Kingfisher Cove

They Lied

Well, today sure didn’t go quite as planned.

They even told John at the reception counter that my eye procedure would only take about 35 minutes, “so don’t go far.” (He’d planned to visit a high-end auto parts/tooling store relatively nearby, but ended up bagging that when it turned out further away than he thought).

TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOURS LATER, I finally emerged from GENERAL ANESTHESIA with the worst, raging headache I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was bad. Think of ice cream brain freeze multiplied by a million.

Prior to being wheeled into the surgery room, the doctor did explain that once he was “in there” and able to determine what was really going on, he may need to re-do the original DCR. By that time I was rather woozy with the pre-anesthesia calm-down drug dripping into my vein and feeling quite confused. Was I taken advantage of? Will my out-of-pocket already expensive cost be a whole helluva lot more now?

I don’t know. I do know that I desperately need this godawful extreme eye weepage to END. So if what he ended up doing results in that, and the previously discussed “procedure” wouldn’t have solved it, then so be it.

The killer headache was explained as sinus inflammation from the Afrin they administered, and probably the surgical messing around in my nose. A Narco pill eventually dimmed it. Oh, man, it was painful.

I feel pretty crappy, but at least so far I’m not majorly swollen or massively bruised like last time. Ice and heat applied to the site, and lots of meds—antibiotic, salve, pain pills (as needed), and the worst: Prednisone. Hate that stuff! Yukarama.

---

Update: The doctor called me tonight and explained that the DCR surgery had to be re-done because scar tissue had negated the effects of the original surgery. He also said that the surgery itself only took 45 minutes: all of that extra time was pre-op and then recovery. It sure would have been nice if they had explained that to John. They are really bad with communication.

---

It’s been a rotten day, in all regards. It’s so disheartening that the Supreme Court is defiling our Constitution by legalizing discrimination. I don’t recognize our country.

Nerves

I’ve been burying myself in a couple of books lately, and just finished our Book Club selection, “The Woman in the Window.” It was very well written (beautiful language and imagery), and while it had some resemblance to the premises of “The Girl on the Train” and “Gone Girl,” it was not those (thankfully). However, because I have read so many mysteries and thrillers in my lifetime, I had all of the twists and turns and the ultimate “whodunit” figured out well ahead of time. In some regards I felt a little proud of myself that I’d figured it all out, but mostly I was disappointed because I’d figured it all out. Sigh.

The other book I finished was Stephen King’s “The Outsider.” It was really good! He melded a very solid police procedural whodunit with quintessential Stephen King horror and it was a page-turner!

---

But the nerves I’m referring to aren’t related to spooky mysteries. Tomorrow is my eye procedure and I’m sure not looking forward to it. You might say I’m dreading it! I’ve been assured that this won’t be as invasive as the original DCR (tear duct) surgery that left me a blue and purple and black swollen mess for two whole weeks. I also won’t have general anesthesia (some kind of “don’t give a shit” buzzy cocktail instead). Mostly, I’m hoping this is worth it, because it is so damned hard to be outside in the sun or breeze, or drive my car, or go grocery (or plant) shopping, or most anything at all. The eye weeps, almost incessantly, and it morphs my vision. I am so tired of wiping my face, wiping my eye, carrying around a stupid tissue. Please work.

---

Also, I can say in all clarity—and with molten, steaming rage—that I would be clawing authorities’ eyes out like a feral animal if someone ever ripped my child OR MY GRANDCHILD from my arms.

Wouldn’t we all.

This regime is monstrous.

And I’d go Mount St. Tonya on anyone who would caution me to be “civil.” We can only wish that the German people had pushed back, stood up, ridiculed, protested, behaved uncivilly, and refused to serve Goebbels meals during the slow frog-boil of Hitler's rise in the 1930s.

Week Eighty-Four

Compiled by Amy Siskind

Generations from now will mark this week as the moment Americans realized we were losing our country as we have known it.

This week the world looked on in horror as the atrocity of separating families at our southern border was finally exposed by widespread media coverage. That coverage was limited as the press and even members of Congress were denied access to detention centers and newly constructed tent cities. Other than audio that was leaked to ProPublica of a young child wailing for her mother, there are almost no videos or photos of girls, toddlers or babies. The AP reported on “tender age” shelters — three already built and a fourth coming soon.

Amid harsh condemnation domestically and worldwide, Trump signed an executive order, purportedly ending family separation, but the regime laid out no plan to reunite families already separated at the southern border, and other forms of separation continue to be carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement throughout our country. Curiously, after the order, the regime was still laying out plans to construct temporary housing for another 20,000 migrant children and 119,000 migrant adults.

This week Trump and his regime continued to bold-faced lie to and obscure facts from the American people. The repetition of lies was noted by the WAPO in Trump's ramped up Twitter activity. Propaganda TV also played a role with disinformation promulgated by Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting, which backed Trump's alternative version of reality on immigration.

Although last week Trump was able to garner normalizing, Super Bowl-type coverage of his Singapore summit, this week revealed it was all stagecraft, no substance. The regime also quietly rolled out a government restructuring plan to consolidate power, take away safety nets and sell off government properties en masse.

