Week 100 of something that’s becoming so hard to believe: Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. 

https://medium.com/@Amy_Siskind/week-100-experts-in-authoritarianism-advise-to-keep-a-list-of-things-subtly-changing-around-you-5cfd4d8498cf

October 13, 2018

This week as Republicans celebrated the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, polling told a different story: more Americans disapprove of the confirmation, are concerned about Kavanaugh politicizing the court and believe there should be further Congressional investigation. Under Mitch McConnell’s Senate leadership, a record number of Trump judicial nominees have been pushed through, including restacking 15 percent of circuit court judges.

In the final weeks before midterms, Democrats poured record donations to House candidates, and Beto O’Rourke, the Senate candidate from Texas, pulled in a record-smashing haul of $38.1 million for the last quarter. Republicans sought to counter Democrats’ enthusiasm by riling their base by vilifying the left as paid protestors or a “mob” that threatens violence against the right. These tactics serve as an acknowledgment that traditional issues like tax cuts and the economy no longer excite the Republican base.

The disappearance and likely death of WAPO contributor Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly at the hands of the Saudi crown prince, along with the vicious murder of popular Bulgarian journalist Victoria Marinova — both government critics — drew international attention to the threat to human rights and the free press. Trump tried to side-step U.S. involvement, while sharpening his attacks on his Democratic rivals as scary, bad, evil, radical, and dangerous — and billing himself as the only one who can save his base from disaster.

After U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley became the latest on the growing list of senior official departures, Trump flirted with the idea of elevating Ivanka Trump to the position, repeatedly. For the first time since taking office, Trump’s campaign rallies no longer garnered live broadcast on Fox News, indicating a falloff in ratings.

1. On Saturday evening, as Justice Brett Kavanaugh was being sworn in, protestors rallied and some pounded the doors of the Supreme Court. U.S. Capitol Police said 164 people were arrested during the protests.
2. Simultaneous protests took place in other U.S. cities including Denver, Atlanta, Cleveland and New York City. In Austin, Texas, protestors were arrested after blocking a bridge to demonstrate.
3. On Saturday, Trump tweeted, “Women for Kavanaugh, and many others who support this very good man, are gathering all over Capitol Hill” adding “they are not paid professional protesters” with “expensive signs.”
4. On Saturday night, at a rally in Kansas, Trump praised Kavanaugh and accused Democrats of trying to “plunge our country into gridlock and chaos,” adding that Democrats are the party of “crime.”
5. Trump attacked Sen. Elizabeth Warren, calling her “Pocahontas” and saying “I have more Indian blood than her and I have none,” and falsely attributed a statement about Vietnam to Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
6. On the way to the event, Trump told reporters he was certain Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had misidentified Kavanaugh as the perpetrator, saying “I’m a hundred percent. I have no doubt.”
7. Robert Post, the former dean of Yale Law School, wrote Kavanaugh’s “very presence will undermine the court’s claim to legitimacy; it will damage the nation’s commitment to the rule of law. It will be an American tragedy.”
8. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported neo-Nazis and racists are rejoicing over the Kavanaugh appointment as “open season” on women, as well as on LGBTQ and minority rights.
9. David Duke made an anti-Semitic statement. Neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer featured a photo of bound and gagged women, including one tossed over a man’s shoulder, and an exploding Planned Parenthood clinic.
10. On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham said on “Fox News Sunday” that Trump’s “third term thing is looking better and better.”
11. On Sunday, Taylor Swift, in an Instagram post, broke her public political silence, encouraging her followers to vote in the midterms and slamming GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn, who is running for the Senate in Tennessee.
12. Swift wrote in her post, “I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.”
13. On Monday, when asked about Swift’s statement, Trump told reporters, “I’m sure Taylor Swift…doesn’t know anything about her (Blackburn),” adding, “Let’s say that I like Taylor’s music about 25% less now.”
14. BuzzFeed reported Swift’s Instagram post caused a massive spike in voter registrations. Vote.org added 65,000 registrations in the 24-hour period after Swift’s post, compared to 56,669 registrations during the entire month of August.
