His headline is a little hyperbolic, but I want to associate myself with Matt Yglesias’ argument for why former President Barack Obama should, in the best interest of the center-left political movement he once led, decline payments like the $400,000 speaking fee he will receive from the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald.

I am honestly perplexed by the vigor with which some liberals defend the prerogative of ex-officeholders like Obama, and even prospective officeholders like the Hillary Clinton of 2013 and 2014, to collect such fees from interest groups with business before the government.

The argument against these fees, and against post-office cashouts more broadly, is simple: If public officials are expected to make a lot of money from certain interest groups after they leave office, some voters will reasonably fear that those officials will go easy on those groups while in office, so as not to alienate those groups.

My concern is only in part about “optics.” It is also substantive: The expectation of a future payday could weigh, even unconsciously, on the way politicians treat interest groups they may expect to receive payments from in the future. A norm that expects politicians to forswear such payments, even after they leave office, would make those politicians less likely to be swayed by their own financial interests when they make policy.

The appearance of conflict of interest is a particular political danger for liberals, since a promise to protect ordinary people against moneyed interests is at the core of their political appeal. Republicans are forthrightly aligned with big business. Democrats should not vilify business, but they need voters to believe them when they say they will stand up to business interests when doing so serves the public.

Obama spokesman Eric Schultz pushed back on those concerns by pointing to Obama’s implementation of Wall Street reform despite raising “more money from Wall Street than any candidate in history” in 2008.

Obviously buckraking is most problematic if you do it while intending to seek office again – as Hillary Clinton and former Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh learned the hard way in 2016. But Yglesias notes that in Britain, Tony Blair’s post-office business activities have fostered cynicism about “New Labour” and damaged the political movement he left behind.

The concern is not that Obama receiving such a fee will influence Obama’s future policy decisions about Wall Street (he won’t make any) but that if he goes around collecting such fees, he will make voters more wary of the intentions of future center-left politicians who run in his mold, as happened with Blair. Bernie Sanders’ strong appeal in the 2016 primaries, which wasn’t limited to far-left voters, shows that many voters are concerned about such matters.

Many of the responses to the argument against this speaking fee have been, frankly, childish. They miss the point of having ethical standards and avoiding conflicts of interest.

“Other people do it, why shouldn’t Obama?” is an argument your first-grade teacher would not have taken seriously. It is not good enough for Democrats simply to exceed the ethical standards of the Trumps or appear less conflicted than the Bushes.

You follow high ethical standards and avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest because, in the long run, it is good for your political movement. It demonstrates to voters that you put their interests first and are not swayed by financial concerns. It reduces the likelihood of embarrassing scandal.

Virtue, in this area, is its own reward.

And the cost of a norm against high speaking fees from business is essentially zero. If you’re not a prominent politician, you lose literally nothing by cutting off one of such politicians’ several available sources for post-office income.

Yes, Obama would have to give up some income. But since he and Michelle have reportedly reached a $65 million book deal (and congratulations to them for it) they will be very wealthy anyway.

I have been baffled by the extent to which liberal political concern is directed to whether their leaders are being treated fairly, on a personal level. “Is it fair for Obama to have to forego this fee?” is a question that misses the point.

Politics isn’t supposed to be about the interests of powerful people like Obama. It’s supposed to be about the regular people who support the movements that people like Obama lead. Our leaders are supposed to serve us, and it is appropriate to ask them to make sacrifices in the broader public interest, including sacrifices of income.

Obama is a private citizen and he certainly has a legal right to take speaking fees from powerful interests if he wants. But since he has expressed his intention to continue engaging positively in the discourse in an effort to bolster the ideas he sought to promote in office, I would expect him to care whether his actions serve or undermine the interests of the political movement he used to lead.

If Obama announced an intention to decline speaking fees from businesses in the future, he could help set a new norm against political buckraking that would benefit the movement he used to lead.

Part of President Donald Trump’s tax reform outline released on Wednesday would do away with itemized deductions on individuals’ tax returns except for the mortgage and charitable giving deductions.

Here’s a rundown of the itemized deductions this plan would cut:

Deductible state and local taxes: Currently, individuals are allowed to deduct their state and local taxes from their federal tax payments. This includes:
Personal property taxes: Allows deductions of state and local taxes on items like a boat or car. Real estate taxes:Allows deductions of state and local taxes on the “value of real property.”Income taxes: Allows deductions of taxes on wages and other income paid to the state or local government. Sales taxes: Can deduct sales taxes paid instead of income taxes. This is mostly used in stats without a state-level income tax like Texas.

Gambling losses: Losses due to legal gambling can be deducted currently, as long as they are itemized. Interest expense: Interest paid on a debt, such as a student loan or mortgage, can be currently deducted. You cannot deduct interest on a personal car loan or credit card debt. Union and/or Club expenses: If membership in a union, professional society, or chamber of commerce “helps you do your job,” the membership fee can be deducted. Moving expenses: If you moved for a new job, the cost of moving can be deducted if itemized.Miscellaneous expenses: If an expense on the Internal Revenue Service’s list, including tax preparation fees and unreimbursed employee expenses, accounts for more than 2% of a filers gross income, it can be deducted.

The Trump outline is not a finalized plan, and the White House said they could change the plan as they work with Congress, so it is not a guarantee if these deductions will ultimately be eliminated.

A murdered woman’s FitBit data led Connecticut police to arrest her husband in connection with the death, the Hartford Courant reports.

In December 2015, Connie Dabate was shot in her home with a .357 Magnum that her husband, Richard Dabate, 40, had bought a few months before.

After more than a year of investigations, the Hartford police charged Dabate with his wife’s murder, tampering with physical evidence, and making false statements to the police. He is currently out on bail but due to appear in court on Friday, April 28.

The couple had been fighting over money for several months and, in November 2015, Dabate texted his girlfriend that he and Connie were getting “a slow-moving divorce.”

At the time of her death, Dabate told police that his wife was murdered by a “tall, obese man” that broke into their home and chased Connie into the basement before shooting her dead.

Police dogs did not pick up the scent of an armed intruder however. The data obtained from Connie’s FitBit exercise tracker showed investigators that she was moving around nearly an hour after her husband said she had been killed.

The police used “alarm system, computers, cellphones, social media postings and Connie Dabate’s Fitbit to create a timeline that contradicted Richard Dabate’s statements to police,” the case’s warrant said.

“To say it is rare to use Fitbit records would be safe,” Lancaster, Pa., district attorney Craig Stedman told the Hartford Courant.

