people. As I write this, fourteen fires are still raging, though experts think the crisis may be close to over. The fires have raged for a week straight, and destroyed over 200,000 acres of land. The governor of California has called this “one of the greatest traged[ies] California has ever faced.” Meanwhile, as the west coast reels from that, Trump is threatening to abandon aid to Puerto Rico and the Pentagon accidentally included a reporter on spin emails for five days. Both locations will continue to need aid for quite some time to come.
Clean Power being rolled back.* The EPA formalized plans to roll back the Clean Power Plan in the past week, impacting carbon emissions in about 25 states. The New York Times has a helpful article for explaining what this means in practical terms, but suffice to say: It doesn’t mean anything good.
Contraception Mandate Narrowed. At the end of last week, Trump signed an executive order stating that employers no longer have to cover contraceptives under the ACA if they have religious objections. This change could cause hundreds of thousands of women to lose medical coverage, which creates considerable medical risk despite the administration’s claims that oral hormones and other contraceptives aren’t safe. Also, because apparently nobody covering this has bothered to point it out, plenty of people take oral hormones as medication for actual medical ailments, and the entire point of employer-based insurance is to cover people’s medical costs.
Bombs in the ACA Marketplace. Remember how Trump has been threatening to stop paying subsidies for like a billion years now? This past week, he formally announced he was doing exactly that, effective immediately. The timing of this is pretty rough; it’s only a couple of weeks before the enrollment window was set to open, and it comes on the immediate heels an executive order to allow alternative health plans that provide less coverage under the current legislature. It’s possible this is a ploy to get Democrats to amend the ACA, but in the meantime the one-two punch has a lot of capacity to screw up the marketplace and the ACA more generally, at least in some states. We’ll need to continue to call our reps to try to get bipartisan infrastructure in place, and also watch the lawsuits on this carefully — see more information on the latter below.
Iran Certification News.* As forecast earlier in the week, Trump disavowed the Iran nuclear agreement, but stopped short of leaving entirely. Instead, he told Congress to alter the deal, threatening to leave at a later date if changes aren’t made. We’ll need to watch what our reps do with this as well, but it’s a lighter blow than we were led to expect, and frankly I’ll take whatever I can get at this point.

The Good:

ACA Lawsuits. The silver lining to this past week’s ACA shenanigans is that there is already a growing pile of lawsuits filed on both executive orders and the subsidy announcement. The ACLU, Washington Attorney General, and California Attorney General are all suing Trump over rolling back the contraceptive mandate, arguing (probably correctly) that it violates the Establishment and Equal Protection clauses of the Constitution. Meanwhile, eighteen states and the District of Columbia are suing over the subsidies, seeking an injunction that would force the President to keep paying them. The National Governors’ Association issued a statement on the topic as well, indicating that they will be coordinating with Congress directly to facilitate a bipartisan fix on the subsidy issue. There are clearly a number of moving parts on the board already to try to fix both of these issues.
Animal Kingdom News. Homo sapiens is not exactly a shining star species right now, but several other members of the animal kingdom popped up in the news in better contexts! In particular, for your dose of warm fuzzies, you can read about this octopus who wanted to thank their rescuer in person. Erm, make that “in octopus.” Also, a duck in Devon got into a drunken bar brawl with a local dog. On the plus side, the duck pulled through! Which is my new catchphrase for annoying my editor. I’ve already used it on her four times.

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!

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.

National News Roundup: Week 34 (September 10–16)

September 19, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Okay, y’all, another week, another pile of terrible news. This week at least contains some schadenfreude, so there’s that, but it’s a pretty rough ride otherwise — and that’s even with me holding off on a couple of stories that I think are about to break more fully. Comfort foods at the ready.

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 climate scientist — 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:

First and foremost, a bit of errata from last week:

Magnitsky Act Changes.* A reader (correctly) flagged that I should have remembered to include this point last week: Without much fanfare, last Friday Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum allowing the Magnitsky Act, a law imposing sanctions for very serious human rights abuses in Russia, to be enforced by proxies — more specifically, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (for visa sanctions) and Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin (for financial sanctions). Many people view this as a way for Trump and Russia to get around the Magnitsky Act — you may recall that Trump Jr’s infamous meeting with a Russian lawyer turned out to be about getting this same Act repealed. The Magnitsky Act generally requires the President to report any changes in policy to Congress, but there’s nothing in the Act shifting that responsibility to delegated agents. So, in effect, this presidential memorandum does repeal the Act unless/until Congress fixes it. And that’s fun.

There are a couple of odds and ends in The Russia Collusion Investigation this week as well:

Flynn Power Plants in the Middle East.* News broke this week that Flynn had business interests in the Middle East on top of everything else; more specifically, he took trips to the Middle East in 2015 to set up a deal for about forty private power plants in the region. The information came out in part due to a formal inquiry from House Democrats. Needless to say, this is yet another conflict in Flynn’s closet, and not a good look generally for the administration.
Cobb (Dowd) Salad Debacle. It is Attorney 101 that You Do Not Discuss Client Matters In Public, because you have both the obligation and the privilege of confidentiality to your client. When you represent someone, you don’t discuss their case in public at all, let alone at a working lunch. This is so fundamentally basic and self-evident that I have trouble believing Ty Cobb and John Dowd, members of the White House counsel team, didn’t know it when they were recorded opining in public on matters regarding the Russia Investigation yesterday. And even if they somehow forgot this point, it seems unlikely that they forgot not to discuss matters relating to their work with names and specifics at a restaurant that is literally next door to a major newspaper outlet. Which leads me to believe that they wanted to be recorded, and I’m honestly not even sure what to do with that.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Ted Cruz Twitter Hilarity. The Internet went bonkers this week for the story that Ted Cruz — or a staffer, as he claims, but it’s funnier if we assume he’s lying — forgot that a Twitter profile shows likes publicly. The result was everybody seeing the official Ted Cruz account favorite a porn video. Weirdly, Cruz didn’t seem too concerned about the whole incident, and made a point of essentially saying that we shouldn’t shame people about porn, which was a surprisingly decent move of him — and refused to name the staffer, who either doesn’t exist or is eternally grateful.
Tax Reform (Not)-News.* So tax reform is a thing being actively discussed in Congress, and it doesn’t appear that a whole lot has changed on that front since Trump first introduced his plan — which is to say, it’s not fully clear what the plan actually is. To be fair, this might be because Republicans appear to disagree about how to structure it with both each other and with Trump. Honestly, watching Orrin Hatch put up window-dressing on this would be kind of funny if we weren’t literally talking about funding the underpinnings of government.
DACA Deal Turmoil. Trump keeps telling people he’s “close” to a deal with Democrats about reinstating DACA, which has his base frothing at the mouth in a hate-lather. The joke’s on them, though, because it seems very clear that this is a bid for the wall that will fall apart like tissue paper as soon as Trump realizes he’s not getting that ‘massive border security’ out of any self-respecting Democrats. (Though then again, given the way this year is going, I suppose the idea that Democrats have self-respect may be on the table here.) Meanwhile, neither Democrats nor Republicans appear to actually know what to make of all of this. Which is fair, honestly, because the whole thing feels like a fever dream to me and I’m only reading about it second-hand.
Sean Spicer Emmy Cameo. Okay, so, Sean Spicer had a cameo during the Emmy awards yesterday, where he lampshaded the fact that he lied to the American public about the inauguration crowd sizes. I can’t believe I have to say this, but this is not funny and it’s not normal; in fact, this kind of casual suggestion that it is both of those things is a very dangerous and blatant attempt at normalizing institutionalized propaganda. Sean Spicer lied for Coolranch Mussolini for months, he doesn’t deserve an apology tour, and I’m still mad he has a guest fellowship at Harvard in my back yard.

The Bad:

Mother Earth Updates.* Okay, folks, this is one of the rough ones. Hurricane Irma left a lot of things a scary mess (both physically and in terms of economy), Hurricane Jose is heading to the eastern coast of the United States (including MA, where myself and many readers live), Hurricane Katia and the contemporaneous earthquake have badly damaged Mexico, and yet another cat-5 hurricane is expected in the Caribbean in the near future. All in all, this week is a bit better than last week, but that’s really not saying much. We have a rough road ahead of us, both nationally and internationally, in terms of relief work.
Travel Ban Setbacks. The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration this past week about refugee admissions under the travel ban, saying that refugees don’t have ties to America (which is the standard for letting them in) because they have ties to a resettlement organization here. The actual holding basically just says “keep on keeping on until we hash this out,” so it’s not any kind of permanent setback; just a preservation of the status quo until oral arguments. At least oral arguments are in less than a month, which hopefully means we’ll get a more permanent and favorable finding soon.
Treasury Two-for-One on Military Jets.* So, remember how the Mnuchin family pissed everybody off by using a government plane to go see the solar eclipse (and tagging designer labels worn in the process) last month? Well, they managed to one-up that this past week because the story broke that he requested a military jet for their European honeymoon. There’s so much wrong with that that I don’t even know where to start. If they had another method of secure travel for his honeymoon, why was he even approved to use a government jet to view the eclipse? How was he able to take two vacations the same month? Is this man doing any work? I got nothin’.
Pay My Legal Fees, Please. The Office of Government Ethics moved to allow anonymous donations to legal defense funds for White House staffers this week — yes, really. The move undoes a policy that has been in place for over twenty years, and the former director (who quit in agitation over the lack of a blind trust in July) says the whole thing disgusts him. Of course, he might be mad in part because the current OGE removed his ethical findings to make the change. Even Vanity Fair finds this a transparent move, noting that the White House “has a Russia problem.”
That’s Not What Hospitality Means, Motel 6. Several news outlets reported this week that Motel 6 was turning guest information over to ICE to assist in investigations, and a few even think Motel 6 was calling ICE on guests in the hotel if they checked in using ID that suggested undocumented status. After two motels in the chain were confirmed to be voluntarily sharing information, Motel 6 eventually issued an official statement that the hotels were acting without permission and would be prohibited from doing this again.