15. Metro Weekly reported a transgender student at a middle school in Virginia was left outside during a mass shooter drill after school administrators could not decide if she should shelter with boys or girls.
16. Police in Hamilton, Texas, removed a yard sign showing a GOP elephant with its trunk up the skirt of a woman yelling “HELP!” that was painted by Marion Stanford during Kavanaugh’s Senate testimony.
17. The sign, which also read “YOUR VOTE MATTERS,” was placed right below a sign supporting Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke. The policeman said there were complaints about the sign and that “it is pornography.”
18. On Tuesday, HuffPost reported Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler engaged with racist and inflammatory content on his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts over the past five years, including in the past month.
19. In August 2016, Wheeler defended Milo Yiannopoulos, who was banned from Twitter for encouraging his fans to harass “Saturday Night Live” star Leslie Jones, who is a Black American.
20. On Thursday, Wheeler told a reporter at E&E News that he does not remember liking a 2013 racist post that showed Barack and Michelle Obama looking at a banana, claiming he did it by mistake scrolling by.
21. In an email obtained by BuzzFeed under a Freedom of Information Act request, then-Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly called Sen. Elizabeth Warren an “impolite arrogant woman” in an email to an aide.
22. Michael Kalny, a Republican official in Kansas, resigned after saying on social media that “radical socialist kick-boxing lesbian” Native American Sharice Davids will be “sent back packing to the reservation.”
23. Teresa Klein, a white woman in Brooklyn, New York, called the police, falsely claiming a 9-year-old black boy touched her behind a deli. The boy and another child burst into tears after Klein confronted them.
24. The commotion was captured on video and posted on Facebook, where Klein was labeled “Cornerstore Caroline.” Klein later apologized on local television, but she continued to deny her actions were racially motivated.
25. The Supreme Court refused to intervene with North Dakota’s new voter ID law after Native Americans residents challenged the requirement to show a street address in order to vote. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp faces a close race.
26. In Georgia, Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is the Republican running for governor, announced 53,000 voter registrations were flagged and would be put on hold. Of those on hold, 70 percent are Black Americans.
27. On Thursday, Georgia NAACP and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights sued Kemp, seeking to reopen voter registration in Georgia to ensure the 53,000 registrants and others can vote in the midterms.
28. On Friday, Kemp’s Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams called on him to resign. Kemp blamed the situation on “outside agitators.” Georgia has purged a total of 1.5 million voters between the 2012 and 2016 elections.
29. Houston Chronicle reported Jacob Aronowitz, a field director for Democratic congressional candidate Mike Siegel, was arrested after delivering a letter demanding the county update the status of students.
30. Aronowitz was arrested for taking a photo of a clerk receiving the letter to confirm it had been received. The clerk objected to having her picture taken and complained to a nearby bailiff, who called the police.
31. WAPO reported Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his aides are fighting to not answer the question in court of which official pushed Ross to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
32. On Monday, NYT reported on hearings in a New York immigration court, where Judge Randa Zagzoug had nearly 30 children to hear from, whose ages ranged from 2 through 17 years old in one afternoon.
33. With the five-fold increase from May 2017 of children being held in federally contracted shelters, more and more children are coming to court, including children under the age of 6, which was a rarity until last year.
34. On Tuesday, AP reported even though Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy ended, hundreds of children remain in detention, shelters or foster care, and more than 200 are not eligible for reunification or release.
35. An investigation of court documents, immigration records and interviews found holes in the system that allow state court judges to grant custody of migrant children to American families without notifying their parents.
36. New Yorker reported that in July, after crossing the border and being separated from her mother, a 5-year-old girl seeking asylum from Honduras was detained and persuaded to sign away her rights.
37. On Thursday, Intercept reported, according to a new report published by Amnesty International, the number of families separated under “zero-tolerance” at the border may be thousands more than originally reported.
38. Customs and Border Protection detail the separation of 6,022 “family units” — a term that sometimes refers to a family group. Amnesty estimates 4,000 children were separated, not 2,500 as reported by the regime.
