Light News Dump

The census is a really sore spot for trump, the Federalist Society, and conservatives in general. They REALLY want it on there. But Roberts blocked it and said to come back with a new reason. Every minute they delay, the administration loses credibility with the judiciary, which hurts them in the long run.This means every single lawyer who tried to pull themselves off the case has to explain a reason why, AND has to make themselves available for sanction testimony in front of the judge as the judge seems to think there is some merit to the plaintiffs motion for sanctions. Also it’s sworn testimony, so if the lawyer is withdrawing because they don’t believe in the governments case, they have to say it.

Attorney General William Barr refuses to recuse himself from involvement in the new charges filed against alleged sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein by federal prosecutors in New York, according to a Justice Department official. Barr has decades-worth of major conflicts-of-interest with Epstein.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-09/barr-won-t-recuse-himself-from-new-case-against-jeffrey-epstein

Reminder: USDA ILLEGALLY Indefinitely Suspends Honey Bee Tracking Survey as States ILLEGALLY BEGIN RESUIMING USE OF BANNED CHEMICALS THAT DESTROY FOOD SUPPLY AND BIODIVERSITY WHICH IS CRITICAL TO FOOD SUPPLY. | "Yet another example of the Trump administration systematically undermining federal research on food safety, farm productivity, and the public interest writ large." On the heels of the EPA's June approval of a bee-killing pesticide, the White House said it would stop collecting data on declining honey bee populations—potentially making it impossible to analyze the effects of the chemical and the administration's other anti-science policies on the pollinators. | The number of honey bee hives in the U.S. dropped from about six million in 1947 to just 2.4 million in 2008, with 2018 being the worst year on record for hive loss. Beekeepers reported last year that 40 percent of honey bee hives had collapsed, due to a combination of factors including the use of pesticides. | The decision to suspend the data collection came just a few weeks after the administration approved the so-called "emergency" use of the bee-killing pesticide sulfoxaflor on nearly 14 million acres. The pesticide, sold under the brand names Closer and Transform, was banned in 2015 after a lawsuit by beekeepers and farmers, but the administration used a loophole in the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, granting an exemption to 11 states for four to six years. 
Scientists say continuously monitoring the health of honey bee hives in vital to understanding why and how they are in decline.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/08/usda-indefinitely-suspends-honey-bee-tracking-survey-states-get-approval-use-bee

Fiona Apple donating two years worth of song's royalties to help pay migrants' legal fees
https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/451441-fiona-apple-donating-two-years-worth-of-her-songs-earnings-to

Republican senators defend Acosta after new Epstein charge
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/452098-gop-senators-decline-to-criticize-acosta-after-new-epstein-charges

Mitch McConnell found to be the direct descendant of 2 slave owners
https://theweek.com/speedreads/851569/report-mitch-mcconnell-found-direct-descendant-2-slave-owners

Patriots Owner Recorded On Video Raping Asian Teenagers Is Trump Dinner Guest Despite Prostitution And Sex Trafficking And Sex With Minor Charges
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-09/patriots-owner-is-trump-dinner-guest-despite-prostitution-charge

Federal Judge Blocks Justice Department’s Effort to Withdraw Lawyers on Census Citizenship Case. The sharply worded order, by United States District Judge Jesse M. Furman, potentially further hobbles the administration’s battle on behalf of the citizenship question, a fight that already appeared to be in serious jeopardy. | “Defendants provide no reasons, let alone ‘satisfactory reasons,’ for the substitution of counsel,” he wrote, adding that their written assurance that the switch would not disrupt the case “is not good enough.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/us/census-citizenship-question.html
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/judge-issues-scorching-response-after-doj-attorneys-try-to-withdraw-from-census-case/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-census-judge/u-s-judge-denies-justice-dept-request-to-shake-up-legal-team-in-census-case-idUSKCN1U42MI
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2019/07/09/federal-judge-rejects-justice-departments-bid-to-swap-out-lawyers-for-census-case-on-citizenship-question/?utm_term=.026ce863689f

House Democrats’ hopes of making Annie Donaldson, the former chief of staff to ex-White House counsel Donald McGahn, a star witness in their investigations of President Trump were dashed as White House lawyers blocked her from answering more than 200 questions about potential obstruction of justice by the president. Donaldson affirmed the accuracy of colorful and striking notes she made while working in the White House — notes that former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III cited 65 times in his report that described 10 episodes that raised concerns about possible obstruction.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-blocks-key-mueller-witness-from-answering-more-than-200-questions-from-house-investigators/2019/07/08/d21bc6b6-a1d0-11e9-b7b4-95e30869bd15_story.html