The Good:

Shrkeli’s Bail is Revoked for Being a Gross Weirdo. (I stand by this headline.) Your second dose of schadenfreude for the week is Shkreli’s bail getting revoked while he awaits sentencing because he offered a $5,000 bounty on Hillary Clinton’s hair — which is both creepy and, as the judge correctly noted when he revoked bail, a solicitation of assault. It’s basically Criminal Defense 101 that your bail can be revoked for committing another crime, and he technically committed a (gross and weird) crime with the post. And while I don’t generally enjoy displays of misogyny and expectations of privilege, I do enjoy that the federal judge on this case didn’t put up with it.
New York Sanctuary Order Signed. The Governor of New York signed an executive order this past week prohibiting state agencies from inquiring about immigration status. (In layperson terms, that means people can’t just be randomly asked about their status while they’re seeking benefits, getting a driver’s license, or doing other things that involve ordinary day-to-day interactions with the state.) The order includes provisions protecting people who approach a police officer for help, are victims of crimes, or are witnesses to crimes. While it’s not a panacea by any means, it is a good start, and I definitely appreciate that it was issued.

And that’s what I got this week — and no, I can’t take it back again, much as I wish I could. I’ll do my best to keep touching on all the key points each week, but the news is still moving really fast, and we’re also increasingly seeing announcements at odd times. Daily news summaries like WTFJHT remain an excellent resource until we meet again.

National News Roundup: Week 31 (August 20–26)

August 29, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Remember those Energizer battery commercials from the 80s and 90s? Just like the Energizer Bunny, Trump came back from his obnoxiously long vacation this week energized and ready to keep going and going. Our nation, predictably, suffers the results, which nobody is enjoying as an unprecedented hurricane hits Houston.

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 real estate broker — 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 past week, Trump did some things that really seriously threaten our Separation of Powers system, and I’m not going to sugarcoat that. I’m super sorry in advance for this week’s news; I’ll let you pause for a moment to let you get comfort foods, a nice pillow to yell into, or cat videos of your choice on standby.

Okay, ready? Here we go.

Arpaio’s Pardon Took Away the Courts’ Teeth. On Friday night, Trump pardoned former sheriff Joe Arpaio, which he announced as Hurricane Harvey moved onto the Texan coast. His decision to release this information at a very strange time isn’t just because of the ratings, although I’m willing to believe that thought crossed his vile head; he was also creating cover because the move undercuts the constitution. To understand why this move is so dangerous, you have to understand the underlying charges: Arpaio’s actual crime is contempt of court for refusing to follow an injunction. That injunction was simple: “Stop unconstitutionally targeting Latino people in your detention practices.” In other words: “Quit tromping on the rights of your constituents.” When an elected official — especially a sheriff — does not uphold the constitution, constituents tend to sue, especially in our postTrumpian world of “everything’s Wonderland but the courts still work.” And when courts order compliance, they’re essentially saying “follow our laws or else;” the “or else” in that sentence is the threat of sitting in jail. But if the President makes that contempt go away — especially without proper review or evidence of remorse, as is the case here — the court has no way to make elected officials follow laws anymore. More importantly, the court has no way to make elected officials follow the Constitution anymore. And with this pardon so early in Trump’s Presidency — which is unusual also, by the way; most Presidents save this stuff for their last few months — many people fear what it signals for things like future officially-sanctioned abuses of law, and for the Russia investigation.
Shut Down Showdown. Against the larger backdrop of Arpaio’s pardon, it’s extra concerning that Trump threatened several times to shut down the government if his wall isn’t built, and criticized Republican leadership while he was at it. For those of you playing the home game, a government shutdown shouldn’t be within Trump’s ability at all — it’s the legislative bodies’ power that prevents a government default, since Congress votes on spending. Trump is effectively threatening to ruin Congress’s process, and possibly several careers, by either sabotage or vetoing. These threats reflect a much larger issue of tensions between Trump and the rest of the GOP, particularly in the House and Senate. Though experts suppose Trump is trying to distance himself from the party, it also seems clear that he is trying to browbeat them into doing his bidding — no law makers really seem to want this wall except him, and forcing Republicans to fall in line on something that should be their job also further weakens our separation of powers. Disturbingly, it at least partially seems to be working; House Republicans proposed a resolution on Charlottesville that echoes Trump’s “both sides” rhetoric in its condemnation after he started threatening a shutdown, which is a change from politicians’ language on the topic before the threat.
Bonus Obstruction of Justice. Just for extra bonus destruction of government process, Trump apparently asked Sessions to make charges against Arpaio go away while his case was pending this past spring. When he was told that wouldn’t happen, he began asking about pardoning. So that’s some fun attempted obstruction of justice on top of everything else. And if that doesn’t surprise or even upset you all that much, you’re feeling his systemic desensitization campaign in action; we’ve heard it before, nothing happened, and it’s starting to feel like it’s not even news. But that’s like standing in cold water so long you stop noticing it’s cold — we need to stay aware that we’re gonna get hypothermia even though we can’t actually feel our limbs anymore.

Fun times, right? You know what, just go ahead and take a moment with your Maru videos; I won’t tell anyone.

And we’re back! Moving on, this week also saw a lot of Civil Rights Destruction Consequences (besides pardoning Arpaio, who sets back the Civil Rights movement fifty years all by himself).

Trans Military Ban Implemented. After threatening to do it for weeks, Trump did give official instructions to implement his ban on trans people in the military this week, confirming critics’ assertions that he’s an arrogant draft-dodger who doesn’t understand how many trans folks actively serve or, apparently, the meaning of the phrase “currently deployed.” The directive gave General Mattis considerable leeway to decide what to do with the currently-serving members of the trans military, but it has its own snag associated with it — Mattis is supposed to develop a plan in the next six months “with the Secretary of Homeland Security,” and we don’t currently have one. He has signaled to serving troops that he plans to leave those members serving in place — unsurprising, given how unpopular this move is with the actual military — but it’s hard to say what will actually happen when his plan has to be hashed out with a person who doesn’t currently exist. It’s my guess that this is intentional. Either way, the ACLU is already suing, so I’m a bit less cranky with them than I was last week.
United Nations Warning Label.* The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued an Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure about racial violence in the United States this past week, citing “the horrific events of Charlottesville” and noting it was “disturbed by the failure at the highest political level” to unequivocally reject them. In other words, the United Nations saw Trump refuse to condemn white supremacists over and over again, just like the rest of us, and we’re all being asked to preserve people’s human rights and avoid further incidents. I don’t think this administration plans on taking that seriously, and I’ll say more about why below.

The one silver lining of the week is The Russia Collusion Investigation, which is being recontextualized and refined in real time as all the other horrible things above happen around it. We saw some serious movement before Trump’s late-night Friday announcements, and we’re very, very likely to see further movement in the upcoming week.