Here are how the conflicting murder narratives unfolded:

Dabate initially told investigators that he left the house for work at 8:30 a.m on Dec. 23. Dabate claimed that, after getting a house alarm notification on his phone, he got back around 9 a.m. when he “saw a masked man – about 6-foot-2 and stocky with a Vin Deisel voice ‘looking through things’ in the walk-in closet.” At 8:46, data from the Fitbit showed that Connie left to drive for a spinning class at the local YMCA. Computer data showed that Dabate sent an email telling his boss that he would be late at 9:04 and, by 9:18, checked the page with the class schedules on the website of the YMCA. Security cameras indicated that Connie left the center at 9:18 and, through evidence from the FitBit data, started walking again at 9:23 a.m (alarm records indicate that the couple’s garage door was opened at the same time.) Connie posted two Facebook videos and sent a message to a friend between 9:40 and 9:46 from her home’s IP address before, at 10:05, making her last registered movement on the FitBit. At 10:11 a.m., Dabate’s key fob set off the panic alarm for their home’s security system, which placed an emergency call to the police by 10:16. It was only at 10:20 that Dabate himself made a 911 call to the police about his wife’s death.

Marc Benioff’s stature in San Francisco is on the rise, as Salesforce Tower, the city’s tallest building, nears completion.

But Benioff’s paycheck is getting smaller.

The CEO of Salesforce took a 60% paycut in the recently ended 2017 fiscal year, according to the company’s annual proxy report, filed on Wednesday.

Of course, Benioff still took hom $13 million in total compensation for the year.

The 52-year-old founder of Salesforce’s pay package has been in investor sights for several years. At the company’s 2015 shareholder meeting, Salesforce’s executive compensation only passed with a relatively 52% of investor votes, and then only 60% in 2016.

After that first meeting, Salesforce says, it met with shareholders and put plans into place to reduce Benioff’s pay. In between those first two meetings, Benioff’s pay took a 16% from $39.9 million to $33.4 million. Then, he took the additional 60% dip from $33.4 million to $13 million.

Check out Salesforce’s chart of how Benioff’s pay has progressed, per the SEC filing:

“We listened to our stockholders, and taking their input into account, we reduced overall CEO pay in fiscal 2017 by 60% while expanding the use of PRSUs to our other senior executives,” Salesforce said in the filing, referring to performance based restricted stock units.

As part of Salesforce’s executive compensation reform, Benioff’s base salary stayed frozen at $1.55 million from FY16 to FY17, and will stay that way for at least the next fiscal year. However, note from the chart that pay is now more closely tied to Salesforce’s corporate and financial performance.

Here’s the breakdown of how Benioff gets paid, also from the filing:

Finally, Benioff is losing out on one more thing: In 2015 alone, Salesforce spent about $1.5 million on protecting Benioff. Under the company’s executive compensation reform plan, Salesforce won’t pay for Benioff’s personal security detail in this new fiscal year.

Twitter reported its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday, and the results were better than expected. After months of lower-than-desired performance, the company reported a big beat on daily user growth. The social media site now has 328 million people (and bots) every month tweetstorming and doling out pithy comments, a 14% year-over-year increase.

That’s undoubtedly a good thing for Twitter, but it’s far from a saving grace. Apart from the eternal complaints over harassment on its platform, the company is still struggling to turn its users into ad dollars. As this chart from Statista shows, that’s led to a continued dip in revenue growth, and the company’s first year-over-year revenue decline.

Twitter doesn’t expect that to get better soon, either. While the company says it expects things to improve in the long term, it still anticipates revenue growth to “meaningfully lag” behind user growth for the rest of 2017.

The entire US Senate was bused to the White House on Wednesday afternoon to receive a much-hyped classified briefing on North Korea – but some Senators emerged from the all-hands meeting unimpressed by the content and the “lack of straight answers” they got from administration officials.

“It was an OK briefing,” Republican Sen. Bob Corker, chair of the Foreign Relations committee, told reporters afterward.

“What was discussed, I already knew,” Corker said, according to Buzzfeed. “I’m not certain I would have had the briefing today, but I do appreciate – you know, they’ve got a great team that they put together.”

“It’s not like we learned some earth-shaking thing that’s going to happen tomorrow,” Corker added, according to NBC’s Frank Thorp.

Another Republican Senator told the Washington Post’s Congressional reporter Ed O’Keefe that the White House did not offer “even straight answers on what the policy is regarding North Korea and its testing of ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles].”

“There were about 80 sets of invisible eyes rolling,” the Senator said.

“We were not presented with any specific military options,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons told reporters after the briefing, though he noted it had been “sobering.”

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN’s Jim Sciutto that there was “no revelation” during the briefing.

It was “more a chance to convey they’re serious,” Murphy said.

The Senators were briefed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, all of whom were “very sober” in their presentation, another Senator told O’Keefe.

“We were walked through the diplomatic, the economic, and the military aspects of dealing with North Korea, and all of the steps we’re taking to try to prevent that very dangerous situation from getting even worse,” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said, according to Buzzfeed.

As high-school seniors recently admitted to college start to think about furnishing their dorm rooms, they’ll soon learn there are some fairly universal items they will need to avoid.

Items that pose a risk of hazard to students, like toasters, space heaters, and even Christmas trees, are frequently banned from their rooms.

But another set of items, once banned, are increasingly allowed on college campuses across the nation: concealed weapons.

“Utah was the first state to allow guns on campus in 2004,” Andy Pelosi, executive director of The Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus, told Business Insider. “Since then, there has been a trend of pretty much one state a year changing their laws,” he continued.

In the year 2000, no states had laws on their books that allowed guns on college campuses. Today, 10 states have signed such laws. And an eleventh, Georgia, passed such legislation in March. It’s awaiting the governor’s signature.

Campus carry laws generally only pertain to public colleges and universities, though some require private colleges to take an affirmative step to opt-out.

The mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007 may have accelerated campus carry laws. That’s when the gun lobby picked up its fight in support of campus carry, according to Pelosi.

Ten years ago this April, Virginia Polytechnic Institute senior Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 others before killing himself. The tragedy brought both proponents and opponents of gun control into the fray.

Those in favor of reforming gun laws cited Cho’s history of mental health issues, and argued he should have never been able to purchase two semi-automatic weapons to carry out the attack. On the other side, opponents of gun control said that an armed student or faculty member could have prevented, or diminished, the casualties.

Since then, other arguments for guns have become popular. As colleges grapple with sexual assault prevention on campus, some say that guns will help women protect themselves.

Legislators also maintain that second amendment rights don’t stop on college campuses, or that people have a God-given right to carry their guns on campus.

Georgia Rep. Mandi Ballinger, who sponsored the state’s recently-passed bill argued as much in March.

“It’s the God-given right that people have to not be a victim in the state of Georgia,” Ballinger said. “States that have enacted campus carry measures have become safer,” she continued.

Gun-control advocates say there is little evidence to support such a claim, and researchers at Johns Hopkins University released a study stating the opposite.

