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After riding down the Champs-Elysees in a military vehicle, escorted by 
a cavalry procession, French President Emmanuel Macron watched the 
Bastille Day parade: 
Robots, horses and a flying soldier: Macron presides over Bastille Day parade 
Nice held its first Bastille Day fireworks ceremony since a truck attack 
left 86 people dead in the French Riviera city in 2016: 
Nice sets off first Bastille Day fireworks since 2016 attack 
Jimmy Kimmel talked with Seth Rogen: 
The hosts of "Fox & Friends" laughed about Trump's offensive tweets: 
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The Daily 202: Impeachment Day showcased five hallmarks ofTrump's governing style 
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The Daily 202: Impeachment Day showcased five hallmarks ofTrump's 
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Impeachment Day showcased five 
hallmarks of Trump's governing style 
'Maybe he's looking up': Trump implies the late Rep. John Dingell might be in hell 
BYE 
HOHMANN 
with Mariana Alfaro 
THE BIG IDEA: In the Age of Trump, even the extraordinary has 
become ordinary. 
After he was impeached 21 years ago today, Bill Clinton spoke on the 
South Lawn of the White House. "We must stop the politics of 
personal destruction," he said. "We must get rid of the poisonous 
venom of excessive partisanship, obsessive animosity and 
uncontrolled anger. That is not what America deserves." 
Page 17993 
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When President I rump was impeached on Wednesday night, he 
suggested during a campaign rally in Michigan that John Dingell, a 
Democrat who represented that state in Congress for six decades and 
stood behind Clinton on that December afternoon in 1998, might be in 
hell. 
"This lawless partisan impeachment is a suicide march for the 
Democratic Party," Trump told a crowd of 10,000 at an arena in Battle 
Creek, Mich. "After three years of sinister witch hunts, hoaxes, scams, 
tonight House Democrats are trying to nullify the ballots of tens of 
millions of patriotic Americans." 
Trump talked for two hours and one minute, a show of stamina that 
would have impressed Fidel Castro. 
At one point, the president criticized Rep. Debbie Dingell (D), who 
holds her late husband's seat, for voting to impeach him. "A real 
beauty," Trump said, recounting how the widow thanked him for 
agreeing to provide special funeral honors when he passed away in 
February. "She calls me up. 'It's the nicest thing that's ever happened. 
Thank you so much. John, would be so thrilled, he's looking down,-
Trump recalled. 
"Maybe," Trump mused, "he's looking up." 
Going to Michigan and suggesting that the longtime dean of the House 
might be in hell? Only Trump would do that. 
The congresswoman responded: 
It was a petulant coda to a momentous day that captured in 
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miniature five hallmarks of the Trump presidency: 
1) Governing as perpetual warfare 
With us-against-them rhetoric, Trump consistently focuses more on 
inflaming his base than soothing the country or reassuring 
independents who don't identify with either tribe. 
Trump's reelection campaign blasted out a barrage of fundraising 
solicitations on Wednesday, all under the president's name, asking 
supporters to chip in to help him raise $2 million for the day. "Before 
the upcoming vote, I want to post another HUGE fundraising number to 
ensure that we have the resources to win this IMPEACHMENT WAR," 
Trump wrote in one of the emails. "I'm calling on my most FIERCE and 
LOYAL defenders to step up. ... Remember, this is WAR and 
America's future depends on us winning." 
A few minutes after he started speaking in Michigan, an aide held up a 
poster board to show him the final vote count in the House. "Whoa, 
every single Republican voted for us," the president told the crowd, 
which roared with approval at what history will remember as a defining 
low point of his tenure, even assuming he's acquitted in the Senate. 
"We didn't lose one Republican! ... The Democrats always stick 
together." 
Trump went out of his way to thank his diehard supporters who travel 
like groupies to all his rallies. 
He has shown little or no desire to transcend the deep divisions of the 
country over the past three years. Trump wants to build a wall, not 
bridges. His deliberate disregard for customs and niceties also endears 
him to his most ardent boosters, even as it annoys a GOP 
Page 17995 
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establishment that tries to look the other way. He's the disruptor-in-
chief who took office with a mandate to shake up business as usual. 
"Impeachment was so partisan that there were as many members who 
switched party over impeachment — two — as there were other 
crossover votes," Aaron Blake notes. "Those party-switchers were 
Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.), who went from Republican to independent, 
and Rep. Jeff Van Drew (N.J.), who is moving from Democrat to 
Republican. Van Drew remained a Democrat at least for Wednesday 
and was joined in voting against both articles by Rep. Collin C. 