1. WAPO reported Trump has ramped up his tweeting to the fastest rate since he took office, posting an average of 11.3 messages per day. Experts say repetition is an effective tool for convincing people of the veracity of false claims.
2. This week, Trump tweeted false or misleading information on the same topic, repeatedly: as of Wednesday, at least seven times on immigration and at least six times on the Department of Justice inspector general report.
3. On Saturday, WAPO reported Manuel Padilla Jr., Border Patrol chief for the Rio Grande Valley, overseeing the busiest stretch of the Southwest border, said family separations could double.
4. Padilla Jr. said his agents separated 568 parents from children as young as five since the zero-tolerance policy was announced, adding, “We are trying to build to 100 percent prosecution of everybody that is eligible.”
5. NYT reported Stephen Miller, Trump's senior policy adviser and anti-immigrant hardliner, has been behind the continued push to separate migrant families, even when others in the regime had misgivings.
6. On Tuesday, NYT was under fire from journalists and watchdogs for acceding to the demands of the White House that their audio interview with Miller not be publicly released.
7. Intercept reported Border Protection agents in El Paso, Texas are turning away asylum seekers multiple times and for days on end, telling them there is “no room.”
8. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, immigrants have the right to request asylum and be immediately processed. Reportedly Border Patrol is pushing them to cross illegally, thereby having an excuse to separate families.
9. On Sunday, WAPO reported in May 2016, Roger Stone met with a man who called himself Henry Greenberg and offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton. The meeting was arranged by Michael Caputo.
10. The man wore a “Make Donald Trump Again” hat and had a Russian accent. The man wanted $2 million for the dirt. Stone said Trump “doesn’t pay for anything.”
11. On May 29, in a series of texts, Caputo wrote, “How crazy is the Russian?” Noting that Greenberg wanted “big” money, Stone replied, “waste of time.” The meeting was not previously disclosed by Stone or Caputo.
12. On Monday, Stone told NBC News he forgot to tell investigators about his contact with the Russian national who goes by Henry Greenberg. He claimed his recollection was refreshed when Caputo mentioned it to him.
13. On Sunday, Trump encouraged WAPO staffers to strike, saying in a tweet, “because Bezos isn’t paying them enough.” He also repeated his false claim the WAPO is a “registered lobbyist.”
14. On Sunday, in a series of tweets capping off Father’s Day, Trump asked why the FBI was giving “so much information to the Fake News Media,” repeating his claim that the media is the “enemy of the people.”
15. Trump also questioned why Peter Strzok, whom he called the “FBI’s sick loser,” was working on the “totally discredited Mueller team of 13 Angry & Conflicted Democrats,” calling it a “Witch Hunt!”
16. Trump also tweeted that Strzok worked with “Slippery James Comey and that Comey is best friends with Robert Mueller,” adding “A really sick deal, isn’t it?”
17. Strzok, the FBI agent singled out in the DOJ inspector general report and frequent target of Trump's ire, said he would testify before Congress without immunity, saying he wants to clear his name and tell his story.
18. On Monday, FBI director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. When asked by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse if a lawyer can obstruct justice on behalf of their client, Wray answered, “Absolutely.”
19. On Monday, Rudy Giuliani said he was just bluffing last week when he called for the Justice Department, after the inspector general report came out, to suspend Mueller’s investigation within 24 hours.
20. On Sunday, in a WAPO op-ed titled “Separating children from their parents at the border ‘breaks my heart,’” former First Lady Laura Bush called Trump's zero-tolerance policy “cruel” and “immoral.”
21. On Sunday, in a series of tweets, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen denied that a family separation policy existed, claiming “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period,” and instead blamed the media.
22. By Monday, all four living first ladies — Rosalynn Carter, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Michelle Obama — had publicly condemned the Trump regime’s practice of separating parents and children.
23. On Monday, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called Trump's family separation policy “unconscionable” for deterring parents “by inflicting such abuse on children.”
24. On Monday, in a series of tweets, Trump falsely claimed “crime in Germany is way up.” Trump tweeted it was a “big mistake” in Europe to let in immigrants “who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”
25. Trump also continued to blame Democrats for being “weak and ineffective with Boarder Security and Crime,” and warned about “crime being caused by gangs and thugs, including MS-13.”
26. On Monday, NBC News reported the Trump regime first discussed the idea of separating migrant mothers from their children as a way to deter asylum seekers at a meeting on February 2, 2017.
27. On Monday, the WSJ Editorial Board warned the GOP is in danger of losing control of the House and Senate because of “internal feuding” over immigration, citing “separating immigrant children from their parents.”
28. On Monday, AP reported on an old warehouse in McAllen, Texas, where hundreds of children wait in a series of cages. One cage had 20 children inside. More than 1,100 people were in the dark facility.
29. A 16 year old said she was helping care for a 2 year old in her cage for three days because the child’s aunt was somewhere else in the facility. The teen said she had to show others how to change the girl’s diaper.
30. On Monday, ProPublica released shocking audio of children inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility crying after being separated from their parents, screaming Mami” and “Papá” over and over again.
31. With little content from within detention facilities publicly available due to the Trump regime’s restricted access, this audio along with Border Patrol-provided photos and videos were looped on most major media.
32. On Monday, Politico reported Trump aides are planning more crackdowns on immigration before the midterms. Ideas include tightening rules on student visas and limiting visas for temporary agricultural workers.
33. On Monday, Trump addressed the media on family separation, saying the United States “will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility … not on my watch.”
34. Trump blamed Democrats and lack of immigrant reform, saying, “What’s happening is so sad.” Democrats accused Trump of using children separated from their families as leverage to pass his immigration agenda.
35. On Monday, the daily press briefing scheduled to start at 1:15 p.m. was postponed four hours. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not address the press but rather waited for Nielsen to be flown in from Louisiana.
36. Nielsen repeated the false claim that only Congress could fix family separation, blaming “loopholes in our federal immigration laws” and saying the regime had no choice but to enforce the law.
37. Nielsen dodged question on photos of children in cages and the lack of photos of girls, instead complaining about false narratives that ignore crime, opioids, smugglers, and people who are killed by gang members.
38. No other daily press briefings were held by the White House during the week amid the family separation crisis.
39. On Tuesday, AP reported Trump sees his hard-line immigration stance as a winning issue for midterms, saying “You have to stand for something.” Miller has urged Trump to make immigration his defining issue.
40. Steve Bannon said of Trump, “I think this is one of his best moments. I think this is a profile in courage. This is why America elected him. He will not back down on core principles.”
41. On Tuesday, Trump further ramped up the rhetoric, tweeting “Democrats are the problem,” saying they want migrants to “infest our Country,” adding, “so they view them as potential voters!”
42. On Tuesday, Axios reported Donald Trump Jr. canceled plans to headline a fundraiser in New York for George P. Bush, son of Jeb Bush, due to the Bush family’s opposition to Trump's policy of separating families.
43. On Tuesday, in a joint statement by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the regime announced that the U.S. is withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council, blaming anti-Israeli sentiment.
44. On Wednesday, Israeli officials expressed concern about the U.S. pulling out from the council, saying it will make it harder to block anti-Israeli initiatives, which U.S. membership helped to soften or fend off.
45. On Tuesday, HHS told Detroit Free Press it has “a network of approximately 100 unaccompanied alien children’s program(s) across 17 states” with 3,280 females in care and 8,506 males.
46. The hashtag #WhereAretheGirls trended during the week, as photos issued by the government showed only boys. When asked why on Monday, Nielsen answered, “I don’t know.”
47. MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff tweeted that he asked the HHS to see photos of girls and toddlers and was offered photos from 2016.
48. On Tuesday, McClatchy reported based on the review of federal data, the Trump regime likely lost track of nearly 6,000 unaccompanied migrant children, not the 1,475 number given to lawmakers last month.
49. HHS had told reporters 14 percent of calls to sponsors were not returned, but HHS reached out to only 7,635 children and their sponsors. It placed more than 42,497 unaccompanied children with sponsors in fiscal year 2017.
50. Trump has been watching the coverage on television with increasing anger, saying the media is deliberately highlighting the worst images — the cages and screaming toddlers — to make him look bad.
51. On Tuesday, WSJ reported the Mexican government criticized Trump's policy, citing a 10 year old with Down syndrome who was separated from her mother and 10-year-old brother as they attempted to enter the U.S.
52. On Tuesday, on Fox News, when the topic of the 10-year-old girl came up, Corey Lewandowski mocked her saying, “Womp Womp.”
53. On Wednesday, Lewandowski was dropped by Leading Authorities, one of Washington DC’s top speakers bureaus.
54. On Tuesday, governors from at least eight states, including two Republicans, said they would withhold or recall National Guard troops sent to the southern border, citing Trump's family separation policy.
55. On Tuesday, The Daily Mail reported Beata Mariana de Jesus Mejia-Mejia, a Guatemalan national seeking asylum in the U.S., sued six federal agencies and 10 top officials, the first legal challenge to the regime’s policy.
56. Officials “forcibly” separated her from her 7-year-old son after they crossed the border and refused to tell her his whereabouts. Mejia-Mejia was never indicted for illegally entering the country.
57. On Friday, Mejia-Mejia was reunited with her son at Baltimore Washington International Airport, more than a month after they were detained and separated.
58. On Tuesday, the former head of ICE told NBC News that despite claims from the Trump regime and allies that family separations would be “temporary,” many will be permanent as parent are deported.
59. On Tuesday, Nielsen was heckled at a Mexican restaurant by protestors shouting, “Shame!” The restaurant said in a statement, “Our staff, most of whom are Hispanic, have been with our restaurant family for years.”
60. That evening, Nielsen retweeted a message from Trump saying she did a “fabulous job” at a news conference on Monday. She also tweeted that she would “work tirelessly until our broken immigration system is fixed.”
61. On Friday, protestors gathered outside Nielsen’s home in Virginia, holding signs and blasting the ProPublica audio of children crying.
62. On Monday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the left the “ruling class” and said it doesn’t really care about migrant families, adding “they care far more about foreigners than their own people.”
63. On Monday, Fox News host Laura Ingraham compared detention facilities for migrant children to “summer camps,” or, as the San Diego Union-Tribune described them “basically boarding schools.”
64. Ingraham also hosted Attorney General Jeff Sessions on her show to defend Trump's policy. He falsely claiming a surge of “15,000 illegal entries to 75,000” immigrants due to Obama policies, saying “this is a huge loophole in our system.”
65. Sessions also denied that children are being abused or kept in inhumane conditions and rebuked comparisons to Nazi Germany, making the odd assertion of Nazis that “they were keeping the Jews from leaving the country.”
66. More than 600 United Methodist clergy and church members brought church law charges against Sessions for the zero-tolerance policy of separating migrant families, accusing him of violating the Book of Discipline.
67. Sessions is charged under church law with child abuse, immorality, racial discrimination and “dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of doctrine of the United Methodist Church.”
68. On Wednesday, longtime Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said he is leaving the GOP, saying it “is fully the party of Trump,” adding the family separation is “connected to the worst abuses of humanity in our history.”
69. Schmidt encouraged the “repudiation of Trump and his vile enablers in the 2018 election by electing Democratic majorities.” On Friday, conservative George Will penned an op-ed, “Vote against the GOP this November.”
70. On Thursday, a spokesperson for IAC confirmed the media and internet company will no longer run ads for HomeAdvisor or Angie’s List on Ingraham’s show over her migrant comments.
71. Politico reported that millennials in Washington DC who work or worked for Trump are finding themselves ostracized, heckled on the street and struggling to get a dates. They instead gather in a small social circle.
72. On Friday, press secretary Sanders was asked to leave Red Hen, a restaurant in Virginia. Sanders tweeted that she was asked, “to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left.”
73. On Tuesday Brad Parscale called for the firing of Sessions and the end of the Mueller probe, tweeting “You can’t obstruct something that was phony against you The IG report gives @realDonaldDrumpf the truth to end it all.”
74. On Wednesday, Trump held a rally in Duluth, Minnesota, reminiscent of his 2016 campaign rallies, including crowd chants of “Build that wall!” and “Lock her up!” and “USA! USA! USA!” and “Drain the swamp!”
75. Trump aired his grievances of being wronged by the media, saying he deserved more credit for a long list of items including the North Korea summit, the size of his crowds and the economy.
76. According to a NPR fact checks, Trump told false or misleading statements on a number of topics including immigration, North Korea, trade, the economy and the Justice Department inspector general report.
77. On Tuesday, a federal judge in Kansas tossed out Kris Kobach’s proof-of-citizenship voter laws, saying it is unconstitutional to require people to prove their U.S. citizenship before they can vote.
78. The judge also sanctioned Kobach, ordering him to take a legal class on the rules of evidence or procedure. Kobach represented his office and was the lead attorney in the case.
79. On Tuesday, deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin said he is leaving the White House. Hagin has served in every GOP administration since Ronald Reagan’s and played a key role in organizing Trump's Singapore summit.
80. On Tuesday, Trump rescinded an Obama-era policy that protected oceans and the Great Lakes, instead putting a new emphasis on “industries” that use the oceans, particularly oil and natural gas drilling.
81. On Tuesday, the Rhode Island State Senate voted 34–3 for a bill to require candidates on a presidential ticket to release tax returns going back five years. The bill now goes to the House.
82. On Tuesday, Pompeo abruptly canceled a Senate briefing scheduled for Wednesday on the North Korea deal struck by Trump and Kim Jong-un, which Trump had hailed as a breakthrough.
83. On Friday, in a letter to Congress, Trump said North Korea’s “provocative, destabilizing, and repressive actions…continue to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat,” reversing his statements of last week.
84. AP reported that nine months after Hurricane Maria thousands of people in Puerto Rico are still living under tarps or plastic sheets. FEMA and local agencies do not know how many roofs still need to be replaced.
85. On Wednesday, Intercept reported that, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Environmental Protection Agency Chief Scott Pruitt has spent $4.6 million on security, an increase of $1.1 million from a disclosure one month ago.
86. On Monday, CNN reported a bus company employee in Maine told passengers they needed to be U.S. citizens in order to ride the bus after Customs and Border Protection agents spoke to bus company employees.
87. On Sunday, Dallas Morning News reported Jose Nunez of the Bexar County Sheriff’s Department was arrested for sexually assaulting a 4-year-old girl and threatening her mother with deportation if she told authorities.
88. On Tuesday, the DHS said 2,342 children have been separated from their parents since last month. In Friday of Week 83, DHS had given a number of 1,955.
89. On Tuesday, AP reported the Trump regime is sending babies and young children forcibly separated from their parents to at least three “tender age” shelters in South Texas.