Pee Tape Guy Testifies.* (Okay fine, the Senate Judiciary Committee probably refers to Glenn Simpson as “the author of a controversial dossier,” but we all know what they really mean.) At any rate, whatever you call him, Glenn Simpson — the guy who authored that one dossier — testified for ten hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week. The Judiciary Committee is currently deciding whether to release the transcript, which hopefully means he said something interesting. I’ll keep you posted.
Dear(born) Putin.* So, we all pretty much knew that at some point evidence was going to pop up suggesting that the Trump camp was approached about meeting with Putin directly. Surprise, that day has come! Rick Dearborn, a top aide who was working for Sessions at the time and helped set up the Mayflower meeting, apparently received and passed on an email to this effect to the Trump campaign team. It will be interesting to see what the investigation does with that.
Rushing a Russian Trump Tower.* News broke this weekend that Trump was building a Trump Tower in Moscow while he ran for President in 2015–2016. Even worse, the decision was apparently in part based on assurances from a Russian-American business associate that the deal would get him Putin’s support on his campaign. Trump appears to have discussed this deal three times before it was ultimately shelved in January 2016. As part of the business deal, a top exec in the Trump real estate company emailed Putin’s personal spokesperson during the campaign. This means we now have direct confirmation that Putin’s reps and Trump’s reps were in communication during the campaign, which is… not a great look for Trump. We’ll have to see what is done with this information.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Gorka’s Out and That Makes Me Uneasy.* As part of the Friday Night Trifecta of Weird-Ass News, Sebastian Gorka was unceremoniously ousted from the White House a la Steve Bannon. And just like Bannon, Gorka quickly landed at Breitbart. Just like Bannon, reports differ on whether he was removed or resigned. (You may be noting a trend here.) Finally, just like Bannon, I don’t believe he was truly ousted; I think he was only reassigned outside the White House. And that’s a bit unsettling; as private actors they are subject to fewer rules about their behavior than they were in the White House, and moving some of the most contentious staff externally might also improve the overall functionality of the administration. Which is not a good thing. (Although, as a friend of mine points out, moving them externally also limits their access to classified information, at least on paper, so there’s that as a silver lining.)
Trump and Afghanistan. Trump gave prepared remarks about Afghanistan at the beginning of the week, setting up his by-now-traditional Two Step Process for Presidential Success (i.e. “prepared remarks that make him sound like he isn’t a five-year-old, followed by deranged and alienating off-the-cuff comments like a day later”). He did clarify that he has scrapped his plans to remove the troops there, and seems to suggest he’s going to send in even more troops, but other than that he didn’t give many details. So he was basically just… announcing he was going to ignore a campaign promise? Needless to say, Breitbart wasn’t a fan, which means the whole thing was very strange and also a President should be accountable for the troops whose lives he’s endangering but at least there was a hint of schadenfreude involved.
Fearmongering in Phoenix. Completing the “deranged off-the-cuff statements” portion of the program, both Trump and Pence headed out to Phoenix for a campaign-style rally on Tuesday because…reasons? (I actually have no idea why they headed out there, other than maybe signaling they were about to pardon Arpaio.) But Trump sure had a good time saying horrible and/or blatantly untrue things while he was there about the free press, his response to Charlottesville, NAFTA, and immigration. My favorite was the part where he claimed CNN stopped broadcasting, which was probably a surprise to the people who were watching him on CNN. Also, police used tear gas on protesters outside the stadium, and his use of Ben Carson at a political rally probably violated the Hatch Act (which is violation number two for this administration).

The Bad:

Devastation in Texas. There’s so, so much to say about the way Hurricane Harvey is devastating southern Texas right now, and I’m afraid it’s hard to fit it all into a single paragraph. The unprecedented flooding has already killed at least nine people, displacing thousands of others, and rescue attempts by boat are being coordinated by social media as I write this, because police are stretched so thin they’ve become hard to reach. Before and after videos of Texan locations illustrate just how incredibly flooded the area has become; the property damage in the region must be absolutely devastating. The Texas Monthly has concrete suggestions for how people can help the survivors, which I really recommend looking over if you have the time. If you only have a second to spare but still want to help, a good touchstone to remember is that money is much more helpful than items in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster.
Harvey and Immigration. Hurricane Harvey is particularly devastating for the estimated 400,000 undocumented people living in Houston. Though Immigration Customs Enforcement announced it wouldn’t do routine checks at shelters, the immigration checkpoints remain open during the hurricane. This is a break from precedent set in 2016, and it puts immigrant populations between a rock and a hard place — they have to decide between risking dangerous flooding and risking deportation. Obviously, this makes it much harder for undocumented people to get to safety, because they likely need to avoid checkpoints, and it creates a realistic possibility that immigrant populations won’t seek help from shelters.
“Law and Order”: Special Military Units. Trump signed an executive order today rescinding Obama-era restrictions on sending military equipment to police, which they have the gall to title a “Presidential Executive Order on Restoring State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement’s Access to Life-Saving Equipment and Resources.” (You’ll forgive me if I fail to see how police having grenade launchers, aircrafts, and explosives makes anybody any safer.) I’m still really, really cheesed off about this, particularly as the order being rescinded was in response to Ferguson (because of course it was, that’s half the reason they’re overturning it). This item is most of the reason I’m so convinced the administration plans to ignore the United Nations; this action is extremely likely to exacerbate racial tensions.
Secret Service Caps on Overtime Pay. In more mundane terrible news, Trump’s ridiculous vacation schedule is apparently causing Secret Service agents to work so much overtime that they’re hitting pay caps, meaning that individual agents have to protect his sorry butt without getting paid for it. Honestly, the only thing worse than knowing you might have to take a bullet for Trump is knowing that you might have to take a bullet for him for free, so I super feel for these folks; I hope Congress has enough sense to lift the cap before half the Secret Service starts coming down with notgoingintoworkitis.

The Good:

White House Visitor Logs Staying Logged. Maybe it’s related to the money thing, but the Secret Service also agreed to stop erasing the White House visitor log this week, if only on a temporary basis. Apparently this is in connection with a FOIA suit filed last week, so it’s likely the plan until the case is resolved, but at this point, I’ll take it.
National Monument Win. After months and months of tense advocacy and deliberations, particularly around the famous Bear Ears National Monument, Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke announced this week that he won’t recommend eliminating any of the 27 monuments under review. He did recommend “changes” to a few, including Bear Ears — but we don’t have a clear picture of what those “changes” are, because the report wasn’t released. Senator Feinstein, a Democrat from California, has formally requested the report be released. Hopefully this means we’ll have a clearer picture soon, but at minimum, the simple fact that none are being eliminated is a modest win.

And that’s what I got this week — boy howdy, was the news a rough ride at top speed. I’ll do my best to keep touching on all the key points each week no matter how bad and frenetic it gets, but the news is still moving really fast, and we’re also increasingly seeing announcements at odd times. Daily news summaries like WTFJHT remain an excellent resource until we meet again. Good luck out there, and see you soon!

National News Roundup: Week 27 (July 23–29)

August 1, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Holy monkeys, what even happened this past week? (Honest answer: A lot.) It’s a wild roller coaster ride that we’re all still processing, though I’ll do my best to unpack it for you all.

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 news continues to contain multiple headlines each week 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 Corners:

Given everything else that was going on this week, it was very easy to miss the things happening on The Russia Collusion Investigation — Kushner sort-of-testified and then all healthcare hell broke loose. But since it’s still very important to track all of it, here’s a recap:

Kushner (Barely) Testifies.* Kushner spoke in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee last Monday (which feels like way more than a week ago, doesn’t it?). He did not, however, do this in open session or under oath, angering some Democrats even though it is illegal to lie to a Congressional tribunal whether under oath or not. Not that much was learned, however, because Kushner was too busy claiming he paid no attention at the infamous meeting with Russia and throwing Trump Jr under the bus to give real details. Angry Democrats, meanwhile, are introducing a bill designed to authorize revoking Kushner’s security clearance, so he might be “too busy” to pay attention to a lot of things moving forward.
Trump Jr. and Manafort Don’t Even Testify.* Manafort did meet with the intelligence committee this week, which is good, since they dropped the subpoena against both him and Trump Jr. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of movement other than this, though, and some Democrats are pretty mad that they won’t be testifying. We’ll need to keep watching and pressing on this point in order to avoid stalling out.
Lock Her Up, Sessions. Trump continued to ridicule Sessions in the past week, this time asking why he wasn’t prosecuting Hillary Clinton for… reasons? It’s unclear what the basis was, given that the 2016 investigation cleared her, other than “her liberal face.” Additional Republicans jumped on the Trump bandwagon, sending a letter to Sessions asking him to investigate Comey, Clinton, and former AG Loretta Lynch. This is an obvious intended distraction from the Russia collusion investigation, but these behaviors also have chilling implications — calling for imprisonment of political rivals is a hallmark of dictatorships, and it’s unacceptable behavior even if no action is ultimately taken.
Can I Fire Them? Trump apparently spent time this week investigating whether he could fire Sessions, though Republicans have warned that they won’t take kindly to Trump letting their long-time colleague go. Nonetheless, Trump was considering Rudy Guiliani and Ted Cruz as replacements. He also asked about firing acting F.B.I. director Andrew McCabe, whom he claimed had ties to Hillary Clinton. (Trump declined to explain why having ties to a former Secretary of State, who currently serves no political role at all, would make someone unfit to be an interim F.B.I. director during a candidate’s confirmation process.) In more definitive news, Trump did announce the replacement of Reince Priebus this week, replacing him with current Secretary of Homeland Security General John Kelly. They also played some Mean Girl games with Priebus on the tarmac on his way out. Then Kelly’s first act after getting sworn in (again?) as Chief of Staff was to fire Scaramucci, which honestly is the first reasonable thing to happen in this paragraph. All told Scaramucci was only Communications Director for ten days, which has got to be some kind of record. (Scaramucci had to be escorted away on his way out, too.)

