News Dump

Trump Doubles Down On "Go Back" Attack: "If You Don’t Like It" Here, "You Can Leave"
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-dont-like-can-leave

Twitter says Trump’s racist hate speech (designed to incite violence against minorities) tweet didn’t violate its rules against racism but won’t say why
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/15/twitter-says-trumps-tweet-didnt-violate-its-rules-against-racism-wont-say-why/?utm_term=.9701f23339aa

Pelosi announces House resolution to condemn Trump comments | Dear Democratic Colleague,
On Sunday, it was a sign to us that the Catholic Gospel reading was that of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves and treat them with mercy.  Trump’s ICE raids this weekend are the opposite of mercy.  We have been monitoring these raids closely insisting that #FamiliesBelongTogether and that everyone #KnowYourRights. This weekend, the President went beyond his own low standards using disgraceful language about Members of Congress.  As I wrote on Twitter yesterday, I reject the President’s xenophobic comments meant to divide our nation. Rather than attack Members of Congress, he should work with us for humane immigration policy that reflects American values.  This morning, the President doubled down on his attacks on our four colleagues suggesting they apologize to him.  Let me be clear, our Caucus will continue to forcefully respond to these disgusting attacks.   The House cannot allow the President’s characterization of immigrants to our country to stand.  Our Republican colleagues must join us in condemning the President’s xenophobic tweets.  Please join us in supporting a forthcoming resolution sponsored by Congressman Tom Malinowski, who was born abroad, and Congressman Jamie Raskin, along with other Democratic Members born abroad referencing President Ronald Reagan’s last speech as President in which he said, “Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier… If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.” Unfortunately, this morning, the Trump Administration announced they will seek to undermine our nation’s asylum laws.  This cruel and anti-immigrant Administration is overreaching and stacking the deck against asylum seekers by limiting their rights to due process under our laws.  This is simply not who we are as a country.  Instead, we should be working in a bipartisan way for comprehensive immigration reform to protect our values as we protect our borders.  This week, our Committees will be reporting out new legislation to address the urgent humanitarian situation at our southern border by providing for humane treatment of asylum-seekers and holding the Administration accountable for its failures.  Hopefully, our House Republican colleagues will join us in supporting this critical legislation to help the children at the border. Thank you for your leadership.
|https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/71519/

Trump+Republican Controlled Veterans Affairs abandoned 200,000+ health care applications this year
https://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-news/veterans-affairs-abandoned-200-000-health-care-applications-this-year/VR5zYSyyBn0LnTndnE2x1L/

Trump+Republican Controlled Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to weaken rules that for the past quarter-century have given communities a voice in deciding how much pollution may legally be released by nearby power plants and factories. The changes would eliminate the ability of individuals or community advocates to appeal against E.P.A.-issued pollution permits before a panel of agency judges. However, the industrial permit-holders could still appeal to the panel, known as the Environmental Appeals Board, to allow them to increase their pollution.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/climate/epa-community-pollution-appeal.html

The Trump administration will end asylum protections for immigrants who arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border in a major escalation of the president’s battle to tamp down immigration. According to a new rule published in the Federal Register , asylum seekers who pass through another country first will be ineligible for asylum at the U.S. southern border. The rule, expected to go into effect Tuesday, also applies to children who have crossed the border alone. The rule applies to anyone arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. Sometimes asylum seekers from Africa, Cuba or Haiti and other continents arrive there, but the vast majority of migrants arriving recently come from Central America. There are some exceptions, including for victims of human trafficking and asylum-seekers who were denied protection in a country. If the country the migrant passed through did not sign one of the major international treaties governing how refugees are managed (though most Western countries signed them) a migrant could still apply for U.S. asylum. But the move by Trump’s administration, even if blocked by courts, is reversing decades of U.S. policy on how refugees are treated and marks an escalation even compared to other hardline efforts meant to choke off the flow of people from poor and war torn nations.
https://apnews.com/6bef9ed6c48b4c2ea203cbbea3ccacad

ACLU says it will 'sue swiftly' over Trump administration ending asylum protection
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/453069-aclu-says-it-will-sue-swiftly-over-trump-admin-ending-asylum

Have you ever been told to "go back" to your country even though you are an American citizen? Tell us what happened. How did you respond? How did it make you feel?*
We may publish a selection of the responses.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/14/reader-center/trump-democrats-go-back.html