90. A fourth shelter planned for Houston would house up to 240 children in a warehouse previously used for people displaced by Hurricane Harvey. The shelters are operated by contractor Southwest Key Programs.
91. Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the shelters described play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis. Experts warn separation can cause permanent damage.
92. Michelle Brane, director at the Women’s Refugee Commission said, “There is no model for how you house tons of little children in cots institutionally in our country. We don’t do orphanages, our child welfare has recognized that is an inappropriate setting for little children.”
93. On Tuesday, following a tip, NY1 shot video at 12:45 a.m. of five girls, accompanied by two Spanish-speaking women, being led into the building where Cayuga Centers, a foster agency in East Harlem, is housed.
94. On Wednesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said there are 239 immigrant children separated from their parents now in the custody of Cayuga Centers in East Harlem. The youngest is 9 months old.
95. De Blasio said the children need mental health assistance and physical help. Some children arrived with lice, bedbugs, chicken pox and other contagious illnesses — and have not been in touch with their families.
96. On Tuesday, Houston Chronicle reported flight attendants say they were unknowingly transporting migrant children. One observed children ages four to 11 with faces full of fear, confusion, sadness and exhaustion.
97. Another flight attendant was lied to by an ICE agent who said the children on the flight were part of a soccer team. When pressed, the agent finally admitted that they were being relocated to assigned camps.
98. On Wednesday, American, Frontier, Southwest and United airlines issued statements saying they refused to fly immigrant children separated from their parents for the federal government.
99. On Wednesday, Texas Tribune reported children held at the Shiloh Treatment Center, a contractor that houses immigrant minors, described in a lawsuit being held down and forcibly injected with drugs.
100. On Wednesday, Detroit Free Press reported a foster care program received more than 50 “petrified” migrant children who landed in the middle of the night after being separated from their families.
101. The average age of the children was 8 years old and included babies. Some have not been able to speak to their parents for more than 30 days. The program has received children since 2017, but since zero-tolerance there are more children and they are younger.
102. On Wednesday, the Red Cross responded to questions on why it was not helping at the southern border, tweeting the Trump regime has not given the organization “access to places of detention for migrants.”
103. On Wednesday, Trump told reporters “We have to maintain toughness, or our country will be overrun by people, by crime,” but his wife felt strongly about separating families, saying “Anybody with a heart would feel this way.”
104. Trump spoke to reporters from a room where he was discussing migrant family separations. Trump drew criticism as reporters shared the photo of all white men at the table (one women was in the room, not at the table).
105. Later on Wednesday, following a firestorm of protest from opponents and allies, Trump signed an executive order ending his regime’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents.
106. The executive order was published online at WhiteHouse.gov, then taken down after the public noticed the word ‘separation’ was misspelled: “Affording Congress an Opportunity to Address Family Separation.”
107. Trump has previously in Week 83 and this week repeatedly falsely claimed that Democrats were to blame for separating families and said they were separated because of “Congress’s failure to act” and “court orders.”
108. The executive order requires the detention of whole families together and directs Sessions to file a request to modify the Flores Settlement to allow migrant children to be held longer than 20 days.
109. On Thursday, reminiscent of Trump's Muslim ban, confusion ensued as federal agencies were left to interpret the sudden changes in the executive order and to figure out how to implement them.
110. On Thursday evening, officials held a meeting to grapple with the different understandings of how to proceed. Sources said Trump's main goal was to lessen the public controversy surrounding separated families.
111. On Thursday, WAPO reported although government officials say they have given detained parents a flier with a toll-free number for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, lawyers say none of their clients have received one.
112. Lawyers say they have called the number and often no one answered. When someone did pick up, the person refused to offer details of where children had been taken or offered only vague statements like within the U.S.
113. Lauren Dasse, an immigration lawyer and advocate, said she saw a five-month-old baby held in immigration detention with three of his siblings. The mother is in a detention center several states away.
114. On Wednesday, Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland of human rights watchdog Council of Europe, citing events on the U.S. southern border, said Trump is “no longer the moral leader of his country or the world.”
115. Council of Europe is an international human rights organization with 47 signatory states. Jagland is also one of the five members of the committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize, an award Trump has openly coveted.
116. On Wednesday, Sen. Bill Nelson accused the Trump regime of trying to hide what’s going on, after he was denied access to a detention facility in his home state of Florida and told he needed to give two weeks’ notice.
117. On Thursday, at least 10 states led by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said they plan to sue the Trump regime over the separation of migrant children as a result of its zero-tolerance policy.
118. On Thursday, the governor of Virginia ordered an investigation of abuse claims by children at Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center, an immigration detention facility, after AP reported on a federal lawsuit against the center.
119. In six sworn statements, Latino youths held for months or years at the said they were beaten while handcuffed, locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, and left nude and shivering in concrete cells.
120. The children were accused of belonging to violent gangs, including MS-13. A manager told Congress the children did not appear to be gang members and were suffering from mental health issues resulting from trauma endured in their home countries.
121. On Friday, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade showed his support from Trump's zero-tolerance policy, saying “these aren’t our kids,” adding, “it’s not like he’s doing this to the people of Idaho or Texas.”
122. AP reported after a threat for ransom or his life in El Salvador, Blanca Orantes-Lopez and her 8-year-old son came to the U.S. She is now in a prison in Seattle and he is in the custody of a children’s home in upstate New York.
123. She did not get to say goodbye and has not been able to talk to or see him. DHS claims they must remove children before they can prosecute the parents, but many like Orantes-Lopez remain separated long after being convicted.
124. NBC News reported according to HHS, the cost of holding migrant children in newly created “tent cities” is $775 per person per night, more than placing them in permanent structures or keeping them with their parents.
125. The facility used by ICE in Portland, Oregon was shut down after days of protests and a blockade in response to Trump's zero-tolerance policy. One person was arrested.
126. On Tuesday, Vanity Fair reported Michael Cohen hired Guy Petrillo, who served as the chief of the criminal division in the Southern District of New York from 2008 to 2009, to represent him in his criminal case in the Southern District,
127. On Tuesday, WSJ reported Cohen filed to foreclose on a $3.8 million loan to a French investor who bought him out of a Manhattan condominium transaction on October 18, 2016, two weeks before it was due.
128. At the time, Cohen was trying to come up with $130,000 to pay Stephanie Clifford for her silence. Cohen was supposed to pay Clifford on October 14. He eventually paid her on October 27 through Essential Consultants.
129. On Tuesday, WSJ reported Cohen has told associates he wants Trump to pay his legal fees, saying he is frustrated Trump is not and that the fees are “bankrupting” him. Cohen says Trump owes him for his years of loyalty.
130. On Wednesday, Cohen resigned as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee’s Finance Committee, citing not being able to give “attention and dedication” with the Mueller and SDNY investigations.
131. Cohen also criticized Trump's policy of separating families, saying, “children should never be used as bargaining chips,” for the first time distancing himself from Trump.
132. On Wednesday, WSJ reported Manhattan federal prosecutors have subpoenaed American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer for records related to its $150,000 payment to Karen McDougal.
133. Investigators are probing potential efforts by Cohen to suppress damaging information about Trump during the presidential campaign and whether he coordinated with AMI to not publish her account.
134. On Thursday, WAPO reported National Enquirer executives sent digital copies of the tabloid’s articles and cover images of Trump and his political opponents to Cohen during the presidential campaign, before publication.
135. Trump and David Pecker, owner of AMI, are very close. Trump reportedly suggested stories to Pecker on a regular basis, including one about Hillary Clinton’s health. AMI also publishes Us Weekly, the Globe and Star.
136. On Friday, an order by Judge Gregory Woods in the SDNY said of the 300,000 items reviewed so far, 161 are privileged and seven are communications between Cohen and a client, confirming findings of the special master.
137. Roughly 3.7 million items seized from Cohen are still under review. Judge Woods ordered Cohen’s lawyers to identify for the special master by June 27 any remaining items they believe are privileged.
138. Miami Herald and McClatchy reported buyers connected to Russia or former Soviet republics made 86 purchases totaling $109 million at 10 Trump-branded properties in South Florida and New York City,
139. The purchases were made in cash and almost all were purchased by using shell companies designed to obscure their identities — both factors raising concern of possible money laundering.
140. On Thursday, Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the US District Court for the District of Columbia denied a request by Manafort to suppress evidence seized by Mueller’s team from a storage unit.
141. On Friday, Manafort’s attorney asked Judge T.S. Ellis III in Virginia to bar any mentions of Manafort’s ties to Trump, arguing his alleged crimes happened before working for him and that it may influence jurors.
142. On Friday, Mueller’s team asked the judge to bar Manafort from arguing he’s a victim of vindictive prosecution and from telling jurors that the government investigated Manafort years ago, saying both are false.
143. Guardian reported Adam Waldman, a U.S. lobbyist for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska since 2009, visited Julian Assange nine times at the Ecuadorian embassy in London during 2017, more than any other visitor.
144. On Thursday, the White House proposed a radical overhaul of the federal government in a 132-page plan. The Trump regime said it plans to shake up what one official called a “nonsensical” bureaucracy.
145. Under the plan, the Departments of Education and Labor would merge, other agencies’ responsibilities would consolidate, and there would significantly less regulation of industries.
146. The plan also proposes to privatize the U.S. Postal Service and Federal Aviation Administration, eliminates more than a third of the U.S. Public Health Corps and would result in a massive sale of government properties.
147. There would also be a consolidation of safety-net programs, placing every domestic program for poor families and children under a single welfare authority. Foreign aid and development programs would restructured.
148. On Friday, in a tweet, Trump threatened to impose 20 percent tariffs on all cars imported from the European Union. Trump's tweet sent shares of BMW, Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler and Mercedes-maker Daimler all lower.
149. On Thursday morning, before a vote on a House immigration bill, Trump questioned the purpose of it, tweeting nine Democrats in the Senate would be needed, and “Dems are only looking to Obstruct.”
150. The House then voted down an immigration hardliner bill by Bob Goodlatte 193–231, which included funding for Trump's wall but no path to citizenship. There are 42 more Republicans than Democrats in the House.
151. On Thursday, first lady Melania Trump boarded a plane on her way to Texas to visit a detention center for migrant children, wearing a coat that read, in white capital letters on the back, “I really don’t care. Do U?”
152. In response to the negative reaction, Trump tweeted that the words on the jacket refer “to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!”
153. On Friday, in a series of tweets, Trump pushed Republicans to delay voting on the second immigration bill, saying “Republicans should stop wasting their time” until after midterms, saying “Dems are just playing games.”
154. Rep. McCarthy said the House will vote on an immigration compromise bill next week, despite Trump's tweets. Another member of the House noted Trump “changes his mind often” so it makes sense keep working.
155. On Friday, Trump also tweeted to buy Fox News host Jeanine Pirro’s new book,  “’Liars, Leakers and Liberals, the Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy,’” which is fantastic. Go get it!”
156. On Tuesday, in an open letter, more than 100 Microsoft employees said the company should stop working with ICE, which has been separating migrant families, calling the practice “inhumane.”
157. The National Park Service approved an initial request for a second “Unite the Right” rally to take place across the street from the White House in August. Last year’s rally Charlottesville resulted in a death and injuries.
158. On Thursday, WAPO reported that according to lawmakers and a Defense Department memo, HHS officials asked the Pentagon whether it can provide housing for up to 20,000 unaccompanied migrant children.
159. The housing would be on military bases and “for occupancy as early as July through December 31, 2018.” Per the memo, the sites would be run by HHS employees or contractors working with them.
160. On Friday, TIME reported according to a copy of a draft memo obtained for the Navy Secretary’s approval, the U.S. Navy is preparing plans to construct sprawling detention centers to house migrants.
161. Housing for roughly 119,000 migrants is proposed, including “temporary and austere” tent cities to house 25,0000 at abandoned airfields just outside the Florida panhandle near Mobile, Alabama.
162. The memo also proposes a camp for roughly 47,000 people at former naval weapons station near San Francisco, and 47,000 people at Camp Pendleton, the Marines’ largest training facility in Southern California.
163. On Thursday, Sessions told CBN News “the American people don’t like the idea that we are separating families. We never really intended to do that.” When Sessions announced zero-tolerance on May 8, he promised separation.
164. Sinclair Broadcasting’s “must run” segment on family separation showed Boris Epshteyn saying the media and Trump opponents are claiming those who “are tough on immigration are somehow monsters.”
165. Epshteyn told viewers “a lot of it is politically driven by the liberals in politics and the media” and credited Trump's executive order for ending family separation, without mentioning Trump was responsible for it too.
166. On Friday, Trump held an event at the White House with Angel Families, his name for “the American victims of illegal immigration,” who stood behind him holding poster-sized photos of their deceased relatives.
167. Trump told the media, “you never hear this side,” and said, “These are the American citizens permanently separated from their loved ones…Permanently…Because they were killed by criminal illegal aliens.”
168. After the event, Trump autographed the photos of deceased young people being held up by Angel Families who stood behind him.
169. Studies of immigration patterns reveal a large majority of areas have many more immigrants today than they did in 1980 and fewer violent crimes.
170. On Friday, Fox News tweeted “Migrant Children & Gang Membership — Oct 2011-June 2017,” from Border Protection officials citing, “.02% of all children detained (56 out of 250,000) had ties to MS-13.”
171. On Saturday, Intercept reported on Debora Barrios-Vasquez, who lived in Mamaroneck, New York but took sanctuary in a church in New York City with her 2-year-old daughter for fear of being separated by ICE
172. Barrios-Vasquez addressed reporters at the church to highlight that ICE is ripping parents away from young children every day all across America at home, in court, while working and at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services marriage-based interviews.
173. On Friday, the U.N. Human Rights office said Trump's new executive order, “may lead to indefinite detention of entire families in violation of international human rights standards.”
174. The office also said the new policy does not go far enough, saying placing immigrant children in detention centers harms their development and “may amount to torture.”