Your “Normal” Weird:

Threatening Alaska (Badly). While the health care vote was ongoing in the Senate this week, Trump threatened Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski on Twitter over her lack of cooperation. Then he graduated to having Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke threaten both Alaskan senators with unfavorable policy on natural resources (even though Murkowski’s colleague had voted for the bill). None of this had much effect on Murkowski (or her vote), but the top Democrat in the House Natural Resources Committee is now pushing for an investigation into improper interference with a Senate procedure. As Rep Grijalva noted, “Threatening to punish your rivals as political blackmail is something we’d see from the Kremlin.”
State of the BCRA. Welp, Senate healthcare vote sure was a thing! I think many of us caught the broad strokes already, so I’ll just do a quick summary of how we got here: The BCRA (barely) survived a motion to proceed on Tuesday afternoon, but all attempts to get to the next step failed — repeal-and-replace, repeal-and-delay, and the “skinny repeal” all crashed and burned. The last vote, which happened very early on Friday morning, featured a surprise heel-face turn from John McCain, who joined consistent nay-sayers Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to very narrowly defeat the bill. Despite a rumor to the contrary, McConnell returned the bill to the calendar before adjourning, which means that the Senate can return to the item between now and September. To that end, Senator Graham has also introduced another attempt at repeal; this is in addition to a bipartisan group that is talking about more moderate changes to the ACA and Dem discussion of a single-payer system. Trump, meanwhile, continues to prove he’s America’s Sweetheart by deriding the GOP and refusing to pay for insurance again; eventually the tirade turned to the filibuster (which was irrelevant) and threatening to end “BAILOUTS for Members of Congress.” But since Congress is running out of time to do everything else, they may be forced to let this go for now no matter what Trump is saying.
Transgender Service Surreality.* Trump startled half the country on Wednesday — including the military — by abruptly announcing on Twitter that transgender service members would be banned from the military effective immediately. Since he hadn’t checked with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they handled the announcement by declining to change anything based on unofficial tweets and not, y’know, actual orders. Also, the GOP clown car of Disappointed Republicans Rebuking Trump included John McCain, Joni Ernst, and Orrin Hatch of all people, showing just how badly Trump misread his own party when they asked for a much more narrow action from him.
The Worst Boy Scout Jamboree. After Trump made several bizarre and loaded comments at a Boy Scout Jamboree last weekend, the Boyscouts of America ended up apologizing for him. I guess they figured Trump was never going to apologize, so they had to pick up the slack.

The Bad:

Sessions vs the Civil Rights Act. Attorney General Sessions announced this week that the Justice Department does not have to defend LGBT people because the Civil Rights Act doesn’t protect them (spoiler: Yes it does, at least if the DoJ wants to take a posture consistent with the EEOC.) The announcement was made as part of preparation for an ongoing case, Zarda v. Altitude Express, which is a private federal lawsuit in which the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief. If that sounds strange to you, that’s because it is — the Department of Justice is literally sealioning into a case that it’s not bringing or defending to take a position directly counter to what the EEOC decided to set as precedent in 2015. It’s a slimeball move that’s also an inappropriate overreach from Sessions, but at this point when Sessions ignores settled law, evidence-based practice, and common sense, that just means it’s Thursday.
Threats from North Korea.* North Korea was in the news a lot this week, largely due to a successful ICBM test that leaves people uncertain whether the U.S. is a likely target in the near future. President Trump condemned the launch without threatening to bomb them back, which is probably one of the more normal things he did in the past week, but for now NORAD has determined that the show of force illustrated a range that “did not pose a threat to North America.” We’ll have to keep an uneasy eye on this as well.
Trump Advocates Police Violence. In a speech to the Suffolk County police force, Trump advocated that police rough up suspects in custody this week, calling gang members “animals.” Though the Suffolk County police force issued a statement afterwards, as did many police organization generally, the ACLU was less than impressed — and the rhetoric comes on the heels of several other changes in government policy that give police more latitude.

The Good:

Mueller Protection Legislation. Senator Lindsay Graham has signaled that he intends to bring a bill this week designed to protect Mueller from being fired by the Department of Justice, which is honestly probably a good idea right now. Graham worked on the bill with Democratic senator Cory Booker (and this week is probably the first time anybody has ever written that sentence). The action is part of a growing movement among Republicans to set boundaries with the Trump administration, presumably because they figure it’s better late than never.
Racial Profiling Against a Court Order: Still Illegal. Today, former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt of court by bench trial, mostly because he blatantly ignored a court order to end his racial profiling in traffic patrols. Arpaio, who doesn’t exactly have an awesome record when it comes to human rights, apparently continued the practice he had been ordered to stop for a full year and a half after the order was issued — a pretty textbook definition of contempt of court, so the verdict is unsurprising. U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton was less than impressed by his public statements flaunting his noncompliance, and relied on them in part to find “a flagrant disregard” for the order. Arpaio nonetheless remains convinced that a jury would not convict him, and plans to appeal the bench trial to get a trial by jury.

And that’s the week’s news! The news cycle has become so rapid that I bet tomorrow we’ll be in a different posture, but I’ll do my best to keep hitting all the key points each week. In the meantime, daily news summaries like WTFJHT and Today in Resistance are an excellent resource until we meet again!

National News Roundup: Week 26 (July 16–22)

July 24, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

You know how I said last week that I didn’t think the good news cycle would last? …yeah, I have some bad news about that. Literally. (I promise I didn’t jinx it!)

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

Nearly half the total news this week relates in some way to The Russia Collusion Investigation — way more than is ordinary, even as we navigate growing constitutional crises. It’s a whole new brand of weird and scary, and I’m not yet sure what is going to happen from here.

Trump Still Hates Lawyers. An oval office interview with three New York Times reporters ended up making this week feel like a Comey redux in a number of ways. First Trump, apparently upset to learn that Mueller could go through his tax records, warned off the independent counsel in the interview, saying he hadn’t ruled out firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller if he misstepped. He then subsequently started investigating Mueller’s team of attorneys, which some experts speculate is Trump’s way of laying groundwork to fire Mueller. In the interview, Trump also complained about Sessions, saying it was “unfair” that the Attorney General had recused himself from the Russia investigation, and noting, “[I]f he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.” This is actually a huge admission on Trump’s part — if you think about it, he’s basically saying that he wanted someone he hand-picked to be in charge of investigating any of his own wrongdoings. (It also belies a lack of understanding of how our judicial system works, but that’s not particularly new.) The press then had a field day covering Trump’s criticism of Sessions, which frankly probably didn’t merit this much attention. Also, Trump changed his own legal defense team this week, probably because they told him not to fire Mueller and/or Sessions.
Sessions Strike Two. Sessions responded to Trump’s statements publicly by publicly noting that he plans to stay in the role “as long as that is appropriate,” but given the way this week ended that might not be too much longer. We learned on Friday that Sessions did indeed discuss campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2016, indicating yet another lie told under oath repeatedly. This information reflects badly on Trump even though it also might give him an excuse to fire Sessions (if he’s truly disgruntled about the Mueller investigation).
Can I Pardon Myself? This week’s I Wish I Were Making This Up Award goes to reports that Trump is investigating whether he can pardon his aides, his family, and himself. By Saturday, apparently because simply asking the question settles it in Trump’s mind, he was tweeting that “all agree” he has complete power to pardon people. (Spoiler: Larry Tribe does not agree, at the very least, and in fact Trump’s referencing an unanswered legal question, because no sitting President has ever tried to pardon himself. That said, the Washington Post has a helpful summary of the parts of his questions with settled legal answers.) It’s very hard to suss out what exactly Trump plans to do with any of this, though logic would suggest it won’t involve anything good; with so much in the air right now we’ll need to watch the Russia investigation carefully and see what happens.
Dinner Date with Putin. Another gem to come out of the New York Times interview was the knowledge that Trump apparently had an impromptu dinner date with Putin during the G20 summit. We don’t know much about what was said, because the White House released no details and there were no press were present; the dinner in question was only for heads of state and their spouses. Russia, in contrast, might have a transcript of the conversation, since the only other person present was a Kremlin interpreter. Meanwhile, Russian ambassador and all-around jerk Sergey Lavrov has started trolling us on the topic, saying they met more than three times and “maybe they went to the toilet together.”
Testimony Schedule. Several people high-up in the Trump administration (and/or related to Trump) have been subpoenaed to testify before Congress this upcoming week, and some of them have more of a hill to climb than others. As forecast earlier, Trump Jr. is testifying on Wednesday in a public hearing; though he’s not a member of the administration, the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to question him about his June 2016 meeting with a Russian attorney, so he was added to an existing panel. (Paul Manafort will be on the same panel.) Today, Kushner testified in closed session; I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that, because it was revealed on Friday that he failed to disclose dozens of assets when completing his clearance paperwork and I’m sure the committee will have a lot of questions for him about this. That said, he appears to have said nothing of real substance (unless you count throwing Trump Jr. under the bus).

