Last night, a federal judge in San Diego granted a preliminary injunction requested by the American Civil Liberties Union. Judge Dana M. Sabraw ordered that all families separated at the border by the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy be reunited within 30 days, 14 days for children under 5. Parents must be allowed to speak to their children by phone within 10 … Read More
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: A 28-Year-Old Democratic Giant Slayer
Some primaries were held last night, and there is news. The New York Times talks about a candidate who won the Dem primary in the House 14 (notably, the Times never even mentioned her before in any article, showing how unlikely her win was): She has never held elected office. She is still paying off her student loans. She is … Read More
Tone Policing and Civility
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was politely asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, VA, this past weekend because the owner was unwilling to serve a senior Trump administration official who defends (among other things) the cruel and inhumane separation of migrant families and internment of immigrant children. This act of protest — the most recent example of … Read More
SCOTUS Upholds Travel Ban 3.0 And We’re Never Going To Hear The End Of It
Third time is a charm. The Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s most recent travel ban today in a 5-4 decision, ruling that it falls within the president’s traditional power to control immigration policy. The Court split was on ideological grounds, with Kennedy siding with the majority. The travel ban was Trump’s first big policy announcement, touching off first big policy-specific … Read More
Trump Job Approval Plummets In Week Of Family Separation
Trump went 45% approve/50% disapprove for the week ending on June 17 to 41% approve/55% disapprove for last week (ending June 24). In other words, a -5 spread to a -14 spread, virtually obliterating his post-North Korea summit bounce. Biggest single-week jump up in disapproval of Trump’s presidency.
Mueller Gets Erik Prince’s Phones
ABC: [Erik] Prince, America’s most famous private military contractor, acknowledged last week that he “cooperated” with Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election after falling under scrutiny amid questions about an alleged effort to establish a backchannel between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, something Prince has vehemently denied. ABC News has since learned that Mueller is … Read More
Probably Nothing But Still….
Who knows? Maybe it takes a C-list celebrity to get rid of a C-list celebrity president. If so, Tom Arnold is on the job: Tom Arnold—the actor and comedian who’s said he’s on a mission to find incriminating video of President Trump—tweeted a photo of himself with Michael Cohen late Thursday, saying “this dude has all the tapes.” Trump’s longtime … Read More
A Very Well-Made Political Ad
Hegar has an uphill battle in a district that is rated R+10. It stretches from the northernmost suburbs of Austin to Fort Hood and it will be interesting to watch how an ad like the one below plays out in an area that is dominated by active-duty military. Hegar has obviously adopted the idea of “doors” as a theme for … Read More
Trump Defeats His Own Call For Immigration Bill
Trump’s tweets today come as House Republicans have been struggling to wrangle support for a comprehensive immigration bill. Yesterday, Republicans decided to postpone a vote on it for the second time in less than a day. Senate and House leaders have also been trying to find a bill that would end family separations at the border. South Carolina Republican Rep. … Read More
Breaking: Trump Signs Executive Order on Family Separation
What just happened: President Donald Trump officially reversed his debunked argument that he had no authority to stop separations of undocumented immigrant families at the border. Trump’s climbdown came after he faced intense pressure from across the political spectrum and from religious, political and world leaders to halt the separations, which produced days of heart-rending news coverage of crying children … Read More
Breaking: Michael Cohen Resigns From RNC Committee Post
Surprised this didn’t happen long ago: Michael Cohen, President Trump’s longtime confidant and former personal attorney, has resigned from his post as deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee’s Finance Committee, sources close to the RNC told ABC News. In his resignation letter to Ronna McDaniel, the RNC chair, Cohen cited the ongoing special counsel investigation as one reason … Read More
Baby Jails
Rachel Maddow last night, trying ot read an AP breaking story about detention centers for babies: Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to “tender age” shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR — Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20, 2018 Former Trump Campaign Chair Corey Lewandowski during a discussion about … Read More
In Other News, More Evidence Of Money Laundering Shows Up
McClatchy News has the goods: Aleksandr Burman, a Ukrainian who engaged in a health care scheme that cost the federal government $26 million and was sentenced to a decade in prison, paid $725,000 cash for a condo at a Trump Tower I in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla. in 2009. Leonid Zeldovich, who has reportedly done extensive business in the Russian-annexed area … Read More
Family Separation Policy Goes To Overboil
There is no absence of opinion on the Trump Administration’s “zero-tolerance policy” toward immigrants crossing the Southern border — a policy that includes separating children from their parents indefinitely, and detaining them in less-than-stellar conditions (including a “tent city” popping up in a region where the temperatures are often in the high 90s). All living former first ladies have written … Read More
Ben Sasse – Nine Points on the Trump Family Separation Policy
From his Facebook page: Many Nebraskans this weekend asked me about the kids at the border. Here’s a short version of what I told them. This is a bit over-simplified, but these are broad brushstrokes of how I understand the situation at present: 1) Family separation is wicked. It is harmful to kids and absolutely should NOT be the default … Read More