April 3, 2019

Kris Kobach Wants 'Processing Towns' For Asylum-Seeking Families

By Matt Shuham

April 3, 2019 12:20 pm

In what sounded a bit like an Alex Jones fever dream, former Kansas Secretary of State and potential Trump administration appointee Kris Kobach suggested Wednesday that the government create “processing town” detention centers for asylum-seekers along the southern border.


Instead of selling “the thousands of empty mobile home trailers that the United States owns right now,” Kobach told Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs in an interview, “deploy them to border cities and create processing towns that are confined.”

“And so when someone comes in and falsely claims asylum, we don’t release them for six months onto the streets of the United States, we process them right there in that camp, where they have the three square meals, they’re living in a nice mobile home,” Kobach said. “And then as soon as they’re done, as soon as the claim is rejected, they’re on the next plane back home.”

Kobach also urged the Department of Homeland Security to publish the final version of a proposed change to the so-called Flores settlement, spelling out, in Kobach’s words, “how we can detain entire families together.”

Currently, the Flores settlement says DHS can only detain migrant and asylum-seeking children for 20 days before transferring custody of them to the Department of Health or Human Services or another, less restrictive setting, such as a sponsor family member’s home. The proposed change would allow ICE, in the government’s words, to “use appropriate facilities to detain family units together during their immigration proceedings, consistent with applicable law.”

-snip-

https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1113220569300897793

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/kris-kobach-wants-mobile-home-prison-camps-confined-processing-towns-for-asylum-seekers

April 3, 2019

Beto O'Rourke Raises $9.4M In First 18 Days As Presidential Candidate

By Cameron Joseph
April 3, 2019 1:58 pm

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) raised $9.4 million in his first 18 days in the presidential campaign, an impressive sum but a fundraising rate that may be hard to sustain going forward.

That haul puts O’Rourke in the top tier of presidential campaign fundraising, and on a per-day basis puts him ahead of the rest of the field, at over a half-million dollars a day. But it includes almost $6 million in O’Rourke’s first day as a candidate, generally a top fundraising day for campaigns and one that can be hard to recreate later. O’Rourke’s campaign didn’t release how many individual donors made contributions. But O’Rourke’s average $48 donation means he can keep coming back to his huge network of online supporters time and again — the same method that he used to set Senate fundraising records in his 2018 bid against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

“Not only is this a sign of our grassroots strength during the first two weeks of our campaign but it is a sign of what’s possible when you put your full trust in the people of this country,” O’Rourke said in a statement.

O’Rourke’s total fundraising haul puts him currently behind only Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Kamala Harris (D-CA), who raised $18.2 million and $12 million respectively for the race. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) raised $7 million since he entered the race, a strong showing for a candidate who began the campaign with little name recognition. The other candidates haven’t put their first-quarter fundraising toplines out yet, a sign that they’re not likely to impress.

O’Rourke’s campaign has averaged $522,000 a day, Sanders’ has averaged $444,000 a day, Harris averaged $171,000 a day, and Buttigieg averaged $103,000 a day.

###

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/beto-orourke-raises-9-4m-in-first-18-days-as-presidential-candidate

April 3, 2019

DOJ Issues Scathing Report On 'Severe,' 'Systemic' Problems In Alabama Prisons

Source: Talking Points Memo/The AP



By KIM CHANDLER and Eric Tucker
April 3, 2019 12:11 pm

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The Justice Department has determined that Alabama’s prisons are violating the Constitution by failing to protect inmates from violence and sexual abuse and by housing them in unsafe and overcrowded facilities, according to a scathing report Wednesday that described the problems as “severe” and “systemic.”

The federal government also is putting the state on notice that it may sue if officials there don’t make improvements soon.

“Our investigation found reasonable cause to believe that Alabama fails to provide constitutionally adequate conditions and that prisoners experience serious harm, including deadly harm, as a result,” said Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband, who leads the department’s civil rights division. “The Justice Department hopes to work with Alabama to resolve the Department’s concerns.”

The report detailed a litany of problems in the state’s 13 prisons for men, which together house roughly 16,000 inmates. Those include an overcrowding rate that the Justice Department says ranks among the highest in the nation and a “crisis level” staffing shortage.

Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/doj-report-alabama-prisons-violating-constitution

April 3, 2019

Under The Gun Over Census, Wilbur Ross Stiffs Congressional Hearing

By Tierney Sneed
April 3, 2019 9:33 am

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross turned down an invitation to appear in front a House Appropriations subcommittee Wednesday — the second time in recent days Ross has dodged an opportunity to testify on his department’s budget.

Ross is under scrutiny for his move to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census — a move that the Supreme Court will review later this month.

In a letter to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, Ross claimed his appearance would “unfortunately distract from the Department’s important business before the subcommittee.”

Ross pointed to the subcommittee’s refusal to host other Department officials to testify about the budget in his absence.

https://twitter.com/AppropsDems/status/1113412001965981696

more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/wilbur-ross-house-appropriations-budget-census

April 3, 2019

Fox News To Hold 2020 Town Hall With Bernie Sanders

By Kate Riga
April 3, 2019 11:59 am

Fox News will host Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for a 2020 town hall on April 15. The event will be moderated by hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.

Sanders participated in a town hall in 2016 on Fox News as well.