Out and About on Harstine Island

Back in the early 1980s, I met Laura through a mutual friend, and we immediately hit it off. (She’s hilarious, and my tummy always hurts from laughing when I’m around her!) I knew from back then that her parents had property on Harstine Island, and that Laura and her son would frequently visit, especially during the summer. I had no idea where Harstine Island was; just that it was located in the South Sound.

We’ve met up a few times since John and I bought our property on Harstine in 2003, when Laura happened to be down here. This was in 2013—Laura and her husband having dinner with us on the trailer deck while the house was under construction:

It had been a while since I’d seen her, and she texted me last week that she and her sisters were visiting their dad on Saturday. SO, I met them over at the Harstine farmers market (where we had a GOOD time) and then drove down the road from there to her dad’s place, which is on the opposite side of the island from our place. Get a load of the view there! (click to embiggen)

 

We spent some time there, visiting with Laura’s dad (he’s so cute!), and then she and two of her sisters followed me to OUR place! I was cringing inside because I had NOT cleaned, and the house looked pretty bad. Tufts of cat hair everywhere (they are shedding terribly), and the floor looked like crap. But…it ultimately didn’t matter. We had such a good time, and they wanted to see my glass! (They even bought some!) We spent some time sitting on the deck, drinking beer/wine, watching all the butterflies everywhere, and talking our lips off. What a fun day! (And no, I didn’t take any pictures! I hate when I do that!)

