Independent experts and former Obama officials say Obama not only didn't "beg" for a meeting with Kim Jong Un or Kim Jong Il, he never considered seeking one in any way. My fact check on Trump's latest imaginary history:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/politics/fact-check-obama-never-begged-to-meet-with-kim-jong-un/index.html
Trump Republican administration considering to accept North Korea as a nuclear power: But for weeks before the meeting, which started as a Twitter offer by the president for Mr. Kim to drop by at the Demilitarized Zone and “say hello,” a real idea has been taking shape inside the Trump administration that officials hope might create a foundation for a new round of negotiations. The concept would amount to a nuclear freeze, one that essentially enshrines the status quo, and tacitly accepts the North as a nuclear power, something administration officials have often said they would never stand for. It falls far short of Mr. Trump’s initial vow 30 months ago to solve the North Korea nuclear problem, but it might provide him with a retort to campaign-season critics who say the North Korean dictator has been playing the American president brilliantly by giving him the visuals he craves while holding back on real concessions. While the approach could stop that arsenal from growing, it would not, at least in the near future, dismantle any existing weapons, variously estimated at 20 to 60. Nor would it limit the North’s missile capability.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/world/asia/trump-kim-north-korea-negotiations.html
The Best People - Thanks to Trump’s incompetence, there’s no one in charge at the Pentagon in the midst of multiple national security crises all created by Trump+Republicans
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/shanahan-trump-hiring-pentagon-defense-secretary.html
Inside the Secret Border Patrol Facebook Group Where Agents Joke About Migrant Deaths and Post Sexist Memes | Members of a secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol agents joked about the deaths of migrants, discussed throwing burritos at Latino members of Congress visiting a detention facility in Texas on Monday and posted a vulgar illustration depicting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez engaged in oral sex with a detained migrant, according to screenshots of their postings. In one exchange, group members responded with indifference and wisecracks to the post of a news story about a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who died in May while in custody at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas. One member posted a GIF of Elmo with the quote, “Oh well.” Another responded with an image and the words “If he dies, he dies.” Created in August 2016, the Facebook group is called “I’m 10-15” and boasts roughly 9,500 members from across the country. (10-15 is Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody.”) The group described itself, in an online introduction, as a forum for “funny” and “serious” discussion about work with the patrol. “Remember you are never alone in this family,” the introduction said.
https://www.propublica.org/article/secret-border-patrol-facebook-group-agents-joke-about-migrant-deaths-post-sexist-memes
More Than 700 Migrants Forced To Share 4 Showers at Texas Border Patrol Station
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/bj9kdm/more-than-700-migrants-forced-to-share-4-showers-at-texas-border-patrol-station
EPA Wants Minimal Limits on Poison in Drinking Water
https://www.dcreport.org/2019/06/25/epa-wants-minimal-limits-on-poison-in-drinking-water/
The Russian government sent more than $1.4 million to a Florida-based company airing Kremlin propaganda in the nation’s capital over the last two years, according to recent foreign agent registration records. Florida-based company RM Broadcasting LLC has officially registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department after a federal judge ordered it to do so in May. Marking DOJ’s first successful civil enforcement action under the Foreign Agents Registration Act in more than two decades, U.S. District Court Judge Robin Rosenberg ruled that RM Broadcasting should be registered as a foreign agent under FARA due to its relationship with Rossiya Segodnya, the Russian government’s media enterprise that owns Sputnik International and was created by Vladimir Putin to advance Russia’s interests abroad. A 2017 U.S. intelligence report found that Sputnik was part of “Russia’s state-run propaganda machine” that facilitated Russian interference and influence in the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump. Starting shortly after Trump’s election, RM Broadcasting agreed to act as the Russian media enterprise’s middleman brokering airtime on WZHF 1390, a Washington, D.C., area radio station owned by Way Broadcasting.
