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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