Peterson (D-Minn.), who represents the most Trump-friendly district 
(Trump won it by 31 points) of any Democrat." 
The only other crossover was Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who "split 
the baby" by voting for the first article on abuse of power but against 
the second article on obstruction of Congress. Trump won his district 
by 10 points. 
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), the struggling presidential candidate 
who failed to qualify for tonight's debate, voted "present" on both 
articles because she prefers for Trump to be censured. 
As a point of comparison, five Democrats voted to impeach Clinton and 
six Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted to advance 
articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon. 
House passes two articles of impeachment against President Trump 
2) Governing by exhaustion 
"In the life of Trump, 10 months is an eternity," Trump said at the rally. 
Page 17996 
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tie was explaining wny ne s not worneo aoout sunenng politically worn 
impeachment. 
Sometimes it feels as if Trump is waging a war of attrition against 
longstanding norms as he seeks to dismantle various guardrails on his 
power. Many of the president's critics have been worn out or ground 
down. That was reflected with relatively paltry turnout at most of the 
pro-impeachment protests organized from coast to coast on Tuesday 
night. 
The reality TV president supercharged the celebrification of politics, but 
people are changing the channel. This week's Washington Post-ABC 
News poll found that 62 percent of Americans said they were closely 
following the impeachment story, down from 82 percent who said the 
same on the eve of Clinton's impeachment. "At the other end of the 
spectrum, 18 percent say they are not following Trump's impeachment 
too closely and 20 percent say they are not following it at all. In 1998, 
only 5 percent reported paying no attention," Marc Fisher notes. 
"Chris Cannon, a former Republican congressman from Utah who 
served as a House impeachment manager during the Clinton 
proceedings, said the country is now divided into two dueling factions 
— the `I'm going to wear my MAGA hat and punch you in the face if 
you disagree' group and the 'I'm going to punch you in the face 
because of your MAGA hat' group," Marc reports. "That political and 
cultural gulf virtually guarantees that this impeachment cannot end with 
any consensus like the one that emerged after the proceedings against 
Nixon and Clinton — that the system had worked. ... 
"Americans have become so jaded that misdeeds that once had the 
power to shock across ideological lines now seem to have little or no 
imnart `Thic time ' rannnn cam 'vni i have a ni iv whn cam he'ri nrah 
Page 17997 
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women by the privates, and America looks at that and says that's 
locker room trash talk, and they elect him. So nothing can shock the 
American people about him. ... There's so much coarseness now, it 
makes you want to cry.-
"Even I don't watch this stuff," retired congressman 
Bonior, a 
Democrat from Michigan who was the House minority whip during the 
Clinton impeachment, told Marc. "If it bores me, and I'm a political 
person, it's going to really bore a lot of other people." 
From 'Jesus' crucifixion' to 'belly of the beast': Lawmakers use quips in impeachment 
vote 
3) Governing by grievance (and hyperbole) 
Trump seems to take every slight as a personal affront. His speech 
last night oozed with grievance and victimhood. The president noted 
that he once contributed to the campaign of Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-
N.Y.), who has just replaced the late Elijah Cummings as chair of the 
House Oversight Committee. Then he said he wants her to refund his 
"damn money" after she voted for impeachment. 
The president likes hyperbole. He's always talking about how this or 
that is the BIGGEST or the BEST. He has set the tone for the tenor of 
his party's defense of him, most notably with the six-page letter he sent 
on Tuesday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "More due process was afforded 
to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials," Trump wrote. 
During yesterday's 11-hour debate on the House floor, two Republican 
lawmakers likened the impeachment of Trump to the crucifixion of 
Jesus. "Before you take this historic vote today, one week before 
Page 17998 
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Christmas, I want you to keep this in mind: When Jesus was falsely 
accused of treason, Pontius Pilate gave Jesus the opportunity to face 
his accusers," said Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.). "During that sham 
trial, Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats 
have afforded this president in this process." 
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) 
responded: "The president was given the opportunity to come and 
testify, to send his counsel [and] to question witnesses. He declined to 
do so." 
Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.) recalled how Jesus, on the cross, asked God 
to forgive those who were about to kill him. "I want Democrats voting 
for impeachment today to know that I'll be praying for them," he said. 
"From the Gospel of Luke, the 23rd chapter, verse 34: And Jesus said, 
`Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.-
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) compared Trump's impeachment to Pearl 
Harbor, when 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,143 more were 
wounded in a sneak attack on America that started World War II. 