Trump's Nationwide Immigration Raids Fail to Materialize. | "The ACLU has not heard reports of any raids today," Ruthie Epstein, the American Civil Liberties Union's deputy director for immigration policy, told NPR. Before Sunday, there were weekend reports of attempted arrests by ICE in New York, New Jersey and Chicago, where The New York Times reported that a mother and her daughters were apprehended but the family was immediately released. But those actions appeared to be part of routine enforcement activity, not connected to a massive raid operation.
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/14/741653581/trumps-nationwide-immigration-raids-fail-to-materialize

Guatemala's constitutional court late Sunday granted an injunction blocking President Jimmy Morales from signing a migration deal with the United States which would oblige it to offer asylum to migrants heading to the US border. Morales, who was under pressure at home not to seal the deal, earlier Sunday called off White House talks with Donald Trump with just a day to spare, his office announced. The meeting scheduled for Monday in Washington was pushed back due to "speculation" about the signing of a possible deal and to await the decision of the court on legal actions filed over it, the Guatemalan government said in a statement.
https://news.yahoo.com/guatemala-president-calls-off-us-meeting-trump-195709318.html

Fewer American Kids Die in States With Tougher Gun Laws
https://time.com/5626352/gun-laws-fewer-child-deaths/

MSNBC Host Points to Trump's Immigrant Mother: 'He Should Have Gone Back to Scotland'
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-immigrant-mother-back-scotland-1449241

Pentagon to get unprecedented 3rd acting chief this year.
https://www.apnews.com/1865fe12284a41ee88bd8e3ccdfa767f

Biden proposes massive new Obamacare subsidies, public option in health care plan | Biden's plan would launch a "public option" that his campaign says would be "like Medicare," with primary care covered with no co-payments. His plan leaves unclear some important details about how it would work, including how the plan would be administered and the rates at which doctors and hospitals would be paid -- which plays a crucial role in determining which health care providers would accept patients enrolled in the public option. But he promises to lower medical costs by negotiating lower rates with providers. The public option would cover women's contraception and abortion, Biden officials said. Obamacare currently covers contraception at no cost. Abortion services are currently excluded from the 10 essential health benefits that insurers must cover. Insurers may offer coverage of abortions as long as they comply with the requirement to segregate federal funds. Biden would also enroll nearly 5 million Americans who would have been eligible for Medicaid under Obamacare's expansion of the program -- but live in states that rejected that expansion -- in the public option, for free. And he would take a series of steps designed to lower the cost of purchasing insurance on Obamacare's exchanges by providing federal subsidies for everyone, regardless of their income. Currently, only those who earn less than 400% of the federal poverty level -- or about $100,000 annually for a family of four -- qualify for help paying their premiums. Biden would lift that cap. Also, those enrolled in an Obamacare plan would have to pay no more than 8.5% of their income -- instead of the current 9.86% -- in premiums. A family of four earning $110,000 annually would save about $750 a month in premiums, the campaign said. And he would base those subsidies on the cost of "gold plans," which have higher premiums but lower deductibles, rather than less generous "silver plans." That means people could spend less money out of pocket -- or could use the larger subsidies to buy less expensive silver or bronze plans. This move would help address a major criticism of Obamacare -- that its deductibles are too high. The average deductible for an enrollee under Obamacare in a "gold plan" is just under $1,600 in 2019, while for a "silver plan," it's just over $4,000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Biden's campaign characterized the proposal as a return to what Obama had originally sought in 2009, when he unsuccessfully lobbied the then Democratic-run Congress to include a public option in the law.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politics/joe-biden-health-care-plan-obamacare-public-option/index.html

Tibetan Nuns Beaten by Chinese Guards For ‘Weeping’ in Detention
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/beaten-07112019164921.html

The 'biggest change in oil market history' is less than six months away: On January 1, 2020, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) will enforce new emissions standards designed to significantly curb pollution produced by the world’s ships
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/oil-imo-2020-marks-the-biggest-change-in-oil-market-history.html

Anti-terrorism police in northern Italy have seized an air-to-air missile and other sophisticated weapons during raids on far-right extremist groups. Three people were arrested, two of them near Forli airport. Neo-Nazi propaganda was also seized, in the raids. The raids were part of an investigation into Italian far-right help for Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, local media said. The missile was one of those used by the Qatari army, Italian police said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-48987723

Kellyanne Conway defies subpoena, skips Oversight hearing
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/15/kellyanne-conway-subpoena-oversight-hearing-1416132

Saudi Passport with Epsteins photo and different name found in Manhattan residence safe.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/07/15/jeffrey-epstein-held-without-bail-until-at-least-thursday.html