Good people; we ALL HATE TRUMP.

---

On John’s birthday (the 15th — he’s 65 now!!!), we visited the plant center at Walmart, which was very impressive, and also the Deer Creek nursery on Highway 3, not too far from us. We bought a truckload (almost) of more plants! The first tier of the terraced landscaping area is officially PLANTED! It was ***hot*** out there yesterday (pushing 90°). I also planted a few more things in the driveway bed to do a little filling in.

John has the irrigation system installed in that tier, but still needs to hook up the individual drip components for each plant, which he plans to finish up tomorrow. Which reminds me—I need to head up and water! We also still have some grasses to plant on this tier, but it just got too hot to do it yesterday!

---

Nate posted these pictures on Facebook over the weekend. He and Sandra attended the “Corpsmen’s Ball” with the Navy corpsmen (medical techs), which is what Sandra is (she works at Balboa Hospital). Quite the fancy event! Don’t they look amazing?

Looking so forward to seeing them next month! Sandra’s mom is visiting them right now from Saipan.

Week Eighty-Three

This week the atrocities at our southern border finally garnered widespread attention, as stories on the scope and the devastating impact of the Trump regime’s zero-tolerance policy were reported. Sessions invoked the Bible to justify the regime’s practice of separating migrant children from their parents, and exacerbated the crisis by ordering immigration judges to stop granting asylum to most victims of domestic abuse and gang violence. Amid widespread condemnation, Trump repeated false claims blaming Democrats for the border crisis — continuing his pattern of constructing an alternative version of reality to feed his base.

Trump held a well choreographed summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, which received media attention on the scale of a Super Bowl, but resulted in little in the way of substance. Trump continues his pattern of ignoring human rights abuses abroad, while cozying up to dictators and alienating former democratic allies. Trump's capacity and culpability for human rights abuses at home may explain why.

This week Trump's former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, was sent to jail, pending his trial, and Trump insider Michael Cohen lost his legal representation, amid persistent rumors that he may cooperate. As the week came to a close, Rudy Giuliani bragged that Trump would clean things up by issuing pardons.