And just like last week, we have some horrifying news about Emoluments, or at the very least about personal enrichment.

Trump Tower Is Hella Expensive. This past week, we learned through a Freedom of Information Act request that the U.S. military is paying $130,000 per month to rent space at Trump Tower. The lease, which extends from April 2017 through September 2018, will cost the government $2.39 million all told; that’s expensive even by Manhattan standards, and this definitely overthrows last week’s story as the single biggest instance of personal enrichment reported to date. To add insult to injury, Trump has not stayed at Trump Tower once since this lease was signed — so that’s clearly $2.39 million of taxpayer money well-spent. (Note: the Wall Street Journal broke this story, but since their excellent reporting is behind a paywall, I have linked primarily to other sources.)

Your “Normal” Weird:

That’s a Spicey Walk-Out. Sean Spicer resigned as Press Secretary on Friday, reportedly in protest of Trump hiring on Anthony Scaramucci as his communications director. Sarah Huckabee-Sanders was named the new Press Secretary later that day. You may remember Scaramucci, who is a long-time associate of Trump’s, as That Guy Three CNN Reporters Resigned Over a few weeks ago; there’s speculation that bringing him on board was also intended to alienate Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Though Priebus is still among us, I can see why this was a final straw for Spicer, given the rate at which Scaramucci appears to be alienating people in his new job.
State of the BCRA. What’s going on with the BCRA right now? No one knows. No, seriously, no one knows much of anything; it’s a chaotic, confusing mess. McConnell has announced an intention to vote again on Tuesday, but no one knows which version of the bill is being voted on — the old BCRA, the Cruz Amendment BCRA, or the 2015 bill that McConnell mentioned earlier last week. (FiveThirtyEight has your back, by the way, and has compiled a summary of all the options.) Incredibly, Senator John Cornyn called knowing which bill was being voted on tomorrow a ‘luxury we don’t have.’ Confusing the issue further, the Senate might not even be able to vote for the BCRA under reconciliation rules — a fact which has Paul Ryan badmouthing the CBO in an apparent attempt to discredit them. Never one to skip the action, Trump has been leaning on politicians more over the past few days, and gave a speech illustrating his own ignorance on Monday. Needless to say, this is an incredibly strange process we are watching unfold in real time, and it’s definitely worth it to call your Senators on Tuesday — if they’re a hard no, thank them; if they’re leaning no, try to persuade them. (If they’re a hard yes, calling them won’t necessarily change their minds but at least you can vent your spleen.)
Debt Erasure. On the more positive end of the “what the hell” spectrum, the New York Times reports that tens of thousands of people with defaulted private student loans may be off the hook now, because their paperwork is missing. The loans in question total at least $5 billion, and are all held by National Collegiate Student Loans Trust — assuming they can find the paperwork, that is. Judges in multiple states have already tossed out lawsuits, noting that the organization had not proved it owned the debt on which it was trying to collect.

The Bad:

Police Seizure of Personal Property. The latest in Sessions terribleness is a push to increase police seizure of assets in instances where police aren’t issuing charges or searching under warrants. This practice is known as civil asset forfeiture, and Sessions is undoing policies put in place by his predecessor Eric Holder to bar it. If the new policy sounds kind of like it lets police steal from random citizens, that’s because it does; at the time that Sessions’s predecessor Eric Holder removed the policy being revived, police took more from people’s houses than burglars did. Just like when Sessions pushed for mandatory minimums, even conservatives think this is a bad idea; it’s a deplorable practice that blatantly enriches police departments on the backs of ordinary people who can ill afford it.
Smuggling Deaths in Texas. News broke this weekend that thirty-nine people were found packed into a sweltering tractor-trailer in San Antonio, Texas; as of the time I’m writing this, ten of those people have passed away. Seventeen more have life-threatening injuries as a result of prolonged exposure to severe heat and dehydration. Survivors reported that over one hundred people were originally in the trailer; when police called ICE to the scene, many people who were able fled. The police chief noted that he expects those who survive in hospital care to be returned to ICE custody. Needless to say, stories like this illustrate the sheer desperation many people experience when they are forced to flee their location without safe immigration pathways.

The Good:

Reporter Ignored White House Streaming Rules. This past week, a reporter named Ksenija Pavlovic said “screw this” and streamed a White House press conference like it’s 2015. Pavlovic, who runs her own news site, simply ran Periscope during the conference, which is such a simple and elegant solution that I’m surprised it took the press this long to try it. It’s unclear what consequences will fall on Pavlovic’s head from this; I hope nothing too serious happens to her, though I can’t imagine she’ll be welcome at the White House anytime soon.
Travel Ban Minor Win. The Supreme Court put out an extremely brief order this week clarifying that they weren’t going to touch last week’s Hawaii District Court holding about which relatives should qualify to make a traveler exempt from the President’s travel ban. (They did, however, stay the court’s holding as it pertained to refugees with ties to resettlement programs.) As with the Supreme Court’s first order, all of these provisions are simply discussing what will be the policy while the case is pending; oral arguments will be heard on the merits of the order on October 10. By refusing to put a stay in order, the Supreme Court has effectively required the administration to add most family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews) to the list of qualifying relationships while the case is pending.

This is a disorienting, strange, and scary time, and I’m afraid knowing all the news this week doesn’t necessarily help with that. It’s vital that we make as much sense of it as we can, and stay informed and engaged in the coming weeks.

National News Roundup: Week 25 (July 9–15)

July 18, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Well it’s not quite porcine pilots, but we appear to have a net-positive news week when I’m writing this on Sunday evening, which by this point is strange in its own way. At any rate, enjoy for now, and I’ll try not to jinx it! I can’t imagine positive news is long for this world.

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

As news on Donald Trump Jr’s now-infamous Russia meeting continued to unspool, we gained new insight into The Russia Collusion Investigation, though it’s still hard to make heads or tails of much of it.

Donald Trump Jr.’s Admission Gets Worse. Remember last week, when I thought simply saying that “[The attorney] had no meaningful information” was a major admission? Oh, to have the simple naivety of one week ago. In the time since that happened, Donald Trump Jr. has tweeted the entire contents of his email correspondence on the matter, which clarified that Trump Jr understood this material to be part of a Russian government effort to aid his father’s candidacy — in other words, a textbook example of collusion. We also learned there were at least eight people present for the meeting, including a Russian-American lobbyist, Jared Kushner, publicist Rob Goldstone, and Paul Manafort. Some media outlets were claiming the story was a smoking gun immediately afterwards, and Trump Jr. has been asked to testify before the Congressional committee next week. That said, though, it’s a bit early to break out the impeachment china, and Republicans certainly don’t have a lot to say on the topic. We’ll have to keep watching and see where things go from here.
The Wray Hearing. Against the bizarre backdrop of Trump Jr’s never-ending bombshells, the Senate conducted an FBI Director confirmation hearing of Christopher Wray on Wednesday. Unsurprisingly, several senators wanted confirmation that he wouldn’t bow to pressure to drop an investigation, and Senator Graham also wanted his opinion on the Trump Jr mess as well. (Wray was reluctant to give a direct answer on that.) In general, the Democrats seem supportive of the appointment, which may be a reflection of their eagerness to have a fully-functioning FBI again.
DOJ Fails to Meet Court’s Deadline for Russia Meetings Info. The Department of Justice missed a deadline this week to provide a court with more information about Sessions’s contact with Russian entities — information which had been ordered by the court after a Freedom of Information Act request was filed on the topic. They eventually did release the information, a day late, but Sessions’ failure to comply on the topic of Russian contact in a timely fashion was not a good look. (Not coincidentally, all this was happening at the same time that Donald Trump Jr’s own contact with Russian officials was being slowly revealed.)

And just like last week, we have some miscellany I’m calling a Constitutional Crisis Grab Bag. They’re all symptoms of a larger, more serious threat, which I’ll talk more about below.

State Department Spending. This past week, we learned through a Freedom of Information Act request that the State Department paid $15,000 for board at a Trump hotel in Vancouver in February. The costs apparently were to cover secret service people’s stay in the hotel, which was necessary as a form of protection detail because several family members were visiting to attend its grand opening. Given that the travel appeared to have had absolutely nothing to do with political obligations, and the family still billed the State Department for staying at the hotel to provide security relating to business obligations, this may be the single biggest instance of personal enrichment to be officially reported since Trump took office.
Sessions Speech Revealed. This week, Sessions gave a speech to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) — a conservative Christian law firm that was designated a “hate group” in 2016 by the Southern Poverty Law Center — and refused to release the text of his speech. Weirdly, The Federalist is here for us, and released a transcript of the entire thing. (Note: While the text of that speech certainly could be worse, it’s still full of dog whistles like “Western heritage,” “religious freedom,” and “enshrined in the Constitution,” and I recommend exercising caution if that sort of thing is triggering for you.) As several advocates have noted, the speech itself suggests an aggressive agenda of discrimination, which is certainly in keeping with the rest of what we’re seeing from him.

