Tag: Trump Administration

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

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.

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:

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.

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:

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 21 (June 11–17)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This week, the vast majority of news that flew by was Russia-related. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing — I guess at minimum, it’s good that people are paying attention. The non-Russia-related news was mostly pretty rough, as a warning, though it’s important for us to know it anyway.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week also contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — still a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

Surprisingly, movement on both relevant crises this week was net-positive for the second week in a row. Let’s hear it for our system limping along under an auspice of democracy!

Still standing despite a repeated pummeling, at least for now: The Russia Collusion Investigation, which is probably going to be a recurring theme for the foreseeable future.

  • Russian Hacker Highlights.* The latest news on the actual election hacking from 2016 is that there’s evidence that Russian hackers breached voting systems in 39 different states before the November election. Most notably, evidence was found that in at least one state hackers tried to change or delete voter data. About 90,000 records were compromised. To make heads or tails of what we know, I recommend this helpful timeline.
  • From Senate, No Love.* In a turn of events that honestly surprises the socks off of me, the Senate had some concrete things to say about Russia and sanctions this week. Most notably, the Senate bilaterally agreed to issue sanctions against Russia for their interference with the 2016 election, and to limit President Trump’s ability to unilaterally lift said sanctions. The bill was originally intended to focus only on sanctions on Iran, but bipartisan support for the Russia-related provisions dramatically increased after more news broke about the sheer breadth of Russian interference in American politics. (Ironically, the only people in the entire Senate to vote against this measure were Bernie Sanders, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul.) The bill would still need to pass in the House and be signed by Trump, and I think we can expect a veto on this one; more news as it develops.
  • Sessions Testimony Session. Well, the Sessions testimony… happened… but to be honest, the inconclusive nature of his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee only raises more questions. Though he was pretty consistent that he never discussed the election with any Russian representatives, and claims there was no third meeting, some of Sessions’s comments can be read to suggest he wouldn’t recuse himself from an investigation into obstruction of justice. This is a much narrower understanding of his recusal than had previously been believed, and is bad news bears for any ongoing investigations about Trump’s behavior post-election. (You can catch full real-time coverage through the Washington Post and the Hill, by the way, Politico also put out a transcript for the truly dedicated. That said, though, I warn you that the third one is mostly just pages and pages of Sessions making up executive privileges, refusing to answer questions, and smirking as Burr interrupts Kamela Harris.)
  • Obstruction of Justice Inception. Unsurprisingly, a rumor was circulating this week that Trump might try to get Mueller fired because Mueller was starting an investigation into obstruction of justice — nothing goes with illegal obstruction quite like a side order of illegal obstruction, that’s what I always say. (Yo dawg, I heard you like obstruction of justice.) Since Mueller leads an independent investigation, Trump doesn’t have the power to do this — that’s pretty much exactly what ‘independent investigation’ means in practical terms — but it’s certainly believable that he might try to harass Rosenstein into it. Several members of Congress appeared to take the rumor seriously, or at least were quick to publicly note that they were pretty unimpressed by this idea. The White House ended up denying the rumor, and who only knows if they were seriously considering it or not.
  • Trump’s Attorney Now Has an Attorney. President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, hired an attorney of his own this week to help him navigate the Russia investigation. Nothing says “nothing to see here” like an attorney hiring his own attorney because he represented someone! (For those of you reading this who are not aware, generally attorneys can expect that their work product in the course of representing someone will not be subpoenaed and they cannot be compelled to testify — this is commonly known as ‘attorney-client privilege.’ So if he’s hiring his own attorney, that…suggests there’s some reason why he might be personally liable, not professionally liable as Trump’s attorney. So that’s fun.)

In addition to all your by-now-ordinary Russia weirdness, we also saw some breaking excellent news on The Emolument Clause! More specifically…

  • Emoluments Suits Multiply. Continuing the momentum from last week, nearly 200 Congressional Democrats are now suing the President for violation of the Emoluments Clause as well, becoming the largest group of representatives ever to sue a sitting President. The group is arguing that they are uniquely suited to resolve the standing issue that makes these cases hard to prosecute, because a President is constitutionally required to obtain the consent of Congress before accepting gifts. (This is the third suit of its type since Trump took office, and though there may be standing issues both the Virginia/DC case and the CREW case are still ongoing.) The suit was filed shortly after the Justice Department officially took the position that the President is allowed to accept money from foreign governments. Needless to say, it will be interesting to see what the courts do with this.