“Increasing gun availability in campus environments could make far more common acts of aggression, recklessness or self-harm more deadly and, thus, have a deleterious impact on the safety of students, faculty and staff,” they wrote.

Yet, more campus carry bills emerge every year. Already this year, 16 states that don’t currently allow concealed weapons on campus have introduced introduced such bills. Some, like New York, are particularly surprising.

“I have never seen a New York bill before,” Pelosi said, before explaining it’s unlikely to advance.

Still, he cautions against the belief that campus carry laws only impact people in states that have passed such laws.

“People send their kids out-of-state all the time,” he said.

Starbucks is still struggling to bring more customers into US stores, as the coffee giant battles mobile ordering issues.

On Thursday, Starbucks reported that US comparable sales increased 3% in the second quarter. However, transactions, or number of orders placed, fell 2%.

Starbucks said that the drop in orders could be attributed to its rewards program, which was revamped last April.

The old program would have encouraged a customer ordering multiple drinks to place multiple different orders to get the most points. The new program no longer does that, as it ties rewards points to money spent.

Whether falling or flat, a lack of growth isn’t a good sign for Starbucks. In January, Starbucks reported that transactions had dropped 2% in the first order, blaming the issue on mobile ordering struggles.

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in a call with investors that the new rewards program and the company’s digital platform were crucial to Starbucks’ success during a “period of disruption” in the retail industry, as brick-and-mortar retails struggle to compete with ecommerce competitors.

Microsoft reported earnings today, showing solid growth in its all-important Office 365 and Microsoft Azure cloud computing businesses. Still, it wasn’t all good news.

The Microsoft Surface hardware business, encompassing the Surface Pro tablet, Surface Book laptop, and Surface Studio desktop PC, shrunk revenues 26% over the same period in 2016.

The reason for the decline, according to Microsoft: “increased price competition in the premium 2-in-1 category and product end-of-lifecycle dynamics.”

No doubt, that’s not great news for the Surface business. Still, in a weird but real way, it’s good news for Microsoft.

“Increased price competition” just means that other manufacturers are building their own Surface-style, high-end convertible tablet/PC devices, and selling them for less than Microsoft’s own product lineup.

This would be a problem if, like Apple, Microsoft was a hardware company. But the whole point of the Surface products in the first place was to get PC manufacturers building more touch-friendly, stylus-friendly Windows tablets and computers.

So if every PC manufacturer out there is building lots and lots of Windows PCs that compete with the Surface…well, again, that’s bad for the Surface business, but good news for the Windows business. Given the overall shrinkage of the PC market, Windows is fighting against Apple’s Macs for a bigger piece of a smaller pie – and its tactics appear to be working.

Apple isn’t sitting idle, pitching its iPad Pro tablet as a laptop alternative, trying to match the sales pitch for the Surface Pro. Users haven’t exactly come along for the ride, though, with the iPad still lacking the right mix of features to replace a laptop.

As for the bit about “product end-of-lifecycle dynamics,” that could refer to the fact that the Surface Pro 4 tablet is now over a year and a half old, possibly hinting at a rumored Microsoft Surface Pro 5 yet to come.

In the meanwhile, Microsoft is holding an event in New York City on May 2nd. And while the Surface Pro 5 is unlikely to make an appearance, expect some kind of update on the Microsoft hardware front.

More and more, Facebook’s 2012 acquisition of Instagram looks like the best $1 billion it’s ever spent.

The photo-sharing site this week noted that it now has 700 million monthly active users. That’s a huge number in its own right, but what makes it more impressive is how quickly it’s getting there – it was at 600 million just a little over four months ago.

As this chart from Statista shows, Instagram has been growing at a rapid clip for years now, and it doesn’t seem long until it joins WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook proper in Facebook’s billion-user app club. Given Facebook’s multi-pronged attack, and given how much pressure Instagram appears to be putting on its core rival Snapchat, you can see why some onlookers said that 2012 acquisition felt too close to being anticompetitive.

Some of Google’s biggest efforts in computing are developing better artificial intelligence and voice control. In fact, the company is implementing those efforts into every product it can, from search to YouTube.

The biggest example of this is Google Assistant, the new digital helper that lives inside the Google Home speaker and newer Android phones like the Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8.

But if we start living in a world where we do more and more of our computing through voice, how can Google make money if there aren’t any eyeballs on screens to look at the ads it serves?

This has been a budding theme at Google, and one an analyst asked about again during the company’s earnings call on Thursday. In short, Google CEO Sundar Pichai doesn’t have a clear answer yet. Instead, he’s focused on perfecting voice control and the Google Assistant before figuring out a good way to monetize those products.

“We are very focused on the consumer experience now …I think if you go and create these experiences that work at scale for users, the monetization will follow,” Pichai said on the earnings call.

He also brought up successful products from Google’s history, saying that at first the company didn’t have the answers to monetization for products like YouTube and search.

We did get one hint at how Google may monetize voice though. In March, some Google Home users heard a promotion for the new “Beauty and the Beast” movie when they asked the speaker for an update. Google later removed the ad after the internet lit up with complaints, and later claimed it wasn’t even a real ad in the first place.

Fox News host Sean Hannity tweeted Thursday in support of Fox News co-president Bill Shine after New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman reported Thursday on questions about his future at the network.

“Gäbe i pray this is NOT true because if it is, that’s the total end of the FNC as we know it. Done,” Hannity tweeted.

According to Sherman’s reporting, Shine recently asked James and Lachlan Murdoch, the 21st Century Fox CEO and chairman, to publish a statement in support of him. Shine’s reported request followed weeks of intense scrutiny of the network after the recent ousting of Fox’s most popular host, Bill O’Reilly, amid a sexual harassment scandal.

Spokespeople for Shine and the Murdochs denied that Shine asked for a statement of support.

Soon after his first tweet responding to Sherman’s story, Hannity tweeted again, apparently referring to Shine, that “somebody high up and inside FNC is trying to get an innocent person fired. And Gabe I know who it is.” Hannity then tweeted, “#Istandwithbill” and “#Istandwithshine” in support of the Fox executive.

Shine took over as co-president after the network’s former chief, Roger Ailes, was forced out in the summer of 2016 amid allegations that he also sexually harassed women for years.

Here are Hannity’s tweets:

The annual TED conference is a mix of talks about science, technology, art, and design. Every year, at least a few of these talks involve a speaker bringing out a new piece of tech for the audience to gape at. This year, Robert Browning, the founder of aeronautic engineering startup Gravity, brought out his prototype of a flying jetpack.

Instead of just showing it off onstage, Browning decided to actually fly the thing outside the Vancouver Convention Center for a large crowd of TED attendees. We were all handed earplugs for the flying experience, which was slightly quieter than a jet engine.

