The Events: November 2018

It's the end of the Month, and here is November's Events. Click the link to dive in, or keep reading for a summary.

November was the Month of the Midterm. Before and of, but mostly after, and the fallout. I wrote an initial reaction, and a reconsideration the following week. Regardless of which is more correct, November included much more than the House and Senate results.

The caravan, which the President used as a tool to enrage his supporters and bring them to the polls for the Midterm, received wide coverage, until the voting concluded. But in the aftermath, there was movement. The President signed a 90 day asylum ban for border-crossers, but a judge delayed its implementation. Later in the month, border agents tear gassed immigrants attempting to cross the border illegally. The border near San Diego was closed temporarily as a result. The President, who derided the caravan daily for two weeks leading up to the Midterms, hasn't used the word since.

After the Midterms, in which Democrats picked up forty House seats and the Speakers gavel, and Republicans acquired two more Senate seats, minimally expanding a slim majority, the President pushed out Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and replaced him with Matthew Whitaker. The acting AG immediately received questions from Democrats (concerned for Mueller's Russia Investigation), who claimed Whitaker couldn't even temporarily hold a position requiring Senate confirmation, because he hadn't been confirmed by the Senate.

Meanwhile, the middle of the month was consumed by the White House's lie that Jim Acosta had violently accosted a White House intern during a question and answer with the President. The White House's shifting reasons for the revocation of his press pass, and the fact that the video they used to defend themselves was edited by Infowars, led a Judge to reinstate Acosta's pass, and the White House admitted they had no standing, when they refused to fight the ruling in court.

As the final results for the Midterms were delayed, and recounts mandated, the President incited his supporters with multiple evidence-less claims of election rigging by Democrats. He said Democrats were stealing the election in Florida, which was especially preposterous because there was almost no chance the recounts for Governor and Senate would overturned the original results. The President even claimed that in Florida, people were voting, changing their clothes, and voting again, a very specific claim, with of course, no support.

Another significant event was the release of the National Climate Assessment, a study on climate change conducted by a collection of major United States agencies, including the EPA and NASA. Though it claimed climate change would lead to significant economic damage to the United States, the President said, “I don't believe it,” as if his dismissal of the facts would alter the outcome. The new EPA chief, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, said he would intervene in the next climate change study. But, the Supreme Court has allowed a major climate lawsuit, by young adults, to move forward. They claimed the government is failing to protect their rights, by aiding devastation of the global ecosystem.

Throughout November, the President continued to protect Saudi (and presumably, his own) interests, by deflecting questions about the murder of US resident Khashoggi. While leaks from the CIA demonstrated their strong belief that Mohammad bin Salman (MSB), the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, directly ordered the murder in Saudi Arabia's embassy in Istanbul, the President refused to condemn this action. While the US and its European allies supposedly had tapes recording his murder, the President refused to listen to them, sided with the Saudi's description of the event over the CIA's, and prevented CIA director Gina Haspel from speaking to Congress. When an overwhelming outcry forced an about face on the last issue, Haspel spoke to Senators, and quite a few Republican Senators said the tapes clearly implicated MSB as the initiator of the operation. The White House also said it would veto a resolution in the Senate which would remove US support from the Saudi atrocities in Yemen.

Immediately after the Midterms, Mueller's investigation accelerated into public view. While Roger Stone and Farage were of interest, Mueller indicted Stone friend and Infowars conspiracist Jerome Corsi. The hints indicated Corsi had worked with Julian Assange to coordinate with the Trump campaign. Just before Thanksgiving the President answered some of the Special Council's questions in a written format. But the biggest news arrived at the end of the month with three bombshells. Paul Manafort, who had agreed to a plea agreement with Mueller in October, had been caught lying to the Special Council. He had also gone behind the council's back and relayed conversations to the President's lawyers. The deal was off. Secondly, Cohen plead guilty and agreed to aid the Special Council. He admitted that even up until the Republican convention, he and others had been trying to secure a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow, and the 50 million dollar penthouse would have been gifted to Putin. He had previously lied under oath to Congress about the deal, supposedly at the President's direction. Lastly, the Guardian reported that Manafort had visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. This last bit was strenuously denied by Wikileaks and questioned by other reporters. As of today it has not been confirmed, and may be bogus.

A few other tidbits.

Ivanka Trump, who works for the White House, sent work emails from an unsecured personal account, which is probably not as bad as Hillary Clinton's mistake of setting up her own server, but unethical and hypocritical.

The President attacked an “Obama judge,” for blocking his asylum ban. When Chief Justice Roberts corrected him, the President escalated his attack.

Finally, the President clothed himself in conspiracies and outrageous behavior. Aside from the numerous incendiary claims about the Midterm results and recounts, he also retweeted a meme showing a number of prominent Democrats (and Republicans) behind bars, including Rod Rosenstein. The next day, he said Rosenstein should be in jail. This is the same Rosenstein who is currently Trump's Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice.

Also, hate crimes are up nearly 20% from 2016 to 2017, Germans want closer ties with Russia/China than the United States, and the President both: considered expelling a man wanted by Turkey so, Turkey would let Saudi Arabia off the hook for the murder of Khashoggi, and asked the DOJ to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey.

But with Cohen's plea, President Trump has been named Individual 1 in legal documentation about the Trump Tower Moscow.

I certainly believe his policies are bad enough, and we'll have to wait to see more from the Mueller investigation.

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