July 2, 2018

Judge rules DHS must give asylum seekers individualized parole hearings

Source: The Hill

BY LYDIA WHEELER - 07/02/18 05:14 PM EDT

A federal district court judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration must consider on an individual basis whether immigrants who come to the U.S. seeking asylum represent a flight risk or a danger to their community before they can be detained if they've proven a credible fear of persecution.

Judge James Boasberg, on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from arbitrarily detaining asylum seekers. The order stems from a class-action lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed on behalf of asylum seekers who have been denied parole even though Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials found they had a credible claim of persecution in their home countries, which is the first step toward gaining asylum status.

The ACLU argued that DHS violated its own parole directive and immigration law in an effort to deter other asylum seekers from coming to the country. In his ruling, Boasberg said he was ordering DHS to follow a policy the government admitted it was required to follow.

“To mandate that ICE provide these baseline procedures to those entering our country — individuals who have often fled violence and persecution to seek safety on our shores — is no great judicial leap,” he said. “Rather, the issuance of injunctive relief in this case serves only to hold defendants accountable to their own governing policies and to ensure that plaintiffs receive the protections they are due under the Parole Directive.”

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Read more: http://thehill.com/regulation/395254-judge-rules-dhs-must-give-asylum-seekers-individualized-parole-hearings

July 2, 2018

Here Are The Documents Recovered From Michael Cohen's Shredder

“NEVER MET: Donald Trump, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, Michael Jackson, The Jackson’s family, Sony.”

Posted on July 2, 2018, at 4:31 p.m.

Jason Leopold
BuzzFeed News Reporter

Anthony Cormier
BuzzFeed News Reporter

When the Department of Justice announced this month that investigators had pieced together records found in a shredder belonging to the president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, critics, legal experts, and journalists feverishly speculated about what they might contain.

Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for porn star Stormy Daniels and Cohen's devoted nemesis, tweeted that the shredded documents could be a “huge problem.” MSNBC host Ari Melber devoted a large part of his program in May to the shredded documents and suggested that “something is going down.” Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and CNN analyst, tweeted: “This is not going to end well for the defense.”

Now, BuzzFeed News has obtained documents reconstructed by the FBI. A close examination shows that the records are a combination of documents that prosecutors already had, handwritten notes about a taxi business, insurance papers, and correspondence from a woman described in court filings as a “vexatious litigant” who claims she is under government surveillance.

Rebuilt from thin strips of paper, the shredded records are sometimes difficult to comprehend. One page doesn’t include full words and is a jumble of numbers, letters, and bar codes. One document appears to be part of an envelope. There are fragments of handwritten notes. There is an invitation to a reception in Miami to meet with business representatives from Qatar. Several of the records seem to be insurance forms for an apartment.

more
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jasonleopold/here-are-the-documents-recovered-from-michael-cohens?utm_term=.ajQxZZJav#.cpNvddMQE

July 2, 2018

In Pointed Letters, Trump Demands More Defense Spending From NATO Allies

Source: The New York Times




By Julie Hirschfeld Davis
July 2, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump has written sharply worded letters to the leaders of several NATO allies, including Germany, Belgium, Norway and Canada, taking them to task for spending too little on their own defense and warning that the United States is losing patience with their failure to meet security obligations shared by the alliance.

The letters, which went out last month, are the latest sign of acrimony between Mr. Trump and American allies as he heads to a NATO summit meeting next week in Brussels that will be a closely watched test of the president’s commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance after he has repeatedly questioned its value and claimed that its members are taking advantage of the United States.

They raised the prospect of a second bitterly contentious confrontation between the president and United States allies after a blowup by Mr. Trump at the Group of 7 gathering last month in Quebec, and highlighted the worries of European allies that far from projecting solidarity in the face of threats from Russia, their meeting will highlight divisions within the alliance. That would play into the hands of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who is to meet with Mr. Trump in Helsinki after the NATO meeting, and whose prime goal is sowing divisions within NATO.