Al Franken: It's time to start taking Trump 'literally'
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/453161-al-franken-its-time-to-start-taking-trump-literally

Trump’s "Go Back" Tweets Leave No Room for Doubt - The president has ripped the band-aid off any reassuring notions the U.S. had about the progress of civil rights and the withering of racism.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-15/trump-targets-aoc-tlaib-pressley-and-omar-with-go-back-tweets

Representative Ilan Omar:  President is 'openly violating the oath he took to the Constitution'. It's Time to Impeach This President
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4807392/representative-ilan-omar-time-impeach-president

Trump’s false al Qaeda accusation against Rep. Ilhan Omar was planned
https://theweek.com/speedreads/852857/-trumps-false-al-qaeda-accusation-against-rep-ilhan-omar-planned--misspelled

AOC at 'squad' press conference: 'No matter what the president says, this country belongs to you'
https://www.msnbc.com/mtp-daily/watch/aoc-at-squad-press-conference-no-matter-what-the-president-says-this-country-belongs-to-you-63898181733

Trump Says Racist Nonsense Because He Means It and Because He Knows He Can Win on It
https://www.theroot.com/trump-says-racist-nonsense-because-he-means-it-and-beca-1836381388

WH projects $1 trillion deficit for 2019
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/453177-wh-projects-1-trillion-deficit-for-2019

Congressman Al Green moves to impeach US President Donald Trump for the second time
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/453100-al-green-to-force-impeachment-vote-following-incendiary-trump-tweets?amp

A Trump administration decision to move researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to the Kansas City area is threatening to spark the flight of more than half of the staff selected to move, gutting the agency of its top scientific voices. Staff have until midnight Monday to decide whether to uproot and join the department as it moves its research branches from Washington, D.C., lured by $26 million in promised incentives from state and local officials. Critics see the move, set to be completed by Sept. 30, as yet another example of the Trump administration looking to sideline scientists and researchers, keeping them away from the corridors of power. Administration officials deny that, calling it a cost-saving move intended to have researchers closer to farmers. The decision comes as other agencies are also planning to relocate parts of their teams amid suspicions about the move. For example, the Interior Department is expected to announce new headquarters for the Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday. “Moving these researchers out of Washington puts them out of earshot from policymakers. A lot of the research that scientists and economists do at [the USDA] has policy implications, and members of Congress need this information and need to have face-to-face meetings with these researchers,” Rebecca Boehm, with the Union of Concerned Scientists, told The Hill. “It keeps science out of the policymaking process. And we’ve seen many times that this administration doesn’t like facts or research that isn’t convenient or [is] an impediment to their agenda, so I think moving them away helps accomplish that,” she added. The move affects two wings of the USDA. Economic Research Service (ERS) employees analyze the agricultural market, but their research is much broader, including looking at food stamps, rural poverty and conservation. National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) employees work with universities to fund research and coordinate the process that issues research grants on agriculture-related subjects, including climate change adaptation. The two agencies voted to unionize in response to the move, as Democrats in both chambers and a number of groups that regularly work with the two agencies lobby to keep them in Washington. Estimates tallied by employees show 70 percent of ERS employees designated for the Kansas City office will not be moving. For NIFA, 45 percent of those surveyed said they will not move. Overall, the move was expected to impact 547 staff between the two agencies.
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/453193-scientists-flee-usda-as-research-agencies-move-to-kansas-city-area

A 3-year-old girl was asked to choose between her mom or dad as a border patrol agent tried to separate the family
https://www.businessinsider.com/girl-choose-mom-dad-border-patrol-officials-separate-family-2019-7

Robert Costa
@costareports
President Trump's latest cmmts are part of a long pattern of behavior that has defined his political career for at least a decade. While he once clashed with Pat Buchanan and other nativist conservatives like him in 1999/2000, he moved in their direction during the W Bush yrs...
https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1150924476424564736

Ken Thomas
@KThomasDC
Biden, asked about health care, says his proposal, which would add a public option to Obamacare, would cost $750 billion over 10 years.
“It’s significantly less than $3 trillion for Medicare for All,” Biden says.
https://twitter.com/KThomasDC/status/1150921310484291584

This timeline of the campaign seeking the removal of Erdogan’s top foe—a U.S. green card holder—is significant considering Michael Flynn had cheered a coup attempt against the Turkish strongman as “worth clapping for” weeks earlier.
https://www.courthousenews.com/former-flynn-partner-on-trial-for-illegal-lobbying-charges/