Check it out below.

instagram

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https://api.instagram.com/oembed/?url=http://instagr.am/p/BTZv4vlFsFF&hidecaption=1

And I thought I’d seen everything! #ted2017

A post shared by Brian (@brianosullivan1) on Apr 27, 2017 at 1:32pm PDT

President Donald Trump’s first months in office have been filled with a flurry of action, and he’s just getting started.

The 45th president has signed 77 executive actions so far, with far-reaching effects on Americans’ lives.

There are technically three types of executive actions, which each have different authority and effects, with executive orders holding the most prestige:

Executive orders are assigned numbers and published in the federal register, similar to laws passed by Congress, and typically direct members of the executive branch to follow a new policy or directive. Trump has issued 29 orders. Presidential memoranda do not have to be published or numbered (though they can be), and usually delegate tasks that Congress has already assigned the president to members of the executive branch. Trump has issued 27 memoranda. Finally, while some proclamations – like President Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation – have carried enormous weight, most are ceremonial observances of federal holidays or awareness months. Trump has issued 21 proclamations.

Scholars have typically used the number of executive orders per term to measure how much presidents have exercised their power. George Washington only signed eight his entire time in office, according to the American Presidency Project, while FDR penned over 3,700.

In his two terms, President Barack Obama issued 277 executive orders, a total number on par with his modern predecessors, but the lowest per year average (35) in 120 years. Trump, so far, has signed 29 executive orders in 97 days.

Here’s a quick guide to the executive actions Trump has made so far, what they do, and how Americans have reacted to them:

Executive Order, April 27: Protecting whistleblowers at the VA

This order is intended to protect whistleblowers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and establishes the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection.

Intending to alleviate the issues that have plagued the VA health system for years, Trump promised this order would help veterans get the care they need.

2 presidential memoranda, April 20 and 27: Steel and aluminum dumping

Trump’s memo outlined an investigation his Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was conducting to evaluate how steel “dumping,” the practice where other countries sell products at a lower price than they sell at in the US, was affecting American manufacturers, and what the federal government could do to prevent the practice.

US steelmakers, which have been hit lately with dumping from China especially, applauded the effort.

Read the full text of the memo here »

Trump signed a nearly identical order for aluminum imports on April 27.

Read the full text of that memo here »

Executive Order, April 26: Reviewing the federal government’s power in education

Trump’s order directs Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to review the federal government’s role in education, and determine whether states should have more say – power she already has.

Under Obama, the Department of Education used its authority to allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice in schools, or to compel colleges to address sexual assault on campus. With this order, Trump said, the role of the federal government will likely be less hands-on, leaving states to make more of their own decisions.

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, April 26: Reviewing Obama’s actions to protect national lands

Obama designated or expanded 554 million acres of land as protected national monuments – more than any other president. Environmentalists lauded his legacy, and have lambasted Trump for undoing many of Obama’s greatest environmental achievements.

This order directed Trump’s Secretary of the Interior to review any national monument designations made since 1996 that are over 100,000 acres, leaving many of Obama’s moves in question going forward.

Many liberals, environmental groups, tribes, and scientists are against the action, while many conservatives, and proponents of using natural resources are for it.

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, April 25: Agriculture and Rural Prosperity

This order established the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity, made up of many Cabinet and top executive branch officials, in order to “identify legislative, regulatory, and policy changes to promote in rural America agriculture, economic development, job growth, infrastructure improvements, technological innovation, energy security, and quality of life.”

In 180 days, the task force should submit a report to the president on barriers or regulations to change in order to improve life in rural America. Farmers joined Trump for the order signing at the White House, and farm lobbying groups applauded the move.

Read the full text of the order here »

Presidential proclamation, April 21: National Volunteer Week

Trump proclaimed April 23-29, 2017 National Volunteer Week, to highlight the importance of giving back.

Read the full text of the proclamation here »

Executive Order, April 21: Review tax regulations

This order aims to simplify the tax code, explaining that “numerous tax regulations issued over the last several years have effectively increased tax burdens, impeded economic growth, and saddled American businesses with onerous fines, complicated forms, and frustration.”

Trump directed the Treasury Department to review existing tax regulations, and submit a report in 150 days outlining which ones cost taxpayers too much money, are too complex, or exceed the IRS’ authority.

This is an issue Trump and Democrats could see eye to eye on. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has proposed a bill to simplify taxes.

Read the full text of the order here »

2 presidential memoranda, April 21: Dodd-Frank rollback

Trump signed two memos directing his Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to judiciously apply the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the landmark legislation passed after the 2008 financial crisis intended to keep banks from getting “too big to fail.”

The memos doubled down on Trump’s orders on February 3 announcing his intent to review Dodd-Frank and other Wall Street regulations, a move many Democrats decried.

Trump has called Dodd-Frank “horrendous” and said he plans to “do a number” on the post-crisis reforms that aim to rein in Wall Street. Speaking with uncharasteric candor, Federal Reserve vice chairman Stanley Fischer warned Trump not to rollback the law.

“The strength of the financial system is absolutely essential to the ability of the economy to continue to grow at a reasonable rate,” Fischer said April 21, “and taking actions which remove the changes that were made to strengthen the structure of the financial system is very dangerous.”

Read the text of the first memo here »

And the second one here »

Presidential memorandum, April 20: Reporting sanctions on foreign persons

The defense spending bill and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act require the president to submit a report to Congress every year outlining who the US sanctions, what the penalties were, and why they were imposed. In this memo, Trump was doing just that.

After the April chemical attack that killed at least 80 people in Syria, for example, Trump imposed sanctions on 271 people linked to the country’s non-conventional weapon use.

Read the full text of the memo here »

Executive Order, April 18: ‘Buy American, Hire American’

At a tools manufacturer in Wisconsin, Trump signed an order directing federal agencies to review and propose changes to the popular, but controversial H-1B visa program meant to attract skilled foreign labor.

Critics say it’s used by companies to hire cheap, foreign workers in place of Americans, while proponents – including many in the tech industry – say it provides much-needed skilled workers to sectors where companies have struggled to hire Americans.

Trump’s “Buy American, hire American” order also directs federal agencies to maximize the American products they purchase, particularly calling out “steel, iron, aluminum, and cement.”

Read the full text of the order here »

Presidential proclamation, April 14: National Park Week

Trump designated April 15-23, 2017 as National Park Week, during which all 417 sites (59 official “parks”) across the country are free to enter, a move many past presidents have made as well.

The president also donated his first quarter salary to the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program. Critics were quick to point out that Trump’s $78,333.32 donation could hardly make up for the nearly $2 billion his federal budget proposes cutting from the Interior Department this year.

