Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 9 June 2016, Day 141:

Calling Former F.B.I. Director James Comey a Liar, Trump Says He Will Testify Under Oath, The New York Times, Friday, 9 June 2017: “President Trump on Friday accused James B. Comey, the fired F.B.I. director, of lying under oath to Congress, saying he would gladly provide sworn testimony disputing Mr. Comey’s charge that the president forced him out because of his handling of the investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia. Mr. Trump asserted that the comments on Thursday by Mr. Comey, whom he called ‘a leaker,’ had proved that there was no collusion between his campaign and Moscow, nor any obstruction of justice by the president. He hinted again that he had tapes of his private talks with the former F.B.I. chief that would disprove Mr. Comey’s account, but declined to confirm the existence of any recordings…. He dismissed Mr. Comey’s testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which is investigating whether his campaign worked with Russia to sway the election, as a politically motivated stunt orchestrated by adversaries bitter about his victory in November.” See also, Trump accuses James Comey of lying and says he’d ‘100 percent’ agree to testify in the Russia probe, The Washington Post, Philip Rucker and David Nakamura, Friday, 9 June 2017: “Trump emphatically declared his innocence yet refused to solve a mystery of his own making by stating whether he has tapes of his one-on-one conversations with Comey. Any such recordings could prove which man’s account is accurate, but the president played coy, saying he would wait ‘a fairly short period of time’ to tell the public whether tapes exist, as he first suggested they might in May. ‘Oh, you’re going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer,’ he told reporters. ‘Don’t worry.'” See also, Trump’s Interactions With James Comey: Criminal or Clueless? The New York Times, Carl Hulse, Friday, 9 June 2017: “Speaker Paul D. Ryan sought to excuse President Trump’s overtures to James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, about pulling the plug on an investigation as a stumble by a political novice unfamiliar with the strict conventions of the capital. ‘He’s just new to this,’ said Mr. Ryan, noting that Mr. Trump ‘wasn’t steeped in the long-running protocols’ of how a president should interact with federal law enforcement agencies. To Mr. Comey, it was the opposite: When Mr. Trump pressed him on the inquiry into the ousted national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, and his contacts with Russian officials, the president was fully aware he was nearing if not overstepping a legal boundary into possible obstruction of justice. Mr. Comey suggested very strongly that Mr. Trump’s acute sensitivity to his behavior was why he cleared the Oval Office of other high-level officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Vice President Mike Pence, before one particularly delicate discussion. As Thursday’s extraordinary Senate Intelligence Committee appearance by Mr. Comey unfolded, it quickly became clear that the interpretation of Mr. Trump’s intentions at that moment and in other crucial interactions with Mr. Comey will be a central element of the investigations by both Congress and the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.” And see also, Trump Calls Former F.B.I. Director James Comey a ‘Leaker.’ What Does That Mean? The New York Times, Charlie Savage, Friday, 9 June 2017.

Republicans’ Secretive Plan for Health Care, The New York Times, Miranda Yaver, Friday, 9 June 2017: “While many Americans make sense of James Comey’s testimony on his meetings with President Trump, Republican senators are quietly moving toward something that has been their party’s goal for nearly eight years: dismantling the Affordable Care Act. The question, of course, is how they plan to replace it. Republicans in the Senate will need 50 votes to pass their version of the American Health Care Act. Several senators have expressed reservations about the House version of the bill, which withdraws federal support for Planned Parenthood and rolls back the Medicaid expansion accomplished by the A.C.A.. Despite the lack of consensus within the party, Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, on Wednesday began the process of fast-tracking the bill under Rule 14, which enables the Senate to bypass the committee process and instead move the bill on to the Senate calendar for a vote as soon as it is ready. This will allow the legislation to move much as it did in the House – swiftly and secretively. The Senate aims to vote by the end of the month, and will probably do so with no hearings. This stands in stark contrast to the process leading up to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which included over 100 congressional hearings. The A.H.C.A.’s fast-tracking is not driven by necessity, but rather by the concern that a more transparent legislative process would lay bare the reality that the bill, if passed, would cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance and drive up costs for millions of others.”