1. Late Saturday, after departing the G7 summit early, Trump announced that he was backing out of the joint communique, repeating his mantra, “We must put the American worker first!”
2. Late Saturday, while aboard Air Force One, Trump lashed out at Canada’s Prime Minister Trudeau in a tweet, calling him “Very dishonest & weak.”
3. On Sunday, Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to Trump, further escalated the rhetoric against Trudeau on “Fox News Sunday,” saying, “There’s a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy.”
4. On Sunday, top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told “State of the Union” that Trudeau “stabbed us in the back,” saying, “He did a great disservice to the whole G7.”
5. On Monday, Kudlow was hospitalized after suffering a mild heart attack.
6. On Sunday, other G7 leaders issued statements in support of Trudeau, with Britain’s Prime Minister May saying she is “fully supportive of Justin Trudeau,” and France and Germany issuing similar statements.
7. On Sunday, NYT reported Trump did not want to go to the G7, but aides pushed him to do so. He rebelled by showing up late and leaving early, as well as by acting out by crossing his arms and swiveling in his seat.
8. On Sunday, Axios reported that at a White House visit in April, French President Macron told Trump that France and the U.S. should work together on their “China problem,” Trump said the European Union is “worse than China.”
9. Rep. Louie Gohmert told “Fox & Friends Weekend” that Mueller is “covering up” for Hillary Clinton, and “he’s trying to have a coup against” against Trump.
10. On Sunday, NYT reported while Trump was at the G7 summit, burned-out White House staffers are considering resigning, including chief of staff John Kelly and one of his deputies, Joe Hagin. Turnover is at 51%.
11. Trump does not mind people leaving, and is comfortable removing barriers that might challenge him. Trump believes he can function as his own chief of staff, communications director, and HR manager.
12. Trump is re-energized, and feels he gained ground in dictating the narrative of news coverage. He continues to be paranoid about leakers — aides seeking his favor try to identify people who could be disloyal.
13. On Monday, Canada’s House of Commons unanimously condemned the personal attacks on Trudeau by Trump and his surrogates.
14. AP conducted a fact check of Trump's statements on trade, and found his examples to be factually incorrect, adding Trump glossed over the parts of the economy “that don’t support his faulty contention.”
15. On Tuesday, amid growing tensions with Canada, Trump's Department of Homeland Security announced a “strengthened” Northern Border Strategyto help “combat terrorism” and “help facilitate travel and trade” at its border.
16. WAPO reported on mass trials in courtrooms packed with parents in the Southwest who were separated from their children after crossing the border. The number of defendants has soared under Trump's new crackdown.
17. Migrant parents face the decision of pleading guilty and hoping to be reunified with their children, or pleading innocent and waiting days or weeks for trial without their children.
18. In McAllen, Texas alone, 415 children had been separated from their parents between May 21 and June 5. In one day in court, the judge sentenced 100 people, including 28 parents.
19. On Sunday, WAPO reported that 206 undocumented immigrants were transferred last week to the Federal Detention Center in Seattle, 174 of which were women. The women were kept in three concrete pods.
20. Rep. Pramila Jayapal said half the women said they were forcibly separated from their children. Some said children as young as 12 months had been taken away — some heard their children screaming for them in the next room.
21. The women were fleeing threats of rape and gang violence in Cuba, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. ICE confirmed it has moved 1,600migrants to federal prisons due to the surge of illegal crossings and implementation of the zero-tolerance policy.
22. On Monday, Jeff Sessions ordered immigration judges to stop granting asylum to most victims of domestic abuse and gang violence, continuing the regime’s efforts to change immigration laws to make them less friendly.
23. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, there was a backlog of 311,000 asylum claims in late January. Immigration attorneys said a substantial portion fall under the categories Sessions targeted.
24. WAPO reported the Honduran father, Marco Antonio Muñoz, who killed himself in Week 82 after being separated from his wife and son, was seeking asylum after the murder of his brother-in-law in Honduras.
25. The parents also have a older son who is an American citizen who they put in a plane to flee, while the couple went by land with the younger son.
26. AP reported U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency which oversees immigration applications, will focus on identifying Americans suspected of cheating to get their citizenship and seek to strip them of it.
27. Up until now, the agency pursued cases as they arose, but not through a coordinated effort. The new steps come as the regime cracks down on illegal immigration and looks to reduce legal immigration to the U.S.
28. On Tuesday, McClatchy reported the Trump regime is looking to erect tent cities at military posts around Texas to shelter the growing number of children separated from their parents crossing the border.
29. Trump's Department of Health and Human Services confirmed they are looking at the Fort Bliss site along with Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene and Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo to hold between 1,000 and 5,000 children.
30. The Office of Refugee Resettlement at HHS is responsible for the care of more than 11,200 migrant children and growing. The approximately 100 shelters designated for children are 95% full.
31. CNN interviewed an attorney in McAllen, Texas who said an undocumented immigrant from Honduras said federal authorities took her daughter while she was breastfeeding in a detention center.
32. When the mother tried to resist, she was handcuffed. An assistant public defender in Texas said some parents also claim they have been told their children are being taken to be bathed or cleaned up, then disappear.
33. On Thursday, images inside a migrant children center at a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas, revealed a large mural of Trump with a quote — in English and Spanish — from his 1987 book The Art of the Deal.
34. DHS said the mural is one of 20 depicting U.S. presidents at shelters. The others feature inspiring quotes about immigration, while Trump's quote reads, “Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”
35. On Thursday, NBC News reported the regime will house the overflow of migrant children in tents in Tornillo, Texas. The DHS will erect a “tent city” full of large tents, which are estimated to hold 450 beds for children.
36. On Thursday, Daily Beast reported that MVM Inc., a scandal plagued defense contractor company, is set to benefit from the migrant children detention centers. The company is advertising to hire all sorts of personnel, in fields not in their expertise.
37. MVM bills itself as an “extensive domain expertise in counter-narcotics, criminal and civil investigations, public safety, and national security,” and has no relevant experience with the care of migrant children.
38. On Thursday, WAPO reported House Republicans are circulating a proposal to limit Trump's policy of separating migrant children. The policy has been criticized by human rights groups, clergy, and lawmakers on both sides.
39. On Thursday, Sessions continued to defend the policy in a speech in Indiana, saying the previous policy amounted to “a declaration of open borders,” and the short-term separation was “not unusual or unjustified.”
40. Sessions countered a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church who called the policy, “immoral,” by citing Romans 13 in the Bible: “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
41. On Friday, DHS revealed that in the six weeks since Sessions’ zero tolerance policy took effect, 1,995 children have been separated from 1,940 adults.
42. On Friday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a nonpartisan fact-finding agency, issued a letter asking Sessions and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to halt the family separations, saying the policy raises “grave concerns” about due process and coercive tactics.
43. On Friday, in a speech in Scranton, PA, Sessions criticized Philadelphia and its mayor over the city’s ‘sanctuary’ status, saying the city is coddling dangerous criminals and refusing to turn them over to ICE.
44. On Friday, NPR reported pediatricians are sounding the alarm, saying migrant children separated from their parents suffer “irreparable harm,” including “toxic stress” that disrupts a child’s brain development and harms long-term health.
45. Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who saw a young girl crying, was told by staff that federal regulations prevented them from touching or holding the child to soothe her.
46. Antar Davidson, an employee of Southwest Key, which operates more than two dozen shelters for migrant children from Texas to California, quit his job, saying staffers are not trained to handle the influx of younger, more traumatized children.
47. Davidson said the breaking point was when he was called over the radio and asked to translate for two siblings, ages 6 and 10, that they couldn’t hug each other after being separated from their parents.
48. The U.S. is expected to quit the U.N. human rights panel when sessions open on Monday. The U.S. had long played a “leadership role” in the council, which was set up in 2006.
49. The ACLU highlighted Tiana Smalls, who reported that on a Greyhound bus to Las Vegas, as the bus approached an agricultural checkpoint at the Nevada state line, the bus driver said, “We are being boarded by Border Patrol. Please be prepared to show your documentation upon request.”
50. Smalls stood and said, “This is a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights… We are not within 100 miles of a border.” She used Google translate to repeat her message in Spanish. The agents left.
51. On Tuesday, Rep. Steve King linked to an anti-immigrant tweet by Mark Collett, Britain’s most high-profile white supremacists, and added, “Europe is waking up… Will America… in time?”
52. Bloomberg reported that according to advocacy group Alliance for Justice, so far 88% of Trump's additions to the federal bench are white and 76% are male. There is only one Hispanic justice.
53. During Obama’s presidency, just 38% of judicial nominees were white males. Trump's picks are the least diverse in 24 years — since Ronald Reagan was in office.
54. On Monday, Politico reported Steven Cheung, a senior communications directed, resigned. Cheung was one of the last remaining campaign-era Trump aides still working at the White House.
55. On Tuesday, WAPO reported Joel McElvain, who has worked at the Justice Department for more than 20 years, resigned last Friday, the morning after Sessions notified Congress the agency will not defend the ACA.
56. Sessions defended himself, saying he acknowledged the executive branch “has a long-standing tradition of defending the constitutionality of duly enacted statutes,” but said the move is not unprecedented.
57. CBS News reported both press secretary Sarah Sanders and deputy press secretary Raj Shah are planning to resign. Sanders has told friends she plans to leave at the end of the year. Shah has not settled on a date.
58. Politico reported Trump's White House is hosting a jobs fair amid the exodus of employees. The “Executive Branch Job Fair” was advertised with an email that was blasted out widely to Republicans on the Hill.
59. Politico reported despite requirement under the Presidential Records Act that the White House must preserve all memos, letters, emails, and papers that Trump touches, Trump has a routine habit of ripping every paper up.
60. Solomon Lartey, a career government official, and his colleagues have had to tape together large piles of shredded paper and send them to the National Archives to be properly filed away.
61. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that Ohio can purge voters from voter rolls if they fail to return a card sent after their first missed election. Other conservative states are expected to follow.
62. On Tuesday, Trump praised the ruling from Singapore, tweeting, “Just won big Supreme Court decision on Voting! Great News!”
63. According to financial disclosure forms released Monday, Jared Kushner and Ivanka brought in at least $82 million during 2017 while serving as senior White House advisers.
64. Ivanka earned almost $ 3.9 million from the Trump Hotel DC. The couple earned immense sums from other enterprises, which ethics experts say could create conflicts of interest.
65. Acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Mick Mulvaney changed the name of the agency founded by Sen. Elizabeth Warren to BCFP, which stands for the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection.
66. Foreign Policy reported Mari Stull, a former food and beverage lobbyist recently hired as a senior adviser in the State Department, is quietly vetting career diplomats and American employees of international institutions to determine if they are loyal to Trump.
67. Sources say Stull is gathering intel and making lists. She has the full support of her boss, Kevin Moley, who was appointed by the White House in January. One State Department official said, “Everyone is looking to bail.”
68. NPR reported the Commerce Department released 1,320 pages of internal memos, emails and other documents as part of a lawsuit related to Wilbur Ross’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
69. A July 2017 email reveals “at the direction of Steve Bannon,” Kris Kobach and Ross spoke on the phone. Kobach told Ross including “aliens” in census numbers for congressional reapportionment is a “problem.”
70. On Friday, WAPO reported that Pence’s VP office is a gateway to influence the Trump regime. Under Pence, twice as many companies and other interests hired lobbyists contacted the office than under Biden or Cheney.
71. Lobbyists, who rake in millions for access, also donate to Trump or advocates for Pence, in one case helping him get on the ticket. Actions taken by Pence and his staff as a result of lobbying are not disclosed in federal filings.
72. On Wednesday, WAPO reported last year Scott Pruitt enlisted Samantha Dravis, a top aide, to contact Republican donors to help his wife find a job. Pruitt’s wife landed a temporary position with conservative group.
73. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to Renzi Stone, founder of public relations firm Saxum, asking for documentation on how he helped Pruitt get tickets for the Rose Bowl.
74. Saxum, which is based in Oklahoma, represented Plains All American Pipeline LP, a company which has a petition pending before the EPA.
75. On Friday, the Office of Government Affairs Director David Apol said in a letter he is considering “formal corrective action proceeding” regarding alleged improper behavior by Pruitt, an unprecedented step against a sitting Cabinet member.
76. Apol urged the EPA’s in-house watchdog to expand its ongoing investigations to review the latest allegations about Pruitt, including that he used EPA resources to find a job for his wife.
77. On Monday, McClatchy reported in addition to Alexander Torshin and Maria Butina, other prominent Russian officials — Dmitry Rogozin and Sergei Rudov — met with NRA representatives, mostly in Moscow, during the 2016 campaign.
78. The NRA reported $30 million in donations to the Trump campaign, $21 million from its lobbying arm which does not disclose donors. NRA insiders said the group spent $70 million overall, including field operations and online advertising.
79. The NRA also spent $24.4 million to back Republican candidates for Congress in 2016.
80. It is a crime to donate or use foreign money in U.S. election campaigns.Mueller’s team and the Senate Intelligence Committee are both investigating whether Russian money was donated to Trump's campaign.
81. On Tuesday, Vanity Fair reported that within the next month, Mueller is reportedly planning to deliver his findings in the obstruction of justice investigation to Rod Rosenstein, and per sources, “Donald is very worried.”
82. According to a source, Michael Cohen has told friends he expects to be arrested any day now. Trump is concerned that Cohen might flip. In the meantime, Trump is enjoying acting on his impulses, unchecked.
83. Kushner reportedly is also flaunting his status in front of Kelly since he had his security clearance restored. Republican sources say Kushner recently stood up and walked out of a meeting that Kelly was leading.
84. On Tuesday, Mueller’s team filed a motion to limit evidence-sharing in its case against 13 Russians and three Russian entities, citing the risk of revealing the identities of “uncharged co-conspirators.”
85. The motion also indicates the investigation is far from over, mentioning “uncharged individuals and entities” which are believed to be “continuing to engage in interference operations” in the U.S.
86. On Tuesday, Fox News reported that according to two unnamed House Intelligence Committee staffers, at a January 2018 meeting, Rosenstein threatened to use the power of his office to subpoena Devin Nunes and the committee.
87. CNN reported according to a DOJ staffer, Rosenstein plans to “request that the House general counsel conduct an internal investigation of these Congressional staffers’ conduct” when he returns from a foreign trip.
88. On Wednesday, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll showed Mueller’s public image was at an all-time low after months of attacks by Trump, with 36% of voters seeing him unfavorably.
89. By party, 53% of Republicans, 24% of Democrats and 33% of Independents see Mueller unfavorably. The biggest spike came from Republicans, with unfavorable up 26% from July.
90. On Wednesday, ABC News reported Cohen’s legal team from McDermott, Will & Emery LLP are expected to leave the case. A source familiar said the change in counsel is due to a fee dispute. No replacement has been named.
91. On Thursday, WSJ reported federal prosecutors are investigating whether Cohen illegally engaged in secret lobbying. Prosecutors have contacted companies that hired Cohen as a consultant, including AT&T and Novartis.
92. On Thursday, CBS News reported sources say Cohen is feeling increasingly isolated and believes Trump and his allies are turning on him. Cohen is especially upset over statements made by Rudy Giuliani.
93. On Friday, CNN reported Cohen has expressed anger at his treatment by Trump, and indicated to family and friends he is willing to cooperate with federal investigators to alleviate pressure on himself and his family.
94. Cohen has not yet met with prosecutors to discuss a deal. He is currently trying to find a new legal team, as his current lawyers have until Friday at noon to complete the review of 3.7 million files seized in the FBI raid.
95. On Friday, federal prosecutors told the court they have reassembled 16 pages of shredded documents and recovered 731 pages of encrypted text messages seized in the Cohen raid.
96. On Friday, a federal judge revoked Manafort’s bail and sent him to jail to await trial, citing charges that Manafort tried to influence testimony of two government witnesses.
97. Judge Amy Berman said Manafort cannot remain free, even under the strictest conditions, saying, “This is not middle school. I can’t take away his cellphone.” Manafort’s first trial is scheduled for next month.
98. Two hours later, Trump tweeted that jailing Manafort was a “tough sentence” and “very unfair.”
99. Trump also tweeted that he “Didn’t know Manafort was the head of the Mob,” and then continued his attack on Comey, “What about Comey and Crooked Hillary and all of the others?”
100. Trump also tweeted that Manafort “represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other top political people and campaigns.”
101. On Friday, when asked about Manafort, Giuliani told the New York Daily News, “When the whole thing is over, things might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons.”
102. Giuliani also said he didn’t understand “the justification” for putting Manafort in jail, adding the Mueller probe “should not go forward,” and “It’s time for Justice to investigate the investigators.”
103. On Monday, the repeal of net neutrality, which had required internet service providers to offer equal access to all web content, took effect.
104. As of late May, 29 state legislatures had introduced bills to ensure net neutrality. Two governors have signed executive orders to force net neutrality, and Washington state has signed net neutrality into law.
105. On Monday, George Conway, husband of Kellyanne Conway, penned an op-ed defending the constitutionality of the Mueller probe, after Trump tweeted “the Special Counsel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!”
106. On Tuesday, Trump met with Kim Jong Un in Singapore. All major U.S. media attended the well choreographed event, which was dubbed “historic,” with non-stop coverage on every major outlet.
107. As Trump and Kim both declared the summit a success, the two sides differed on what was agreed to publicly, and their agreement was summarized in a short document which lacked details.
108. Trump said in a series of tweets, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” adding, everybody “can now feel much safer than the day I took office” and people could “sleep well tonight!”
109. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the regime expected “major disarmament” before the end of Trump's first term. Kim described the beginning of a “step-by-step and simultaneous” process towards denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
110. As Trump and Kim were signing the document in front of reporters,CNN’s Jim Acosta asked, “did he agree to denuclearize?” Trump responded, “We’re starting that process very quickly.” Acosta then asked if Trump and Kim had discussed Otto Warmbier. Trump did not respond.
111. On Tuesday, Brad Parscale, Trump's 2020 reelection campaign manager, tweeted, “Jim @Acosta should immediately have his press credentials suspended. He is an absolute disgrace!”
112. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos after the summit, Trump said of Kim Jong Un, a brutal dictator, “His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor.”
113. On Tuesday morning, in a stunning concession, Trump said the U.S. will halt joint military exercises with South Korea, an announcement which baffled allies, military officials, and lawmakers from the GOP.
114. Reuters reported leaders of U.S. ally South Korean were caught by surprise. The South Korean presidential office said “we need to find out the precise meaning or intentions” of Trump announcement.
115. A January 2018 WSJ article noted Trump may have gotten this idea from a conversation with Putin: “If the U.S. stopped joint military exercises with the South Koreans, it could help moderate Kim Jong Un’s behavior.”
116. KPNA, North Korea’s official news agency, described the summit as an “epoch-making meeting,” and asserted Trump had “expressed his intention” to lift sanctions when nukes are no longer a factor.
117. On Tuesday, Trump held his first official solo press conference in 16 months.
118. As reporters waited for Trump to come on stage, two huge screens came down instead, with a movie type production portraying North Korea as a paradise. The film lasted four minutes. Reporters thought it was North Korean propaganda
119. The film then looped and played in English. The film was made in America, by or on the orders of his White House, for the benefit of Kim. Trump then came on stage and said, “I hope you liked it. I thought it was good.”
120. Trump said Kim, “is very talented. Anybody that takes over a situation like he did, at 26 years of age, and is able to run it, and run it tough.” An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 people are imprisoned in North Korea.
121. Trump also lauded North Korea’s “great beaches,” and said he told Kim, “You know, instead of doing that (develop nuclear weapons), you could have the best hotels in the world right there.”
122. On Wednesday, upon returning to the U.S., in a series of tweets, Trump called the press America’s “biggest enemy” — singling out “Fake News, especially NBC and CNN” for downplaying his deal with North Korea.
123. On Thursday, Trump faced a backlash after he was seen in a 42-minute video of the summit, first broadcast by North Korea’s state news channel, saluting a North Korean general. Sanders called it a “common courtesy.”
124. Military and intelligence experts said U.S. leaders typically do not salute military officials from adversarial nations. U.S. ally South Korea is still technically at war with North Korea.
125. On Sunday, at the Tony Awards, actor Robert DeNiro said expletives about Trump, “First, I wanna say: ‘F — — Trump.’ It’s no longer ‘down with Trump,’ it’s ‘f — — Trump.’”
126. On Tuesday, Trump attacked DeNiro in two tweets, calling him a “very Low IQ individual,” who has “received to many shots to the head by real boxers in movies,” adding, “Wake up Punchy!”
127. On Tuesday, after GOP leaders blocked a vote on legislation which would give Congress veto power over certain Trump tariffs, Sen. Bob Corker accused the GOP of cowering to Trump, “let’s don’t do anything that might upset” him.
128. On Friday, Trump unilaterally imposed tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese products. Within an hour, the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing pledged to erect trade barriers of the “same scale and the same strength.”
129. On Thursday, the New York attorney general filed a civil lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation, accusing the campaign and family of violating campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign.
130. The lawsuit seeks to dissolve the foundation and bar Trump, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric from serving on nonprofit organizations. The attorney general also sent referrals to the IRS and FEC for further action.
131. The lawsuit gives numerous examples of Trump using foundation monies to win political favor or settle legal claims against his various businesses, as well as pay off his legal bills and promote Trump hotels.
132. The lawsuit also claims that $2.8 million raised by the foundation at an Iowa event in 2016 was allocated by senior campaign officials to veteran groups, making it an “improper in-kind contribution” to the campaign.
133. NY AG Barbara Underwood tweeted, “Our investigation found that the Trump Foundation raised in excess of $2.8 million in a manner designed to influence the 2016 presidential election.”
134. On Thursday, the Justice Department inspector general issued a report rebuking James Comey for breaking FBI and Justice Department protocol in his handling of the 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.
135. The 568-page report by IG Michael Horowitz found Comey was not motivated by political bias when he cleared Hillary Clinton of criminal wrongdoing.
136. Horowitz wrote Comey acted “unilaterally” and outside the scope of his authority when he held the July 2016 press conference, and rebuked Comey for sending a letter to Congress in late October 2016.
137. The report also included previously unreported text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok in which Page asked, Trump's “not ever going to become president, right?,”and Strzok responded, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”
138. Horowitz wrote Strzok, Page, and three other bureau staffers were being passed on to the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility for possible disciplinary action. Strzok is still with the FBI. Page left last month.
139. On Friday, Trump told reporters that he is “totally exonerated” by Justice Department IG report. He also accused the FBI of “plotting against my election,” saying Comey was the ringleader in a “den of thieves.”
140. Trump also claimed the Mueller investigation “has been totally discredited,” by the report. The Mueller probe was not mentioned in the report.
141. On Friday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is vying to win House leadership when Paul Ryan resigns, told “Fox and Friends” that “I think the Mueller investigation has got to stop,” citing the texts.
142. On Friday, in a wide-ranging surprise interview with “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy on the North Lawn of the White House, Trump said he opposes the immigration bill cobbled together by House Republicans.
143. Trump's opposition caught House Republican leaders by surprise. Ryan had told members he had been briefing Trump on their legislative strategy, and Trump was on board.
144. The bill would have provided $25 billion for Trump's border wall and a new visa program to give Dreamers a path to residency and citizenship, but would have ended the regime’s practice of separating migrant children from parents.
145. Trump also said, “I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.” Sanders had also blamed the Democrats at the daily briefing on Thursday. These statements are untrue.
146. Later Friday, the White House changed positions, saying Trump “fully supports both the Goodlatte bill and the House leadership bill,” saying Trump has misunderstood the question by Doocy.
147. Later Friday, the White House issued a statement by Trump on “Democrats’ Dangerous Immigration Policies,” blaming “CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS’ FAMILY SEPARATION POLICY.”
148. On Saturday, for the fourth time in 24 hours, Trump falsely blamed Democrats for “their forced family breakup at the Border,” and accusing them of “High Crime and Obstruction. Sad!”
149. Trump also told Doocy that Kim Jong Un is a “strong head” of his country, adding of Kim, “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”
150. When pressed on his comment, Trump insisted it was a joke and attacked the media, saying, “I’m kidding. You don’t understand sarcasm. Hey, who are you with? …You’re with CNN? Hey, you are the worst.”
151. Trump also said “Manafort has nothing to do with our campaign,” adding that he felt “a little badly” that prosecutors were targeting the longtime Republican operative, “He worked for many other Republicans.”
152. After naming other Republicans (Reagan, Dole, McCain) Trump said Manafort worked for him “for 49 days or something? A very short period of time.” Manafort was Trump's campaign manager for 114 days.
153. Trump also said of Michael Flynn, “Some people say [Flynn] lied and some people say he didn’t lie.” Flynn pled guilty to lying.
154. On Friday, Trump also told a CBS News reporter who was asking questions to “quiet” at least five time. He also said to reporters, “She’s so obnoxious.”
155. MSNBC host Katy Tur detailed a total of 19 lies or misleading statements in Trump's interview with Doocy on her show Friday.
156. AP reported at least four former Cambridge Analytica employees affiliated with Data Propria, a new company specializing in voter and consumer targeting work, have been quietly working for the 2020 Trump campaign.
157. In a conversation overheard by AP, Matt Oczkowski, who led Cambridge Analytica data team, said he and Parscale were “doing the president’s work for 2020.” Parscale is a part owner of Data Propria’s parent company, Cloud Commerce.
158. Cloud Commerce is also paying Parscale other amounts. A former FEC chair said it was unusual for an incumbent’s campaign to direct large amounts of business to outside firms tied to his campaign manager.
159. On Thursday, Rob Rogers, who joined the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as an editorial cartoonist in 1993 and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 1999,was fired, as the paper has shifted to the right.
160. Rogers cartoons had appeared in the paper roughly five times a week, but around Memorial Day, started disappearing. Rogers said in the past three months, 19 cartoons or proposals for cartoons were rejected.
161. On Saturday, in an op-ed, Rogers said he was fired for making fun of Trump. He said starting in March, management said his cartoons on Trump were “too angry” and said he was “obsessed with Trump.”
162. Russian news agency TASS reported that according to a White House spokesperson, Moscow and Washington are exploring “the opportunity of a meeting” between Putin and Trump, with Austria as a possible venue.
163. On Saturday, WAPO reported Trump is planning to meet with Putin in July, after months of prodding by Trump, who has faced resistance from senior political aides and diplomats questioning the value of a meeting.
164. A U.S. official said after meeting with Kim Jong Un, Trump said he wanted to invite Putin to the White House. The official said, “We ignored it.” Trump has become a strong public advocate for engagement with Russia.
165. According to a new Ipsos poll, for Global News and Reuters, Americans approve of how Trudeau is handling the trade dispute over Trump, by a 57–37 margin.