39. A representative from Amnesty International said the only way to get at the real number would be a congressional inquiry.
40. On Thursday, CNN reported ICE put a 4-year-old girl on a plane to Guatemala to be reunited with her father. Her father was not informeduntil 30 minutes before her flight landed. He lives eight hours away.
41. On Friday, WAPO reported the Trump regime is actively considering plans that could again separate migrant parents and children at the Southern border, seeking to deter the flow of families trying to cross illegally.
42. The number of migrant family members charged with illegally crossing the border jumped 38 percent in August to a record level. Trump has been unable to fulfill his promise to build a wall or end the practice of “catch and release.”
43. One option being considered is the called “binary choice” — detain families together for 20 days then give them the option of seeking asylum or allow the children to be taken into government custody.
44. Other option being considered includes new rules to withdraw from a 1997 federal court agreement that limits ICE custody of children to 20 days and imposes production quotas on immigration judges.
45. Flavio Musmanno was contacted by a supposed good Samaritan after losing his wallet working a construction job in Ohio. When he met up, the Samaritan turned out to be an ICE agent who arrested him. He is set to be deported.
46. On Monday, Trump advocated reinstating a practice called stop-and-frisk to curb crime in Chicago, saying the agreement between the American Civil Liberties Union and the police department to end stop-and-frisk abuses was “terrible.”
47. On Friday, attorney general Jeff Sessions announced the Justice Department would be sending more violent crime prosecutors to Chicago.
48. Popular Bulgarian journalist Victoria Marinova was found dead this week. She had been raped and beaten to death so forcefully she was unrecognizable. Marinova is the fourth journalist killed in the EU since 2017.
49. In Russia, just 58% of citizens said Putin could be trusted, down from 75% last year, and the lowest since level since 2012. Putin’s ratings skyrocketed after troops seized Russian-speaking Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
50. Turkish investigators said they were probing the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was last seen publicly entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Khashoggi contributed to WAPO’s Global section.
51. On Wednesday, WAPO reported crown prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, to Saudi Arabia from Virginia to detain him. Khashoggi refused to go.
52. Khashoggi was later assassinated in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Jared Kushner, who has a close relationship with Mohammed bin Salman, and national security adviser John Bolton spoke to the crown prince, but Saudis provided little information.
53. On Thursday, when asked about Khashoggi by reporters, Trump said, “this took place in Turkey and to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen, is that right? He’s a permanent resident.”
54. Trump claimed that Saudi Arabia is “spending $110 billion on military equipment.” WAPO fact checker gave Trump’s claim “Four Pinocchios,” saying the $110 billion figure is not real and is unlikely to come to fruition.
55. Trump has long and deep business ties to Saudi Arabia, which he bragged about on the campaign trail in 2015, while creating new foreign entities in the kingdom. The Saudis have purchased his yacht and apartments at his properties.
56. On Saturday, Trump vowed “severe punishment” if Saudi Arabia murdered Khashoggi, adding “Well, nobody knows yet, but we’ll probably be able to find out,” in an interview for “60 Minutes” set to air Sunday night.
57. Atypical for a U.S. leader, Trump’s first foreign visit after taking office was to Saudi Arabia. The kingdom continues to funnel money to Trump businesses after Trump took office, including the Trump Hotel DC.
58. On Sunday, WSJ reported GOP operative Peter W. Smith raised at least $100,000 to search for Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 deleted emails. Smith mysteriously died 10 days after first speaking to the Journal in Week 35.
59. Smith went to great lengths to remain secretive: donations were sent to a Washington, D.C.-based scholarship fund for Russian students, and he communicated using a Gmail account under the name “Robert Tyler.”
60. Smith’s activities remain of interest to the House and Senate Intelligence committees, as well as the Mueller probe. Associates of Smith have been interviewed by investigators or summoned before a grand jury.
61. On Tuesday, WSJ reported Smith met with Michael Flynn as early as 2015, before Flynn joined the Trump campaign. Smith told associates during the campaign he was using Flynn’s connections to help with the email project.
