I've written continuously how the
Presidential Events (as I'm now calling them) are for me. But I also
hope they are for you. For those unwilling or unable to keep
up with the activities of the President each month, this can
hopefully serve as a short, 2,000 word summary, where you can click on
the links to learn more.
Without further ado, the link,
and the article below.
Immigration
The
Pentagon
halted 127 projects to fund the 3.6 billion request
by the Trump administration when they declared an emergency at the
border. Four
hundred million of that comes from money directed to aid Puerto
Rico's recovery.
Eleven
Republican Senators voted to cancel the national emergency
and halt the construction of the wall, but
the President vetoed the bill.
Wall
construction began in a Unesco reserve
along the border, and the Department
of the Interior transferred 560 acres of public land to the U.S. Army
to build 70 miles of wall.
Judges
initially said the
Trump asylum ban was unconstitutional,
but the Supreme
Court disagreed, and reinstated it.
Another judge blocked
the White House's plan to indefinitely detain migrant families.
Trump asked the Supreme
Court to strike down DACA, claiming, Congress would fix it if they
did.
The
Trump Administration also inked deals with El
Salvador
and Honduras,
along with Mexico,
which, along with the previous deal with Guatemala effectively
dismantles the asylum system.
Sure, one thinks, Trump dislikes people coming illegally (though
claiming asylum isn't illegal) to the United States. But then one
learns the President
lowered the number of legal refugees to the United States from a
historic low of 30,000 in 2018/2019 to 18,000 in 2019/2020.
This in
spite of the highest number of refugees in the history of the modern
world.
Foreign Policy
North
Korea launched only two missiles
without any comment from the White House. Trade
between China and US was down significantly due to the ongoing trade
war.
When a Saudi oil field was attacked, the President tweeted that
the United States was locked and loaded,
and ready to attack the assailant, as if the nation was Saudi
Arabia's attack dog. More
troops were deployed
to aid this barbaric regime, while sanctions
against Iran were increased.
The
public
learned that
secret talks between the Taliban and the United States had produced a
provisional accord, when a Taliban bomb killed an American soldier.
The President, who had invited Taliban leaders to Camp David to
finalize the deal, backed
out, canceled the meeting, and declared talks dead.
And
as Israeli elections neared, the
President mulled an US – Israel defense treaty.
Emboldened, PM Netanyahu
issued plans to annex parts of the West Bank if reelected.
Former Secretary
of State Rex Tillerson said, Israel played (and continues to play)
Trump.
Economy
The
President continued to trash the Federal Reserve for not acceding to
his demands. He was upset when
they implemented only modest rate cuts,
instead of cutting
rates to zero.
This, in spite of the President's
claim that the economy is the greatest in the history of the U.S.,
and a
trillion dollar deficit.
The Environment
Greta
Thunberg, the sixteen year old from Sweden, who mobilized a mass
movement to confront the inaction of politicians on climate change,
spoke at the UN conference in New York. The President retweeted
a portion of her speech,
with the statement, “She seems like a very happy young girl
looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.” He was either
too oblivious to understand a single thing she said, or he was the
biggest ass to trivialize her blistering speech. She
got a measure of revenge.
It's not surprising to learn the
President doesn't care about global warming. The
United States Senate says the White House buried over one thousand
climate studies over the last three years. The
President recently declared that California would lose its ability to
set vehicle emission standards, but
twenty-three
states joined with California to sue the federal government
over the proposed change. And the Administration
opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling,
while a
judge blocked a decision last month by the White House to allow
logging in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
Meanwhile, the EPA
repealed regulations to protect the nation's water and public health,
while the White House picked
an anti-animal protection advocate to lead the US Fish and Wildlife
Service.
Staff
The regular revolving door of staff
changes claimed two during the month of September. Temporary FEMA
chief Jeffrey Byard, who
was nominated to gain the title permanently, was pulled after news
broke of an altercation. The White House
nominated Pete
Gaynor instead. The bigger news revolved
around bomb everything Bolton.
After repeatedly disagreeing with the President about how to flex
military muscle, he
quit, or was fired,
depending on which side one believes. Either way, John
Bolton is not going quietly. For some reason,
the news pretended as if only Bolton, and not Trump, was likely to
lead the nation to war. While the President seems to detest the idea
of a drawn out engagement with a small force, he relishes threatening
foreign nations with devastation. If he could drop a bomb and wipe
of the populations of North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran how many
doubt he would do so. He's talked
about fire and fury, threatened
Iran with obliteration, and speculated
about wiping out Afghanistan, as casually as if
he were swatting a mosquito. Bolton was a problem, but the person
that hired him is the real issue.
The Trump Administration also hired
three new officials. Anti-labor
Eugene Scalia, son of former Supreme Court Justice Antoin Scalia, was confirmed by the Senate as Labor Secretary.
Republican mega-donor,
Kelly Craft, who while ambassador to Canada was in the United States
for half of the time, was approved as UN Ambassador.
And Robert
C. O’Brien was promoted to replaced Bolton as Trump's fourth
National Security Adviser.
Sharpiegate
Vox, which readers known I use to write
these articles, initially didn't think Sharpiegate was worth covering
(even as it covered it, to tell readers to stop paying attention). I
disagree, but first, a timeline.
After Trump
claimed that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama,
the
Birmingham National Weather Service corrected him.
Three days later, in a public meeting, the President displayed an
official NOAA document showing the path of the hurricane, with an
appendaged black circle drawn next to the official white path.
The public speculated that the President had added the black circle
(which included Alabama) to prove his point about the path of the
hurricane. Note, no one ever denied that the President added the
circle himself.