Your “Normal” Weird:

The Bad:

  • Gun Violence in Multiple States. This week we saw multiple heartbreaking instances of gun violence on the same day. The most publicized incident was the politically-motivated shooting of a Republican representative at a Congressional softball practice, which thankfully had only one fatality (the gunman, during a shootout with police). The incident did injure multiple people, including Representative Steve Scalise and police officers Crystal Grines and David Bailey. There was also a fatal shooting at a UPS building in San Francisco, resulting in the deaths of four UPS staff members including the shooter. Unlike the Alexandra shooting, police are still trying to determine the motivations in that incident, which does not appear to be politically-motivated. Lastly, there was also a shooting in Brooklyn on the same day, resulting in one injury.
  • Unprecedented AHCA Process. The National News Roundup haven’t covered this story much lately, simply because after all this time, there’s just not much info — but that’s because Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is exploiting a provision called Rule 14 to refuse to release the text of the Senate’s version of the AHCA before the vote. Even Secretary of Health and Human Services (and resident bridge troll) Tom Price hasn’t seen the Senate bill. This is deeply concerning, both because there’s not a lot to suggest the AHCA has changed much and because it goes against the heart of our democratic principles to try to pass such major legislation in utter secrecy. It is imperative that we stay on top of this and also call our representatives — all of us; even those of us with Senators in liberal areas! It’s still looking likely that they’ll release some information to the Congressional Budget Office in the next week, so we might know more (and see a vote!) soon.
  • Sessions v. Medical Marijuana. Sessions personally made sure he asked Congress to let him prosecute medical marijuana cases this week (because apparently sick people aren’t getting steamrolled fast enough for him under the AHCA). At the moment, there is federal law essentially prohibiting this prosecution, though apparently he isn’t going to let pesky things like “existing laws” or “human decency” get in his way. Just as a quick reminder, there is ample evidence that medical marijuana does not lead to increased recreational consumption and can have significant health benefits for people with very serious illness. (Also, on a personal note, this topic is hard for me to write about neutrally because a cannabis-based prescribed drug helped my father-in-law hold down food in the last stages of his cancer treatment.) At any rate, this is a terrible idea that’s probably not truly motivated by public safety, and you can read the whole horrible memo here, though I’m not sure it will improve your day at all.
  • Black Lives Still Matter. This was a rough week in terms of violence against black people, between police shooting a 30-year-old pregnant woman in Seattle named Charleena Lyles instead of deescalating the situation and a jury acquitting Minnesota police officer Jeronimo Yanez of all charges in the shooting of Philando Castile. (The Philando Castile case is particularly upsetting to many people because it happened during a routine stop for a broken taillight, because there’s no concrete evidence that he failed to comply with instructions during the stop, and because his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, had live-streamed and narrated the entire incident.) Needless to say, our country still has a lot of work to do to create more responsible police interaction with people of color.
  • London Woes. This was also an extremely rough week for England, which has been having a hard time of things for a few weeks now. First there was a fire in a high rise in London, burning a 24-story building to ash and killing at least 58 people. Then there was an attack outside a mosque, also in London, in which a driver tried to run down people exiting the building; the attack is believed to be an act of retaliation for the London bridge attacks. The vehicular attack killed at least one person and injured ten others.

The Good:

And that’s all for now, but the news comes in pretty fast. Stay tuned for more updates and anecdotes next week! (No guarantees about more dog videos.)

National News Roundup: Week 20 (June 4–10)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

The news this week is a wild roller coaster ride. We actually saw a lot of positive developments! But it can be hard to really feel that in the middle of the daily grind, and we saw some pretty busted stuff as well. Stay with us and stay fighting, folks; I promise it’s worth it.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week also contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — still a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

Constitutional Crisis Corners:

There was movement on two crises this week, but most of it was positive. Judicial Enforcement was definitely successfully tagged into the ring, and brought their best friend Senate Hearings while they were at it.

Still standing despite a repeated pummeling, at least for now: The Russia Collusion Investigation! Boy did a lot happen on this one this week.