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Rocks Run for Office. Both Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kid Rock have apparently filled out paperwork to run in 2020 elections (though there’s some evidence to suggest the latter is a publicity stunt). The Rock’s paperwork was filled out and filed by someone in West Virginia, so it’s unclear if the Rock wants to run or someone else simply really, really wants him to. At any rate, apparently people would rather vote for Rocks than the current President.
State of the BCRA. We’re in a weird, schadenfreude-filled position with the Better Care Reconciliation Act right now. Mitch McConnell released text of a new version of the Senate bill on Thursday, indicating that the August Congressional recess will be postponed to permit more time for a vote — an expected move, since conventional wisdom says that Congress needs to act soon if they are going to act at all. The bill itself was still pretty terrible, and it’s not surprising that both Susan Collins and Rand Paul said they would not vote for it. What is surprising, at least if you’re McConnell, is that McCain then went into the hospital for emergency surgery, ensuring that the Senate GOP definitely cannot get the votes they need this week unless they force one of the other two Senators to change their position. McConnell has announced that he’ll need to postpone the vote as a result, opting to wait until McCain gets back; doctors have suggested that might not be for a week or more. In the meantime, two more Senators have announced they won’t vote for the bill, so McConnell will have his work cut out for him when McCain returns.

The Bad:

“Healthcare Fraud” DOJ Sweeps. You can probably tell what I think of this from the title, but I feel I owe readers some context: The opioid crisis is an issue extremely near to my heart, because I worked to connect people addicted to substances to treatment every day for several years. I absolutely do not dispute that we have a terrible epidemic in this country, and that people are exploited every day in service of selling a dangerous and highly addictive substance. I also cannot tell you how many times I verified that people with drug-related criminal charges had been originally prescribed medications for pain, and traced their addiction back to a reliance on those medications. But this administration’s official statements blend together real descriptions of an actual epidemic and bizarre rhetoric about “fraudsters” and “hard-earned tax dollars,” and more to the point, these charges are a way to keep down costs. For that reason alone, I would be suspicious of anything being billed as “the most sweeping enforcement to date” and “the biggest takedown of health-care fraud in U.S. history” with an allegation of $1.3 billion in damages. Though the administration insists that the 400 people charged are defrauding health care, some of the charges, such as “prescribing unnecessary opioids,” sound less like healthcare fraud and more like… doctors prescribing things that the administration says aren’t needed. If this administration really wanted to address the opioid epidemic in this country — and I wish they would — we wouldn’t be cutting the funding for opioid treatment built into the Affordable Care Act, and we wouldn’t be returning to mandatory minimums for possession of substances, a policy that has been shown over and over again to be ineffective, costly, and exacerbate substance use.

The Good:

Net Neutrality Day of Action. This past Wednesday was a Net Neutrality Day of Action, organized by many, many efforts across the tech sector. Although some critics point out that major companies could have done more, both companies and consumers participated at incredibly high rates, leaving literally millions of comments with the FCC and Congress. Fortune Magazine wrote up a good summary of tech companies’ participation, as well as a good summary of our overall situation.
ACLU Sues the Election Integrity Commission. Adding to the list of names from last week, the ACLU has brought a suit against the Election Integrity Commission alleging that the committee violates federal public access requirements because they don’t make their meetings accessible to the public. The suit is the latest of several, and the collective suits prompted Vice President Pence to send a letter to the commission asking them to hold off on gathering data.
Media Backlash Backlash. Though this isn’t national news per se, I do think the representation reflected is relevant (and try saying that five times fast!). Two very awesome announcements were made this week on the fiction side of things: Disney released an official trailer this week for their new adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, which features several awesome and interesting casting decisions, including a multiracial Meg and Charles Wallace, a male Happy Medium, and famous actors of color for Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. This representation is perhaps not surprising, as Ava DuVernay was announced as the director in February 2016, but it’s still awesome! Also, within hours of the trailer’s release, BBC also announced its plans for the thirteenth Doctor on the popular television show Doctor Who — which, unlike A Wrinkle in Time, definitely was decided post-Trump (because Peter Capaldi didn’t announce he was leaving the show until January). The next Doctor will be played by Jodie Whittaker, a decision new director/head writer Chris Chibnall says he had planned since he rejoined the series. There has never been a female Doctor in the show’s fifty-something year tenure, and it’s a topic that has been weirdly controversial for years. Mr. Chibnall is definitely making an intentional statement about representation with this casting.
Articles of Impeachment. Rep Brad Sherman officially introduced an article of impeachment this past week, charging Trump with obstruction of justice because of the way the Comey investigation was handled. It’s not clear how much traction this will gain, if any, but he had at least one co-sponsor: Fellow Dem rep and impeachment enthusiast Al Green. Right now, there’s not a lot to indicate the House will adopt the articles, or that the Senate will conduct a trial, but with the Donald Trump Jr. bombshell out there, anything is probably possible. We’ll have to watch and see where we go from here.

And that’s all the news this week, like a slightly tarnished oasis in a desert of suck. Drink it in, folks! The news so rarely grants us any respite, we all need to enjoy it while we can.

National News Roundup: Week 24 (July 2–8)

July 11, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This past week was a wild, terrifying, bizarre ride all around — after almost a month of bad news cycle, we’re suddenly deep in I Can’t Believe I’m Not Making This Up territory. I’m afraid it’s dark carnival almost all the way down, which means it’s only a marginal improvement.

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

Trump met with Putin for two hours this week, giving us new data on The Russia Collusion Investigation, though it may be hard to untangle it all.

Looking for Puppet Strings.* As many, many people anticipated, this week’s meeting between Trump and Putin suggested a complex connection and the close of a play-acted rivalry, at least on Trump’s end. After meeting for nearly two hours, Trump and company emerged with a partial agreement on a Syrian cease-fire but no real other progress on long-term conflicts such as U.S. sanctions and the Ukraine crisis, and conflicting stories about election interference. (Tillerson told reporters afterwards that the disagreement on the election interference question was “intractable” and the two countries should try to “move forward.” The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Larov, simultaneously reported that Trump “accepts” statements from Putin “about this being untrue.” Disturbingly, I am not actually sure which man is accurately reporting, if either of them even are.) It’s legitimately a bit hard to watch Trump tell Putin “It’s an honor to be with you” in front of cameras, given the conversations happening and the larger, troubling context of the G20 summit. And regardless of everything else going on, Trump’s apparent focus on “moving forward,” which he says includes forming a “Cyber Security unit” with Russia (!), is extremely disturbing. (Though he did walk that one back only twelve hours later.)
Russian Hacking Update. Barely a day after Trump announced that he wanted to work with Russia on a cyber security unit, news came in that Russian government hackers have penetrated American nuclear power companies’ networks (and other energy companies’ as well). Officials said that the hackers accessed personnel files and other databases related to business operations. Though there were no signs of disruption around the power systems, officials are concerned that we may see more severe cyberattacks in the future. On the plus side, that type of concern presumably also means security will be tightened.
Donald Trump Jr’s Stunning Admission. (Note: I cannot take credit for this headline, but seeing as I was, in fact, truly stunned by this news, I’m gonna go ahead and borrow the headline from the Washington Post.) Donald Trump Jr, who has a persistent habit of saying the quiet bits out loud, told the New York Times that he met with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign because she promised him compromising dirt on Clinton. He then, incredibly, further contextualized this by saying that “she had no meaningful information” when he did meet with her (along with Manafort and Jared Kushner) and “[i]t became clear to me that . . . the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting.” Yes, you read that right; Donald Trump Jr went on the record complaining that a sketchy Russian lawyer had failed to deliver the collusion goods. This is a really, really big admission, even if it doesn’t look like it, in no small part because it torpedoes a bunch of earlier collusion denials from the Administration. Richard Painter, a former George W. Bush ethics lawyer, point-blank called this behavior treason, noting, “He must have known that the only way Russia would get such information was by spying . . . In the Bush administration we could have had him in custody for questioning by now.”

I don’t even know how to classify the other items below, which is why I’m just going to call them a Constitutional Crisis Grab Bag. They’re all symptoms of a larger, more serious threat, which I’ll talk more about below.