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/07/russia-paid-radio-broadcaster-1-4-million-to-air-kremlin-propaganda/
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6178436-6694-Registration-Statement-20190621-1.html#document/p3/a510016
https://www.opensecrets.org/fara/background
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/court-finds-rm-broadcasting-must-register-foreign-agent
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/foreign-media-broadcasters-get-mixed-signals-on-new-transparency-rules/
https://www.opensecrets.org/fara/foreign-principals/G6657
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
Trump Suddenly Fine With Chinese Telecom He Called A National Security Threat - The Art of the Deal apparently means making a huge concession to China, getting little in return, and putting U.S. national security at risk: Back in May, as in just a few short weeks ago, the Trump administration placed Chinese telecom giant Huawei on a trade blacklist following the unsealing of a Justice Department indictment that said the company had conspired to provide forbidden financial services to Iran, and concluded that it was “engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interest.” Placement on the Commerce Department’s “entity list” meant that U.S. businesses were largely banned from selling parts and components to Huawei and, as you can probably gather, was a pretty big deal. So big, in fact, that you wouldn’t expect the president to basically take it all back just over a month later, particularly if he was getting little in return for giving an apparent national-security risk a reprieve. But, surprise! On Saturday Donald Trump told the press that he’d decided to let U.S. companies sell to Huawei, despite literally putting Huawei on the trade blacklist in May, adding in a follow-up tweet that he’d done so at the behest of “High Tech companies” and Chinese president Xi Jinping, who’d both been lobbying hard for him to reverse course. The announcement was made in the context of the two sides resuming trade talks, and Trump agreeing to suspend imposing an additional $300 billion worth of tariffs that he’s been threatening for weeks.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/donald-trump-china-huawei
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-china-huaweitech/chinas-huawei-70-affiliates-placed-on-us-trade-blacklist-idUKKCN1SL2VW
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-to-allow-us-firms-huawei-deal-2019-6?r=US&IR=T
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1145097776658812929
https://www.ft.com/content/3bbb6fec-88c5-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2
.@JoeBiden on #NKorea: "After three made-for-TV summits, we still don't have a single concrete commitment from North Korea. Not one missile or nuclear weapon has been destroyed, not one inspector is on the ground. If anything, the situation has gotten worse."
https://twitter.com/KThomasDC/status/1145756266867908608
THANKS TRUMP AND REPUBLICANS AND ALL PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT THEM: Israel will be destroyed in half an hour if America attacks Iran
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-iran-israel/israel-will-be-destroyed-in-half-an-hour-if-america-attacks-iran-senior-iranian-mp-idUSKCN1TW2MO
Japan resumes commercial whaling for first time in 30 years. Fishermen set sail to hunt whales on Monday after country’s withdrawal from International Whaling Commission.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/01/japan-resumes-commercial-whaling-for-first-time-in-30-years
Bird spotted feeding chick cigarette butt in ‘devastating’ picture: 'Cigarette butts were the most common item of all types of rubbish collected from beaches globally, according to a report by Ocean Conservancy last year.'
https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/bird-cigarette-butt-chick-picture-florida-beach-photograph-rubbish-a8980676.html
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) dropped a bombshell accusation after visiting an El Paso border station on Monday morning, claiming that officials forced some migrants to drink from toilets. "This is CBP on their best behavior, telling people to drink out of a toilet," she said. "And that was with them knowing that a congressional visit was coming."
https://www.kvia.com/news/border/migrants-told-to-drink-from-toilets-at-el-paso-border-station-congresswoman-alleges/1090951789
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says migrant women told to 'drink out of toilets' and subjected to 'psychological warfare', after detention centre visit: 'It is hard to understate the enormity of the problem. We’re talking systemic cruelty [with] a dehumanising culture that treats them like animals'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/aoc-immigrant-detention-centre-texas-border-patrol-a8983566.html
"If you want water, just drink from a toilet." That's what border patrol told one thirsty woman we met on today's Dems At The Border trip. These are the same CBP personnel who threatened to throw burritos at members of Congress. Changes must be made.
https://twitter.com/RepJudyChu/status/1145779501080743939
A young Arctic fox has walked across the ice from Norway's Svalbard islands to northern Canada in an epic journey, covering 3,506 km (2,176 miles) in 76 days. "The fox's journey has left scientists speechless," according to Greenland's Sermitsiaq newspaper.