In addition to all your by-now-ordinary Russia weirdness, we also saw some breaking excellent news on The Emolument Clause! More specifically…

  • Maryland and DC are Suing Trump. This is new as of today and I’m really excited about it; the Attorneys General for both Maryland and the District of Columbia are suing Trump for violating the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution. Though this is not the first suit to be brought against him on this issue, it’s the first time a public entity has sued. It seems likely that this suit will not run into the standing issues that have plagued the private case, so we’ll likely see a decision on the merits — but this is all uncharted territory, so who only knows what we’ll see from here.

Your “Normal” Weird:

  • “I Am (Foolishly) Calling it a TRAVEL BAN!”: My coworkers and I discussed recently that Trump must be the worst client in the world to represent, because he keeps undermining his own cases. The latest this week was his insistence on calling his executive order a travel ban, referring to the current iteration as “watered down [and] politically correct.” Needless to say, if you’re taking the position in court that your executive order is not a travel ban, it’s not super wise to announce the exact opposite with lots of exclamation points in a public Twitter tirade. And this did in fact come back to bite him within the week — more on that below.
  • Weird Cardboard Ceremonies. This past week, Trump made sure he had a photo op moment signing… uh, nothing, basically. After Trump announced he wanted to privatize the air traffic control system (which strikes me as a bad idea, but this administration has so many of those that this just makes it Tuesday), he sat down to Sign an Important Order About This Topic. But since he doesn’t actually have the power to do that, he just signed “a decision memo and letter transmitting legislative principles to Congress.” In other words: “Hey, Congress, I want you to do this thing!” (Spoiler: Congress already decided not to do this thing last year.) Then, just to up the executive weirdness ante, Trump held his first full cabinet meeting today. I guess we can now expect all cabinet meetings to include a ceremonial Taking Turns Praising The President as well as the Presidential Embarrassingly-Apparent Falsehood Call to Order.
  • “They’re Not Even People.” Eric Trump had the distinction this week yet again of saying the quiet part out loud, this time in his announcement to Fox News that Democrats “aren’t even people” to him. Which, to be fair, we knew already. But you’re not supposed to say it on live television. (The DNC did not bother to respond directly, which was probably wise.)

The Bad:

The Good:

  • Clean Energy Shuffle. Continuing the efforts that began last week, both Hawaii and California passed legislation in the past week to adhere to the Paris Accord terms. California has agreed to expand cooperation with China to create low-carbon urban development and zero-emission vehicles. Hawaii, in contrast, established a task force to improve soil health and created provisions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generally. These efforts are in tandem with the United States Climate Alliance, though both states are also members.
  • British Special Election Backfires. Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May called a special general election in an effort to push her party’s agenda, which backfired spectacularly when she lost the conservative majority in Parliament instead. The considerably-more-liberal Labour Party won significant gains in Parliament, resulting in a hung Parliament (and muddied waters for upcoming Brexit negotations and the new British order). There’s still likely to be a conservative majority coalition, with the Tories working with the ultra-conservative Democratic Unionist Party, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet, and there might be yet another election if it can’t be pulled together. Either way, Theresa May had to apologize to her base for squandering their majority. That said, since she was making statements about how she planned to ignore human rights just prior to losing the majority, it’s likely the election was a powerful referendum on British views of ultraconservative policies. This is an opportunity for Britain to reorganize in a more moderate fashion before Brexit negotiations begin, which is likely to be a long-term positive, even though the value of the British pound has dropped and it makes the immediate future of Brexit uncertain.
  • 9th Circuit Expands Stay on Travel Ban.: Remember how I mentioned above that Trump got himself in trouble with his travel ban tweets already? That would be because the Ninth Circuit, which heard arguments recently about his new travel ban and the stay put in place by a district court judge, went ahead and considered them when issuing an order to leave the stay in place. (Though that said, the Ninth Circuit decision primarily rests on a finding that the administration failed to show sufficient national interest to justify the ban, not a finding of bad faith.) The Ninth Circuit decision echoes and expands the previous decision made by the Fourth Circuit, extending the stay to the provisions about refugee admissions as well as travel more generally.

And that’s the news that’s fit to print! And some that isn’t, but you heard it here anyway.