Trump Commits the United States to Defending NATO Nations, The New York Times, Peter Baker, Friday, 9 June 2017: “President Trump on Friday reaffirmed the longstanding United States commitment to come to the defense of any NATO members that are attacked, more than two weeks after his refusal to do so during a trip to Europe stirred resentment among America’s traditional allies. The White House also announced that Mr. Trump will travel to Poland next month before heading to Germany for a Group of 20 summit meeting, a visit meant to reassure Eastern European allies at a time when they feel nervous about aggression by Russia after its intervention in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member. European leaders were disappointed last month when Mr. Trump did not explicitly endorse the mutual defense doctrine articulated in Article 5 of the NATO charter while visiting the alliance headquarters in Brussels. A line in his speech was taken out at the last minute, to the chagrin of the president’s national security team. ‘I’m committing the United States to Article 5,’ Mr. Trump said during a news conference on Friday with President Klaus Iohannis of Romania in the White House Rose Garden. ‘And certainly, we are there to protect and that’s one of the reasons that I want people to make sure we have a very, very strong force by paying the kind of money necessary to have that force. But yes, absolutely, I’d be committed to Article 5.’ Article 5 states that ‘an armed attack against one or more’ members ‘in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all’ and has been the bedrock of the trans-Atlantic relationship for nearly seven decades. Mr. Trump raised doubts about the commitment during his campaign last year when he said he would come to the defense only of allies that have fulfilled financial obligations.”

Continue reading Week 21, Friday, 9 June-Thursday, 15 June 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 26 May 2017, Day 127:

Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak told Moscow that Jared Kushner wanted secret communications channel with Kremlin, The Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima, Adam Entous, and Greg Miller, Friday, 26 May 2017: “Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports. Ambassador Sergey Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, son-in-law and confidant to then-President-elect Trump, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications. The meeting also was attended by Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser. The White House disclosed the meeting only in March, playing down its significance. But people familiar with the matter say the FBI now considers the encounter, as well as another meeting Kushner had with a Russian banker, to be of investigative interest. Kislyak reportedly was taken aback by the suggestion of allowing an American to use Russian communications gear at its embassy or consulate — a proposal that would have carried security risks for Moscow as well as the Trump team.” See also, Jared Kushner Is Said to Have Discussed a Secret Channel to Talk to Russia, The New York Times, Maggie Haberman, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo, Friday, 26 May 2017: “Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, spoke in December with Russia’s ambassador to the United States about establishing a secret communications channel between the Trump transition team and Moscow to discuss strategy in Syria and other policy issues, according to three people with knowledge of the discussion.”

Jared Kushner trying to secretly talk to the Russians is the biggest billow of smoke yet, The Washington Post, Amber Phillips, Friday, 26 May 2017: “The Washington Post’s national security team just reported that during the transition, Jared Kushner proposed to the Russians that they set up a secret channel of communication using secure Russian facilities. That’s what the Russian ambassador to the United States told Moscow about a December conversation he had with Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser. This is a damning piece of news for the White House caught under an avalanche of revelations about its dealings with Russia. If it’s true, it’s the most difficult for them to explain in the context of an FBI investigation into Russia meddling in the U.S. election and whether Trump’s campaign helped. Why would Trump’s transition team need to secretly talk to the Russians, using their Russian channels? The White House declined to comment.”

Sources: Then-FBI Director James Comey acted on Russian intelligence he knew was fake, CNN Politics, Dana Bash, Shimon Prokupecz, and Gloria Borger, Friday, 26 May 2017: “Then-FBI Director James Comey knew that a critical piece of information relating to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email was fake — created by Russian intelligence — but he feared that if it became public it would undermine the probe and the Justice Department itself, according to multiple officials with knowledge of the process. As a result, Comey acted unilaterally last summer to publicly declare the investigation over — without consulting then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch — while at the same time stating that Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information. His press conference caused a firestorm of controversy and drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans. Comey’s actions based on what he knew was Russian disinformation offer a stark example of the way Russian interference impacted the decisions of the highest-level US officials during the 2016 campaign. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that this Russian intelligence was unreliable. US officials now tell CNN that Comey and FBI officials actually knew early on that this intelligence was indeed false. In fact, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe went to Capitol Hill Thursday to push back on the notion that the FBI was duped, according to a source familiar with a meeting McCabe had with members of the Senate intelligence committee.”