The Controversial Declaration of Independence.* As has been their broadcasting tradition for decades, NPR tweeted the text of the Declaration of Independence to celebrate the Fourth of July on Tuesday. In response, a handful of Trump supporters lit them up, responded with what appears to be a mix of trolling and actual outrage at the text of one of our most treasured national documents. Then tons more people lit up the people lighting up NPR, and it was just all one great big American firework. (Though some people, as the previous link notes, managed to have very civil discourse on the topic and own their mistakes.) Needless to say, the whole incident marks a curious combination of defensiveness of a despotic President, apparent ignorance of what the Declaration of Independence actually says, and growing animosity towards the free press. Happy Fourth, y’all.
Ivanka the Presidential Stand-In. Incredibly, Ivanka Trump stood in for her father at some of the G20 summit this past week, taking his seat at a working session on “Partnership with Africa, Migration and Health.” Though the White House has tried to pass this off as not a big deal, noting that “[w]hen other leaders stepped out, their seats were also briefly filled by others,” Ivanka Trump has no official capacity beyond being an “assistant to the President” and being his daughter. She also has absolutely no experience or training as a diplomat or leader in foreign policy, and to my knowledge has zero actual training in health for that matter. Perhaps more importantly, this model of sending family members to do the jobs of elected officials is a hallmark of hereditary dictatorships, which often emerge from former or nominal republics. This type of transition is a very real threatened endpoint for this administration, and Trump’s use of his children as lieutenants keeps getting more and more brazen on the international stage. (As one article notes, we did see echoes of this in the 1960s when JFK appointed his younger brother Bobby Kennedy as Attorney General, though in that instance the latter at least had done prior work as a government attorney; this type of dynamic is not without precedent in American politics but it is definitely worth watching.)
White House Time Warner Merger Standoff. The current Administration is threatening to withhold approval of a merger between Time Warner and AT&T, which in a vacuum doesn’t seem noteworthy — our government has considerable antitrust power over mergers and that merger is controversial at best. What is noteworthy, however, is the administration’s apparent motivation — there’s a lot to suggest that Trump might be withholding approval to spite CNN, which has a rocky relationship with Trump even by news media standards. Needless to say, the entire situation draws attention to the current President’s notably antagonistic relationship with the free press, which is another hallmark of dictatorships.
Trump Poland Pep Talk. Trump gave a pep talk to the folks in Poland on his way to G20 this week, which started out more-or-less normal but veered into some creepy Islamophobic territory by the end. As the Atlantic notes, his constant use of language like “the West” and “our civilization” is a dog-whistle for white supremacist thought, which is also a common thread between the Trump administration and the very conservative current Polish government. Against this backdrop, perhaps it’s not surprising that Trump neglected to visit the site of the Warsaw ghetto uprising while he was there, ending a multi-decade tradition among visiting American Presidents (despite giving his talk less than a mile away).
Ethics Officer Steps Down. The current director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, announced he was stepping down this week. He noted when making the announcement that “the ethics program needs to be strengthened,” and that his new position at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington will allow him to take more steps to change the system. Nonetheless, this news leaves an important check against the Trump administration vacant, and we should be watching further news on the position very carefully.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Hobby Lobby Breaks At Least Three Commandments. High up there on the “how am I not making this up?” list is the news that Hobby Lobby was smuggling clay Iraqi artifacts into the country. A federal suit was brought in Brooklyn alleging that the company had been illegally transporting thousands of ancient Iraqi artifacts (namely, cuneiform tablets, clay bullae, and cylinder seals) that were falsely labeled as ‘tiles’ to evade U.S. Customs. The federal complaint also notes that the artifacts were mishandled once unpacked, describing them as “spread on the floor, arranged in layers on a coffee table, and packed loosely in cardboard boxes, in many instances with little or no protective material between them.” The company has been fined three million dollars, and all of its thousands of artifacts have been forfeited as contraband.
Robots are Welcome (But Not Teen Creators). Teams of teenage girls from Afghanistan and Gambia have each been denied visas to compete in the FIRST Global Challenge, an international robotics competition happening in D.C. in mid-July. It’s unclear why they were banned, since neither country is on the list prohibited from travel under the travel ban. Even more strangely, both teams will be permitted to send their robots, which they will have to watch compete via Skype. No clarification appears available on why these girls in particular were denied.
Trumpcare Non-Update Update. The lack of Trumpcare news has been in the news a lot this week, and I’m just not sure I trust it — a lot of us were lulled into a false sense of security after the first failure in the House. I don’t see a lot to suggest this will be different; McConnell is still insisting he’ll find a way to limp this thing across the finish line, and it’s not over until it’s over. In the meantime, however, the Atlantic did put out a good analysis of the bill’s impact on Medicaid, and the Department of Health and Human Services put out a report noting that the ACA is still ‘working as intended.’ So you can enjoy both of those alongside McConnell’s endorsement of Congress not killing each other this week; hopefully we’ll have more news once Congress resumes after the break.
Pence Touched Expensive NASA Equipment because Rubio Dared Him. The headline pretty much sums this one up, actually — he got photographed touching the equipment labeled Do Not Touch, and then tweeted an explanation: Mark Rubio dared him to. Afterwards, he tweeted a photoshopped image of himself petting a porcupine as well. I seriously got nothin’. (NASA did clarify that he hadn’t damaged the equipment, though.)

The Bad:

No One Feeling So Fly at the G20. Even independent of The Great Polish Pep Talk, substitute President Ivanka Trump, and the Trump/Putin saga, G20 had a lot of issues over the past week. To start with, the site experienced massive protests throughout the week for a variety of reasons, culminating in police use of teargas and water cannons. Then Trump wouldn’t stop tweeting about unrelated matters (e.g. John Podesta, Fake News, MAGA, reviews of his Poland speech…), and alienated literally everyone else there with his unwillingness to negotiate on topics like climate change. After the event, critiques from other countries looked pretty scathing, and nobody seems quite sure where we go from here.
Multiple Shootings in the Bronx. This past week saw multiple tragic shootings in the Bronx. First a doctor opened fire in a hospital where he used to work, killing another doctor who was covering a shift and injuring six more people. (The assailant also sprayed gasoline into the nursing station.) But only a few days later, an active police officer was assassinated in her vehicle while covering a Fourth of July shift. The assailant was fatally shot by police very shortly afterwards about a block away.
KKK Rally and Counter-Rally in Charlottesville. The KKK held an armed rally in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend, protesting the city’s removal of a statue of General Robert E. Lee from a public park downtown. The protest drew hundreds of counterprotesters, which resulted in clashing and ultimately culminated in twenty-three arrests. State police also released three canisters of tear gas into the crowd. Three people were taken to the hospital.
Environmental News Roundup. Per popular demand, guest writer Matthew Kamm gives us a quick rundown of what’s going on in environmental news this week: “For those who haven’t been following the environmental news closely since the election, The Guardian has a depressing, but excellent, rundown of the various ways the current administration has weakened environmental regulations. This week specifically, The Department of the Interior led by Secretary Ryan Zinke released a request for comment on their plan to open up new offshore drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans, pursuant to an executive order the President signed back in April. Trump insisted at the time that he was undoing the Obama-era protections for the Arctic Ocean that banned drilling there, but since those protections were not an executive order but rather an application of the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, it’s not clear that he can actually do that. This week also saw an official recommendation from Secretary Zinke that the President consider shrinking the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. This is a contentious and complicated issue, but the linked article gives a good summary. In legal news, a bunch of state prosecutors are getting together to sue the EPA over a decision EPA Director Scott Pruitt made back in March — he refused to ban chlorpyrifos, a pesticide linked to neurological problems in children as well as autoimmune disorders in adults, from use in US food agriculture. Especially considering that the EPA itself had decided to ban chlorpyrifos under the last administration, the prosecutors seem to have a viable case. Finally (and mercifully), a federal appeals court ruled earlier this week that enforcing regulations on methane leaks for oil and gas operations was, in fact, still the job of the EPA, despite its decision earlier this spring to delay enforcement (presumably because preventing poisonous gas leaks now falls outside their mandate as dictated by one of the villains from Captain Planet).”

The Good:

More Voter Log Backlash. We’re now up to 40-something states refusing to comply with the voting commission’s voter logs request, which the Hill reported this week is likely illegal in the first place because it didn’t go through the proper channels. In addition to this challenge, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (a privacy rights watchdog group) is suing the election integrity panel, claiming (in my opinion correctly) that the panel’s request violates informational privacy laws, and the ACLU is suing as well. The panel has been forced to reconvene this month in the face of considerable opposition and refusal to comply. Also, as Nate Silver notes, it would be difficult to collect accurate data through the commission’s methods anyway.
Attorneys General Sue DeVos. Attorneys General of eighteen different states and District Columbia are suing Betsy DeVos over her failure to enforce student loan protections. (The suit is in addition to a separate suit being brought by a consumer advocacy organization with similar allegations.) Maura Healy, Massachusetts Attorney General and all-around all star, explained to reporters that she brought the suit because DeVos is cancelling predatory lending rules without opportunity for comment or notice. The regulations were due to go into effect on July 1, but DeVos suspended them and said she would overhaul them in the near future; the Attorneys General are demanding implementation of the existing regulations as a remedy instead.
Fair Representation Act Introduced in the House. This past week, House Rep Don Beyer introduced the Fair Representation Act, which would open up elections, introduce ranked-choice voting, and require independent redistricting of all congressional districts. All in all, it represents a significant departure from entrenched (and unfair) voting practices in the country. Even if this legislation goes nowhere, the fact that it was introduced at all is both heartening and worth noting — it represents a growing response to the kinds of voter suppression and gerrymandering that have become more widespread in the past year.