Read the full text of the proclamation here »

Presidential memorandum, April 12: Delegating terrorist report request

The 2017 National Defense Authorization Act directs the president to review “known instances since 2011 in which a person has traveled or attempted to travel to a conflict zone in Iraq or Syria from the United States to join or provide material support or resources to a terrorist organization,” and submit a report to Congress.

Trump delegated this responsibility to FBI Director James Comey.

Read the full text of the memo here »

Presidential memorandum, April 11: Signing letter on including Montenegro in NATO

At the end of March, the US Senate voted to include Montenegro’s in NATO, 97 to 2. While Trump called the alliance “obsolete” as recently as January, he said he no longer feels that way, and didn’t veto the small southern European country’s inclusion.

The president has called on members of NATO to pay their fair share, saying the US carries too much financial responsibility for the military stronghold. The addition of Montenegro is likely to irk Russia, however, as it means one more country looks to West instead of staying under the influence of the Kremlin.

Read the full text of the memo indicating Trump’s approval of the Senate’s vote here »

Presidential memorandum, April 8: Notifying Congress of the US Syria strike

This memo formally informed Congress of Trump’s order to launch a salvo of 59 cruise missiles on Shayrat airfield and nearby military infrastructure controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad on Friday, in response to a chemical attack that killed at least 80 people in the northwestern part of the country on April 4.

Some lawmakers slammed Trump for not getting congressional or UN approval before ordering the strike, as the president’s legal authority for doing so is unclear.

“I acted in the vital national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive,” Trump said in the memo. “I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution.”

Read the full text of the memo here »

5 presidential proclamations, April 3-7: Honoring and drawing awareness

Trump proclaimed various days and weeks in April were in honor of five different causes:

April 2-8, 2017: National Crime Victims’ Rights Week Honoring the Memory of John GlennApril 7, 2017: Education and Sharing Day April 14, 2017: Pan American Day; April 9-15, 2017: Pan American Week April 9, 2017: National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day

Read the full text of each proclamation in the links above.

Presidential memorandum, April 3: Principles for reforming the draft

The United States has had a volunteer-based military for over four decades, but nearly all American males still have to register for the draft when they turn 18.

In the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress called on the president to outline his principles for reforming the draft. So in his order, Trump told Congress that the US military should recruit a diverse pool of citizens, and offer them training opportunities that will benefit the armed forces as well as their future employment, in order to “prepare to mitigate an unpredictable global security and national emergency environment.”

Read the full text of the memo here »

2 Executive Orders, March 31: Lowering the trade deficit and collecting import duties

Ahead of Trump’s first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he signed two orders focused on an issue he decried during the campaign: the US trade deficit.

The first order directs the executive branch to produce a country-by-country, product-by-product report on trade deficits in 90 days, in order to figure out how to reduce the $500 billion trade deficit the US had in 2016.

Business Insider’s Pedro Nicolaci da Costa wrote that the order’s plan for a “90-day ‘investigation’ into why the US had trade deficits with specific countries, [was] a quixotic exercise most economists say shows a deep lack of understanding of the workings of international trade.”

The second order seeks to strengthen the US response to its trade laws preventing counterfeit or illegal imports, citing “$2.3 billion in antidumping and countervailing duties” that the government hasn’t collected.

“On a typical day, CBP screens more than 74,000 truck, rail, and sea cargo containers at 328 U.S. ports of entry – with imported goods worth approximately $6.3 billion,” a Department of Homeland Security press release on the order wrote. “In Fiscal Year 2016, CBP seized more than 31,500 of counterfeit shipments and collected more $40 billion in duties, taxes, and fees, making CBP the U.S. government’s second largest source of revenue.”

Read the full text of the deficit order here »

And the full text of the antidumping order here »

Executive Orders, March 31 and February 9: Changing the DOJ order of succession

On February 9, Trump signed an order establishing a line of succession to lead the US Department of Justice if the attorney general, deputy attorney general, or associate attorney general die, resign, or are otherwise unable to carry on their duties. In order, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and then the US Attorney for the Western District of Missouri will be next in line.

The action reverses an order Obama signed days before leaving office. After Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to enforce his first travel ban, he appointed Dana Boente, US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general in her place. This order elevates his position in the order of succession.

Read the full text of the first order here »

On March 31, Trump signed another order reversing this order. The new order of succession after the AG, deputy AG, and associate AG are as follows: US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and then the US Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the DOJ probe into Trump’s associates contacts with Russian operatives, the order of succession will determine who will oversee that investigation. Trump will have to fill the North Carolina post soon, the Palmer Report points out, possibly allowing the president to influence who leads the Russia investigation.

Read the full text of the second order here »

6 presidential proclamations, March 31: Sexual assault awareness and others

Trump proclaimed April 2, 2017 World Autism Awareness Day, and that the month of April 2017 was in honor of five different causes:

Cancer Control Month National Child Abuse Prevention Month National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month National Financial Capability Month National Donate Life Month

Many criticized Trump’s National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, in particular, because multiple woman came forward during the campaign and accused Trump of sexual misconduct in the past. He also bragged on a 2005 tape that surfaced in October 2016 that he could “grab” women “by the p—y” because “when you’re a star they let you do it.”

Read the full text of each proclamation in the links above.

Executive Order, March 29: Combating the opioid crisis

This order established the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. The commission, headed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, is supposed to report to the president strategies to address the epidemic, which is now killing 30,000 Americans a year.

But many experts said the president’s action is “underwhelming.”

“These people don’t need another damn commission,” an anonymous former Obama administration official who worked on the issue told Politico. “We know what we need to do. … It’s not rocket science.” Business Insider’s Erin Brodwin outlined some strategies that scientists think will work.

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, March 28: Dismantling Obama’s climate change protections

On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to bring back coal mining jobs and dismantle Obama’s environmental policy, declaring climate change a “hoax.” While coal jobs are unlikely to come back in droves, this executive order makes good on the second promise, directing federal agencies to rescind any existing regulations that “unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources.”

It also rescinds four of Obama’s executive actions, two of his reports, and tells the Environmental Protection Agency to review his landmark Clean Power Plan that would have capped power plant emissions. Since many of Obama’s actions were complex, however, it may take Trump a while to reverse them.

Democrats, environmentalists, and protesters demonstrating outside the White House after Trump signed the order decried the action, declaring it would lead to runaway climate change, while many Republican congressmen applauded the action for promoting energy independence.

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, March 27: Revoking Obama’s fair pay and safe workplaces orders

In 2014, Obama signed an executive order requiring federal government contracts over $500,000 had to go to companies that hadn’t violated labor laws. He signed two more orders making minor clarifications to that original order later that year and in 2016.

