BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

—Don Jr. Like father, like son.

TOO HOT TO HANDLEBAR

National security adviser John Bolton abruptly became former national security adviser John Bolton Tuesday morning. 

Here’s what you need to know.

Who is John Bolton? He’s a veteran right-wing national security official and commentator, and a famously manipulative, hawkish, Islamophobic operative who has been agitating for war with Iran and North Korea for years. These are particularly serious flaws for a national security adviser, whose job is to coordinate national security policy across the government, and present presidents policy options, without bias. When he became national security adviser last year, we were all pretty spooked about it. 

What happened? There are two versions of events: Trump’s version, and the truth. In Trump’s version, he asked Bolton to resign on Monday evening. Then, instead of offering his resignation immediately, Bolton waited until this morning to submit it. Bolton is adamant that he offered his resignation last night and Trump said, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.” Then, when Bolton resigned, Trump pretended on Twitter to have fired him. (Trump is famously afraid to fire people in person.)

Why, though? Hard to say for sure, but it’s clear that Bolton has been at odds with Trump and other senior administration figures for a while. 

• Trump wanted to host Afghanistan peace talks with Taliban leadership at Camp David this week, and Bolton advised against it. 
• Trump reportedly wants to ramp up a diplomatic process with Iran (i.e. to resolve the crisis he created by withdrawing from the nuclear deal), which Bolton opposes.
• Bolton has opposed Trump’s weird infatuations with Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin.
• Bolton has also reportedly been engaged in bureaucratic warfare with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is really good at kissing up to Donald Trump. 

Isn’t this all good news? Yes, but it also depends heavily on who replaces him. Bolton is terrible but the national security adviser does not need to be confirmed by the Senate. Trump could offer the job to Don Jr. or the last person who bribed him, and there’d be no way to stop it. Hopefully someone better than Bolton gets the nod, but as always, the main problem is having a president who’d give someone like Bolton this position in the first place. We won’t truly be safe until he’s out of office.

Over 1,600 polling places have closed since the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013. That decision eliminated the requirement that states with histories of discriminating against minority voters clear proposed changes to their election rules with the federal government. In the six years since, the states covered by this so-called preclearance requirement have rapidly accelerated voter disenfranchisement efforts, including by eliminating polling places.

Texas has been the worst offender. It has closed 750 polling places, followed by 320 in Arizona, 214 in Georgia, 126 in Louisiana, 96 in Mississippi, and 72 in Alabama. 

Stacey Abrams’s new group, Fair Fight 2020, will challenge voter suppression laws and tactics like this in 20 battleground states ahead of the 2020 election. Stay tuned for more on ways to help her out → 

Friend of the Pod and activist Ady Barkan released two new conversations with Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris as part of his video series “Uncovered” with 2020 presidential candidates. In it, he talks to the candidates about health care, and elevates the stories of Americans who have experienced our unjust health-care system firsthand. 

Ady’s new book, Eyes to the Wind, is out today. Get it now →

President Trump reportedly doesn’t trust foreign spies who provide intelligence to the U.S. because he thinks they’re snitches who “sell out their country” and can hurt his friendships with their countries’ leaders—especially his pal Vladimir Putin.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says he plans to start annexing territory in the occupied West Bank with Trump’s support if he wins re-election next week and is able to form a coalition. He also said he expects Trump to present Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plan shortly after the election, which seems like the kind of thing people might want to see before the election, but what do we know?

Britain’s House of Commons has adjourned until mid-October, shortly before the Brexit deadline. Prime Minister Boris Johnson engineered the suspension of parliament two weeks ago in a ploy to force an abrupt withdrawal from the European Union, but parliament responded by prohibiting him from pulling the United Kingdom out of the E.U. without a deal.

The Senate has confirmed Kelly Craft as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nation, filling the vacancy Nikki Haley created at the end of 2018. Craft, who previously served as Trump’s ambassador to Canada, is a prominent Kentucky GOP donor, so naturally Moscow Mitch (R-KY) helped her get a promotion.

Former Georgia congressional candidate Jon Ossoff will run for Senate in 2020 against Sen. David Perdue (R-GA). Ossoff gained national attention during a 2017 special election when he nearly flipped a GOP-held House seat. He joins three other Democrats in the Senate primary to oust Perdue. Both of Georgia's Senate seats will be on the ballot in 2020.

The FDA says e-cigarette company Juul illegally marketed its products as less harmful than cigarettes without federal approval to do so. Over 400 people have recently contracted vaping-related illnesses. 

For the first time, most new hires of workers between the ages of 25 and 54 are people of color, thanks to a surge in black female employment.

The NRA sued San Francisco after the city's board of supervisors declared the group a "terrorist organization." The campus left’s war on free speech is out of control! Also, San Francisco is good again.

Apple announced new iPhones and other stuff. None of it sounds that exciting, except for pet portrait mode (!!!!!). From Priyanka: Portrait mode Pundit content coming soon to IG, follow4follow.

Economic headwinds update:

• American incomes remained unchanged in 2018 after three straight years of growth, according to new Census Bureau figures.  

• The Federal Reserve reports that consumer-debt balances increased in July at a higher rate than we’ve seen in two years—which is often a sign that people are having a harder time making ends meet. 

• The share of uninsured Americans rose for the first time in nearly a decade, despite a low unemployment rate, seemingly because many of the low-income jobs workers have been offered don’t include health benefits. (It doesn’t help that President Trump has tried to sabotage the Affordable Care Act for two and a half years.)

In all, things do not seem as great as President Jobs would like us to believe. Fortunately there is a political party in this country with candidates and lawmakers who give a fuck about the problems described above. Vote for them. → votesaveamerica.com

The California State Assembly passed a bill on Monday that will let college athletes sign endorsement deals. If it becomes law, it would prohibit schools in California from revoking scholarships or scholarship eligibility from athletes who profit off of their names, images, and likenesses.

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