Standing literally feet away from where Franklin Roosevelt told the 
country that December 7, 1941, was "a date which will live in infamy," 
Kelly declared: "Today, December the 18th, 2019, is another date that 
will live in infamy." 
Rep. 
Brady (R-Tex) said Democrats will be remembered as the 
"Senator Joe McCarthys of our time" for trying "to plunge America into 
darkness for raw political gain." Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) criticized 
Democrats for conducting depositions in a secure briefing room at the 
Capitol, which he referred to as "Chairman Schiffs chamber of 
secrets," a Harry Potter reference. 
Page 17999 
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"I have descended into the belly of the beast," added Rep. Clay 
Higgins (R-La.). "I have witnessed the terror within. And I rise 
committed to oppose the insidious forces which threaten our republic." 
Trump: 'It doesn't really feel like we're being impeached' 
4) Governing by defiance 
When a reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday whether 
he feels any responsibility for the part he played in creating this 
predicament, the president replied: "Zero." 
When was the last time Trump took personal responsibility for doing 
something wrong? 
No contrition. No apologies. No remorse. 
That's his M.O. 
One of the articles of impeachment that passed was for obstruction of 
Congress, something Trump certainly had a hand in. The president 
declared publicly that he would refuse to comply with any and all 
subpoenas, and he directed his aides not to testify. 
"We did nothing wrong, nothing whatsoever," Trump said at last night's 
rally, defending the July 25 call with Ukraine's president. "This was just 
an excuse." 
Then he compared Ukraine-gate to Watergate. "With Richard Nixon, I 
just see it as a very dark era, very dark, very old," Trump said. "I don't 
know about you, but I'm having a good time!" 
Page 18000 
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Amash: 'It is our duty to impeach' Trump 
5) Governing with "alternative facts" 
Muddying the waters has helped the president fight the public debate 
over impeachment to a draw. Studies show that, if you repeat 
disinformation enough times, people start to believe it, even if they're 
told at the start that it's totally false. We've seen that during this 
process. 
This pattern dates to the first days of the administration, when 
counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway defended Sean Spicer's 
false claims about the inauguration crowd size by suggesting that the 
White House was entitled to its own set of "alternative facts." 
Every president is the storyteller-in-chief. They use their bully pulpit to 
weave a narrative as helpful as possible. Trump, who used a Sharpie 
to edit a weather map this summer, serves as his own White House 
communications director. He tweeted 49 times on Wednesday. The 
rally and the tweets reflect his adeptness at bypassing the traditional 
filters of the legacy media. 
Dan Balz, our newspaper's chief correspondent, reflects in a story 
today on everything that's changed since the Clinton impeachment. "A 
consistent theme of analysis focused on the broken politics of the time, 
the rancor and rank partisanship that had taken hold in Washington," 
Dan writes. "The stories that day provide an echo of what is being said 
and written about this moment, but few today see the period of two 
decades ago as equivalent to what the country is going through now. 
Whatever conditions existed then have grown worse. Many factors 
Page 18001 
EFTA00047512

contribute to the ■: the velocity at which information moves; the 
endless news cycles; the fractured and more partisan media; the 
toxicity of social media. ... America was certainly polarized two 
decades ago, but it is worse today." 
One of the most striking elements of the House debate washow few 
Republicans made an effort during their speeches to engage directly 
with any of the number of allegations related to Trump's abuse of 
power, specifically the charge that he personally ordered the freeze on 
military assistance in an attempt to coerce a foreign government into 
announcing an investigation into a domestic political rival. 
"I've heard several of my colleagues in a row now, and it's interesting 
to see how very few of them want to address any of the facts of the 
president's misconduct," House Intelligence Committee Chairman 
B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said during his closing argument. "They don't 
want to defend that conduct. So instead, they say, 'Oh, Democrats 
really want to impeach the president,' or, 'Democrats don't like the 
president.' But what they can't say is that this president's conduct was 
ethical. What they can't say was that this president's conduct was 
legal. What they can't say was this president's conduct was 
constitutional." 
Rep. Doug Collins (Ga.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary 
Committee, responded to Schiff. "We've beat the facts back all the 
time," he said. 