“As we discussed during your visit in April, there is growing frustration in the United States that some allies have not stepped up as promised,” Mr. Trump wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in a particularly pointed version of the letter, according to someone who saw it and shared excerpts with The New York Times. “Continued German underspending on defense undermines the security of the alliance and provides validation for other allies that also do not plan to meet their military spending commitments, because others see you as a role model.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/world/europe/trump-nato.html

July 2, 2018

Trump declines request to lower flags in memory of Capital Gazette shooting victims

Source: Baltimore Sun




Danielle Ohl
dohl@capgaznews.com

President Donald Trump has declined a request from Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley to lower American flags in honor of the fatal shooting of five employees of The Capital newspaper last week.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed, you know? … Is there a cutoff for tragedy?” Buckley said Monday afternoon. “This was an attack on the press. It was an attack on freedom of speech. It’s just as important as any other tragedy.”

Gov. Larry Hogan ordered Maryland state flags to be lowered to half-staff from Friday through sunset on Monday.

Through Maryland’s congressional delegation, Buckley put in a request to the White House over the weekend to lower the American flags.

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/annapolis/bs-ac-cn-flag-request-denied-20180702-story.html

July 2, 2018

Trump has embraced the big-money donor world he once shunned

By Michelle Ye Hee Lee
July 2 at 3:41 PM

There was the exclusive dinner at the Georgetown home of a tobacco heir and the soiree at the McLean residence of the developer of the Watergate complex. More recently, men in suits and women in cocktail dresses sipped drinks in the luxurious ballroom of Washington’s Trump International Hotel.

At each gathering, the guest of honor was President Trump. And the people there to celebrate him were some of his wealthiest supporters, who in the case of the hotel fete wrote six-figure checks to hear him crack jokes and discuss his agenda in a rarefied setting.

Even as Trump holds court in large arenas filled with thousands of cheering supporters, he also has been giving rich financiers and business executives up-close access, helping cultivate the kind of big-money outfit he once derided. The effort is intended to boost his favored candidates in this year’s midterms — and to bolster his own reelection prospects.

The money is flowing to America First, an independent operation stocked with former Trump aides that aims to scoop up $100 million through two entities, with the bulk of the funds so far flowing to a nonprofit arm that is not required to disclose the names of its donors.

The chase for wealthy backers is exactly what Trump denounced on the campaign trail in 2016, saying it made candidates “psychologically” beholden to donors and declaring it was “not going to happen with me.”

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-has-embraced-the-big-money-donor-world-he-once-shunned/2018/06/30/0ef53478-7630-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html

July 2, 2018

Trump likes to see err power in his parades

By Tom Toles
July 2 at 1:10 PM




https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/07/02/trump-likes-to-see-err-power-in-his-parades/

July 2, 2018

Trump's big North Korea deal is already turning out to be a sham

By Brian Klaas
July 2 at 2:11 PM

Do they give out Nobel Peace Prizes for praising and appeasing brutal dictators who threaten nuclear war — without getting anything in return?

President Trump claimed he would use his world-class dealmaking skills to convince North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un, to surrender his nuclear weapons. Instead, Trump got played. Kim, who pledged in wishy-washy language to “denuclearize,” is now accelerating his nuclear program. The nuclear threat from North Korea — and the risk of a preemptive war launched by Trump — are both growing. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is heading to North Korea this week hoping to contain the fallout.

Twenty days ago, Trump shook hands with Kim in Singapore. At the summit, Trump played the role of apologist in chief for Kim’s human rights abuses while praising Kim as a “very talented” person because he can “run it tough.” In North Korea, “running it tough” means executing dissidents, torturing political prisoners in gulags and threatening to wipe a few U.S. cities off the map with a nuclear blast.

The White House and Trump’s surrogates insisted that the unsavory handshake would be vindicated. They claimed we were witnessing a history-making deal from a history-making dealmaker. Former presidents, guided by experts who understood every intricacy of North Korean politics, had failed. All it would take from Trump, they claimed, was a one-on-one handshake, a photo-op and some touting of North Korea’s prospects for developing beachfront resorts. Hit by that sophisticated diplomatic approach, Kim would trade missiles for condos. Then, the president’s cheerleaders argued, Trump could accept his well-deserved invitation to Oslo. It was visible then. Now it is being revealed as fatally naive.

Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that North Korea is rapidly completing a major expansion of a key manufacturing facility for missiles — missiles that can strike American allies, American military bases in those allied countries and, yes, the mainland United States.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy-post/wp/2018/07/02/trumps-big-north-korea-deal-is-already-turning-out-to-be-a-sham/

July 2, 2018

Trump isn't going to change his mind on trade even if the stock market keeps falling: Wilbur Ross

Source: CNBC


"There's no bright line level of the stock market that's going to change policy," the Commerce secretary says.

Concerns about import tariffs imposed and threatened by Trump were again bringing out the sellers on Wall Street.

"There is obviously going to be some pulling and tugging as we try to deal with very serious problems" on trade, says Ross.

Matthew J. Belvedere | @Matt_Belvedere
Published 3 Hours Ago Updated 1 Hour Ago

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Monday that there's no level on the downside in the stock market that would alter the way President Donald Trump approaches trade.

"There's no bright line level of the stock market that's going to change policy," Ross said on "Squawk Box." "The president is trying to fix long-term problems that should have been fixed a long time ago."

U.S. stock futures were starting off the third quarter Monday morning under pressure. Concerns about import tariffs imposed and threatened by Trump were again bringing out the sellers.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average last week, for the month of June and for the year was lower as of Friday's close. However, the index was nearly three-quarters of a percent higher in the second quarter.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/wilbur-ross-no-downside-level-in-stocks-to-change-trump-trade-policy.html?__source=twitter%7Cinternational

July 2, 2018

Federal judge says students have no right to literacy, dismisses lawsuit

By Associated Press | Posted: Sun 7:31 PM, Jul 01, 2018

DETROIT (AP) (07/01/18)- A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit focused on the poor reading skills of students at several Detroit schools, including because he concluded there is no right to literacy.

Judge Stephen Murphy III agreed in his 40-page ruling that "when a child who could be taught to read goes untaught, the child suffers a lasting injury - and so does society." But he added it still doesn't follow that literacy is a right. Murphy's written ruling was posted late Friday in U.S. District Court for eastern Michigan.

The lawsuit filed in 2016 argued the schools are in "slum-like conditions" and "functionally incapable of delivering access to literacy."

It accused Gov. Rick Snyder, the state school board and others of violating the civil rights of low-income students.

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http://www.abc12.com/content/news/-Federal-judge-says-students-have-no-right-to-literacy-487069441.html

July 2, 2018

Keep the focus on Trump's cruelty and incompetence

By Greg Sargent
July 2 at 9:44 AM

President Trump is professing great confidence that overreaching progressive criticism of his cruel and disastrously executed immigration agenda will prove devastating to Democratic chances in the midterm elections. And a number of pundits are rushing to endorse that view.

In an interview on Fox News, Trump said that the growing calls to “Abolish ICE” among Democrats will result in them getting “beaten so badly,” adding: “I love that issue if they’re gonna actually do that.”

“These are the guys that go in and take MS-13, and they take them out,” Trump said. “You get rid of ICE, you’re going to have a country that you’re going to be afraid to walk out of your house.” This comes after Trump tweeted that the “liberal left” wants “Open Borders,” which would make crime “rampant and uncontrollable,” and that the left wants to do away with “all police.” Trump has absurdly claimed that he has “watched ICE liberate towns” from MS-13, and has falsely called Nancy Pelosi an “MS-13 lover.”

As an answer to all this, Democrats might consider offering some variation of the following, in every conceivable forum:

Trump’s cruel and incompetent policies just ripped more than 2,000 children away from their parents, and there are no indications when he’ll be able to reunite them, even though a judge has ordered him to do so. It’s time for him to show some leadership and clean up the immense humanitarian catastrophe he has created, rather than wasting all of our time with his petty little tweets and lies.

The claim that “Abolish ICE” is a liability for Democrats is a proxy for a larger argument over whether the broader liberal backlash to Trump is unleashing an insurgency that will force Democrats to take overly radical positions or compromise the party among swing voters. After the shocking win of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who supports doing away with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), The Post and the New York Times reported that this prospect has Democratic leaders worried.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/07/02/keep-the-focus-on-trumps-cruelty-and-incompetence/