Trump’s new order revoking those three orders, and directed federal agencies to review any procedural changes they made because of the orders. When companies bid for federal contracts, they’ll no longer have to disclose if they’ve violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, or the National Labor Relations Act.

Read the full text of the order here »

Presidential memorandum, March 27: Establishing the White House Office of American Innovation

Trump established the White House Office of American Innovation, choosing his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner to lead it. The office will aim to overhaul government functions with ideas from industry.

Business titans Gary Cohn (National Economic Council director), Dina Powell (senior counselor to the president for economic initiatives and deputy national security adviser), Chris Liddell (assistant to the president for strategic initiatives), and Reed Cordish (assistant to the president for intragovernmental and technology initiatives) will also be on the team.

Read the full text of the memo here »

Presidential proclamation, March 24: Greek Independence Day

Trump declared March 25, 2017, as Greek Independence Day.

“American patriots built our Republic on the ancient Greeks’ groundbreaking idea that the people should decide their political fates,” the president wrote in the proclamation.

Read the full text here »

2 presidential memoranda, March 23: Declaring an emergency in South Sudan

Trump signed two memoranda declaring a national emergency in South Sudan, and notifying Congress that he did so, extending the emergency Obama declared in 2014. One million people there are on the brink of dying from a lack of food.

United Nations officials have called the famine in South Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia the “world’s largest humanitarian crisis in 70 years.”

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has said that the president’s proposed budget would “spend less money on people overseas and more money on people back home” and “absolutely” cut programs like those that would aid those starving in South Sudan.

Read the full text of the memos here and here »

Presidential memorandum, March 20: Delegating to Tillerson

Trump delegated presidential powers in the National Defense Authorization Act to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The law doles out funding “for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths.”

Read the full text of the memo here »

Presidential proclamation, March 17: National Poison Prevention Week

Trump proclaimed March 19 through March 25, 2017 National Poison Prevention Week in order to encourage Americans to safeguard their homes and protect children from ingesting common household items that may poison them.

Read the full text of the proclamation here »

Presidential memorandum, March 16: A letter to the House of Representatives outlining Trump’s proposed budget

Trump sent his first budget to the House of Representatives, requesting an additional $30 billion for the Department of Defense to fight ISIS and $3 billion for the Department of Homeland Security to protect the US border.

To offset the massive defense money, Trump proposes slashing funding for several key federal agencies, dropping budgets for the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency by almost a third.

Several noteworthy Republican lawmakers signaled they didn’t approve of Trump’s first budget, and Democrats across the board decried the deep spending cuts.

Read the full text of the memorandum here »

Executive Order, March 13: Reorganizing the executive branch

With the written aim of improving the efficiency of the federal government, Trump signed an order to shake up the executive branch, and “eliminate or reorganize unnecessary or redundant federal agencies” identified in a 180-day review.

It directs Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to review agency head’s proposed plans to reorganize or shrink their departments, and submit a plan to Trump by September 2017 outlining how to streamline the government.

Historians expressed skepticism that Trump would be able to effectively shrink the government, since many past presidents have tried and failed to do so. Critics argued that Trump could use the order to dismantle federal agencies that he or his Cabinet members don’t like.

Read the full text of the order here »

Presidential proclamation, March 6: National Consumer Protection Week

March 5 through March 11, 2017 was National Consumer Protection Week, Trump proclaimed, which “reminds us of the importance of empowering consumers by helping them to more capably identify and report cyber scams, monitor their online privacy and security, and make well-informed decisions.”

Read the full text of the proclamation here »

Executive Order, March 6: A new travel ban

Trump’s second go at his controversial travel order bans people from Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, and Libya from entering the US for 90 days, and bars all refugees from coming into the country for 120 days, starting March 16.

Existing visa holders will not be subjected to the ban, and religious minorities will no longer get preferential treatment – two details critics took particular issue with in the first ban. The new order removed Iraq from the list of countries, and changed excluding just Syrian refugees to preventing all refugees from entering the US.

Democrats denounced the new order, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying the “watered-down ban is still a ban,” and Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez saying “Trump’s obsession with religious discrimination is disgusting, un-American, and outright dangerous.”

Read the full text of the order here »

UPDATE 3/15: US District Judge Derrick Watson put an emergency halt on the revisedtravelban the day before it would have taken effect, after several states and refugee groups sued in court. Trump vowed to appeal the decision and take the order all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Presidential Memorandum, March 6: Guidance for agencies to implement the new travel ban

This memo instructs the State Department, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security how to implement Trump’s new travel ban.

It directs the three department heads to enhance the vetting of visa applicants and other immigrants trying to enter the US as they see fit, to release how many visa applicants there were by country, and to submit a report in 180 days detailing the long-term costs of the United States Refugee Admissions Program.

Read the full text of the memorandum here »

3 Presidential proclamations, March 1: National months for women, the American Red Cross, and Irish-Americans

The president proclaimed March 2017 Women’s History Month, American Red Cross Month, and Irish-American Heritage Month.

Read the full text of the women’s history proclamation here »

And the Red Cross proclamation here »

And the Irish-American proclamation here »

Executive Order, February 28: Promoting Historically Black Colleges and Universities

This order established the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which will aim to increase private funding of these schools, encourage more students to attend them, and identify ways the executive branch can help these institutions succeed.

Students at some HBCU protested the meeting their leaders attended to witness Trump signing the order, expressing their disapproval of the president in general, and questioning whether the action was “truly a seat at the table” or merely “a photo op.”

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, February 28: Reviewing the ‘Waters of the United States’ rule

The order directed federal agencies to revise the Clean Water Rule, a major regulation Obama issued in 2015 to clarify what areas are federally protected under the Clean Water Act.

Trump’s EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt called the rule “the greatest blow to private property rights the modern era has seen,” in 2015, and led a multi-state lawsuit against it while he was Oklahoma’s attorney general.

David J. Cooper, an ecologist at Colorado State University, cautioned that repealing the rule wouldn’t settle the confusion about what the federal government can protect under the Clean Water Act, or where.

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, February 24: Enforcing regulatory reform

This order creates Regulator Reform Officers within each federal agency who will comb through existing regulations and recommend which ones the administration should repeal. It directs the officers to focus on eliminating regulations that prevent job creation, are outdated, unnecessary, or cost too much.

The act doubles down on Trump’s plan to cut government regulations he says are hampering businesses, but opponents insist are necessary to protect people and the environment. Leaders of 137 nonprofit groups sent a letter to the White House on February 28 telling the president that “Americans did not vote to be exposed to more health, safety, environmental and financial dangers.”

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, February 9: Combating criminal organizations

The order is intended to “thwart” criminal organizations, including “criminal gangs, cartels, racketeering organizations, and other groups engaged in illicit activities.”