How the House impeachment vote unfolded 
THE WOMAN AND THE HOUR HAVE MET: 
Page 18002 
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-- Impeachment demonstrated how Pelosi has emerged as 
Trump's most powerful political adversary. Paul Kane reports: "A 
caucus filled with younger Democrats who questioned the 79-year-
old's liberal bona fides now stands firmly behind her. ... Pelosi presided 
over the chamber, wielding the gavel that Trump once doubted she 
could reclaim. ... That power dynamic left the president fuming ... 'Will 
go down in history as worst Speaker,' he tweeted. 'Already thrown out 
once!" 
Most of the Democrats who opposed Pelosi becoming speaker at 
the start of the year now sing her praises. "I thought it was time for 
new leadership, and I've got to tell you: Thank goodness, thank 
goodness, that we have Nancy Pelosi speaking for the House of 
Representatives," said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who flipped a 
suburban seat long held by the GOP in the Twin Cities. 
"I admit she has rehabilitated her image from 2006, 2008, 2010," 
said Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), who chaired the National 
Republican Congressional Committee last year. "I don't know that 
I know exactly where all this goes, but I know that the bright spotlight 
is on her again. And sometimes that melts Icarus's wings." 
-- The brooch Pelosi wore during the debate was a declaration: 
The Republic will survive this, writes fashion critic Robin Givhan: 
"The woman in charge, Madam Speaker, arrived on the House floor 
wearing a black sheath with bracelet sleeves and matching pumps. ... 
As she spoke, it was impossible to miss the large golden mace brooch 
pinned to the left side of her chest. It is an eagle with its wings spread, 
perched on a pearl mounted on a sheath of gilded rods. ... Pelosi 
dressed for a funeral and her tone was dire. But her glittery brooch 
made clear that it was not the republic she had come to bury." 
Page 18003 
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Pelosi raises possibility of withholding impeachment articles from Senate 
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: 
-- Pelosi said after last night's votes that the House could at least 
temporarily withhold the articles from the Senate — a decision, 
she suggested, that could depend on how the other chamber 
chooses to conduct its trial on Trump's removal. "We cannot 
name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side," 
she said, referring to the House "managers" who will present the case 
for removal to the Senate. "So far we haven't seen anything that looks 
fair to us. So hopefully it will be fair. And when we see what that is, 
we'll send our managers." 
"Pelosi would not answer questions about whether she was 
entertaining an indefinite hold on the articles," Mike DeBonis 
reports, which could push a trial until after the 2020 election. "Under 
the rules the House adopted Wednesday for consideration of the 
impeachment articles, a resolution naming the impeachment managers 
— and authorizing the transmittal of the articles to the Senate — can 
be called up at any time by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold 
Nadler (D-N.Y.) or a designee. There is no time limit on that authority; 
the House is expected to recess for the winter holidays as soon as 
Thursday and not return until Jan. 7. ... 
"The withhold-the-articles gambit gained some traction inside 
the left wing of the House Democratic Caucus this week. Rep. 
Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) on Wednesday ... said that he had spoken 
to three dozen Democratic lawmakers who had expressed some level 
Page 18004 
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/Al a illIfIlITIUITI, lf !ere ougril lu ue do 
agreement about access to witnesses, rules of the game, timing,' 
Blumenauer said of a Senate trial. The notion has been most 
prominently advocated by Laurence'. Tribe, a Harvard Law School 
professor who has advised the House Judiciary Committee on the 
impeachment process. ... Republicans have scoffed at the notion of 
the House withholding the articles, noting it hardly counts as leverage 
to deny the GOP the ability to remove a president that the party wants 
to keep in place." 
-- Mitch McConnell, who has resisted allowing any witnesses to 
testify, joked that the trial will be "good therapy" for senators: 
"Just one thing that may make senators impatient to get it over with is 
[that] in an impeachment trial, they can't speak," the majority leader 
told conservative radio host 
Hewitt. "They have to sit there 
quietly and listen. ... This'll be good therapy for a number of them." 
McConnell also pushed through the confirmation of 13 more federal 
judges as the House debated on Wednesday, CNN notes. 
-- Meanwhile, a federal appeals court wants answers about what 
impact impeachment may have on the House's ongoing legal 
efforts to obtain records and testimony bearing on alleged 
misconduct by Trump. From Politico: "Less than an hour after the 
first impeachment vote was gaveled to a close, the D.C. Circuit Court 
of Appeals issued a pair of orders directing House lawyers to indicate 
whether lawmakers are still seeking testimony from former White 
House counsel Don McGahn and portions of special counsel 
Mueller's report containing information gleaned from secret grand jury 
testimony. Both orders raised the issue of whether the pending 
appeals may be moot and whether the cases, set to be argued on Jan. 
