In other news, special prosecutor Robert Mueller filed new charges against former Trump deputy campaign manager Rick Gates today which he pleaded guilty to including lying to the FBI and conspiracy.
That's in addition to yesterday's 32-count indictment.
Meanwhile, reports of racial harassment and discrimination filed with the Department of Education’s civil rights division increased by 25 percent in 2017.
Finally, a growing number of companies are cutting ties with the NRA including MetLife, Symantec, and several rental car companies among others. ThinkProgress is actively updating their list.
Here are some other stories I didn't get to this week:
BlackRock Inc, which manages over $6 trillion in assets including the majority of shares in Sturm Ruger and American Outdoor Brands, has informed the gunmakers that they expect an appropriate response to the latest mass shooting.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says their tax cuts will somehow boost wages without triggering inflation which pretty much everyone from Wall Street to the Federal Reserve and mainstream economists disagrees with. The Fed is expected to raise interest rates at least 3 or 4 times this year because of inflation.
Mexican imports of Brazilian corn have increased by 970 percent over the past 4 months because Trump has threatened to withdraw from NAFTA. This is not good news for American corn farmers but it'll be even worse if he withdraws.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has created a new agency, the Bureau of Environmental Justice, that is expected to pick up the slack from Scott Pruitt's EPA which is doing nothing.
BP tells investors and shareholders that it expects a third of all vehicles will be electric by 2040 and demand for oil in the car market will be "essentially flat" for the next 20 years. BP says it won't hold on to assets that aren't "economical" and will invest in natural gas during the transition away from oil.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is calling for tariffs on imported steel and aluminum and the only people who are excited about it are steel and aluminium producers, not people who actually use it. Like all the other tariffs and trade fights the Trump regime is picking, the result could actually be more imports, not fewer.
Philip Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, welcomed the proposals saying they could be “meaningful and effective” in tackling global excess capacity and relentless steel imports.
But in a joint statement the National Tooling and Machining Association and Precision Metalforming Association said steep tariffs would “devastate” downstream U.S. steel consuming manufacturers, which employ 6.5 million Americans.
“If these tariffs are imposed, the U.S. will become an island of high steel prices resulting in our customers simply importing the finished part and threatening thousands of jobs,” the groups said.
Happy Friday. Have a good weekend.