Trump called Epstein a ‘terrific guy’ who enjoyed ‘younger’ girls before denying relationship with him
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-called-epstein-a-terrific-guy-before-denying-relationship-with-him/2019/07/08/a01e0f00-a1be-11e9-bd56-eac6bb02d01d_story.html?utm_term=.eff15e2e3cc7

Whistleblower says he was pressured by Trump administration to reverse environmental decision
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/08/politics/interior-department-arizona-development-bernhardt/index.html

Retired fighter pilot Amy McGrath to run for Mitch McConnell’s US Senate seat
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/amy-mcgrath-to-run-for-mitch-mcconnells-us-senate-seat/2019/07/09/c85dac2c-a237-11e9-a767-d7ab84aef3e9_story.html

Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak says most people should 'figure out a way to get off Facebook'
https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-cofounder-steve-wozniak-urges-people-to-leave-facebook-2019-7

Texas Tribune: A former border patrol agent told @MSNBC that agents were trained to use racist terms for migrants and refusing to do so could put your job at risk.
https://twitter.com/TexasTribune/status/1148248381342568453

Hong Kong leader says extradition bill is dead after mass protests
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-extradition-bill/hong-kong-leader-says-extradition-bill-is-dead-after-mass-protests-idUSKCN1U4068

Welp I'm offically a fan of Willie Cauley-Stein: "Guys (have to) damn near not guard me now. Because they have to guard Klay, Steph, DLo. How you gonna guard the big? Because, you know, you gotta tag. If you don't tag, it's a lob. If you do tag, it's a 3. Pick your poison."
https://twitter.com/anthonyvslater/status/1148454858615185408?s=21

Russian intel planted Seth Rich conspiracy theory:  In the summer of 2016, Russian intelligence agents secretly planted a fake report claiming that Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was gunned down by a squad of assassins working for Hillary Clinton, giving rise to a notorious conspiracy theory that captivated conservative activists and was later promoted from inside President Trump’s White House, a Yahoo News investigation has found.Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as the SVR, first circulated a phony “bulletin” — disguised to read as a real intelligence report —about the alleged murder of the former DNC staffer on July 13, 2016, according to the U.S. federal prosecutor who was in charge of the Rich case. That was just three days after Rich, 27, was killed in what police believed was a botched robbery while walking home to his group house in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington, D.C., about 30 blocks north of the Capitol.
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-the-true-origins-of-the-seth-rich-conspiracy-a-yahoo-news-investigation-100000831.html

House Dems set to subpoena Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions and 10 other Mueller witnesses
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/09/house-dems-prep-subpoenas-for-jared-kushner-jeff-sessions-and-10-other-mueller-witnesses-1402876

Federal appeals court rules Trump cannot block his critics on Twitter
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/president-trump-cannot-block-his-critics-on-twitter-federal-appeals-court-rules/2019/07/09/d07a5558-8230-11e9-95a9-e2c830afe24f_story.html

The U.S. Doesn’t Have the ‘Cleanest Air’ – Pollution is up nearly 14 percent since the Obama administration.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/07/trumps-us-doesnt-have-cleanest-air-record/593500/

Donald Trump Called Climate Change a Hoax. Now He's Awkwardly Boasting About Fighting It
https://time.com/5622374/donald-trump-climate-change-hoax-event/

Michael Flynn Won't Testify Against Former Business Partner, Will Be Designated Co-Conspirator. (Flynn's original lawyer(s) was going to be called as a witness for the prosecution, hence the withdrawal as his original counsel. As per his plea agreement Flynn is required to cooperate with congressional hearings and there's nothing Barr can do to stop it. If Flynn pulls out of his agreement, he will be arrested and dumped in prison.)
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/452178-michael-flynn-wont-testify-against-his-former-business-partner-will

Trump Claims He Wasn’t A Fan Of Epstein Despite Once Calling Him A Terrific Guy
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-distances-epstein-wasnt-fan

Of the 42 Democrats elected in 2018, 33 are normal Democrats while the remaining 9 are racist, antisemitic, conspiracy-theorist, alt-right/alt-left trash who also won mostly blue seats whole the other 33 won either mostly purple seats or actual red seats. American voters are, as I always say, mostly moderate-leaning-conservative or conservative, and when Democratic candidates do not fit that, Democratic voters vote Republican or stay home. DNC and DCCC needs to shut the door on the alt-right/alt-left trash destroying Democrats and America already.
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1148664223867629568

Lions and tigers suffer painful deformities in industrial breeding schemes for traditional Chinese ‘medicine’ - ‘These big cats are exploited for greed and money – for medicine that’s never been proven to have any curative properties whatsoever’
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/lions-tigers-traditional-chinese-medicine-asia-big-cats-deformed-vietnam-a8996096.html