The National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an unsigned
statement defending the President, which
was weakly condemned by NOAA chief, as he tried
to placate by both sides. Both statements were
strongly condemned by NOAA's top scientists,
and it soon became clear why NOAA officials acted as they did.
Commerce
Secretary Wilbur Ross threatened to fire NOAA officials if they didn't
defend the president.
While others may see Trump's lies about
the weather as a distraction it doesn't seem that way to me, because
it was an outrageous abuse of power, and because I trust people can
keep track of more than one thing at a time. But the President is so
petulant he can't even be undercut for a second by his own weather
agency. Also, it
is a crime to alter a National Weather Service forecast.
The Republican Search for an
Alternative
According to polls, between 85% and 90%
of Republicans support the President, but three former Republican
officials are seeking to unseat Trump. Former South Carolina
Governor, US Representative, Tea-partier, and why have you been in
Argentina for a week when you said you were hiking the Appalachian
Trail, Mark
Sanford, joined Joe Walsh and Bill Weld to challenge Trump for the
Presidency. The
latter two held a small debate, which Sanford
and the President refused to attend.
After Nancy Pelosi declared the opening
of an impeachment inquiry (more on that later), three Republicans (in
addition to former
Republican – now Libertarian - Justin Amash)
came out in support to the inquiry. Republican
Governor Phil Scott (VT) formally backed the investigation,
as did
GOP Representative Mark Amodei (NV), and former
Senator
Jeff Flake, who said he would not vote for the President.
Russia
I always save the best for later. The
stuff above is important too, but Republican's aren't going to
impeach the President because he doesn't care about the environment,
insults sixteen year olds, wastes money on expensive boondoggles,
hates foreigners, or can't keep a permanent staff.
The biggest bombshell was the release
of further information about Trump's 2017 meeting with Russians in
the Oval Office. At the time it was reported that he
told Russian Ambassador and others that firing FBI director Comey
relieved great pressure. The Washington Post
reported in September that the President
also told Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Kislyak that he was unconcerned
about election interference in 2016. The same
story further added that information about the meeting was locked
down in a secure system.
Calls between Trump and Putin, along with calls with Saudi Prince MBS
(murderer of Khashoggi) were tightly restricted,
preventing the usual people from seeing transcripts. Russia
demanded that the United States must ask to release Putin-Trump call
transcripts, and who thinks they'll approve?
The
CIA removed a spy from Russia for fear Trump would compromise the
person, as he has done with the Russian
ambassador in that same 2017 meeting in the Oval Office.
And while Trump repeatedly said Mueller
closed the case on 2016 (and I strongly disagree), an investigation
by the Senate revealed that the NRA
acted as a foreign asset by providing access to US politics for
Russian officials in the 2016 election.
Recently, the President claimed he was working on a plan
about guns and background checks to end America's repeated gun
massacres, but he quickly backed off. He
met with the NRA CEO to trade political support for financial
support. And Trump, along with Attorney
General Barr pressured foreign governments to repudiate the Russia
investigation. Trump
pushed the Australian PM to investigate, and
Barr
met with British and Italian officials to discuss the investigation
of the investigation. Barr says the Russia
investigation was a Democratic ploy to discredit Trump and win the
2016 election. Bad news for him, nothing was known publicly about
the investigation until after the election. The investigation was a
reaction to the candidate's creeps searching for dirt everywhere and
anywhere.
Corruption
First, the President has repeatedly
claimed he will release his tax returns, his financial details, his
personal information, just as soon as possible, potentially tomorrow.
He
made the claim again in September. It is, of
course, a lie. Therefore, any claim he makes about losing money, or
about not making money, is at best, merely unverifiable, but at
worst, a complete fabrication.
So when Vice
President Mike Pence, stayed at a Trump Hotel in Ireland, one hundred
and eighty miles from his meetings, that's completely normal.
The story about how the VP decided on this hotel was murky. VP
chief of state said it was a last minute change, a matter of safety
and convenience, and a suggestion by the President himself.
The bigger story was about a different
Trump Hotel in Scotland, Turnberry. Politico
initially reported that the military spent eleven million on fuel
alone at the airport near the Trump resort since 2017.
The airport charges more for fuel than at nearby military bases, and
service members were staying at the Trump hotel. The
U.S. Air force ordered a review, while more
news dribbled out. Air
force crews stayed overnight at Turnberry at least four times since
September 2018 Politico reported. Then the Air
Force admitted
it had lodged crews at Turnberry 40 times since 2015,
but refused to say how many had occurred since Trump became
President. The figure also doesn't indicate how many people stayed
at the resort in total. The unfolding scandal forced
the US Department of Defense to put on hold a new contract for the
nearby airfield. Further reporting showed that
some stays were
for multiple nights, and crewmen played gold on the extravagant
resort at taxpayer expense while lining the
President's pockets. In total, at least
two-hundred thousand dollars were spent at Turnberry by the Air
Force, for more than 650 rooms since August 2017 alone.
Other
A quick list of
events which didn't fit into any other category.
He
nominated a torture supporter to lead U.S Human Rights policy.
Between this person, and the anti-labor Labor Secretary, the
anti-environmental EPA administrator, the anti-animal protection Fish
and Wildlife head, and many more, Trump
And Corey
Lewendoski, a former adviser for Trump, while sulking at a
hearing, said “I
have no obligation to be honest to the media.”
Ukraine Investigation
In case you thought
I forgot it. I wanted to write up the events of the Ukraine
Investigation, to provide a timeline as it developed, but this
article ballooned way past the 1,000 to 2,000 words I try to
maintain. A separate Ukraine Events article will be forthcoming.
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