Sounds Familiar

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions, or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” – Henry A. Wallace

Prettifying

The rain finally subsided and yesterday was truly a SPECIMEN day! We decided to plant the driveway flower bed, and it was quite toasty up there on that (uber-slopey) driveway. [Still don’t have a date for the concrete driveway pour…]

The soil was soft and fluffy, and quite difficult to maneuver in, especially on that slope! But we got ‘er done (mostly John!) and it looks lovely, albeit sparse! It always does when you first plant. The planters alongside the deck stairs looked pathetic at first, too. But now!

The challenge was deciding what to plant there, where to plant them, and how far apart they should be, knowing (from experience) that they definitely GROW. So here it is! (click the pic to embiggen)

We didn’t plant everything—we still need to do the bottom tier of the terrace (and then get more top soil AND MORE PLANTS). But this was the perfect starting point. We had to hand-water it all in because John needs to pick up some components for the irrigation (drip) system. It’ll be so nice to have that up and running because everything will be on a timer. The planters along the steps (in the first pic above) are irrigated and you can see how HAPPY it makes those plants!

My personal vision will be (eventually) something like this, from our neighbors’ yard down the beach:

I absolutely love the softness, the mounds, and the way it all sways in the breeze off the water. Hopefully some day!

Something that is remarkably different this year are the HUGE number of butterflies! They are EVERYWHERE, and they’re BIG. They love the deck plants, and they were hovering all around us while we planted the bed yesterday (also: bumblebees). They mystify the cats, who lunge after them and then back off in confusion (“no meat there.”) There are times we see dozens and dozens of them all at once! So beautiful!! It must be the mix of flowers I chose this year that draws them.

Disgust Overfloweth

Week Eighty-Two

Compiled by Amy Siskind

This week started with Trump pushing yet another norm, saying he could pardon himself. This comes after a string of recent pardons, and Trump bragging to reporters that he is considering 3,000 more—crowning himself the arbiter of what is fair, not the judicial branch. In two moves that alarmed legal experts, Sessions’ Justice Department sided with a frivolous lawsuit instead of defending the Affordable Care Act, and seized phone and email records from a New York Times reporter.

Trump continued to divide the country, creating controversy by disinviting the NFL champions the Philadelphia Eagles from the White House, and later in the week, the NBA champions. The regime continues its cruel Zero Tolerance policy at the southern border, which has drawn international outcry and lawsuits.

Trump continues to act as if he is solely in charge, attending the Group of Seven summit in Quebec where he arrived late, left early, delivered a harsh, toothless speech, and complained Russia wasn’t invited — further alienating our former allies and achieving nothing before leaving for his summit with Kim Jong Un next Tuesday. However, this week, the Republican Party showed signs of standing up to Trump on several issues including trade, the FBI informant, ZTE and protections for “dreamers.”