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week also contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — still a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

On Russia and News:

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

Your “Normal” Weird:

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

The Bad:

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

The Good:

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

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I’m only summarizing the news within my area of expertise. This week contains multiple headlines outside my area as a legal generalist — I’m a lawyer, not a spy! — but all offroad adventures are marked with an asterisk. Okay, I think that’s about it for the disclaimers. Onward to the news!

The Weird:

The Bad:

The Good:

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

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

National News Roundup: Week 12 (April 9–15)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

Hello, and welcome to the hangry and extra-snarky Passover edition of National News Roundup! The news is still dark and sucking like the quiet vacuum of space — in fact, I think it’s even worse than last week, which is saying something. Let’s try for best out of three, I guess?

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. This week involves a bit less news outside my expertise, which also means fewer off-road adventures, but those that exist are still signaled with asterisks. Okay, caveats over; keep your comfort food at the ready, because here we go.

The Weird:

  • The Great Disappearing Reappearing Same-Sex Marriage. North Carolina legislators in the House introduced a bill repealing recognition of same-gender marriage in their state this week, because… Gorusch, presumably? Actually, it’s not entirely clear why they thought this was a good idea, as the House speaker so candidly notes; the Supreme Court wasn’t exactly ambiguous when they issued a directly contradictory ruling just two years ago. He jettisoned the bill citing ‘constitutional concerns,’ which is a bit like telling the legislators not to throw lit matches into the ocean due to ‘presence of moisture.’ Some things, apparently, are not their own obvious deterrents.
  • Trump Can’t Keep Track of Who He’s Bombed. I wish I were making this one up — well, okay, I wish I were making up almost all of the headlines this week, but this one definitely wins some kind of Most Like a Roald Dahl Villain prize. In an interview with Fox Business this week about last week’s decision to bomb Syria, Trump could remember “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen,” which he apparently was eating at the time, but not which country he was bombing while he ate it. Though, to be fair, this is Trump. He also could have been lying about the cake.
  • Secret Agent Man(afort). Actually, the real secret on this one is whether Manafort, who ran Trump’s campaign for a time, is going to register as a foreign agent or not; the news doesn’t appear to agree on this point (but sources agree that he was doing work for Ukraine). It sure is fun how many of the people Trump directly relies or has relied on since his campaign literally represent other countries, amirite?
  • Separation of Church and Police State. Alabama introduced state legislation this week to grant churches the power to organize police forces, which has passed in its Senate. Yes, you read that right. No, we didn’t repeal the Establishment Clause while you weren’t looking. I guess they figure their next Governor will need extra help behaving.
  • ICE Reports On Ice. More about why this is weird rather than simply good below, but the Department of Homeland Security has put its reports on sanctuary jurisdictions on hold for now. This appears to be at least in part due to jurisdictions filing complaints about errors in the data, though there might be other things at play as well.

The Bad:

  • United: Come for the Police Brutality, Stay for the Scorpions. By now, most of us have seen the incredibly disturbing video of a passenger being brutalized by Chicago Police because he refused to ‘volunteer’ to give up his (legally purchased) seat on a United Airlines plane. The passenger, David Dao, has issued statements through his lawyer saying he never wants to fly again and has memory loss due to concussion; the airline’s stock value also plummeted this week. Then, just for extra confirmation we’re all living in an Onion article, reports came out of a passenger stung by a scorpion on one of their flights the same day. And they didn’t even turn the plane around. I miss the days when they were too busy breaking guitars for this kind of thing.
  • Another Shooting in California. There was another school shooting this week, this time in California. “Only” three dead and one injured — apparently it was a domestic violence murder-suicide that happened to get a couple of kids caught in the crossfire. There’s a much larger conversation to be had here about escalated risk of violence at the point when survivors leave abusers, but for now I’ll just note that this story and the one above it pretty much set the tone of news for this entire week.
  • Gorsuch Swearing. Gorsuch was sworn in this week, and if you have no ipecac syrup at your house you can try reading the official White House statement to induce vomiting instead. The part where he clerked for the Supreme Court Justice who swore him in (Justice Kennedy) was kind of cool, though, if you ignore the Good Ole Boys aspect of it all.
  • Sessions Suspends Forensic Science Commission Session. I know, I know, I should be prosecuted for that headline. But apparently they won’t be able to bring me in, because in a move that even Forbes dislikes, Sessions is ordering the end of an independent commission working on forensic accuracy in criminal prosecution. He hasn’t put any other form of policy review in place instead; he just… disbanded the commission that was supposed to be working on it. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the news suggests our Attorney General — the highest prosecutor in the land — doesn’t care about making sure the correct people are prosecuted for crimes. And in more I-can’t-believe-I’m-writing-this news, this isn’t even the most disturbing thing Sessions did this week.
  • Sessions Border Bombshell. So what’s the thing that trumps our Attorney General not caring about prosecuting the right people? That would be his prepared statements and memorandum about immigration enforcement, which he released on Tuesday. They aren’t what I’d call a fun read — in fact, they deserve a content warning — so here’s a quick summary: He wants police to prioritize felony prosecution of a whole host of things involving immigration, he wants to add more immigration court judges in the next two years, and he wants to stop releasing people prior to deportation at all. The whole tenor of the remarks and orders was very harsh and not necessarily fully legal, and perhaps the quickest way to summarize the whole thing would be to note his use of the word ‘filth’ to refer to actual human beings. Also, there’s some language about “impeding investigation” becoming a felony, making me wonder if they are suspending the reports because they are laying groundwork to just start prosecuting city officials.
  • Spicer Studies World War II (DeVos Edition). Perhaps people didn’t pay more attention to Sessions because Sean Spicer’s adventures in fascism were simply so much louder. First he claimed that Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” which was a pretty spectacular claim all by itself (spoiler: yes he did). When asked to clarify, he explained that Hitler was different because he didn’t use gas on his own people; he used it in “Holocaust centers.” By the end of the week Spicer appeared to have realized that “it was a mistake to do that.” Personally, I suspect the only part of Spicer’s statements that was an actual accident was the part where he revealed how this administration views the Final Solution.
  • Replacing Repeal-and-Replace Repealed. Trump is now saying that they will return to repeal-and-replace plans for the Affordable Care Act after all, though there aren’t a lot of specifics about what that means yet. We do know that he’s threatening to withhold subsidy payments, and I recommend CAHC’s analysis for a thoughtful-as-usual explanation of what that means. (In short: It’s a bad plan.)
  • The Mother of All Bombs (That Aren’t Nuclear).* On this one the headline pretty much says it all; Trump dropped “the mother of all bombs” on Afghanistan in an effort to cripple ISIS, killing at least 94 people. It’s looking increasingly like this was a message to North Korea, to make sure the country understands that Trump might bomb them too (and leading a former ambassador to observe that he’s “trying to out-North-Korea North Korea”).
  • Court of Appeals Judge Body Found. Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a judge on the top court of New York, went missing and was found dead this week. Though there were no signs of trauma on the body, the location of the body suggests heavily that foul play was involved. She had written a decision granting right of same-sex couples to adopt this past summer, and was a widely-respected judge known for liberal pragmatism in general. She was also the first black woman ever to serve on the court.
  • Your Weekly Authoritarian recap. Amy Siskind notes a lot of things beyond what I’ve touched upon above.

The Good:

  • Kansas Cuts it Close. The Kansas special election did go to the Republican candidate, but by only 7 points — which is way lower than is customary for that district. It’s widely regarded as a win for Democrats even though it isn’t, you know, a win for Democrats.
  • Pulitzer Praise. Trump may not like the New York Times, but the people who award the Pulitzer prize sure did — for the same attention to Russia’s activities that makes Trump dislike them (among other reasons). The Washington Post was similarly rewarded for its attention to Trump’s charity scandals during the campaign season. Presumably both the Pulitzer and pissing off Trump are measures of doing something right in the journalism world.
  • Saturn Life Support. Plumes of gas emitted from one of Saturn’s moons suggest that it might have the right conditions to support life, which is pretty exciting!
  • Tiny New Giraffe Friend. April the Improbably Famous Pregnant Giraffe gave birth on Saturday to a tiny male calf! Her son’s name will be subject to viewer vote, so no news on that front. Though I suppose that means you can potentially Be the Giraffe Name You Wish to See in the World! And I recommend watching the videos on the first link, because we can all use a giraffe chaser on a week like this.

