What A Day: Tariff-in' up my heart

BY PRIYANKA ARIBINDI & CROOKED MEDIA

Friday, June 7, 2019

—Donald Trump, space expert.

BREAKING

According to Donald Trump's Twitter, his administration has reached a deal with Mexico to "indefinitely" suspend the tariffs on Mexican imports that were scheduled to go into effect next week. This is a developing story.

IMPEACHY KEEN

As the debate on impeachment continues, House Democrats are taking some action next week to highlight findings from the Mueller report:

The Intelligence committee will hold a public hearing on Wednesday about the “counterintelligence implications” from volume one of the Mueller Report, which focuses on Russia’s election interference and the contact between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.
The Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Monday about volume two of the report, which focuses on obstruction of justice. (They could have done a better job coordinating with Intel so this would come after volume one, but beggars can’t be choosers).
The House plans to vote Tuesday on whether to petition a federal court to enforce its subpoenas for documents and testimony from Attorney General Bill Barr and White House counsel Don McGahn. Note: This isn’t the same thing as holding them in contempt of Congress, but there isn’t much of a difference between what this would ultimately do. Contempt would allow the House to refer the two to the Department of Justice for prosecution, but Barr leads the DOJ and there’s no shot he’s gonna prosecute himself. This approach would avoid the DOJ by going to the courts to enforce the subpoena instead.

Robert Mueller will not appear in either hearing, though both committees have asked him to testify. Of course there’s always the option of subpoenaing him (something tells us he’d be a little more compliant than Barr or McGahn have been).

These hearings are likely an intermediary response to the increasing number of rank-and-file Democrats that are pushing House leadership to open an impeachment inquiry.

Where the party’s at: 60 House members publicly support impeachment proceedings. This is one quarter of the party’s caucus. This includes 13 out of the 24 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee. 21 members of this committee are needed to send an impeachment resolution to the House floor.
Where the people are at: 41 percent of the public currently supports impeachment. The high was 47 percent back in September (which is weird, because the Mueller report detailing all the impeachable shit Trump has done came out in April, but ok).

Though Nancy Pelosi is still opposed to impeachment, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler has reportedly pushed her to pursue it.

The death toll in pro-democracy protests across Sudan’s capital rose to at least 100, as the country’s ruling military council continues to crack down against civilians.

Sudan’s longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir was ousted from power by the military in April following months of mass protests. However, the military has since been reluctant to give power back to the civilians, who have demanded a transition period before holding new democratic elections.

On Monday, the unrest between the groups escalated into violence when state security forces opened fire against unarmed protestors and cut access to almost all internet and phone services in the country.

According to new Labor Department stats, U.S. job growth sank in May, adding just 75,000 jobs. This is 100,000 less jobs than economists were expecting, and follows similar trends in the private sector reported earlier this week.

After months of delay, Trump finally signed the $19.1 billion disaster relief bill on Thursday. It includes assistance for Puerto Rico (which he initially objected to) and areas of the U.S. affected by floods, wildfires, and other extreme weather. But if it really relieved disasters it would end his presidency amirite??!

New York’s police commissioner issued an unusual apology for the violent raid at the Stonewall Inn in 1969. The raid started when officers claimed the LGBTQ bar was violating its liquor license, and targeted patrons with slurs and violence. It’s considered widely to be a turning point for the modern gay rights movement.

Seventeen of the largest automakers in the world urged Trump to scrap his plans to roll back emissions standards. They warn that Trump’s current plan will split the market into states that comply with higher emission standards and those that don't.

Democratic presidential hopeful Steve Bullock’s campaign is not happy with the DNC’s updates to debate qualifications. In addition to doubling the polling and donation threshold for candidates to make it into the third and fourth primary debate, the DNC will exclude some polls from its consideration, including the one that would have allowed Bullock to qualify.

The FCC will let wireless carriers automatically block unwanted robocalls for customers after they received millions of complaints from people getting calls nonstop. FINALLY, SOME PEACE.

In case you wanted to give Trump props for recognizing Pride Month, note that his administration denied requests from U.S. embassies to fly the Pride flag on embassy flagpoles, including in Germany, where the ambassador himself is gay and is leading the administration’s supposed priority of decriminalizing homosexuality worldwide. Who are we kidding, none of you were giving him props for that.

Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Gravel scored a coveted endorsement from the man who threw his shoes at George W. Bush. Big get for a guy who is most definitely three teens in a trenchcoat.

Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk are calling it quits, eliciting “👀” from everyone who’s seen half a second of him performing “Shallow” live with Lady Gaga.