Continue reading Week 19, Friday, 26 May-Thursday, 1 June 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 19 May 2017, Day 120:

Russia probe reaches current Trump White House official, people familiar with the case say, The Washington Post, Devlin Barrett and Matt Zapotosky, Friday, 19 May 2017: “The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter. The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone close to the president, according to these people, who would not further identify the official. The revelation comes as the investigation appears to be entering a more overtly active phase, with investigators shifting from work that has remained largely hidden from the public to conducting interviews and using a grand jury to issue subpoenas. The intensity of the probe is expected to accelerate in the coming weeks, the people said. The sources emphasized that investigators remain keenly interested in people who previously wielded influence in the Trump campaign and administration but are no longer part of it, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.”

Trump Told Russian Officials in the Oval Office on 10 May That Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey Eased Pressure From the Russian Investigation, The New York Times, Matt Apuzzo, Maggie Haberman, and Matthew Rosenberg, Friday, 19 May 2017: “President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting. ‘I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,’ Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. ‘I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.’ Mr. Trump added, ‘I’m not under investigation.’  The conversation, during a May 10 meeting — the day after he fired Mr. Comey — reinforces the notion that the president dismissed him primarily because of the bureau’s investigation into possible collusion between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russian operatives. Mr. Trump said as much in one televised interview, but the White House has offered changing justifications for the firing. The comments represented an extraordinary moment in the investigation, which centers in part on the administration’s contacts with Russian officials: A day after firing the man leading that inquiry, Mr. Trump disparaged him — to Russian officials. The White House document that contained Mr. Trump’s comments was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office and has been circulated as the official account of the meeting. One official read quotations to The Times, and a second official confirmed the broad outlines of the discussion. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, did not dispute the account.”

First on CNN: Russian officials bragged they could use Flynn to influence Trump, sources say, CNN Politics, Gloria Borger, Pamela Brown, Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen, and Eric Lichtblau, Friday, 19 May 2017: “Russian officials bragged in conversations during the presidential campaign that they had cultivated a strong relationship with former Trump adviser retired Gen. Michael Flynn and believed they could use him to influence Donald Trump and his team, sources told CNN. The conversations deeply concerned US intelligence officials, some of whom acted on their own to limit how much sensitive information they shared with Flynn, who was tapped to become Trump’s national security adviser, current and former governments officials said. ‘This was a five-alarm fire from early on,’ one former Obama administration official said, ‘the way the Russians were talking about him.’ Another former administration official said Flynn was viewed as a potential national security problem. The conversations picked up by US intelligence officials indicated the Russians regarded Flynn as an ally, sources said. That relationship developed throughout 2016, months before Flynn was caught on an intercepted call in December speaking with Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Sergey Kislyak. That call, and Flynn’s changing story about it, ultimately led to his firing as Trump’s first national security adviser. Officials cautioned, however, that the Russians might have exaggerated their sway with Trump’s team during those conversations.”

Continue reading Week 18, Friday, 19 May – Thursday, 25 May 2017, Days 120-126:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 5 May 2017, Day 106:

Measure on Pre-existing Conditions Energizes Opposition to the Republican Health Bill, The New York Times, Alexander Burns and Abby Goodnough, Friday, 5 May 2017: “From the moment the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a plan to overhaul the health care system, an onslaught of opposition to the bill has been focused on a single, compact term: pre-existing conditions. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee began running digital ads warning that the legislation would leave ‘no more protections’ for people with a history of illness or injury. Pointing to the power that states could have to set the terms for insurers under the G.O.P. bill, Democratic leaders announced they would make pre-existing conditions an issue in every gubernatorial and state legislative race in the country.” See also, Late-night hosts blast Republican health-care bill: ‘Those ramifications are disastrous,’ The Washington Post, Emily Yahr, Friday, 5 May 2017.

Senate Intelligence Committee Asks Trump Associates for Records of Communication With Russians, The New York Times, Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman, Friday, 5 May 2017:”The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked a number of high-profile Trump campaign associates to hand over emails and other records of dealings with Russians as part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election and is prepared to subpoena those who refuse to cooperate, officials said. The requests for the materials were made in letters sent by the committee in the past 10 days, said two officials with knowledge of the contents of the letters. The move is designed to accelerate the committee’s investigation, and represents a new bipartisan challenge to the Trump administration, which has sought to use Republican allies in Congress to blunt the inquiries. Among those who said they had received the requests were Roger J. Stone Jr., an informal adviser to President Trump, and Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman, and Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, were also sent letters, the officials with knowledge of the investigation said. Representatives for those two men declined to comment. Any decision to issue subpoenas would require a majority vote by members of the intelligence committee.”