From a Daily Caller reporter:

https://twitter.com/esaagar/status/1113464704209510400

###

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-news-town-hall-bernie-sanders

April 3, 2019

Charles Koch wants a more open border. Immigration is one reason he's backed away from the GOP.

By James Hohmann April 3 at 10:39 AM

THE BIG IDEA: Charles Koch doesn’t just think President Trump’s threat to close the southern border is terrible. He’d do the opposite.

“I would let everybody in who comes here to contribute, and no one who wants to come here to do harm, and see how easy this is,” the billionaire industrialist said on Monday in Redwood City, Calif. “This goes to our whole philosophy of openness. … We have to have an open society – open to ideas, people, goods and services – to learn from each other and have us all benefit.”

During rare public comments, the Koch brother complained that leaders in both parties agree that the immigration laws need to change. “But they think it will help the other party more, so they won't do it,” he said. “And we can't make any progress on policies that a great majority of the American people – and even the majority of the politicians – agree would be the right thing to do.”

In response to a direct question about Trump, Koch said: “My deal is to hate the sin, not the sinner. We want to help save the sinner, right?”

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/04/03/daily-202-charles-koch-wants-a-more-open-border-immigration-is-one-reason-he-s-backed-away-from-the-gop/5ca38a9b1b326b0f7f38f2eb/

April 3, 2019

Inside the spectacular fall of the granddaddy of right-wing conspiracy sites

By Manuel Roig-Franzia April 2 at 1:26 PM

In the feverish heyday of the “birther movement,” conspiracy-hungry readers swarmed to a website called WorldNetDaily for the latest on the specious yet viral theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

The site’s founder, Joseph Farah — a former newspaperman with a dense, jet-black mustache and a cloak-and-dagger mystique — boasted in 2010 that he was well on the way to generating $10 million a year in revenue. His Northern Virginia-headquartered news site, known by the acronym WND, was having its moment by stoking rumors about Obama. But Farah — a conservative Internet pioneer who’d once been labeled by the Clinton White House as part of a right-wing media conspiracy and was known to sport a pistol on his hip in the office—saw bigger things. Years earlier he’d launched one of the first large-scale digital newsgathering operations; now he wanted to be a player in Christian-themed movies and book publishing, churning out titles by big-name conservatives, such as anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly and future House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

He was building an empire.

A decade later, that realm is being sucked into a tornado of unpaid bills, pink-slipped employees, chaotic accounting, declining revenue and diminishing readership, according to interviews with more than 25 former employees, shareholders, company insiders and authors associated with the firm's flailing publishing units, as well as a review of hundreds of internal documents, including emails and financial statements obtained by The Washington Post.

Even though Farah claimed in WND columns and emails to supporters last year to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations —including tax-deductible contributions — some former employees and contractors have been laid off or had their deals canceled without being paid money they say they were owed. Many authors who signed on with the site’s publishing arm, including former Republican senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, are fuming about allegedly not receiving royalties owed to them.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/inside-the-spectacular-fall-of-the-granddaddy-of-right-wing-conspiracy-sites/2019/04/02/6ac53122-3ba6-11e9-a06c-3ec8ed509d15_story.html

April 3, 2019

Hannity gave Michael Cohen advice for dealing with old Trump mistresses during 2016 campaign: NYT

BRAD REED
03 APR 2019 AT 09:21 ET

Fox News host Sean Hannity reportedly grew so close to Donald Trump’s campaign operation in 2016 that he gave estranged “fixer” Michael Cohen advice on handling former Trump mistresses who could hurt his chances of winning the White House.

Two sources have told the New York Times that Hannity “had effectively been a member of [Trump’s] campaign team, for instance pressing Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to be on the lookout for former girlfriends and employees who might make trouble for the candidate ahead of the election.” Hannity is denying that he gave Cohen warnings about former Trump mistresses, although the Times is standing by its reporting.

Cohen last year pleaded guilty to making illegal campaign contributions via hush money payments he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in exchange for their silence about past affairs with Trump.

As part of his plea agreement, Cohen said that he made these payments “at the direction of” Trump, thus implicating the president as an unindicted co-conspirator.

###

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/04/hannity-gave-michael-cohen-advice-dealing-old-trump-mistresses-2016-campaign-nyt/

April 3, 2019

GOP congressman goes on perplexing rant about water bottles and the Mueller report

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1113434135220117505

April 3, 2019

House panel votes to authorize subpoenas to obtain full Mueller report

Source: The Washington Post



By Rachael Bade April 3 at 10:27 AM

A House panel voted Wednesday to authorize subpoenas to obtain special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s full report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, laying down a marker in a constitutional power struggle that could end up in the courts.

The House Judiciary Committee voted, 24-17, along party lines, to authorize its chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), to subpoena the report and underlying documents of Mueller’s probe from Attorney General William P. Barr.

The panel, which has jurisdiction over impeachment, also voted to subpoena five former White House officials they believe may have received documents relevant to the special counsel’s probe.

“This committee has a job to do,” Nadler said. “The Constitution charges Congress with holding the president accountable for alleged official misconduct. That job requires us to evaluate the evidence for ourselves — not the attorney general’s summary, not a substantially redacted synopsis, but the full report and the underlying evidence.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-panel-votes-to-authorize-subpoenas-to-obtain-full-mueller-report/2019/04/03/e0577b34-560e-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html