The action directs law enforcement to apprehend and prosecute citizens, and deport non-citizens involved in criminal activities including “the illegal smuggling and trafficking of humans, drugs or other substances, wildlife, and weapons,” “corruption, cybercrime, fraud, financial crimes, and intellectual-property theft,” and money laundering

The Secretary of State, Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Director of National Intelligence will co-chair a Threat Mitigation Working Group that will identify ways that local, state, federal, and international law enforcement can work together in order to eradicate organized crime.

It also instructs the co-chairs to present the president with a report within 120 days outlining the penetration of criminal organizations into the United States, and recommendations for how to eradicate them.

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, February 9: Reducing crime

Following up on his promise to restore “law and order” in America, Trump signed an executive order intended to reduce violent crime in the US, and “comprehensively address illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and violent crime.”

The action directs Attorney General Jeff Sessions to assemble a task force in order to identify new strategies and laws to reduce crime, and to evaluate how well crime data is being collected and leveraged across the country.

Trump has come under fire recently for claiming the national murder rate was at an all-time high, when it has in fact dropped to one of the lowest rates ever, with 2015 merely experiencing a slight uptick from the previous year.

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, February 9: Protecting law enforcement

The order seeks to create new laws that will protect law enforcement, and increase the penalties for crimes committed against them.

It also directs the attorney general to review existing federal grant funding programs to law enforcement agencies, and recommend changes to the programs if they don’t adequately protect law enforcement.

The action is likely in response to multiple high-profile police killings over the past year, including a sniper attack that killed five Dallas police officers in July.

Read the full text of the order here »

Executive Order, February 3: Reviewing Wall Street regulations

Trump signed two actions on Friday that could end up rewriting regulations in the financial industry that Obama and Congress put in place after the 2008 financial crisis.

The executive order sets “Core Principles” of financial regulation declaring that Trump’s administration seeks to empower Americans to make their own financial decisions, prevent taxpayer-funded bailouts, and reduce regulations on Wall Street so US companies can compete globally.

It also directs the Secretary of Treasury to review existing regulations on the financial system, determine whether the Core Principles are being met, and report back to the President in 120 days.

Experts worry that loosening regulations could roll back the Obama administration’s landmark consumer protection reform bill, Dodd-Frank, aimed at reducing risk in the financial system. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the progressive darling from Massachusetts, led the charge decrying the actions.

Read the full text of the order here »

Presidential Memorandum, February 3: Reviewing the fiduciary duty rule

The memorandum directs the Labor Secretary to review the “fiduciary rule,” another Obama-era law intended to protect Americans’ retirement money from conflicted advice from financial advisers that has long drawn rebuke from Wall Streeters and was scheduled to go into effect in April.

If the secretary finds the rule conflicts with the administration’s Core Principles, adversely affects the retirement industry, or causes increased litigation, then he should recommend revising or repealing the rule.

Democratic lawmakers and 38-million-member retiree nonprofit AARP came out against the action. Read more about Wall Street’s response to the memorandum here »

Read the full text of the memorandum here »

Presidential proclamation, February 2: American Heart Month

This ceremonial proclamation invited Americans to wear red on Friday, February 3, 2017 for National Wear Red Day, and followed Congress’ request in 1963 for presidents to annually declare February American Heart Month. The goal is to remember those who have died from heart disease and to improve its prevention, detection, and treatment.

Read the full text of the proclamation here »

Executive Order, January 30: For every new regulation proposed, repeal two existing ones

The order states that for every one regulation the executive branch proposes, two must be identified to repeal. It also caps the spending on new regulations for 2017 at $0.

Some environmental groups expressed concern that the order could undo regulations put in place to protect natural resources.

Read the full text here »

Executive Order, January 28: Drain the swamp

The order requires appointees to every executive agency to sign an ethics pledge saying they will never lobby a foreign government and that they won’t do any other lobbying for five years after they leave government.

But it also loosened some ethics restrictions that Obama put in place, decreasing the number of years executive branch employees had to wait since they had last been lobbyists from two years to one.

Read the full text here »

Presidential Memorandum, January 28: Reorganizing the National and Homeland Security Councils

Trump removed the nation’s top military and intelligence advisers as regular attendees of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, the interagency forum that deals with policy issues affecting national security.

The executive measure established Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, as a regular attendee, and disinvited the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence to attend only when necessary.

Top Republican lawmakers and national security experts roundly criticized the move, expressing their skepticism that Bannon should be present and alarm that the Joint Chiefs of Staff sometimes wouldn’t be.

Read the full text here »

Presidential Memorandum, January 28: Defeating ISIS

Making a point to use the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” (something Trump criticized Obama for on the campaign trail), Trump directed his administration “to develop a comprehensive plan to defeat ISIS,” drafted within 30 days.

Read the full text here »

Executive Order, January 27: Immigration ban

In Trump’s most controversial executive action yet, he temporarily barred people from majority-Muslim Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days, and Syrians from entering until he decides otherwise.

Federal judges in several states declared the order unconstitutional, releasing hundreds of people who were stuck at US airports in limbo. The White House continues to defend the action, insisting it was “not about religion” but about “protecting our own citizens and border.”

Tens of thousands of people protested the action in cities and airports across the US, company executives came out against the order, and top Republicans split with their president to criticize Trump’s approach.

Read the full text here »

UPDATE: Since the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down this order on February 9, Trump issued a new order intended to replace this one on March 6.

Presidential Memorandum, January 27: ‘Rebuilding’ the military

This action directed Secretary of Defense James Mattis to conduct a readiness review of the US military and Ballistic Missile Defense System, and submit his recommendations to “rebuild” the armed forces.

Read the full text here »

Presidential proclamation, January 26: National School Choice Week

Trump proclaimed January 22 through January 28, 2017 as National School Choice Week.

The ceremonial move aimed to encourage people to demand school-voucher programs and charter schools, of which Trump’s Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos is a vocal supporter. Meanwhile, opponents argue that the programs weaken public schools and fund private schools at taxpayers’ expense.

Read the full text here »

Executive Order, January 25: Build the wall

Trump outlined his intentions to build a wall along the US border with Mexico, one of his main campaign promises.

The order also directs the immediate detainment and deportation of illegal immigrants, and requires state and federal agencies tally up how much foreign aid they are sending to Mexico within 30 days, and tells the US Customs and Border Protection to hire 5,000 additional border patrol agents.

While Trump has claimed Mexico will pay for the wall, his administration has since softened this pledge, indicating US taxpayers may have to foot the bill, at least at first.

Read the full text here »

Executive Order, January 25: Cutting funding for sanctuary cities

Trump called “sanctuary cities” to comply with federal immigration law or have their federal funding pulled.