3, should still be considered on an expedited basis. The court is 
Page 18005 
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demanding answers, and views from the Justice Department, by 
Monday afternoon." 
-- More team coverage: 
• Rachael Bade, Mike DeBonis and Josh Dawsey: "Inside 
the decision to impeach Trump: How both parties 
wrestled with a constitutional crisis." 
• Seung Min Kim: "Senators are balancing their partisan 
roles with a desire to protect the integrity of the Senate." 
• Katie Shepherd: "Conservative radio host wishes for a 
`nice school shooting' to distract from impeachment." 
• Ben Terris: "The impeachment vote felt like a funeral. 
But what died?" 
-- Commentary from The Post's opinion page: 
• Editorial Board: "Why the House's impeachment of 
Trump was proper and necessary." 
• Dana Milbank: "The House has impeached Trump. But 
in a sense, he won." 
• Max Boot: "Impeachment isn't Democrats vs. 
Republicans. It's right vs. wrong." 
• Karen Tumulty: "Impeachment is different this time. But 
the script is already written." 
• Henry Olsen: "Partisan impeachment will only add fire to 
our ideological warfare." 
• E.J. Dionne Jr.: "Impeaching Trump is just the end of 
the beginning." 
• Jennifer Rubin: "Trump is impeached and joins the 
`Incore' of nrociriontial hietnni " 
Page 18006 
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IVVVI 
V 
VI VI VVIVVI 
ItIVI I IIVt JI 1
. 
• Former senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.): "Senators 
have a duty to keep an open mind on impeachment." 
Vladimir Putin attends his annual news conference in Moscow on Thursday. (Pavel 
Golovkin/AP) 
THE LATEST ON THE UKRAINE AFFAIR: 
-- Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his end-of-the-
year news conference that Trump's impeachment is "far-
fetched," predicted the Senate will acquit him and accused 
Democrats of trying to overturn the results of the 2016 
election. "The party that lost the election, the Democratic Party, is 
trying to achieve results by other means," Putin told reporters at the 
Kremlin. He likened Trump's impeachment to the Mueller probe, which 
Putin downplayed as being meritless. Putin observed that "Republicans 
have a majority" in the Senate. "They will be unlikely to remove a 
representative of their own party from office on what seems to me an 
absolutely far-fetched reason," the Russian leader said, according to 
the AP. 
Putin also called the Olympic ban on his country unfair, 
boasted about Russia's wheat exports and blamed other nations 
for worldwide pollution, Robyn Dixon and Isabelle Khurshudyan 
report. 
-- Acting Ambassador Bill Taylor was directed to step aside 
ahead of a visit to Kyiv by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, per 
the Wall Street Journal: "That timing countered earlier suggestions that 
Mr TayIrw'q nrerice rienarti ire date wag nrerietermineri anri will allnw 
Page 18007 
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Mr. Pompeo to avoid meeting or being photographed with an 
ambassador who has drawn [Trump's] ire for his testimony ... Mr. 
Taylor was named as the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine after [Marie] 
Yovanovitch was recalled from her post in Ukraine in May. Under the 
terms of the federal Vacancies Act, he could have retained his position 
in Kyiv until Jan. 8, and can serve longer in other capacities under his 
contract with the State Department. But Ulrich Brechbuhl, a key aide to 
Mr. Pompeo who serves as State Department counselor, informed Mr. 
Taylor on Dec. 11 that Mr. Pompeo had instructed him to hand over his 
responsibilities on Jan. 1." 
-- Rudy Giuliani appears to have flown into Ukraine on a budget 
flight but returned to the U.S. on a private jet. From BuzzFeed 
News: "It was the afternoon of Dec. 4 when Giuliani flew to the 
Ukrainian capital from Hungary with low-cost commercial carrier 
WizzAir. He was there to film a three-part video series for the 
staunchly pro-Trump OAN channel, which framed the trip as a mission 
to `destroy' the Democrats' impeachment narrative. Flying WizzAir, 
which demands that customers pay for everything a la carte and forces 
them to fight for unassigned seats and overhead bin space, often feels 
like a particularly chaotic Black Friday at Best Buy. After experiencing 
that, it's no wonder Giuliani wanted to fly out of Kyiv on a private jet." 
