Light News Dump

White House may seek to prevent McGahn from complying with House subpoena
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/23/politics/don-mcgahn-subpoena-white-house-comply/index.html

ICE Faces Migrant Detention Crunch as Border Chaos Spills Into Interior of the Country. In one initiative examined earlier this year, Department of Homeland Security officials looked at housing migrant children at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which has a dormitory facility that has been used in the past to hold asylum seekers. The proposal to house migrant children from the Southwest border there has not gained traction, perhaps because of the optics of housing young people adjacent to terrorism suspects, according to one official who had seen the proposal but was not authorized to discuss it publicly. While there were no “immediate” plans to house migrant children at Guantánamo Bay, the Defense Department is attempting to identify military bases that might be used for that purpose, a department spokesman, Tom Crosson, said on Monday. To address the current crush of detained migrants, ICE officials are working urgently to both expand the current system and to purge it of anyone possible, according to two officials at the Department of Homeland Security who spoke under the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal operations. That effort involves scanning the records of the detained population to find anyone who is ready to be deported immediately, and to identify anyone who qualifies for humanitarian parole and can be released to make room for others. Another idea, drafted in a memo from Mr. McAleenan in his new capacity as the acting homeland security secretary, would ask the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review to dedicate most or all of its resources toward processing the cases of detained immigrants — temporarily pausing the court proceedings of anyone who has already been released into the country. The memo has not yet been sent, according to the official who disclosed it. Meanwhile, authorities are struggling to identify new locations where migrants can be held in detention. The military awarded a $23 million contract in February to build a “contingency mass migration complex” at Guantánamo, a plan that would expand the existing facility to house 13,000 migrants and 5,000 support staff in tents. That project appears intended primarily to accommodate a crush of migrants that might accompany a new crisis in the Caribbean, though it could theoretically be used to house Central Americans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/22/us/immigration-detention.html
https://dod.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/1448206/

An armed group that has been detaining migrant families at the US - Mexico border has been peacefully removed from the land it was camping out on, according to the New Mexico state police and Union Pacific Railroad officials. MSNBC's Cal Perry calls in with footage he shot of the exchange that removed the armed group.
https://www.msnbc.com/ali-velshi/watch/armed-group-who-was-detaining-migrants-peacefully-leaves-private-land-1504453187842

If we all gave up meat and dairy it would free up 75% of all farmland, an area the size of US, China, European Union and Australia combined. Loss of areas to agriculture is the leading cause to our current mass extinction of wildlife.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth

Trump’s washing machine tariffs cost U.S. consumers $815,000 for every job created
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/04/23/trumps-washing-machine-tariffs-cost-us-consumers-every-job-created/

Arctic Warming Will Cost At Least $24 Trillion More Than We Thought, Study Finds. The economic losses of climate change, both past and future, are outlined in two new studies this week.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43jvwb/arctic-warming-will-cost-at-least-dollar24-trillion-more-than-we-thought-study-finds

At least three state National Guards to refuse enforcing Trump's transgender troop ban
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/defense-national-security/at-least-three-state-national-guards-to-refuse-enforcing-trumps-transgender-troop-ban

The Black Feminists Who Saw the Alt-Right Threat Coming | Before Gamergate, before the 2016 election, they launched a campaign against Twitter trolls masquerading as women of color. If only more people had paid attention.
https://slate.com/technology/2019/04/black-feminists-alt-right-twitter-gamergate.html

Reminder: White House Orders Official Not to Comply With Dem Subpoena Over Security Clearances. Trump is obstructing justice, again., in plain sight of the country, again. He won't stop until there are consequences... and maybe not even then.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-orders-official-not-to-comply-with-dem-subpoena-over-security-clearances

Kamala Harris says she supports adding third gender option to federal IDs
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/23/kamala-harris-third-gender-ids-1287869

Sanders supporters are now running a harrassment campaign against a Harvard club
https://twitter.com/HarvardCentrist/status/1120516319017877516

Reminder: Bernie praised the socialist achievements of the Soviet Union right before it collapsed in 1988. The townhall question from a woman who's family fled the Soviet Union about the failures of socialism was a fair question
https://twitter.com/carlbildt/status/1100039769810235393?lang=en

Court Affirms Yellowstone More Valuable than Gold, Blocks Mining Exploration
https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2019/court-affirms-yellowstone-more-valuable-than-gold-blocks-mining-exploration

Lebanon ‘ready’ to demarcate maritime border with Israel under UN supervision
https://www.timesofisrael.com/lebanon-ready-to-demarcate-maritime-border-with-israel-under-un-supervision/

Trump vows to "reciprocate" against the EU after Harley-Davidson reports 26.7 percent profit drop
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/trump-vows-reciprocate-against-eu-after-harley-davidson-reports-26-n997456

Two Muslim brothers were Sri Lanka hotel suicide bombers. The pair were key members of the Islamist National Thowheeth Jama'ath (NTJ) group which the government has blamed for the attacks, the official added.
https://www.france24.com/en/20190423-two-muslim-brothers-were-sri-lanka-hotel-suicide-bombers-sources

Bristol University BME officer tells Jewish student to ‘be like Israel and cease to exist’
https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/20/uni-bme-officer-tells-jewish-student-like-israel-cease-exist-9277442/

‘Miners for Trump’: The story behind the Russian-organized Philly rally highlighted in Mueller’s report
https://www.philly.com/news/mueller-report-miners-for-trump-philadelphia-pennsylvania-march-for-trump-beyond-politics-20190418.html

The Texas Democrat doesn’t appear to be changing up his strategy, either. According to his campaign, the candidate is scheduled to hold grassroots events in Nevada and California this week. His team also touted the fact that he’s “personally driven 4,044 miles” in a van across the country to meet voters ― with more road trips to come. n“With such a large field of qualified candidates, we believe that this is going to be won on the ground, which is why we’re not only investing our time to be in communities but we’re already organizing in all 50 states,” O’Rourke spokesman Chris Evans said in a statement, emphasizing that the candidate takes questions from local and national reporters several times a day.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beto-orourke-2020-media_n_5cbf1bd1e4b0f7a84a753b99

Reminder: Trump Endorses U.S. Citizen-Turned Libyan Warlord, Despite Video Evidence of Haftar’s Ordering War Crimes
https://www.justsecurity.org/63720/trump-endorses-u-s-citizen-turned-libyan-warlord-despite-video-evidence-of-haftar-hifter-ordering-war-crimes/

House Dems to hold hearing on Medicare for all next week. The hearing on Tuesday will examine a bill from Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) that has over 100 co-sponsors in the House.
According to the Rules Committee, the hearing will be the first ever that Congress has held on Medicare for All legislation. “It's a serious proposal that deserves serious consideration on Capitol Hill as we work toward universal coverage," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Rules Committee and a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All bill, said in a statement.
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/440278-house-dems-to-hold-hearing-on-medicare-for-all-next-week

The Persecution of Palestinians No One Mentions [Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria]
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14098/palestinians-persecution-saudi-arabia

Beto O’Rourke Campaigns with Disability In Mind - “He regularly meets with disability organizations, activists and individual voters with disabilities and attends public disability forums to answer questions regarding disability issues.“
http://therespectabilityreport.org/2019/04/22/beto-orourke-2020-presidential-campaign/

Microsoft workers decry grueling '996' (9am-9pm, 6 days a week) working standard at Chinese tech firms: A letter on Github demanded companies comply with labor laws, limiting workers to 40 hours a week versus a 12-hour day standard
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/22/microsoft-workers-decry-grueling-996-working-standard-at-chinese-tech-firms