And that’s all the news this week, in its bizarre glory. Tune in next week, when I’ll probably be reporting on porcine pilots sailing past my window.

National News Roundup: Week 23 (June 25-July 1)

July 3, 2017 Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Well this week… happened; it was mostly a mixed bag at best. There was a lot of fighting back against terrible news, and some good news in its own right, which some weeks is the best we can hope to see. Resistance is how progress is made; we’ll try again next week.

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

We saw some concrete movement on The Russia Collusion Investigation, though a lot of it got buried under tweets about what’s-her-name.

Evidence of Collusion.* The biggest news to be buried this week is that concrete evidence of collusion to disrupt the 2016 election has emerged. The Wall Street Journal reported on connections between GOP operative Peter Smith, who was seeking deleted DNC emails to tank the Clinton campaign, and Flynn, Bannon, Conway, and Clovis. Smith reported that he was working at the behest of Mike Flynn. Unfortunately, all of that thorough reporting is behind a paywall, but Amy Siskind wrote a summary in the course of her ordinary weekly Authoritarian Watch, ThinkProgress has a good in-depth summary, and Time Magazine and the Hill has picked up the story as well. Mr. Smith will not be giving any further exclusives anytime soon, as he died shortly after speaking to the Wall Street Journal last month (as so often happens to Kremlin-connected informants).
Russian Recall.* Russia is recalling Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, which is probably a sign of increased heat from the investigation here in the United States. Russia is also denying that they are doing so, which is another sign of the same thing. Apparently he was a fairly pleasant ambassador, which also probably means his replacement will not be an improvement.
Trump is Meeting with Putin Next Week. Incredibly, spokespeople for the White House say there is “no specific agenda” when Trump meets with Putin next week. Maybe they’ll talk about the weather. Maybe they’ll talk about the government. I have no idea, and there’s so much wrong with that I don’t know where to start.

Thankfully that’s the only front to see movement this week, which is probably for the best.

Your “Normal” Weird:

Trump TIME. Your weekly Trump weirdness is that he apparently hung a forged TIME cover of himself in several properties around the world. Even more bizarrely, Trump has been on the cover of TIME for real about fourteen times (as TIME helpfully reminds us), and several of them were perfectly flattering covers — so he didn’t even need to forge anything. I don’t even want to speculate about what would make someone with several real covers to choose from do this, on the grounds that I think it would kill brain cells to try. But, uh. That guy’s our President for another 3.5 years.
Bona Fide Relationships. You may remember that the Supreme Court issued a ruling on the travel ban last week, which went into effect this past Thursday. As part of implementing the ban, the Trump administration issued guidelines on what constitutes a ‘bona fide relationship’ with a person or entity in the United States. Their definitions contain a major oversight that I find baffling — namely, it ignores the millions of kids living in kinship placements in the United States; those arrangements by definition involve a child in the custody of other family members, and frequently are not “formalized” through adoption for a variety of reasons. Since the definitions are otherwise fairly broad, I can only imagine that the lack of a custody-based exemption is an oversight rather than a malicious omission, but it’s still likely to impact grandparents, aunts/uncles, and cousins of U.S. residents who need to travel home to one of the six countries on the ban list for any reason. The rules also omit nonprofits dedicated to helping refugees resettle from the list of ‘entities’ that count, which does seem intentional (as well as heartless). All in all, it’s a strange and arbitrary list that seems almost like they simply made up rules on the fly, and it’s not surprising that it’s already being challenged.
Weird Politician Behavior Roundup. This has been a super weird week for political behavior, even by our modern standards. The splashiest headline is Chris Christie closing New Jersey beaches due to a government shutdown, and then being photographed on one of said closed beaches. Incredibly, Christie’s response to being photographed was to say “That’s the way it goes.” But in addition to Christie’s crusade to be the country’s least popular governor, Jason Chaffetz is leaving the House to join Fox News mid-term. Given that Chaffetz is the current chairperson of the House Oversight and Government Reform, I really cannot stress enough how strange of a move this is — it’s like a police chief who’s investigating the mayor of his city for kickbacks suddenly leaving mid-investigation to become an ESPN announcer. That said, though, Chaffetz also randomly announced this week that he thinks Congresspeople should get housing stipends because their salaries are insufficient, so your mileage may vary on that one all around. Oh also, Trump had about a million distracting and obnoxious tweets, but at this point that’s not even news anymore.

The Bad:

Church Playground Case Blurs Church and State. The Supreme Court reached a decision this week that was innocuous on its face, but has the end result of blurring the separation between church and state. In a 7–2 decision, the court concluded that a church playground should not be exempt from a government grant to fund resurfacing its playground purely on its basis as a religious institution. The danger in this case is not in the immediate result, but in the precedent it might set for later cases; though Roberts did write a footnote emphasizing the non-religious use of the funds in this instance, it could potentially pave the way for government funding of religion in future cases. On this basis, Sotomayor wrote a pretty impassioned dissent; given that Gorsuch did not join on the Roberts footnote, complaining that he “doesn’t see why it should matter” what the use of funds was, she appears to have a valid concern. (Side note: the Gorsuch concurrence is super gross and made me yell things at my computer. You have been warned.)
Betsy DeVos Roundup. Per popular demand, this week includes a quick summary of what Betsy DeVos has been up to lately — which hasn’t been getting much attention, but is nonetheless a weird miasma of terrible. There’s been a lot of activity around higher education student loans, mostly boiling down to “it will become harder to borrow,” “you’re more likely to be defrauded in the borrowing process,” and “hope you enjoy paying exorbitant collection fees.” The most recent (and stunning) news along this vein is her decision to have a loan company CEO head Federal Student Aid, but all of these changes are likely to have a chilling effect on middle-income American consumers seeking higher education. On the primary education level, DeVos has been mostly hinting she may fund school discrimination, eroding civil rights enforcement in schools, and, of course, pushing for a “school choice” agenda generally. In general, most of her actions seemed designed to turn the American education system in the Wild West on all levels.
Show Us Your Voter Rolls. A letter from the vice-chair of the Commission on Election Integrity demanded access to state voter rolls this week, asking for information such as social security number, name, birthday, voting dates, and registered political party for every registered citizen. Given that this commission was created because Trump claimed fraudulent voting cost him the popular vote, it’s a bit disconcerting that it’s asking for this information (to say the least); it doesn’t help that the commission only gave states a few weeks to comply. States are required to keep these lists under federal law, but that doesn’t mean they’re required to give them to the federal government or make them broadly available — and in many places the data is protected by state law.
Kate’s Law and Sanctuary Cities. The House passed two laws this week cracking down further on immigration practices; one cuts funding from so-called “sanctuary cities” and the other imposes harsher sanctions on people who illegally reenter the country. Both provisions more-or-less passed along party lines, and both further blur lines between immigration enforcement and criminal procedure.

The Good:

BCRA Belated. Mitch McConnell was forced to postpone the BCRA vote in the Senate this week, in part because of opposition from various members of his own party. Cruz, who helped draft the bill and then refused to vote for it, offered suggested changes to be made in light of this delay, mostly repealing provisions about pre-existing conditions. In general, the bill is very unpopular among constituents, and that is making it hard to get moderates on board. But despite these setbacks, Republicans seem to believe they still can pull a rabbit out of this hat, and given what happened with the House bill, that’s very possible. If nothing else, McConnell is trying to get an amended CBO score in place by the time the Senate returns to session in mid-July; we’ll all need to keep a close eye on this to avoid a repeat of the House voting experience.
Same Sex Marriage Approved in Germany. Same-sex marriage was approved by the German Parliament this week by overwhelming majority, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel voting against the bill but not impeding the vote. The way the vote evolved, and Merkel’s decision to make the issue a vote of “conscience,” illustrate how she allows her stances to evolve to reflect changing popular opinion on issues. The decisive victory, with over 150 more “yeas” than “nays,” also illustrates the popularity of the position in mainstream Germany.
Attorney and Activist Response to the Travel Ban. When the travel ban went into place again on Thursday, attorneys across the country were ready for it. Hawaii’s attorney general has already requested official clarification for the ‘close family’ definition under the regulations, noting that many close familial relationships in Hawaii are excluded under the regulations. Attorneys all over the country also headed to airports, alongside observers, to ensure the ban was not improperly enforced. Attorneys and activists headed to protests as well. The next few weeks will tell us a lot about what we can expect from here.
Voter Conscientious Objection. Over twenty-nine state Secretaries of States have already refused to comply with the Advisory Commission on Election Integrity’s demands on disclosing voter registration information — including, somewhat bizarrely, the guy who heads the commission, Kris Kobach (who is also the Secretary of State for Kansas). Many of the Secretaries of State had a few choice words for Kris Kobach and the commission while they were at it.

And that’s this week’s national news! Happy fourth, everyone. I’m Jake Tapper, and nothing makes sense anymore.