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-48824181
Sanders Opposes Weapons Sales to Saudi Arabia, Calls on Trump to Obey Constitution
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-opposes-weapons-sales-to-saudi-arabia-calls-on-trump-to-obey-constitution
Judge says Duncan Hunter's personal relationships can be evidence in corruption trial
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/451203-judge-says-duncan-hunters-personal-relationships-can-be-evidence-in
Trump told the troops he gave them their first raise in years. He didn't.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/politics/trump-didnt-give-troops-first-raise/index.html
New Texas law may help GOP keep secrets about its redistricting strategy
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-legislature/2019/06/28/hide-evidence-new-texas-law-may-help-gop-keep-secrets-redistricting-strategy
Hong Kong police fire rounds of tear gas at protesters after day of unprecedented violence
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3015620/protesters-ram-legislature-hong-kong-marks-tense-handover
EPA Air Quality Chief Resigns Over Ethics Investigation. So little time, so much damage done. That's the legacy left by Bill Wehrum who spent only one and a half years as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) top air quality official before announcing that he will step down this weekend under the cloud of a federal ethics investigation over possible conflicts of interest. His resignation follows conflicting statement he made to Congress about his industry connections, according to Politico.
https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-air-quality-chief-resignation-2639004378.html
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/26/epa-bill-wehrum-1556621
Homeland Security admits it’s using abhorrent conditions at detention centers to deter migration
https://thinkprogress.org/dhs-oig-homeland-security-report-el-paso-detention-center-conditions-used-to-deter-migration-9b0420b7e70b/
More Than 140 Holocaust, Genocide Experts Think Ocasio-Cortez Should Be Allowed to Call Migrant Detention Centers ‘Concentration Camps’
https://www.newsweek.com/holocaust-genocide-experts-defend-ocascio-cortez-concentration-camp-1446911
Braindead LGBT/Q Idiots marching against only country in Middle East which gives them rights and was the first country on the planet to have given them rights
https://i.redd.it/hhnu29imrq731.jpg
Glastonbury: Sir David Attenborough hails plastic ban - “This great festival has gone plastic-free. That is more than a million bottles of water that have not been drunk by you at Glastonbury. Thank you. Thank you.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-48819335
UK to deport aspiring astrophysicist, 23, to Pakistan where she faces death or forced marriage to cousin | A 23-year-old woman who has won offers to study astrophysics at some of Britain’s most prestigious universities, after living more than half her life in the UK, is to be deported to Pakistan, the country of her birth, where her father is demanding she marry her older cousin.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pakistan-asylum-seeker-uk-home-office-immigration-honour-killing-a8968996.html
Democrats Expand Investigation into Personal Email Use by Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Others
https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-expand-probe-personal-email-ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-1446947
Trump’s foreign luxury resorts collide with his South Korea diplomacy: As Trump traveled to South Korea, a business deal was expanding between the Trump family business and a company partly owned by the Korean government.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/01/trump-resort-south-korea-government-1390736
DNC reportedly set to vote on climate debate in victory for youth protesters
https://thinkprogress.org/dnc-set-to-vote-on-climate-debate-victory-for-youth-protesters-sunrise-movement-bfa98af30dc1/
Tesco suspends sales of chicken from an 'ethical' farm after an undercover probe by Animal Justice Project revealed shocking abuse of the birds
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7198811/Tesco-suspends-sales-chicken-ethical-farm-undercover-probe-reveals-shocking-abuse.html
Remember when Julian Castro endorsed Beto
https://twitter.com/JulianCastro/status/986739472707604485
Paris bans nearly 3 million vehicles during weekdays in effort to crack down on pollution
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/451217-paris-bans-nearly-3-million-vehicles-during-weekdays-in-effort-to
An Open Letter to the Director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Omer Bartov, Doris Bergen, Andrea Orzoff, Timothy Snyder, and Anika Walke, et al. On June 17, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, posted an Instagram live video discussing the detention camps along the southern US border as “concentration camps” in which she used the phrase “Never Again.” This drew sharp criticism the following day from Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, and others for allegedly misappropriating a slogan associated with the Holocaust. After several days of heated media and political debate, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum released a statement on June 24 condemning the use of Holocaust analogies. We received the following open letter addressed to the director of the museum, Sara J. Bloomfield, delivered by the signatories on July 1. —The Editors | To Director Bloomfield: We are scholars who strongly support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Many of us write on the Holocaust and genocide; we have researched in the USHMM’s library and archives or served as fellows or associated scholars; we have been grateful for the Museum’s support and intellectual community. Many of us teach the Holocaust at our universities, and have drawn on the Museum’s online resources. We support the Museum’s programs from workshops to education. We are deeply concerned about the Museum’s recent “Statement Regarding the Museum’s Position on Holocaust Analogies.” We write this public letter to urge its retraction. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences rely on careful and responsible analysis, contextualization, comparison, and argumentation to answer questions about the past and the present. By “unequivocally rejecting efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is taking a radical position that is far removed from mainstream scholarship on the Holocaust and genocide. And it makes learning from the past almost impossible. The Museum’s decision to completely reject drawing any possible analogies to the Holocaust, or to the events leading up to it, is fundamentally ahistorical. It has the potential to inflict severe damage on the Museum’s ability to continue its role as a credible, leading global institution dedicated to Holocaust memory, Holocaust education, and research in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies. The very core of Holocaust education is to alert the public to dangerous developments that facilitate human rights violations and pain and suffering; pointing to similarities across time and space is essential for this task. Looking beyond the academic context, we are well aware of the many distortions and inaccuracies, intentional or not, that frame contemporary discussions of the Holocaust. We are not only scholars. We are global citizens who participate in public discourse, as does the Museum as an institution, and its staff. We therefore consider it essential that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reverse its position on careful historical analysis and comparison. We hope the Museum continues to help scholars establish the Holocaust’s significance as an event from which the world must continue to learn.
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/07/01/an-open-letter-to-the-director-of-the-holocaust-memorial-museum/
https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/statement-regarding-the-museums-position-on-holocaust-analogies
A complete list of signatories, now numbering more than three hundred and updated in real time, can be viewed here. The list of signatories given above will be brought up to date at intervals.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GnVLG593oY9ymTd_qBJ1mBXISmI4M3DOrEJ9_jiiO3U/edit
Svitek, TX Tribune: Democratic TXSEN hopeful MJ Hegar raises $1m!
https://www.twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1145789914627411971
MJ Hegar running for the other Texas Senate seat
https://www.mjfortexas.com/
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/mj-hegar-1
Fox News hosts admit that they'd attack Obama for meeting with Kim Jong Un
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-hosts-admit-theyd-attack-obama-for-meeting-with-kim-jong-un
Democrats on a key House congressional committee are investigating allegations from a whistleblower within the State Department about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his family's use of taxpayer-funded Diplomatic Security -- prompting agents to lament they are at times viewed as "UberEats with guns". Congressional investigators, who asked for the committee not to be named as they carry out their inquiries, tell CNN that a State Department whistleblower has raised multiple issues over a period of months, about special agents being asked to carry out some questionable tasks for the Pompeo family. In April, for example, an agent was asked to pick up Chinese food—without Pompeo in the car. The whistleblower said this led agents to complain that they are now serving as "UberEats with guns," which has created a buzz within the department, according to multiple Democratic congressional aides who cited the whistleblower.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/politics/pompeo-democrats-whistleblower-claims/index.html
New rules will give AG William Barr more say over immigration courts
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/AG-Barr-moves-forward-with-immigration-court-14063716.php
Saudi Buying of U.S. Treasuries Is Soaring Under Trump
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-30/saudi-buying-of-treasuries-is-soaring-under-trump
Study suggests Russian social media trolls had impact on 2016 election - Every 25,000 retweets of Russian accounts correlated to a 1% increase in Trump's poll numbers one week later. The study, conducted by a team headed at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and published in the peer-reviewed University of Illinois-Chicago journal "First Monday," suggests that — despite protests to the contrary by Republicans and Trump allies — the Russian disinformation campaign was successful in influencing the 2016 election.
https://www.axios.com/russia-interference-trolls-impact-2016-election-eff627d5-f1b3-48fd-8745-449262880e16.html
https://firstmonday.org/article/view/10107/8049
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