1. On Sunday, Sen. Jeff Merkley posted a video showing he was denied entry to a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas used as a detention center for migrant children who had been separated from their parents.
2. The facility in Brownsville is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. Merkley tweeted, “Asked repeatedly to speak to a supervisor — he finally came out and said he can’t tell us anything. Police were called on us.”
3. On Monday, Ray Zaccaro, a spokesperson for Merkley, added that on Sunday, in a separate visit to a Border Patrol processing center in McAllen, Texas, “Senator Merkley and his staff saw children in cages.”
4. On Monday, deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley accused Merkley of “irresponsibly spreading blatant lies” and “smearing hardworking, dedicated law enforcement officials.”
5. On Tuesday, in one of a series of 13 tweets, Trump also attacked Merkley and Democrats, tweeting, “Separating families at the Border is the fault of bad legislation passed by the Democrats.” This statement is false.
6. On Tuesday, the United Nations human rights office called on the Trump regime to “immediately halt” its policy of separating children from their parents after they cross the U.S. border with Mexico.
7. A U.N. spokeswoman said, “The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles,” adding, “the child’s best interest should always come first.”
8. On Tuesday, Jeff Sessions defended separating migrant parents and children, telling conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, “If people don’t want to be separated from their children, they should not bring them with them.”
9. Sessions also likened the practice to what happens in the U.S., saying when an American “gets prosecuted” for a crime, “American citizens, and they go to jail, they’re separated from their children.”
10. On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced for a third month in a row, U.S. border agents made more than 50,000 arrests in May, triple the amount in May 2017, despite the Trump regime separating children from their parents.
11. NYT reported police departments in several cities with large Hispanic populations are seeing a decline in reports of domestic violence and sexual assault. Police blame fear of being deported.
12. Cities experiencing a decline include Los Angeles, Denver, San Diego, and Houston, which saw a decline from 7,460 reports from Hispanics in 2016, to 6,273 in 2017.
13. WAPO reported about 200 ICE officers blitzed two locations of Corso’s Flower and Garden Center in Ohio in an immigration raid. They arrested 114 workers thought to be illegal and loaded them on buses to be taken to ICE detention centers.
14. Local activists say dozens of children were left stranded at daycare centers and with babysitters. ICE plans to charge the undocumented workers with identity theft and tax evasion. ICE is also investigating the employer.
15. This marks third mass round-up conducted by ICE. In April, 97 immigrants were arrested at a meat-processing plant in rural Tennessee, and in January, ICE raided 98 7-Eleven stores.
16. Daily Beast reported Honduran native Martina Blasina Romero, the mother of Ronal Francisco Romero, an undocumented immigrant who died of bacterial meningitis while in ICE custody, is preparing to sue.
17. Border Patrol arrested Romero on May 9 as he illegally entered the U.S. He died May 16. Advocates say the facility where Romero was held is severely lacking in medical assistance, one saying it is “virtually nonexistent.”
18. On Wednesday, a U.S. District Judge in San Diego denied a motion made by the Trump regime to dismiss an ACLU lawsuit which argues that splitting up families at the border violates their due process rights.
19. The judge wrote that allegations that the government “arbitrarily tears at the sacred bond between parent and child,” if true, “is brutal, offensive, and fails to comport with traditional notions of fair play and decency.”
20. Intercept reported that the ACLU estimates between 1,500 and 2,000 migrant children have been separated from their parents at the southern border, with the number escalating with Sessions’ Zero Tolerance policy.
21. According to a police report obtained by WAPO, a Honduran father separated from his wife and child suffered a breakdown at a Texas jail and killed himself in a padded cell on May 13.
22. The Starr County sheriff’s deputy reports quotes Border Patrol agents. The death of Marco Antonio Muñoz, 39, has not been publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security.
23. The Des Moines Register reported Manuel Antonio Cano Pacheco, who was scheduled to graduate high school in Des Moines last month, died a brutal death in Mexico three weeks after being escorted out of the U.S. by ICE.
24. Cano Pacheco had been granted DACA status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, but it was revoked over a speeding ticket. He was the oldest of four siblings.
25. For a second year in a row, Trump failed to recognize LGBTQ Pride Month. Shortly after his inauguration, the Trump regime removed references to LGBTQ people from a number of federal government websites.
26. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that the baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple was discriminated against by a Colorado agency which displayed religious bias when it sanctioned him.
27. The narrow Supreme Court ruling did not address whether businesses can refuse service to same-sex couples based on religious beliefs. Trump fanned misinformation, tweeting, “Big Supreme Court ruling for Baker just out!”
28. On Monday, following the ruling, state Rep. Michael Clark of South Dakota wrote on Facebook that businesses should be able to turn away customers based on race. He later apologized.
29. Following the ruling, Jeff Amyx, owner of a hardware store in Tennessee, displayed a sign which read, ‘No Gays Allowed.’ Amyx said, “Christianity is under attack…this is not the end, this is just the beginning.”
30. Amyx had first posted the sign in the store window in 2015 when gay marriage became legal, but later removed it after facing a sharp backlash.
31. On Thursday, an Arizona appeals court ruled that a Phoenix-based calligraphy business cannot refuse service to same-sex couples.
32. After the White House drew fired in 2017 for not hosting an Iftar dinner to commemorate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, this year the regime hosted a dinner, but failed to invite any Muslim-American leaders or activists.
33. NYT reported on a 20-page confidential letter sent to Robert Mueller on January 29 from Trump attorneys John Dowd and Jay Sekulow, making the untested assertion that Trump cannot illegally obstruct any aspect of the Russia investigation.
34. Trump's lawyers argue it is impossible for him to obstruct justice by shutting down a case or firing a subordinate, no matter his motivation, since the Constitution gives him power to supervise the executive branch.
35. Trump's attorneys are looking to head off a subpoena for fear that if he answers questions in front of a grand jury, he risks exposing himself to accusations of lying to investigators, a potential crime or impeachable offense.
36. To counter Mueller, Trump and his lawyers are attacking James Comey’s credibility, and have started a public-relations campaign to discredit the investigation to preempt a potentially damaging special counsel report.
37. Trump's lawyers also disclosed in the letter that Trump “dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times article on behalf of his son” relating to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians.
38. Shortly after the NYT article came out, Trump tweeted, “Is the Special Counsel/Justice Department leaking my lawyers letters to the Fake News Media?” adding “When will this very expensive Witch Hunt Hoax ever end?”
39. This statement contradicts multiple public statements made by both Sekulow and press secretary Sarah Sanders in the past year, both who asserted to the press that Trump did not dictate the misleading statement.
40. On Monday, at the daily briefing, when asked about her past false statements, Sanders refused to explain, saying, “You’re referencing a letter that came directly from outside counsel and I would refer you to them,”
41. On Sunday, Rudy Giuliani told “This Week” that Trump has the ability to pardon himself, but said it is “unthinkable” he would pardon himself, saying, “He has no intention of pardoning himself.”
42. On Sunday, Giuliani told HuffPost, “In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted,” claiming Trump's Constitutional powers are that broad.
43. On Sunday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who hopes to take over House leadership when Paul Ryan retires, told “State of the Union” regarding the Mueller probe, “if there is no collusion, it’s time to wind this down.”
44. On Monday, Trump tweeted, “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself,” adding “ but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”
45. Trump also called the Mueller probe “the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats,” and said, “The appointment of the Special Counsel is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL!”
46. In a scathing op-ed “Mourning America,” by Patti Davis, Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Davis accused Trump of “sullying” the American dream,” and called out Republicans in Congress for refusing to stand up to him.
47. WAPO reported that in Trump's first 497 days, he has made 3,251 false or misleading claims. In his first 100 days, Trump averaged 4.9 false claims a day. Now, Trump is up to 6.5 false claims each day.
48. On Monday, the Pentagon inspector general issued a statement, saying the watchdog has “initiated an investigation into allegations” against Trump's former personal physician, Ronny Jackson.
49. U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell told Breitbart London he wants to “empower other conservatives” to rise up against “elites.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said Grenell should be recalled if political statements continue.
50. Trump nominated Michael Pack, a conservative filmmaker and close Steve Bannon ally, to lead the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency which oversees U.S.-funded media outlets, including Voice of America.
51. WSJ reported the Trump regime has put the search for the Justice Department’s number 3 position on hold, after failing to lure several candidates, who would take over the Mueller probe if Rod Rosenstein were fired.
52. The Justice Department has been a frequent target for Trump. The department lacks permanent, appointed leaders to oversee at least five high-profile units, including the criminal, civil, and tax divisions.
53. On Tuesday, Trump continued to attack Sessions, tweeting, “The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself,” adding, “So much time and money wasted.”
54. On Wednesday, WAPO reported Mick Mulvaney fired the 25-member advisory board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, after 11 of its members Monday publicly criticized his leadership of the agency.
55. Carl Higbie, a former Trump appointee, resigned from Trump-aligned America First Policies after companies said they would no longer donate due to his racist comments, like black women “think that breeding is a form of government employment.”
56. On Thursday, in a big victory for the chemical industry after heavy lobbying, Trump's EPA is scaling back the way the government determines health and safety risks associated with the most dangerous chemicals.
57. According to documents released last week by the Environmental Protection Agency, testing will now exclude potential exposure caused by the substances’ presence in the air, the ground or water, and instead focus on direct contact with a chemical.
58. Politico reported Trump has considered Judge Jeanine Pirro for a senior job in the regime. The two speak by phone frequently, and Trump watches her Fox News show every Saturday night, sometimes calling in.
59. On Monday, WAPO reported Scott Pruitt had aides do various personal tasks, including having the EPA’s chief’s director of scheduling call the Trump International DC to inquire about purchasing one of its used mattresses.
60. Emails released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Sierra Club reveal Pruitt tried twice to get a job for his wife. Federal ethics laws bar public officials from using their position or staff for private gain.
61. On Wednesday, a second top Pruitt aide, senior adviser Sarah Greenwalt, resigned from the EPA and said she is returning to Oklahoma to work at a state agency.
62. On Thursday, WAPO reported Pruitt enlisted his 24/7 security detail to run errands for him, including picking up his dry cleaning and picking up his favorite moisturizing lotion.
63. Documents obtained by The Hill under the FOIA reveal Bob Murray, CEO of coal company Murray Energy, offered six suggested executive orders on coal to the EPA and Department of Energy. In Week 62, a photographer was fired for leaking a photo of Rick Perry hugging Bob Murray.
64. The executive orders would have halted and repealed rules on coal pollution. Although Trump did not sign the orders, the regime has started to implement many of those policies.
65. On Friday, Trump said he continues to back Pruitt despite the growing list of ethical scandals, saying Pruitt is “doing a great job.”
66. Documents obtained by BuzzFeed in a FOIA lawsuit reveal that as head of DHS, John Kelly instructed an official not to email staffers for fear of scrutiny of the FOIA. At the time, the agency’s main focus was immigration.
67. WAPO reported that in early 2018, China hacked the computers of a Navy contractor, stealing massive amounts of highly sensitive data, including secret plans to develop a supersonic anti-ship missile by 2020.
68. On Thursday, the House voted 210-206 to rescind $15 billion in unspent funding that had been approved, including $7 billion for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, which covers low-income children.
69. Late Monday, Mueller’s team accused Paul Manafort of witness tampering by contacting two witnesses by phone and through encrypted messaging apps, and asked a federal judge to consider revoking or revising Manafort’s release.
70. Mueller’s team said Manafort and an unnamed associate linked to Russian intelligence repeatedly contacted two members of a public relations firm and asked them to falsely testify about secret lobbying.
71. On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered Manafort to respond by Friday to Mueller’s request to revoke or revise his release, and set a June 15 hearing date.
72. On Thursday, Reuters reported Bruce Baldinger, a longtime lawyer for Manafort hired Marc Garfinkle, a New Jersey ethics attorney, to advise him.
73. On Friday, Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national, were indicted by Mueller on charges of obstructing justice: trying to influence two witnesses relating to the failure to register as foreign lobbyists.
74. Manafort and Kilimnik allegedly began reaching out in February and April and tried to convince former colleagues to lie that Manafort’s lobbying work was done exclusively in Europe, and not in the U.S.
75. Kilimnik has worked with Manafort since 2005. Mueller’s team claimed in a court filing this year that the FBI believes Kilimnik still has “ties to a Russian intelligence service.”
76. Rick Gates, Manafort’s former business partner, who is cooperating in the probe, has said Kilimnik is a former officer of Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU.
77. With these indictments, the year-old Mueller probe has thus far resulted in 20 individuals and three businesses having been either indicted or pled guilty, and a total of 75 charges have been filed.
78. On Tuesday, Simona Mangiante, wife of George Papadopoulos, changed her previous account of her husband’s intentions, and asked Trump on Fox News to pardon him.
79. On Tuesday, Alex van der Zwaan, the first person to serve prison time in the Mueller probe, was deported to the Netherlands.
80. On Wednesday, Speaker Ryan said he agreed with Rep. Trey Gowdy’s initial assessment that there is no evidence the FBI spied on the Trump's campaign.
81. Shortly after, Sen. Richard Burr also said he agreed with Gowdy. So far Gowdy and three of the four Republicans (Mitch McConnell, Ryan, Burr) in the Gang of Eight agree there is no evidence. Only Devin Nunes differs.
82. On Wednesday, the Guardian reported according to visitor logs, Brittany Kaiser, then a director at Cambridge Analytica, visited Julian Assange in February 17, 2017 to discuss what happened in the U.S. election.
83. Kaiser also claimed to have channeled cryptocurrency payments and donations, given to her by a third party, to WikiLeaks. In a tweet Wednesday, WikiLeaks said, “WikiLeaks has no knowledge of donations.”
84. According to emails reviewed and sources, BuzzFeed reported during the campaign Ivanka emailed with former Olympic weightlifter Dmitry Klokov, who offered to introduce Trump to Putin to facilitate a Trump tower in Moscow.
85. Ivanka connected Klokov with Michael Cohen. Reportedly congressional investigators have reviewed the emails and questioned witnesses, as has Mueller’s team.
86. Late Monday, Trump abruptly disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles from a White House Super Bowl celebration, saying in a statement, “They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem.”
87. The regime claimed 70 Eagles had promised to come, then 10 to 12 said they would attend Monday. Aides said Trump deemed the smaller crowd unsatisfactory. No Eagles knelt during the national anthem last season.
88. On Tuesday, Fox News’ reporting on the canceled trip featured images of Eagles players down on a knee. The players were praying, not protesting. Fox News later apologized.
89. On Tuesday, the White House issued another statement saying, “the vast majority of the Eagles decided to abandon their fans.” The White House claimed 81 players had last week committed to come.
90. On Tuesday, in lieu of welcoming the Eagles, Trump held a “Celebration of America” event at the White House. Trump appeared alongside U.S. flags and military troops.
91. The event, which Trump hailed as a “beautiful, big celebration,” lasted about 10 minutes. At the ceremony,Trump struggled with lyrics to “God Bless America,” and took the opportunity to talk about the economy.
92. On Tuesday, AP reported stars from the teams in the NBA finals, Stephen Curry and LeBron James, said they will not go to the White House. James said “I know no matter who wins this series, no one wants the invite anyway.”
93. AP also reported Trump did not invite the WNBA champions the Minnesota Lynx to the White House to celebrate their most recent title. LeBron James called this “laughable.”
94. On Thursday, Yahoo Sports reported Colin Kaepernick’s lawyers are expected to subpoena to compel testimony from Trump, Pence, and other officials familiar with Trump's agenda on protesting NFL players.
95. As part of the lawsuit, lawyers will seek information on the Trump regime’s political involvement with the NFL during Kaepernick’s free agency and the league’s handling of player protests.
96. On Friday, ahead of the NBA championship game, Trump told reporters that he will not invite the NBA champions to the White House.
97. On Wednesday, Trump gathered his cabinet at FEMA headquarters for an annual briefing. Trump praised his entire cabinet except Sessions.
98. While at FEMA, Trump made no mention of the revised death toll estimates in Puerto Rico, and gave no indication the regime was reviewing its response to the hurricane in Puerto Rico.
99. First Lady Melania Trump also appeared with Trump at FEMA — her first time in public in nearly a month. Trump said, “The people of our country love you. So thank you, honey.”
100. Trump chastised the media, saying, “The Fake News Media has been so unfair, and vicious, to my wife.” Kellyanne Conway called the media’s coverage of Melania “conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact.”
101. On Friday, when asked why Melania did not accompany him to the G7 summit and Singapore, Trump said, “Can’t fly for one month, the doctors say. She had a big operation, that was close to a four-hour operation.”
102. Medical experts said it would be unusual for the procedure Melania received to last four hours, and that doctors don’t typically curtail flying after an embolization procedure, if it went normally as described.
103. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader McConnell canceled three of the four weeks of August recess. Democrats are defending 26 seats in November to Republicans’ nine, and would typically use that time to campaign. The House, however, will recess for the entire month.
104. On Tuesday, the LA Times reported 118,522 voters were accidentally left off the voting rosters in California’s primary due to a printing error. About 35% of L.A. County’s 4,357 precincts were affected.
105. Santa Clara County residents voted 59-39 to recall Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, the judge who presided over Brock Turner’s sexual assault case. He is the first California judge to be recalled in more than 85 years.
106. On Tuesday, CNN reported Kelly Sadler, the White House communications aide who made disparaging comments about Sen. John McCain and refused to publicly apologize, is no longer working at the White House.
107. On Tuesday, in tweets, Trump criticized “numerous delays” in release of the report on Clinton emails: “What is taking so long with the Inspector General’s Report on Crooked Hillary and Slippery James Comey.”
108. On Thursday, Trump again urged the Justice Department to investigate his political enemies, tweeting, “Justice Department must not let Awan & Debbie Wasserman Schultz off the hook,” adding “Where is Server? Really bad!”
109. Trump also accused the Obama administration of “trying to give Iran secret access to the financial system,” and using his new term for Mueller’s team, the “13 Angry Democrats,” telling them to investigate.
110. On Wednesday, Trump commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a first-time nonviolent drug offender. In Week 81, Kim Kardashian West visited Trump in the Oval Office to make this request.
111. On Friday, Trump told reporters he is considering pardoning some 3,000 people, including Muhammad Ali.
112. Ron Tweel, an attorney for Ali, who died in 2016, said in a tweet, “a pardon is unnecessary.” Ali’s conviction was overturned in 1971.
113. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled Trump can be deposed in the Summer Zervos defamation lawsuit. Zervos’ attorneys have already issued a subpoena to the Trump campaign related to other women accused.
114. Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz said before the case moves forward, the issue of whether or not a sitting president can be sued in state court should be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court.
115. On Wednesday, Stephanie Clifford’s attorney filed a lawsuit saying Cohen “colluded” with her then-lawyer, Keith Davidson, in an attempt to get her to go on Fox News’ “Hannity” in January and deny she had an affair with Trump.
116. On Wednesday, at an investment conference in Israel, Giuliani told the audience why the summit with North Korea was off, then on: “Well, Kim Jong Un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it.”
117. Giuliani said of Mueller’s team, “They are a group of 13 highly partisan Democrats” who are “trying very, very hard to frame” Trump. He also repeated his claim that Trump could pardon himself of any federal crimes.
118. Giuliani also said derogatory things about Clifford, including “I’m sorry I don’t respect a porn star,” and a woman who respects herself, “isn’t going to sell her body for sexual exploitation.”
119. Giuliani also he finds Clifford to be unattractive and therefore not credible, saying Trump's three wives are “Beautiful women, classy women, women of great substance. Stormy Daniels? Pfft.”
120. Giuliani drew sharp rebukes from many, calling him sexist and misogynist. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said his comments were a slur and “an insult to every woman in this country.”
121. On Friday, when asked about Giuliani’s comments, Trump said, “I’m not going to disagree with him on that.” Trump has appeared in three Playboy videos between 1994 and 2001.
122. On Thursday, Sessions’ DOJ filed a brief supporting an obscure lawsuit brought by conservative states, led by Texas, arguing the protections for people with preexisting conditions under ACA should be invalidated.
123. If those protections are invalidated, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, approximately 52 million Americans under the age of 65 could lose access to health care.
124. Legal experts expressed shock that the DOJ sided with a frivolous lawsuit. Law professor Nicholas Bagley wrote,“the Justice Department has a durable, longstanding, bipartisan commitment to defending the law.”
125. On Thursday, James Wolfe, a former Senate Intelligence Committee director of security, was arrested and charged with lying repeatedly to FBI investigators about his contacts with three reporters.
126. The DOJ seized records of a Times reporter, Ali Watkins, who had been in a three-year relationship with Wolfe. This is the first known instance of Trump's Justice Department going after a reporter’s data.
127. Watkins’s data, which was seized without her being notified, included phone records from her time working at BuzzFeed and Politico. She disclosed her personal relationship with Wolfe to all three employers.
128. Wolfe was responsible for safeguarding classified and sensitive information. Court documents describe Wolfe’s communications with four reporters, including Watkins, using encrypted messaging applications.
129. On Thursday, the Times denounced the seizure of Atkins’ phone and email records, saying the move “will endanger reporters’ ability to promise confidentiality to their sources and, ultimately, undermine the ability of a free press.”
130. On Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists also expressed concern about the seizure, and called the move “a fundamental threat to press freedom.”
131. On Friday, Trump applauded the arrest, saying, “I’m a very big believer in freedom of the press, but I’m also a believer that you cannot leak classified information.” Trump has been pressuring Sessions to take action.
132. On Friday, Jim Jordan, a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, said he was “very nervous” about the DOJ’s surveillance of a NYT reporter, and said he may hold hearings.
133. On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC that at about 6 a.m., the Trump regime “executed a definitive agreement with ZTE.” China lobbied the Trump regime for a compromise on ZTE.
134. On Thursday, senators, including Trump ally Tom Cotton, said they would introduce an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act which would restore penalties on ZTE for violating sanctions against Iran and North Korea.
135. The amendment would also ban government agencies from buying or leasing equipment and services from ZTE and Chinese telecom company Huawei, citing national security concerns about spying.
136. On Friday, the Chairman of ZTE apologized to staff and customers in a memo, saying the company had agreed to pay a $1 billion fine and overhaul its leadership. ZTE said it will restart restart operations.
137. On Wednesday, Sen. Bob Corker, along with eight Democratic and Republican co-sponsors, introduced a bill to check Trump's tariff authority, rebuffing a personal request from Trump to back off.
138. This marks the first time Republicans have stood up to Trump on trade. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Koch Industries backed the bill, but McConnell said he would not bring it to the floor as a stand-alone bill.
139. On Thursday, a group of two dozen moderate House Republicans broke from Trump, demanding a vote to reinstate deportation protections for “dreamers” taken away by the regime.
140. On Thursday, former House Speaker John Boehner said at the Mackinac Policy Conference in Michigan, “There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party. The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”
141. CNN reported on a testy conversation between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on May 25, in which Trump invoked the War of 1812 to justify tariffs, “Didn’t you guys burn down the White House?” That was British troops.
142. On Thursday, ahead of the G7 meeting in Quebec, France’s Prime Minister Macron tweeted, the will to have a text “signed by 7 countries” must not overcome the content, adding, “we must not rule out a 6+1 agreement.”
143. On Thursday, Trudeau tweeted an article detailing an “even closer collaboration” with France.
144. Trump responded in a series of tweets, saying, “Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs,” and accusing Trudeau of “being so indignant.”
145. Late Thursday, the White House announced Trump would leave the G7 summit early, after sparring with Macron and Trudeau on the issue of trade.
146. On Friday morning, before heading to the G7 summit, Trump told reporters Russia should be reinstated in the group, saying “Russia should be in this meeting…They should let Russia come back in.”
147. Russia was suspended from the then G8 in 2014 over the annexation of Crimea, the first violation of a European country’s borders since World War II. Trump's statement signals the growing divide with former allies.
148. On Saturday, Trump arrived late to the G7 summit breakfast on empowering women, and walked in after Trudeau had welcomed everyone to the session.
149. On Saturday, Trump delivered his most defiant trade threat yet, telling the G7 summit that they must dramatically reduce trade barriers, “We’re like the piggy bank that everybody is robbing. And that ends.”
150. Trump asked the six countries to remove every single tariff or trade barrier on American goods and in return, he would do the same for products from their countries. Else, they risk severe penalties.
151. He also said of trade wars, “We win that war a thousand times out of a thousand.” WAPO reported before Trump had grumbled about having to attend the G7, and had considered sending Pence in his place.
152. Trump also again called for readmitting Russia to the G7, and said “Crimea was let go during the Obama administration…I might have had a very different” response.
153. Trump departed early Saturday, skipping meetings on climate change, energy policy and oceans. The White House Trump will leave early to prepare for his summit in Singapore on June 12 with Kim Jong Un.
154. On Thursday, Politico reported National security adviser John Bolton has yet to convene a cabinet-level meeting to discuss Trump's upcoming summit with Kim Jong Un, a striking break from decades of precedent.
155. On Thursday, when asked about preparation by reporters at the White House before a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Abe, Trump said “I don’t think I have to prepare very much. It’s about attitude.”
156. On Tuesday, New York Post reported former NBA player Dennis Rodman will be in Singapore for the Trump-Kim summit. Sources say Rodman may play some part in the negotiation, and “One thing’s for sure the ratings will be huge.”
157. On Thursday, Trump said that Rodman had not been invited to the summit but called him a “nice guy.” Trump added that he did not know about Rodman’s intention to be in Singapore during the summit.
158. On Friday, Rodman confirmed on Instagram that he’s heading to Singapore to “give whatever support is needed to my friends, President Trump and Marshall Kim Jong Un.”

Forest for the Trees

The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe because its handle was made of wood and they thought it was one of them.