62. NYT reported Rick Gates, as deputy chair of the Trump campaign, requested proposals in 2016 from Israeli company Psy-Group for fake online identities, social media manipulation and gathering intelligence.
63. One proposal was to use bogus personas to target and sway delegates to the 2016 Republican National Convention by attacking Ted Cruz. Another was for opposition research about Hillary Clinton and people close to her.
64. The third proposal was for a months-long plan to help Trump by using social media to expose or amplify division among rival campaigns and factions.
65. Joel Zamel of Psy-Group pitched the company’s services during a meeting on August 3, 2016, at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., which was also attended by George Nader and Erik Prince.
66. Nader, who is cooperating in the Mueller, probe, and Zamel have given differing accounts of whether Psy-Group carried out social media efforts to help the Trump campaign. Nader paid him $2 million after the election.
67. Mueller’s team has obtained copies of the proposals and questioned Psy-Group employees as part of its probe of Russia’s efforts to disrupt the 2016 election. Gates is now cooperating in the Mueller probe.
68. The offices of Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency, a troll farm, was set ablaze. Earlier this year, more than a dozen employees of the operation were indicted in the Mueller probe for interfering in the 2016 election.
69. New Yorker reported on ties between the Trump Organization’s server and Alfa Bank during the 2016 election, possibly a means of communication. NYT would not allow a reporter covering the story to go public.
70. The reporter, Eric Lichtblau, uncovered in September 2016 that the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russian contacts with Trump’s aides. The NYT ran a story October 31 saying there was no link.
71. On Wednesday, Richard Pinedo was sentenced to six months in prison and six months’ home confinement in the Mueller probe. Pinedo is the third American to be sentenced to prison.
72. Pinedo, who pleaded guilty to identity theft, cooperated in the Mueller probe. His testimony contributed to the indictment of 13 Russian individuals and three companies in Week 66.
73. On Thursday, Judge T.S. Ellis II questioned Manafort’s plea deal with Mueller, calling it “highly unusual” to seek the dismissal of deadlocked charges only after Manafort has finished cooperating in the probe.
74. The move has the potential to take away an incentive for Manafort to cooperate and could lead to details of Mueller’s investigative interests being made public. The parties will appear again in court on October 19.
75. On Thursday, NBC News reported Trump’s attorneys are preparing written answers to questions from Mueller’s team. The questions focus on whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
76. Trump has continued to deny any collusion with Russia took place. There is still no agreement for an in-person interview between Mueller’s team and Trump.
77. On Monday, a petition by progressive groups calling for the impeachment of Kavanaugh gathered more than 125,000 signatures.
78. On Monday, Trump told reporters the sexual assault allegations by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh are a “hoax” generated by the Democrats, adding “It was all made up — it was fabricated, and it’s a disgrace.”
79. On Monday, an attorney for Ford told MSNBC that Ford cannot return home for “quite some time,” saying, “the threats have been unending. It’s deplorable. It’s been very frightening.”
80. On Monday, at Kavanaugh’s swearing-in ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Trump falsely claimed allegations against Kavanaugh for sexual assault, “under historic scrutiny, were proven innocent.”
81. In a break from precedent, Trump apologized to Kavanaugh: “On behalf of our nation…for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure” and decried the “campaign of personal destruction.”
82. There is precedent for a ceremony in the White House: all sitting Supreme Court justices did have one except Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, although the others were done privately and without reporters attending.
83. Kavanaugh thanked Vice President Mike Pence, several GOP senators and Sen. Joe Machin, and White House Counsel Don McGahn. Historian Michael Beschloss expressed concern Kavanaugh is going to be “very indebted” to Trump.
84. On Monday, WAPO reported, in an effort to mobilize GOP voters, Republicans have cast the Trump resistance movement as “an angry mob” they say threatens the country’s order.
85. Rep. David Brat said he is running against the “liberal mob,” and Senate candidate Corey Stewart decried “mob tactics,” characterizations meant to evoke fear of an unknown and out-of-control mass of people.