One-Fifth Of All Dutch Churches Are Now Secular Buildings: Churches in the Netherlands have been converted into community centers, museums, apartment buildings and even gyms.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dutch-churches-secular-building_n_5d23855ae4b01b83473ae3a2

Cocaine bricks keep washing up in the Philippines. Over the past few months, bricks of cocaine with a street value of millions have been washing up in eastern coastal provinces in the Philippines. In the latest incident, seven suspected cocaine bricks were found floating near a beach in Quezon province on Sunday. And in May, 39 bricks with an estimated value of more than $4m (£3m) were found by fishermen. Police have said it's possible the drugs were bound for Australia, where there's strong demand for cocaine. But as yet there's no definitive answer as to why these tightly bound drug packets are appearing along the coast.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48906126

Fish and chip shop shuts down because of environmental concerns and plans to reopen selling plant based food
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-48905485

For those keeping score at home, the Washington Post has documented at least 10 instances of the Trump administration contradicting its own statements on the citizenship question. When the Trump administration told Congress and the public that the citizenship question on the census was needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act, that was a lie. When the Trump administration denied that its intent was to use the data in order to draw congressional districts that would enhance white voting power and therefore grant Republicans an advantage, that was false. When Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Congress the data would not be used for immigration enforcement, that was untrue. Francisco told the Court that the census questionnaire had to be finalized by June; the Department of Justice has now reversed that position. This is how Democracy die.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/08/trump-administration-has-changed-its-story-census-citizenship-question-least-times-four-months/

Bernie touts the endorsement of oil billionaire Ross Perot because of their shared belief that "Mexicans steal jobs"
https://twitter.com/SenSanders/status/1148665031896260608

$15 Minimum Wage Would Boost 17 Million Workers, Cut 1.3 Million Jobs, CBO Says
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739607964/-15-minimum-wage-would-boost-17-million-workers-cut-1-3-million-jobs-cbo-says

Coal left Appalachia devastated. Now it’s doing the same to Wyoming
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/7/9/20684815/coal-wyoming-bankruptcy-blackjewel-appalachia

ICE Illegally Opened Three New Detention Centers, Flouting Congress’ Limits. When members of Congress reached a bipartisan deal to end the government shutdown in February, they gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement a simple instruction: Stop detaining so many people. Instead, ICE pushed its detention population to an all-time high of 54,000 people, up from about 34,000 on an average day in 2016 and well above the 40,520 target Congress set for ICE. Now, just after Congress rejected another request for more detention money, ICE is continuing to spend money it hasn’t been given. Mother Jones has learned that ICE has started using three new for-profit immigration detention centers in the Deep South in recent weeks. One of them has seen the death of three inmates following poor medical treatment and a violent riot in 2012 that left a guard dead. Interviews with lawyers and prison officials and ICE records reveal that the agency has begun detaining migrants at the Adams County Correctional Center, a Mississippi prison operated by CoreCivic; the Catahoula Correctional Center, a Louisiana jail run by LaSalle Corrections; and the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, run by GEO Group in Basile, Louisiana. ICE has not previously disclosed its use of the Adams County and Catahoula centers, though GEO Group did announce in April that ICE would soon begin using the Basile facility. On Tuesday, ICE spokesman Bryan Cox confirmed that all three facilities started housing ICE detainees late last month. Together, the three detention centers can hold about 4,000 people, potentially expanding ICE’s presence in Louisiana and Mississippi by 50 percent.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/ice-just-quietly-opened-three-new-detention-centers-flouting-congress-limits/

DOJ’s Inspector General Report on Russia Delayed as Steele Found Credible. Reuters has some interesting new information related to the infamous Steele Dossier. In March 2018, Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General of the Justice Department, launched a probe into whether the FBI improperly used Christopher Steele’s Clinton-financed opposition research to secure a FISA warrant on Carter Page. In Mid-April 2019 when the Mueller Report came out, Attorney General William Barr told Congress that Horowitz’s conclusions would be ready by the end of May or possibly in June. Yet, reporters for Reuters have sources telling them Horowitz’s office used June to interview Christopher Steele in person.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia/trump-dossier-author-grilled-by-justice-department-watchdogs-sources-idUSKCN1U410I

Trump and GOP Are Blatantly Encouraging Foreign Dictators to Hack the 2020 Election, which is why Trump and McConnell are working as hard as they can to make sure those foreign oligarchs and autocrats know how much they’ll appreciate that help, should it be forthcoming
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/09/trump-and-gop-are-blatantly-encouraging-foreign-dictators-hack-2020-election

Reminder: Government Will Name Flynn as Co-Conspirator in Rafiekian Case
https://www.lawfareblog.com/government-will-name-flynn-co-conspirator-rafiekian-case