National News Roundup: Week 11 (April 2–8)

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

This past week was really rough — quite bluntly, we were due for a bad news cycle, and we absolutely got one. (In fact, a particularly keen observer might notice that these write-ups only ever issue on Mondays during rough news cycles, because I need the extra day to wrack my brain for that spoonful of sugar to help the horridness go down). The news sucked, and as of Monday afternoon, it still is sucking. It is my fervent hope that this will pass.

Standard standing reminders apply: I am no journalist, though I play one in your inbox or browser, so I generally only summarize news in my area of expertise. This week involves a bit less news outside my expertise, which also means fewer off-road adventures, but those that exist are still signaled with asterisks. Also, I am cognizant of the fact that this news review is going out on the first night of Passover, which is a holiday I usually observe; I will re-release the summary mid-week for those who are at seders tonight. Okay, caveats over, and now I give you a moment for the Ceremonial Retrieval of Comfort Food.

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Okay, are we ready to roll? Let’s get this show on the road…

The Weird:

  • Susan Rice Dreams.* Okay that title is admittedly because it amuses me, but a vivid hallucination would certainly explain this past week’s middle-of-the-week attempt to distract the free press — Trump decided that the wiretapping from Obama really did happen, and it was Susan Rice’s fault. This was pretty summarily dismissed by most outlets as the attempted distraction that it was, because there’s nothing to suggest illegal wiretapping at all. It’s pretty clear that the administration quickly understood the strategy wasn’t working — more on that below.
  • Bannon Conundrum.* Bannon has officially been removed from the National Security Council as of this week. “Why isn’t this good news?” I hear you asking, to which I respond: It’s the very fact that we’re not sure it’s good news that makes it weird news instead. I’ve heard people speculating that as a top adviser, Bannon maintains all the clearance of the NSC with none of the oversight. But that said, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Bannon’s star is waning while Kushner’s is rising — which is presumably what prompted this hilarious outburst — so I’m honestly not sure if he’s about to goose-step on out of the White House or not. One can dare to hope, though.
  • Blackwater Basics.* Just in case you forgot how bizarrely incestuous the entire Trump administration is, surprise, Betsy DeVos’s brother turns out to be the Blackwater guy! Oh, and he created a back-door channel to Russian staff for the Trump administration in January, because of course he did. Though by the end of the week, I think this story was mostly forgotten, given how the rest of the week went…
  • Repeal-and-Replace Rodeo. Even I had a hard time tracking the half-baked attempts to make repealing the ACA relevant again this week. I think this CAHC summary says it best: “The smash hit adventure epic The Quest For 216 (votes) continues, and Congress did not manage to get any kind of ACA repeal/replace bill to the finish line before all getting the heck out of Dodge yesterday and today. But . . . the idea now is that if they hit on the magic formula to get the votes (and, more importantly, get the commitments before putting a bill on the floor), Speaker Ryan could call the House back into session during the break to vote on something.” So there you have it.
  • Pepsi in Politics. In what I (and apparently some news outlets) can only describe as a stunningly off-base attempt to monetize Black Lives Matter, Pepsi released an ad this week for a hot second featuring What’s-Her-Name Babyface Jenner and The Deescalating Power of Pepsi. Or, more accurately, The Deescalating Power of Being A White Girl In Front of a Police Officer. As you can imagine, the Internet had a lot to say about this, and the ad was pulled very quickly — the real mystery here is who approved such an obviously ill-advised ad in the first place.

The Bad:

  • Nuclear Gorsuch.* We’re leading with the heavy hitters this week — folks, in my opinion this headline is the single biggest and most important thing to know happened in the past seven days. Note that I’m saying that on a week when we also bombed Syria (and more on the latter below, but stay with me here). The order of operations went something like this: The Democrats filibustered the Gorsuch vote. The Republicans didn’t have 60 votes, which have always been needed to overcome a filibuster and vote in a nominee to the Supreme Court. The Republicans responded by changing the rules so that only a simple majority was needed — a change colloquially known as “the nuclear option,” which was already done for Cabinet appointees in 2013 (and we are reaping the oh-so-fun results of that with cabinet members like Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions, who would not have been confirmed under the old rules). Gorsuch was, of course, confirmed under the new rules, but that’s not the important thing here (and liberals in the back, let go of your pearls long enough to let me explain). Using the nuclear option for Supreme Court nominees was an incredibly foolhardy decision that could literally wreak havoc for generations — it’s so serious, in fact, that an op-ed in the Washington Post this week sincerely called Mitch McConnell, who pulled the trigger, “the man who broke America.” You know how much fun we are having with Sessions and DeVos? (If not, let me tell you about the party that’s been happening on both of those fronts below.) They serve “at the pleasure of the President,” which means the very next President can (and probably will) kick them right out the door. Supreme Court Justices, in contrast, serve for life, and their decisions frequently outlast them — one the Supreme Court decides something, it’s the law until a subsequent Supreme Court overturns them, and that can take decades. And now any incompetent muppet can be rammed through the Senate without bipartisan support, which previously wasn’t possible. Gorsuch is conservative but competent, if you ignore the plagiarism allegations; the next nominee could be a judicial Betsy DeVos. It’s a brave new world of eroded checks and balances.
  • Oh Also, We Bombed Syria.* Trump abruptly announced that chemical weapons were a step too far on Thursday, noting that “no child of God should ever suffer such horror,” and launched fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles at the country. Since it was a pretty severe about-face for a dude who wanted to ban all Syrian refugees indefinitely to suddenly bomb said refugees because they were dying, and also he didn’t consult with Congress (although he did warn Russia), both his actions and his words made a lot of people very nervous. I personally suspect The Onion has the right of it, and this is military theater in the style of Clinton’s Somalia bombing during the Lewinsky scandal. If so, it appears to have worked, so bully for him I guess; watch this space for more updates.
  • All’s Fair In Pay and the Workplace. Though it’s not quite as earth-shattering, Trump also revoked the Fair Pay order put in place by the Obama administration, which, as this Independent headline so succinctly put it, “mak[es] it easier for men to sexually harass women at work and get away with it” (though it also makes it easier to pay women a lower wage). Raise your hand if you’re surprised by this point.
  • Blue Livelihoods Matter Y’all. Sessions ordered federal review with dozens of law enforcement agencies noted for particular police abuses, noting that “the individual misdeeds of bad actors should not impugn” the remaining police force. In what’s apparently signature Sessions fashion, he requested a 90-day delay on finalizing changes to police procedure in Baltimore that were supposed to be heard by a judge 3 days later, which I might characterize in strictly legal terms as “a total jerk move.” So, that’s what Sessions has been up to, per my reference above.
  • Let Them Eat Debt. His lovely education counterpoint, Betsy DeVos, meanwhile, has been issuing guidance about student loans permitting loan companies to charge rates so exorbitant that some companies are hastening to note that they won’t do it, and clarifying that the Department of Education doesn’t really have to honor loan forgiveness programs put in place ten years ago for public service. So that’s what she’s been up to, and it’s equally charming.
  • Your Weekly Authoritarian recap. Amy Siskind has a lot to say this week, surprising nobody, and I recommend reading it.

The Good:

  • 7th Circuit Civil Rights. The main good news of the week was a case that came out of the 7th Circuit, holding that discriminating against lesbians was a form of discriminating against women — an idea that may seem obvious, but from a legal perspective is a new and extremely promising line of precedent for further suits. I’m really curious to see what happens on this case from here, and I will definitely keep folks posted.
  • What’s Cooking in Special Elections. Surprisingly, both Kansas and Georgia are showing signs of potentially going blue in special elections, according to The Cook Political Report — though Georgia is of course more of a possibility than Kansas. In fact, they are calling the Georgia special election “a toss up,” which is pretty awesome for a county that has been Republican since dinosaurs roamed the earth. The Kansas election is tomorrow, though, so hopefully we’ll know more soon! (The Georgia election is not until April 18, so there’s more time on that one either way.)
  • Major Deportation Public Defense Landmark! This past week, New York set up the country’s first public defense program for deportation proceedings. This is an incredibly big deal, and I’m really excited about it — we’ve never before had any jurisdiction that guaranteed representation for anyone facing deportation from the country. I would love to see other locations follow suit, and I’ll definitely keep folks posted on this.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print — thank everything; half that amount of bad news would have been enough! Catch you all next week, hopefully with better tidings.

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

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

The Weird:

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

The Bad:

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

The Good:

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

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

Kara HurvitzLeave a comment

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

The Weird

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

The Bad

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

The Good

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