Week 84: A Special Report on the Indictment of Paul Manafort (October 29, 2017)

Dear Readers,

It has been an eventful week. For all past newsletters (and more), make sure to go to the blog at http://www.electreport.blogspot.com

Indictment

Beginning on Friday, there were rumors that special counsel Robert Mueller would indict someone with ties to President Trump because of connections to Russia. Today, it was revealed that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was charged with money laundering, Rick Gates, a former campaign adviser, was charged alongside him. This wasn’t exactly surprising - Manafort has been subject to FBI raids and other investigation recently. But the more damning charge came when former Trump foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. There is also perhaps potential for more upcoming charges, though that is obviously just speculation. These charges on their own are not that meaningful, other than showing that Mueller has real evidence and actually means business.

What does our president have to say about this?

-“All of this "Russia" talk right when the Republicans are making their big push for historic Tax Cuts & Reform. Is this coincidental? NOT!”

-“Report out that Obama Campaign paid $972,000 to Fusion GPS. The firm also got $12,400,000 (really?) from DNC. Nobody knows who OK'd!”

-“Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus???? ....Also, there is NO COLLUSION!”

JFK Assassination Documents to be Released

Relatively minor detail, but the FBI has announced they will release all files pertaining to the Kennedy assassination. They will be released in the coming weeks, after initially being delayed by the White House.

Thanks for reading! Sorry this one was short, I suppose it was more of a “special report” concerning the indictment.

Week 83: "Wacky" (October 22, 2017)

Dear Readers,

It has been an eventful week. For all past newsletters (and more), make sure to go to the blog at http://www.electreport.blogspot.com

Budget

This week, the Senate passed the 2018 budget. It passed 51-49, with every Republican save Rand Paul voting in favor. The budget is supposedly a prerequisite to the tax cuts Republicans are currently trying to pass, and McConnell and Trump say they are pleased with this news. I’ve gone over the budget in the past, but it cuts a lot of government programs to allow for tax cuts on the rich, all the while being presented as a “Taxpayers First” budget. The obvious hypocrisy should be evident.

Prior to this, the Senate passed an amendment referring to the voting process on the budget as “utter nonsense.” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer referred to it as “one of the worst budgets Congress has ever passed.” And they still got 51 votes.

Frederica Wilson

The argument began when Rep. Frederica Wilson from Florida told reporters she overheard a conversation between President Trump and the widow of an officer who died in Niger. In this conversation, she said, Trump told the widow that the officer “knew what he was getting in to.” Rather than apologizing, the president denied it and called Wilson “wacky.” The insults kept growing, and John Kelly joined in too, insulting her for listening to the conversation: "I would have thought that was sacred." She responded to this by calling Kelly a “puppet.”

A Wonderful Week in Professional Tweets from Our President

“Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!”

“Republicans are going for the big Budget approval today, first step toward massive tax cuts. I think we have the votes, but who knows?”

@foxandfriends "Russia sent millions to Clinton Foundation"

“The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!”

Trump’s Bartiromo Interview

Trump recently had an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. Calling it “barely coherent” is probably too generous. Here’s an example:

BARTIROMO:  Yes.  You soured on the health care bipartisan plan a bit -- right -- from Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray?

TRUMP:  Well I’ve -- I have looked at it very, very strongly.  And pretty much, we can do almost what they’re getting.  I -- I think he is a tremendous person.  I don’t know Senator Murray.  I hear very, very good things.

I know that Lamar Alexander’s a fine man and he is really in there to do good for the people.  We can do pretty much what we have to do without, you know, the Secretary has tremendous leeway in the -- under the Obama plans.  One of the things that they did, because they were so messed up, they had no choice but to give the Secretary leeway because they knew he’d have to be -- he or she would have to be changing all the time.

The full transcript is here.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to reply or comment to let me know what you think.

Week 82: "Beautiful, Soft Towels. Very Good Towels" (October 8, 2017)

Dear Readers,

It has been an eventful week. For all past newsletters (and more), make sure to go to the blog at http://www.electreport.blogspot.com

Las Vegas

I don’t want to say too much about this, because what there is to say has already been repeated many times. The facts are as such: A 64-year-old retiree with no prior criminal history shot at a crowd of festival goers, killing 58 and injuring hundreds more. He was able to fire more bullets by using bump stocks, a legal device capable of making semi automatic rifles become basically automatic. The NRA has opposed efforts to ban these devices, as well as any gun control efforts.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all the victims, but if this won’t start a serious dialogue about gun control measures, what will?