86. That the GOP is fanning a culture war is also a tacit admission that many of the issues that Republicans had hoped to run on, including tax cuts and the economy, have not been enough to spark GOP voters’ enthusiasm.
87. On Monday, in an op-ed in the Murdoch-owned WSJ titled “George Soros’s March of Washington,” Asra Nomani made sweeping and unsubstantiated claims that the Kavanaugh protestors were funded by Soros.
88. On Tuesday, in an interview with a Kentucky radio station, Sen. Rand Paul said he was concerned that there “is going to be an assassination” as a result of the political climate.
89. On Tuesday, Trump claimed in a tweet that the “paid D.C. protesters” who he falsely claimed were hired to protest the Kavanaugh confirmation, are now “REALLY protest[ing] because they haven’t gotten their checks.”
90. Fix the Court, a nonpartisan group advocating for accountability and transparency on the Supreme Court, purchased the domain BrettKavanaugh.com and directed it to resources for sexual assault survivors.
91. On Monday, a new CNN poll found negative views of Kavanaugh on the rise: 51% oppose his confirmation, up from 39% in early September. Support inched up from 38% in early September to 41% now.
92. On Monday, Alaska’s GOP Party chairman said his committee could decide to issue a statement or withdraw support for Sen. Lisa Murkowski in next election because she opposed Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
93. Eric Barber, a West Virginia city councilman who is pro-Kavanaugh, wrote: “Better get you’re (sic) coathangers ready liberals,” in a now-deleted Facebook comment to a private group.
94. On Tuesday, a CNN poll found a record gender gap in party support, with women voters backing Democrats for Congress 63–33, while men backed the GOP 50–45. Overall, likely voters favor Democrats 54–41.
95. On Wednesday, Trump’s White House announced the eighteenth wave of federal court nominees: thirteen men, zero women.
96. All were successfully pushed through the Senate. Under Sen. Mitch McConnell, a record number of judges have been confirmed, including 29 to the circuit courts, 53 to district courts and two to the Supreme Court.
97. Trump’s nominees now fill a whopping 15 percent of the circuit court seats. During Obama’s second term, McConnell allowed floor votes on only 22 of his judicial nominees.
98. On Wednesday, in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, FBI director Christopher Wray defended the “limited” scope of Kavanaugh background probe, saying it was “consistent with the standard process.”
99. When asked by Sen. Kamala Harris if Kavanaugh misled Congress in his Senate testimony, Wray said “That’s not something I could discuss here.”
100. When asked why neither Kavanaugh nor Ford was interviewed, Wray said “the investigation was very specific in scope, limited in scope” adding “the usual process was followed.”
101. On Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts referred 15 judicial misconduct complaints filed against Kavanaugh, related to statements he made during his Senate hearings, to a federal appeals court in Colorado.
102. The complaints relate to whether Kavanaugh was dishonest and lacked judicial temperament during his testimony. The Colorado appeals court is led by Chief Judge Tymkovich, who was nominated George W. Bush.
103. Per Week 99, it is unprecedented for a new justice to face complaints. Merrick Garland, the chief judge in the D.C. circuit, recused himself. It is unclear if Colorado will close the case since Kavanaugh has been elevated.
104. On Monday, Fox announced Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director, will become the chief communications officer of Fox, the new entity to be spun out of Murdoch assets sold to Walt Disney.
105. Unlike most who have departed from the regime, Hicks remains close with Trump, including traveling with him on Air Force One in August, and is held in high esteem by many in the West Wing.
106. On Monday, watchdog group CREW called on the Inspector General to investigate whether U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley violated federal ethics regulations by accepting flights on private planes.
107. On Tuesday, in a surprise to Trump regime officials, Haley announced she was resigning at the end of the year, giving no clear reason for the timing four weeks before midterms.
108. Haley frequently disagreed with Trump on foreign policy and reportedly had a strained relationship with John Bolton. In December, Haley said that women who had accused Trump of sexual misconduct “should be heard.”