After promising to cooperate, ex-Trump adviser Carter Page turns the inquiry back on the Senate Intelligence Committee panel, The Washington Post, Rosalind S. Helderman, Friday, 5 May 2017: “Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser whose interactions with Russia are under FBI investigation, has repeatedly said he wants to cooperate with Congress’s Russia probes to clear his name. But in a letter this week to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Page appeared to initially duck specific questions regarding his interactions with Russian officials, suggesting that the panel seek that information from inside the U.S. government instead. In an email to The Post, Page characterized the letter as a ‘preliminary response’ to a Senate request that he begin providing detailed information no later than May 9, leaving open the possibility he will release more information to the committee in coming days. But he titled the letter a response to  ‘request for even more irrelevant data’ and asked that the committee first release to him information the government has collected through surveillance ‘as a starting point.’ The FBI last summer obtained a secret court order to monitor Page’s communications after convincing a federal judge that there was probable cause to believe the energy consultant was acting as an agent of the Russian government. Page has angrily denied that allegation in a series of media interviews and public statements, insisting he is the victim of a smear campaign by Democrats.”

Continue reading Week 16, Friday, 5 May – Thursday, 11 May 2017:

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There is no Planet B

Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 28 April 2017, Day 99:

Trump signs executive order to expand oil and gas drilling off America’s coasts: ‘We’re opening it up.’ The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, Friday, 28 April 2017: “President Trump signed an executive order Friday that aims to expand offshore drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, as well as assess whether energy exploration can take place in marine sanctuaries in the Pacific and Atlantic. The ‘America-First Offshore Energy Strategy’ will make millions of acres of federal waters eligible for oil and gas leasing, just four months after President Barack Obama withdrew these areas from possible development. In late December, Obama used a little-known provision in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to bar energy exploration in large portions of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, and a string of canyons in the Atlantic stretching from Massachusetts to Virginia.” See also, Trump to Expand Offshore Oil and Gas Drilling and to Reconsider Rules Designed to Prevent a Repeat of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster, Bloomberg Politics, Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Friday, 28 April 2017: “The executive order…instructs Zinke to review a raft of protections governing offshore drilling, including a measure designed to address shortcomings revealed by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, triggered when a BP Plc well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting explosion killed 11 workers and spewed millions of barrels of crude.”

Trump Targets Undocumented Families, Not Felons, in First 100 Days, The Intercept, Ryan Devereaux, Friday, 28 April 2017: “In 2014, after years of bitter fighting in Washington over comprehensive immigration reform, Barack Obama announced that his administration would provide protection from deportation to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants living in the country, shifting its enforcement focus to ‘felons, not families.’ The White House, by that time, had overseen the deportation of nearly 2 million people — according to an analysis by the New York Times, two-thirds of those cases involved individuals ‘who had committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all.’ Obama’s DHS secretary, Jeh Johnson, operationalized the policy shift in a memo calling on his personnel to exercise prosecutorial discretion in order to prioritize enforcement of immigration laws against individuals who posed a threat to national security, border security, or public safety. The memo did not stop the Obama administration from deporting people who lacked criminal records or whose only offense was an immigration violation — a December 2016 analysis by the Marshal Project found roughly 60 percent of the 300,000 people deported after the president’s speech fit that description — and advocates would often argue that splitting the immigrant population into two groups created its own set of problems. Still, defenders of the administration’s efforts say, it was something. At the very least, Immigration and Customs Enforcement was supposed to be targeting its efforts with an eye toward more dangerous individuals, even if the reality on the ground was much different…. This month [April 2017], the Washington Post reported that arrests of undocumented immigrants with no criminal record have more than doubled under the Trump administration. The paper described the push as ‘the clearest sign yet that President Trump has ditched his predecessor’s protective stance toward most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.’… [T]he ‘noncriminal’ ICE arrests seen during the first three months of the Trump administration are more than double those reported over the same period in 2016 — in fact, the numbers from this year are more than those from 2016 and 2015 combined. However, the number of noncriminal arrests over the first three months of 2017 is lower than the number of noncriminal arrests during the same period in 2014. During that three-month period, which was before the Obama-era prioritization memo was issued, ICE arrested 7,483 noncriminals and 21,745 criminals, compared to 5,441 noncriminals and 15,921 criminals under Trump. In other words, the Trump administration appears to be moving enforcement back to a pre-2014 prioritization memo framework, in which immigrants with clean criminal records are fair game for enforcement.”

Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, Responds to Trump’s N.R.A. Speech With Photos of Shooting Victims, The New York Times, Matt Stevens, Friday, 28 April 2017: “As President Trump took the stage to champion the Second Amendment at a National Rifle Association convention on Friday, a United States senator sought to counter his message by unleashing a Twitter storm using the names, ages and pictures of gun violence victims. Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who has fought for increased gun control since the 2012 school massacre in his home state, posted on Twitter on Friday morning to urge his followers not to watch Mr. Trump’s speech and instead, ‘think about who we are fighting for.'”

Continue reading Week 15, Friday, 28 April – Thursday, 4 May 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently.

I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 21 April 2017, Day 93:

Putin-linked think tank drew up plan to sway 2016 US presidential election, Reuters, Ned Parker, Jonathan Landay and John Walcott, Friday, 21 April 2017: “A Russian government think tank controlled by Vladimir Putin developed a plan to swing the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Donald Trump and undermine voters’ faith in the American electoral system, three current and four former U.S. officials told Reuters. They described two confidential documents from the think tank as providing the framework and rationale for what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was an intensive effort by Russia to interfere with the Nov. 8 election. U.S. intelligence officials acquired the documents, which were prepared by the Moscow-based Russian Institute for Strategic Studies [en.riss.ru/], after the election. The institute is run by retired senior Russian foreign intelligence officials appointed by Putin’s office. The first Russian institute document was a strategy paper written last June that circulated at the highest levels of the Russian government but was not addressed to any specific individuals. It recommended the Kremlin launch a propaganda campaign on social media and Russian state-backed global news outlets to encourage U.S. voters to elect a president who would take a softer line toward Russia than the administration of then-President Barack Obama, the seven officials said. A second institute document, drafted in October and distributed in the same way, warned that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was likely to win the election. For that reason, it argued, it was better for Russia to end its pro-Trump propaganda and instead intensify its messaging about voter fraud to undermine the U.S. electoral system’s legitimacy and damage Clinton’s reputation in an effort to undermine her presidency, the seven officials said. The current and former U.S. officials spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the Russian documents’ classified status. They declined to discuss how the United States obtained them. U.S. intelligence agencies also declined to comment on them.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions takes step toward enforcing threat to strip funding from ‘sanctuary cities,’ The Washington Post, Matt Zapotosky, Friday, 21 April 2017: “Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday demanded that nine jurisdictions produce proof that they are communicating with federal authorities about undocumented immigrants or risk losing grant funding. Sessions sent letters to the nine jurisdictions, including Philadelphia, New York and Chicago, in the latest sign that the Trump administration intends to punish what are sometimes called sanctuary cities that do not cooperate in its promised crackdown on illegal immigration. President Trump signed an executive order in January declaring that sanctuary jurisdictions would not be eligible to receive federal grants, and Sessions vowed last month during a White House news conference to take Justice Department money from such places. How far Trump can go, though, and what jurisdictions can do to avoid his ire, remains unclear…. The letters were addressed to officials in New Orleans; Philadelphia; Chicago; New York City; Clark County, Nev.; Miami-Dade County, Fla.; Milwaukee County, Wis.; Cook County, Ill.; and the state of California…. The release said New York, for example, “continues to see gang murder after gang murder, the predictable consequence of the city’s ‘soft on crime’ stance.” New York, in fact, has seen significant recent reductions in crime.… The grants at stake provide federal funding for a host of functions in the criminal-justice system — including policing, victim-and-witness initiatives, crime prevention, drug-treatment programs and technology improvements…. When someone is arrested on a local crime, their fingerprints are run through the FBI database, and — whether local authorities like it or not — ICE can tell if they are in the country illegally. It then often will send a request to local authorities to detain such people. Refusing to honor such a request would not necessarily violate federal law. But telling local police officers, for example, that they could not give information to their ICE counterparts might.”

U.S. Rejects Exxon Mobil Bid for Waiver on Russia Sanctions, The New York Times, Clifford Krauss, Friday, 21 April 2017: “The Trump administration delivered a setback to Exxon Mobil on Friday, announcing that it would not grant the oil giant a waiver from sanctions against Russia that would allow drilling in the Black Sea. The decision, reinforcing barriers erected by the United States over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, was another sign that President Trump has been unwilling or unable to improve relations with the Kremlin early in his term, after pledging as a candidate that he would seek a thaw. ‘In consultation with President Donald J. Trump,’ Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a terse, prepared statement, ‘the Treasury Department will not be issuing waivers to U.S. companies, including Exxon, authorizing drilling prohibited by current Russian sanctions.’ The prospect of a waiver had drawn denunciations from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers…. The matter was complicated by the continuing congressional scrutiny of reports of Russian intervention in support of Mr. Trump in last year’s election, and by Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson’s role as Exxon Mobil’s chief executive until the president nominated him for his current position.”