Puerto Rico

Now, for some more lighthearted news, Donald Trump’s handling of Hurricane Maria. Trump finally visited the devastated island of Puerto Rico and... threw rolls of paper towels into the crowd, like a T-shirt cannon at a basketball game. He then somehow tried to justify it by, of course, bragging about the crowd’s reaction as well as describing “these beautiful, soft towels. Very good towels. And I came in and there was a crowd of a lot of people. And they were screaming and they were loving everything. I was having fun, they were having fun.” Nothing more fun than hurricane relief efforts! Fun!

Adult Daycare

Following the announcement of his retirement, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) has begun releasing insults of Donald Trump (since he’s got nothing to lose), and it’s a beautiful thing to behold. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee tweeted this morning: “It's a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”

Similarly, during a feud between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President Trump, it has been revealed that Tillerson referred to Trump as a “moron” in a Pentagon meeting. The reason Trump and Tillerson were feuding is because Tillerson has been negotiating with North Korea, which Trump thinks is a bad idea. Indeed, he referred to this time (with North Korea... we think) as “the calm before the storm.” Repeatedly asked what said storm referred to, he only said “you’ll find out”. Because who knows any more?

Thanks for reading! Feel free to reply and let me know what you think.

Week 81: "Killing Us With The Bureaucracy" (October 1, 2017)

Dear Readers,

It has been an eventful week. For all past newsletters (and more), make sure to go to the blog at http://www.electreport.blogspot.com

Health Care Failures

And yet again, the GOP replacement to ObamaCare goes down in flames, being pulled from the floor without so much as a vote this week. Graham-Cassidy was scrapped after many Republican senators announced their attention to not vote for it, and afterwards Sen. Lindsey Graham freely admitted he had no idea what he was doing. In addition, this week Congress failed to reauthorize the CHIP program, which provides health insurance to 9 million children and has existed for 20 years. It is primarily federally funded, though the states do also provide some, and if they don’t reauthorize it soon, funding might be gone as soon as March.

Alabama

Not that it was much of a surprise, but homophobic far-right judge Roy Moore handily won the Republican primary for the open Senate seat in Alabama. Senate Republicans spent $9 million to support Luther Strange in this race, and the president even endorsed him.

Some referred to the election as a referendum on Trump’s influence, since the candidate Trump endorsed lost. This is ridiculous. Were it not for Trump, Roy Moore could not have gained enough support to win. Moore belongs to Trump’s brand of outspoken, “tell it like it is”, vaguely racist Republicanism. And Trump’s obviously reluctant endorsement of Strange doesn’t change that. No, this was a referendum on widely hated Mitch McConnell, who proudly supported Strange and will pay for it.

Golfing While PR Burns

As Hurricane Maria, a category 4 storm, wrecked Puerto Rico, President Trump sat at Mar-A-Lago. He has yet to visit the island (though he will this week), and at first cared much more about criticizing Colin Kaepernick than helping the millions of Americans without power in Puerto Rico. He has since at least nominally tried to help them, but made a big deal of insulting San Juan’s mayor, after she said “If anyone out there is listening to us, we are dying, and you are killing us with the inefficiency and the bureaucracy.” Trump, among many other things, said that the island's leaders "want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort." Yes, the victims of the hurricane need to help each other when none of them have power or water, as opposed to the man that governs them, you know, doing what a government should do and initiating disaster response? Sickening.

Catalonia

Catalonia, a region of Spain with a linguistic minority that makes up 20% of the Spanish economy, held a vote on independence today. The Spanish government declared the referendum unconstitutional beforehand, but they proceeded with the vote anyway. The Spanish government sent police, who injured nearly a thousand protesters, and even raided some polling statements. The votes we have show 90% voting to secede, and the actions of the Spanish government certainly will cause support for independence to increase further. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has called the vote illegal. Whether or not you agree with the Catalonian cause, the Spanish government has no justification for their actions today.

Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think.