109. Reporters and pundits speculated on why Haley resigned: everything from a 2020 run, to having penned the anonymous NYT op-ed, to taking Sen. Lindsey Graham’s seat. Her resignation letter was dated October 3.
110. Haley is the sixth cabinet official to depart, leaving just four racial or ethnic minorities and five women out of Trump’s 23 cabinet members
111. Names floated to replace Haley included Dina Powell and Ivanka Trump. Trump later told reporters Ivanka would be “incredible” and “dynamite,” adding “But, you know, I’d then be accused of nepotism, if you can believe it.”
112. On Friday, Trump tweeted, “everyone wants Ivanka Trump to be the new United Nations Ambassador” but complained, “I can already hear the chants of Nepotism!” Ivanka tweeted Tuesday she did not want the role.
113. On Monday, a landmark climate change report commissioned by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change painted a far more direpicture of the immediate consequences than previously thought.
114. The report warns of worsening food shortages, wildfires and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 and says avoiding damage requires transforming the world economy at an unprecedented speed and scale.
115. The report found if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) over preindustrial levels by 2040.
116. On Tuesday, when asked about the U.N. report by reporters, Trump said “I want to look at who drew, you know, which group drew it.” Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, which gave rise to the report.
117. Trump also told reporters “I want more industry. I want more energy,” saying of ethanol, produced in Sen. Chuck Grassley’s Iowa, “it’s an amazing substance. You look at the Indy cars. They run 100 percent on ethanol.”
118. On Wednesday, Trump wrote an op-ed in USA Today about Democrats’ “Medicare-For-All” plan. According to WAPO’s fact checker, almost every sentence contained a misleading statement or a falsehood.
119. The op-ed also contained incendiary statements, including “The truth is that the centrist Democratic Party is dead. The new Democrats are radical socialists who want to model America’s economy after Venezuela.”
120. USA Today Editorial Page Editor Bill Sternberg pushed on Twitter, writing “The degree of fact-checking is also apparent in the many hyperlinks in the digital version.” The links do not back up the claims in the editorial.
121. On Thursday, bowing to criticism, USA Today fact-checked the op-ed and found “several instances where [Trump] misrepresented the facts and made misleading statements” about Medicare and health insurance in general.
122. Finland’s largest newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported Trump and Putin may meet again in Helsinki next spring. Reportedly organizers are already looking for dates, and Valentine’s Day weekend is being considered.
123. On Tuesday, Westmoreland Coal Co., one of the oldest coal companies in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy amid declining demand for coal.
124. On Wednesday, the stock market plunged over 800 points, the biggest loss since February, on fears of rising interest rates.
125. Trump blamed the Federal Reserve for stocks tumbling, telling reporters, “The Fed is making a mistake” about gradually lifting interest rates, adding, “I think the Fed has gone crazy.”
126. On Thursday, Trump continued to attack the Fed, telling reporters the Fed’s monetary policy “is far too stringent,” adding “they’re making a mistake and it’s not right.”
127. When Trump was asked by reporters whether he would fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, he responded, “No, I’m not going to fire him. I’m just disappointed.”
128. WAPO reported top FBI attorney James Baker said in a Congressional hearing last week that he took seriously a question by then acting FBI director Andrew McCabe about wiretapping Trump.
129. Baker said McCabe took deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein’s suggestion of wiretapping Trump seriously. Baker said the proposal to wear a wire was dismissed by senior FBI and DOJ officials “within a couple of days.”
130. Politico reported Fox News is no longer giving Trump’s campaign rallies prime-time coverage, signaling he is no longer getting high enough ratings to pre-empt programming.
131. A reporter from New Yorker listened to Trump’s six rallies in October, given that they are no longer televised. She found a blatant disregard for the truth and a repeating of lies that have already been debunked.
132. Amid the lies, Trump makes himself a hero in every story. While Trump paints a dystopian view of the country, the politicians he campaigns with are called upon to shower him with praise.