The order has prompted a mixture of resistance and support from local lawmakers and police departments in the sanctuary cities, which typically refuse to honor federal requests to detain people on suspicion of violating immigration law even if they were arrested on unrelated charges. The city of San Francisco is already suing Trump, claiming the order is unconstitutional.

Read the full text here »

Executive Order, January 24: Expediting environmental review for infrastructure projects

The order allows governors or heads of federal agencies to request an infrastructure project be considered “high-priority” so it can be fast-tracked for environmental review.

Trump signed the order as a package infrastructure deal, along with three memoranda on oil pipelines.

Read the full text here »

3 Presidential Memoranda, January 24: Approving pipelines

Trump signed three separate memoranda set to expand oil pipelines in the United States, a move immediately decried by Native American tribes, Democrats, and activists.

The first two direct agencies to immediately review and approve construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the third requires all pipeline materials be built in the US.

While pipeline proponents argue that they transport oil and gas more safely than trains or trucks can, environmentalists say pipelines threaten the contamination of drinking water.

Read the full text of all three memoranda here »

Presidential Memorandum, January 24: Reduce regulations for US manufacturing

Trump directed his Secretary of Commerce to review how federal regulations affect US manufacturers, with the goal of figuring out how to reduce them as much as possible.

Read the full text here »

Presidential Memorandum, January 23: Reinstating the ‘Mexico City policy’

The move reinstated a global gag rule that bans American non-governmental organizations working abroad from discussing abortion.

Democratic and Republican presidents have taken turns reinstating it and getting rid of it since Ronald Reagan created the gag order in 1984. The rule, while widely expected, dismayed women’s rights and reproductive health advocates, but encouraged antiabortion activists.

Read the full text here »

Presidential Memorandum, January 23: Hiring Freeze

Trump froze all hiring in the executive branch excluding the military, directing no vacancies be filled, in an effort to cut government spending and bloat.

Union leaders called the action “harmful and counterproductive,” saying it would “disrupt government programs and services that benefit everyone.”

Read the full text here »

UPDATE 4/12: The hiring freeze is lifted, but budget director Mick Mulvaney says many jobs will stay unfilled because the Trump administration wants to reduce the federal workforce. The AP reported that the federal government added 2,000 workers in February and January, despite the freeze.

Presidential Memorandum, January 23: Out of the TPP

This action signaled Trump’s intent to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that would lower tariffs for 12 countries around the Pacific Rim, including Japan and Mexico but excluding China.

Results were mixed. Sen. Bernie Sanders saidhe was “glad the Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead and gone,” while Republican Sen. John McCain said withdrawing was a “serious mistake.”

Read the full text here »

Executive Order, January 20: Declaring Trump’s intention to repeal the Affordable Care Act

One of Trump’s top campaign promises was to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare.

His first official act in office was declaring his intention to do so. Congressional Republicans have been working to do just that since their term started January 3, though there was dissent among Republicans over whether or not to complete the repeal process before a replacement plan is finalized and strident Democratic resistance to any repeal of the ACA.

Read the full text here »

UPDATE 3/28: House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill to repeal and replace the ACA, officially called the American Health Care Act, on March 24 after Republicans didn’t have enough votes to pass it. But some members of the GOP are still working on a way to dismantle Obamacare.

Presidential Memorandum, January 20: Reince’s regulatory freeze

Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus signed this action, directing agency heads not to send new regulations to the Office of the Federal Register until the administration has leaders in place to approve them.

Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel signed a similar memorandum when he took office in 2009, but as Bloomberg notes, Priebus changed the language from a suggestion to a directive.

The action is partly carried out to make sure the new administration wants to implement any pending regulations the old one was considering. Environmentalists worried if this could mean Trump is about to undo many of Obama’s energy regulations.

Read the full text here »

BERKELEY, Calif. – Police at the University of California at Berkeley braced on Thursday for potential civil unrest stemming from a now-canceled speaking engagement by conservative commentator AnnCoulter following a recent spate of politically charged violence on or near the campus.

Coulter, one of America’s best-known and most provocative pundits on the political right, said on Wednesday that she no longer intended to defy university officials by addressing UC Berkeley students on campus this week.

“It’s sickening when a radical thuggish institution like Berkeley can so easily snuff out the cherished American right to free speech,” tweeted Coulter on Wednesday.

Coulter left open the possibility of paying a visit to her supporters at the school, long a bastion of liberal student activism and a center of the Free Speech Movement protests of the 1960s.

Campus police Captain Alex Yao said his department would maintain “a highly visible presence,” pointing to continued threats of violent protests by Coulter supporters and opponents. Berkeley city police also issued a notice that local law enforcement was on alert for any protests that turned unruly.

“Berkeley police and allied agencies are working cooperatively to ensure the safety of attendees while arresting those who commit violence or other crimes,” the notice said.

As of noon, a peaceful crowd of roughly 100 people, some carrying American flags, some wearing helmets, had congregated in downtown Berkeley at a public square ahead of demonstrations expected later in the day. About a dozen police officers stood nearby, batons and helmets dangling from their belts.

So far, the demonstrations appear peaceful, though two people were reportedly placed under arrest. Calls for dispersing the crowd came around 3:30 p.m., due to a nearby high school ending their class.

“We’re here for peace,” said David Fry, a resident of Tacoma, Washington, and head of the American Freedom Motorcycle Association. “I expect free speech to happen.”

Campus and local authorities said they were taking the potential for lawlessness seriously following several episodes of politically fueled disturbances.

In February, protesters opposed to an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, then a senior editor for the conservative Breitbart News website, set fires, broke windows and clashed with police on campus, prompting cancellation of his speech.

And in March and again in April, opposing groups from the far-right and far-left skirmished violently near campus.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks cited all three incidents in explaining why the school balked at Coulter’s original plans to speak on campus on Thursday.

University officials said organizers erred by inviting Coulter without notifying campus officials in advance, as is required of all student groups, and by failing to submit to a “security assessment” to determine a suitable venue for the event. UC Berkeley officials denied that Coulter was unwelcome because of her politics.

After initially barring a Coulter speech for Thursday, university officials proposed moving the event to next Tuesday. Coulter said she could not make it then and accused the school of trying to limit her audience by choosing a date that fell in a study week ahead of final exams.

Coulter then insisted she would go through with her speech on Thursday, despite university objections. But she changed her mind after student organizers withdrew their invitation, though they vowed to press ahead with a lawsuit filed on Tuesday accusing UC Berkeley of suppressing freedom of speech.

Following the cancellation of the event, Richard Spencer, a white nationalist with ties to the “alt-right” movement, lambasted Coulter, tweeting “conservatives,” like Coulter, are “weaklings who need to be displaced,” according to The Washington Times. “I will absolutely go to #Berkeley within the next year.”

You can watch the demonstration at UC Berkeley live »