House Democratic leaders, who declined to censure Representative Steve King, ensured the passage of a seven-page resolution against hate speech following a letter signed by pro-Israel groups that accused Representative Ilhan Omar of anti-Semitism and asked that she be removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.1 2 3 Omar, who told Elliott Abrams, “I fail to understand why members of this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful” during a House hearing on Venezuela, was criticized by Donald Trump, who tweeted that Monday, March 4 was “A dark day for Israel!” and the White House hosted a meeting with evangelical leaders on Thursday, March 7 to reassure them about the president’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.4 5 6 Students at a school in Newport Beach, California, were photographed giving a Nazi salute around red plastic cups that had been arranged in the shape of a swastika; two senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were put under investigation after liking and sharing a post on the professional networking site LinkedIn that claimed Representative Omar had taken “terrorism classes”; and Kirstjen Nielsen, the secretary of homeland security, testified before a House committee that she did not know how many children were currently being detained at the border and repeatedly objected to calling the chain-link structures where children are held in “cages,” arguing, “It’s larger. It has facilities. There are places to sit, to stand, to lay [sic] down.”7 8 9 10 In California, a 78-year-old patient and his family were informed that he would die within days from a doctor who was communicating via video call on a screen mounted to a robot on wheels.11
A new video showed that, contrary to claims made on Twitter by national security adviser John Bolton and Senator Marco Rubio, anti-Maduro forces in Venezuela had set fire to international aid trucks, and Jair Bolsonaro tweeted a video from a pornographic film of a man urinating on another man accompanied by the text, “This is what many Carnival street bands have become”; later, the Brazilian president tweeted, “What is a golden shower?”12 13 14 It was reported that 3.4 million Argentines are able to eat only one meal a day even though the country produces enough for 400 million people, and the average US household’s net worth fell 3.5 percent, its biggest drop since the 2008 financial crisis; neither Bolton nor Rubio have endorsed an opposition leader in either country.15 16 The Chicago Symphony Orchestra went on strike for better pay and benefits.17 Donald Trump, who has spent approximately 30 percent of his time in office at a Trump property, referred to Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, as “Tim Apple,” the second time he has called a CEO by their company’s name; in a subsequent meeting at Mar-a-Lago, the president told Republican donors that he had said “Tim Cook Apple” quickly, and that “Cook” was too quiet to hear; later, he tweeted, “At a recent round table [sic] meeting of business executives, & long after formally introducing Tim Cook of Apple, I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words. The Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!”18 19 20 21 President Trump also signed an executive order revoking “superfluous reporting requirements” that made public how many civilians had been killed outside of conventional war zones by drones, and the State Department preemptively rescinded the International Women of Courage Award from a Finnish investigative journalist after employees discovered she had criticized Trump.22 23 24
Karen Bradley, Northern Ireland’s secretary of state, made a public apology for her earlier remark that military and police officers who had killed people during the Troubles were “fulfilling their duties in a dignified and appropriate way,” and stated, “I want to be very clear—I do not believe what I said, that is not my view.”25 The government of the United Kingdom has updated its Violence Against Women and Girls strategy to protect women against unsolicited photographs of male sexual organs; the National Film Board of Canada launched Clit-me, a mobile game that teaches players about the clitoris; and a billionaire Belgian diamond importer died during penis enlargement surgery in Paris.26 27 28 A judge that instructed a jury to keep deliberating after finding a sex trafficker guilty because God had told him that she was innocent has been disciplined.29 In response to a question about hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels with checks written to Michael Cohen, one dated the same day he informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the US Embassy would be moved to Jerusalem, Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota responded, “I think most of us have a concern any time you have a president that is trying to work through some very personal matters. I honestly think that this president loves his family.”30—Violet Lucca