Continue reading Week 14, Friday, 21 April – Thursday, 27 April 2017:

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Keeping Track (of some things), Staying Outraged (it is possible), and Resisting (it’s essential)

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

Friday, 14 April 2017, Day 85:

White House to Keep Its Visitor Logs Secret, Breaking With Obama Policy of Releasing White House Visitor Logs, The New York Times, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Friday, 14 April 2017: “The White House announced Friday that it would cut off public access to visitor logs revealing who is entering the White House complex and which officials they are meeting, breaking with the Obama administration’s practice and returning a cloak of secrecy over the basic day-to-day workings of the government. The decision — which White House officials said was necessary for reasons of national security — was the latest attempt by President Trump, who has promised to ‘drain the swamp’ in Washington, to shield his activities from scrutiny. It effectively bars the public from knowing which activists, lobbyists, political donors and others are gaining access to the president and his aides on a daily basis. It also is a stark reversal from the policy adopted by President Barack Obama, who voluntarily released more than six million White House visitor records, even as his administration fought successfully in federal court for the right to keep some of the information secret. The announcement was another turnabout for Mr. Trump after a week of changing course on an array of domestic and foreign policy matters. In a 2012 posting on Twitter, he chided Mr. Obama for failing to release certain records, including college transcripts, as President George W. Bush had. ‘Hiding something?’ Mr. Trump wrote then…. The new policy, reported by Time magazine, drew scathing criticism from government watchdog groups, some of which filed suit against the Trump administration this week to obtain the records. Tom Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, said the national security argument was ‘a falsehood’ because the Obama-era policy already made such exceptions. His organization is among three that sued the government this week for visitor logs from the White House; the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.; and Trump Tower.”

China Warns of ‘Storm Clouds Gathering’ in U.S.-North Korea Standoff, The New York Times, Gerry Mullany, Chris Buckley and David E. Sanger, Friday, 14 April 2017: “China warned on Friday that tensions on the Korean Peninsula could spin out of control, as North Korea said it could test a nuclear weapon at any time and a United States naval group neared the peninsula — an American effort to sow doubt in Pyongyang over how President Trump might respond. ‘The United States and South Korea and North Korea are engaging in tit for tat, with swords drawn and bows bent, and there have been storm clouds gathering,’ China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said in Beijing, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. ‘If they let war break out on the peninsula, they must shoulder that historical culpability and pay the corresponding price for this,’ Mr. Wang said. The comments were unusually blunt from China, which has been trying to steer between the Trump administration’s demands for it to do more to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and its longstanding reluctance to risk a rupture with the North. The remarks also reflected, American experts said, an effort by the Chinese to throw responsibility for what happens back on Washington, after Mr. Trump declared, in several Twitter messages, that it was up to the Chinese to contain their neighbor and sometime partner.”

Censorship at the Border Threatens Free Speech Everywhere, Just Security, Jameel Jaffer, Friday, 14 April 2017: “Defending one’s political and religious beliefs to government officials is an obligation we associate with life in authoritarian regimes, not open societies. It’s becoming common, though, for foreign citizens who visit the United States—and even for Americans returning home after travel abroad—to be interrogated about their beliefs by customs and border personnel. These days, those seeking admission to the United States may also be required to surrender their cellphones and laptops, which can supply border agents with a wealth of information about travelers’ associations, communications, and activities online. Border agents use that information to draw conclusions, sound or not, about travelers’ ideological commitments. Now the Trump administration, under the rubric of ‘extreme vetting,’ is considering taking a further step by mandating that non-citizens disclose their social media handles and passwords and answer questions about ideology as a condition of admission to the country. The aim is to empower consular and border officials to ensure that would-be visitors to the United States embrace American values, a concept that the Trump administration has not defined. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly defended the idea in congressional testimony last week.  ‘If they don’t cooperate,” he said of aspiring visitors, ‘they can go back.'”

Continue reading Week 13, Friday, 14 April – Thursday, 20 April 2017:

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