-- The New York Times Sunday magazine looks at how Giuliani's 
associate Lev Parnas ingratiated himself with Trump: "The first 
time Mr. Parnas spoke with Mr. Trump, he wanted to make a personal 
connection. It was October 2015 ... Mr. Parnas and his 16-year-old son 
drove from their home in Boca Raton, Fla., to the Trump National Doral 
Miami ... for a raucous campaign rally ... Before the rally, Mr. Parnas 
shook hands with the candidate and told him about a long-ago, if 
Page 18008 
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tenuous, connection to the Trump family. As a young man in Brooklyn, 
he had sold co-op apartments built by Mr. Trump's father, prompting 
the men to joke that Mr. Parnas's son might one day work for Mr. 
Trump ... It was a brief but exhilarating encounter for someone born in 
Ukraine who had arrived in the United States at age 4." 
Subscribe on Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple HomePod and 
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Welcome to the Daily 202, PowerPost's morning 
briefing for decision-makers. 
Sign up to receive the newsletter. 
Migrants seeking asylum wake up at a camp near a legal port of entry bridge to the 
United States in Matamoros, Mexico. (Fernando Llano/AP) 
DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS THAT SHOULD NOT BE 
OVERLOOKED: 
-- An appeals court ruled that the Affordable Care Act's individual 
mandate is unconstitutional, sending back to a lower court the 
question of whether the rest of the law can remain without 
it. Amy Goldstein reports: "The long-awaited decision by a three-judge 
panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has little 
immediate practical effect on consumers because Congress already 
has removed the penalty for people who flout the insurance 
Page 18009 
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requirement. But the panel's 2-to-1 ruling leaves the rest of the 
sprawling statute in limbo, catapulting questions of insurance coverage 
and consumer health-care protections to the forefront of the 2020 
presidential and congressional campaigns. The panel's one 
Democratic appointee dissented from the 98-page opinion, writing 
that the Republican states challenging the law did not have standing to 
do so. If they did, she wrote, she would find the mandate 
constitutional. The 5th Circuit decision almost certainly will bring 
the health-care law before the Supreme Court for a third time, 
and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, leading a coalition of 
his Democratic counterparts fighting to preserve the law, said 
Wednesday night that he was prepared to ask the high court to take 
the case before the lower court rules again. But by sending a thorny 
legal question back to the Texas jurist who already has held the law 
unconstitutional, the judges may effectively slow the progress of the 
case, so that the high court does not take it during its current term and 
decide it before the November elections." 
-- The administration proposed new regulations that would deny 
asylum protections to immigrants with criminal convictions —
including some low-level offenses and misdemeanors —
measures that would make it harder for many to seek refuge in 
the U.S. Nick Miroff reports: "The proposed change from the Justice 
Department and the Department of Homeland Security would disqualify 
asylum applicants found guilty of serious offenses such as driving while 
into'dcated and domestic battery, as well as lesser violations such as 
the use of false documents and reentering the United States illegally. 
... If implemented after a public comment period, the new regulation 
would help the government sort through an immigration court backlog 
that exceeds 1 million pending cases, according to the Justice 
Page 18010 
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Department. ... Current U.S. law already disqualifies major criminal 
offenders from obtaining asylum protection in the United States, but 
the new proposal would add several additional categories of mandatory 
bars. They would include any felony conviction at the federal or state 
level, and offenses such as driving while intoxicated, domestic violence 
— even when no conviction results — and any 'federal, state, tribal, or 
local crime involving criminal street gang activity.-
-- The ACLU filed a lawsuit against a Nashville suburb to stop a 
zoning ordinance that effectively bans surgical abortions within 
the city's borders. Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and Ariana Eunjung Cha 
report: "The suit, joined by the national ACLU and filed on behalf of the 
nonprofit national women's clinic Carafem, calls the Mount Juliet City 
Commission's zoning ordinance `unconstitutional.' The ordinance is 
part of `the state's relentless attack on abortion rights, enacting a 
multitude of restrictions designed to shutter clinics that have provided 
safe and affordable abortion care and impose unconscionable 
obstacles' the lawsuit states. Two days after the Carafem women's 
clinic opened, the city commission called a meeting in March with just 
one item on the agenda: to restrict surgical abortion clinics to industrial 
zones. Carafem, which provides a range of women's health-care 
services, had opened its clinic in a commercial-zone complex with 
other medical offices." 
-- The Trump administration is considering plans to reduce 
student debt. From the WSJ: "White House and Education 
Department advisers think a program to cancel a large portion of 
student debt would be unfair to taxpayers and unpopular among 
Republican voters, senior administration officials said. Instead, officials 
are looking at ways to help borrowers lower their debt. The proposals 
. 
. 
Page 18011 
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