133. Trump also uses pejorative nicknames, like “low I.Q.” Maxine Waters, “Crooked Hillary” and “Crazy Bernie,” and gives his supporters a deep sense of hate of others not in politics at every rally.
134. Trump also decries Democrats as “scary, bad, evil, radical, dangerous.” He is the leader of law order and order, and he alone stands between his audiences and disaster.
135. As Trump’s base remains loyal and their support does not budge, the concern is that Trump is creating a space to do the unthinkable.
136. On Tuesday, at a campaign rally in Iowa, Trump accused Sen. Diane Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, of leaking “the documents.” The crowd responded with chants of “Lock her up!”
137. On Wednesday, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Trump accused Hillary Clinton of colluding with Russia to affect the 2016 election while his crowd chanted “Lock her up!”
138. On Thursday, authorities arrested Craig Shaver, a California man, for allegedly threatening to kill Sen. Feinstein. Prosecutors said Shaver made the threat in a September 30 email to the Senator.
139. On Thursday, after receiving no prime-time coverage for his rallies this week, Trump pre-empted hurricane coverage on Fox News, appearing on “Fox & Friends” for a 47-minute long interview.
140. When asked if he would fire attorney general Jeff Sessions and deputy Rod Rosenstein immediately after the midterm election, Trump replied, “Well, I actually get along well with Rod.”
141. Trump criticized the Fed for the drop in the stock market. He also predicted partisan discord if Democrats won control of the House and noted some Democrats have already threatened to impeach Kavanaugh.
142. The “Fox & Friends” co-hosts repeatedly tried to end the interview. Eventually, host Steve Doocy found an opening to end the interview, telling Trump, “Go run the country.”
143. Later Thursday, Trump met with singer Kayne West in the Oval Office in front of reporters. Trump used the praise heaped on him by West at his rallies and as a means to suggest Black Americans should vote for him.
144. Both former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen re-registered as Democrats.
145. On Friday, Facebook revealed data was stolen from 29 million users, not 50 million, in September. The hacked information contained vital personal data, including name and phone number, email, location, gender and relationship status.
146. On Friday, according to an August letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley made public, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security clearance, along with five other aides, has been revoked at her request.
147. The letter indicates Clinton’s request was done in quiet protest of Trump revoking former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance in sync with Admiral William McCraven’s op-ed supporting Brennan.
148. On Friday, at a campaign rally in Ohio, Trump cited lower unemployment numbers for Black Americans and asked black voters to “honor us” by voting Republican, falsely claiming “we have the best numbers in history.”
149. Trump then praised Confederate General Robert E. Lee, calling Lee a “true great fighter” and “great general” and added Abraham Lincoln once had a “phobia” of Lee, whose support of slavery made his legacy contested.
150. Trump also evoked the notion of the mob, claiming from the moment Kavanaugh was announced as his nominee, “an angry Democratic mob was on a mission to resist, obstruct, delay, and destroy him.”
151. On Friday, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll found more Americans disapprove of the Kavanaugh confirmation: women say it moves them to Democrats over Republicans by 16 points, while men are evenly split.
152. The poll found 43% of Americans believe the court’s rulings will be more politically motivated with Kavanaugh on the court, compared with 10% who said they will be less political.
153. The poll also found 53% of Americans support further investigation of Kavanaugh by Congress, while 43% are opposed. Among independents, 55% support further investigation, while 40% do not.
154. Democrats are donating record amounts to House candidates heading into midterms: in the 70 most contested races, the GOP has reserved $60 million in TV ads, compared to $109 million for Democrats since late July.
155. The head of a pro-Trump super PAC said “we’ve never seen anything like this before.” House GOP aides hoping to receive a late cash transfer from the Republican National Committee no longer expect that to happen.
156. A new proposal by the Trump regime’s Park Department could restrict protests by effectively blocking them along the north sidewalk of the White House and making it easier for police to shut them down.
157. The proposal would also curtail protests at Washington’s most iconic staging grounds, including the National Mall, Lafayette Square and the Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalks in front of the Trump Hotel DC.