News Dump

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a New York law that would allow the House Ways and Means Committee to obtain President Trump’s state income tax returns. Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee to the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., said Thursday the injunction will remain in effect while Trump’s lawsuit challenging the law proceeds. The court will hear arguments on August 29. Democrats say they need to see Trump’s tax returns to investigate any potential conflicts of interest or self-dealing related to Trump’s sprawling business empire.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/8/2/headlines/trump_appointed_judge_blocks_release_of_trumps_tax_returns

At least 19 people died and another 40 were wounded in a mass shooting at a shopping center in El Paso, Texas on Saturday, senior U.S. law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation told NBC News. The shooting happened at a Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall. The Walmart was at capacity with up to 3,000 shoppers during the busy back-to-school season, police said. A 21-year-old suspect identified as Patrick Crusius, a resident of the Dallas area, has been taken into custody, law enforcement sources told NBC News.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/03/police-in-el-paso-are-responding-to-active-shooter.html

Patrick Crusius is a pro-Trump racist wrote an anti-immigrant manifesto published online shortly before the attack

A Republican senator held up the confirmation of a White House budget official this week in an attempt to obtain sensitive information about border wall contracts he has been trying to steer to a major donor, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post. The emails show Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) blasting the “arrogance” of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after senior military officials told him the contracts contained sensitive, proprietary information provided by the companies that could not be shared. In recent months, Cramer has touted his preferred construction firm, North Dakota-based Fisher Industries, and campaign finance records show the senator has received thousands of dollars in contributions from company chief executive Tommy Fisher and his family members. Cramer put a temporary hold this week on the confirmation of Michael Wooten, a nominee for a senior post at the White House Office of Management and Budget. After Wooten was confirmed Thursday, Cramer lashed out at the Army Corps in private emails when he was told the contracting bids contain sensitive information.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/gop-senator-held-up-trump-nominee-demanding-to-see-border-wall-contracts-after-army-corps-panned-construction-firm-he-prefers/2019/08/02/b185a76a-b566-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html?utm_term=.4da777f1be18
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/he-always-brings-them-up-trump-tries-to-steer-border-wall-deal-to-north-dakota-firm/2019/05/23/92d3858c-7b30-11e9-8bb7-0fc796cf2ec0_story.html?utm_term=.4eb8483ca454

Trump administration cuts legal funding for victims of human trafficking
https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2019/08/02/trump-administration-cuts-funding-victims-human-trafficking/

A coalition of states sued the Trump administration Friday for the second time to block a planned reduction in the penalties automakers pay when they fail to meet fuel economy standards. Twelve states and the District of Columbia sued the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for replacing an Obama-era regulation that imposed a penalty of $14 for every tenth of a mile-per-gallon that an automaker falls below the standards. The lawsuit came a week after four major automakers announced a deal with California to toughen standards for gas mileage and greenhouse gas emissions. The agreement involving Ford, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen bypasses the Trump administration’s push to relax mileage standards nationwide. The new federal rule would keep the penalty at $5.50, where it has been since the mid-1970s. The legal challenge led by the attorneys general in California and New York argues the new rule would keep the penalty far below the inflation-adjusted rate required by a 2015 law.
https://apnews.com/05ff02fbc707472b981e1c0cf188a416

Kellyanne Conway "did it again" violating the Hatch Act with her Nikki Haley tweet, watchdog says
https://www.newsweek.com/kellyanne-conway-hatch-act-nikki-haley-1452404

17 Million Voters Have Had Registration Canceled Since 2016 Election: Report
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brennan-center-voter-purging_n_5d448735e4b0ca604e31daf5

Professors Aren't Discriminating Against Conservative Students | A major study led by a lifelong Republican finds no evidence that professors are deliberately giving conservative students bad grades. The idea that left-wing college professors are both brainwashing undergraduates and discriminating against conservative students has emerged as one of the most consistent right-wing lines of attack against American higher education over the last few decades. While conservative undergrads, like many types of students, may often feel isolated, a new working paper led by a public policy professor who tells me he's a "lifelong Republican" suggests that any evidence for bias in grading against conservative students is at best minimal and most likely absent.
https://psmag.com/ideas/no-professors-arent-discriminating-against-conservative-students
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3383704

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which reviewed government data as part of ongoing litigation, migrant children are still being separated from their parents. A total of 911 children were separated from their families at the southern border between June 28, 2018, and June 29, 2019, the ACLU said. The inspector general for Health and Human Services warns that “thousands more” could have been separated as far back as 2017, and in early 2018, prior to government tracking. Both of those numbers are on top of the 2,737 children separated from their families during a six-week period ending in June 2018, when the Trump administration was routinely separating families who arrived in the U.S.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/why-did-you-leave-me-in-new-testimonies-migrants-describe-the-torment-of-child-separation

The company developing the Russia-backed Kentucky aluminum mill has hired a firm founded & run by former McConnell aide and super PAC adviser Scott Jennings to give the project a PR boost as Democrats raise concerns about the initiative.
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1157405534976434176
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/02/russia-pr-braidy-aluminum-1445259

Trump admin ends family-based reunification programs for Haitians and Filipino World War II vets
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/02/politics/trump-end-two-family-reunification-programs/index.html

I helped prepare Senator Ted Cruz for his 2018 debates, and here's what I learned: Beto O'Rourke is the toughest candidate I ever prepped against and one of the most impressive I've ever seen. The media might not recognize his skills, but voters do | For those who believe he's a lightweight, that his social media habits are not presidential material and he doesn't have enough experience or gravitas, I'm here to set you straight. What he managed in Texas in his race against Senator Cruz was not a fluke: Beto got out the vote in ways none of us expected. His four million votes surpassed Hillary Clinton's 3.87 million votes in 2016, which had been the highest total ever achieved in Texas by a Democrat. He had real talent on the stump, and didn't use prepared remarks. He did what great pastors do when they get comfortable: he preached on his feet. His speeches had the feel of a religious revival, without any trace of Elmer Gantry sanctimoniousness. Always, he framed things simply and in a moral dimension. And not with the anti-capitalist shrillness of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren or Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Beto was not an angry candidate. He was the opposite. I might even say he was a joyful candidate, and in this age of anger and resentment, this made Beto different. Beto wasn't just a star on the stump, but off the stump, too. I watched him talk to people who lined up for a quick selfie, and he turned even those small moments into something personal. Meaningful. Unlike President Obama, an introvert who didn't seem to care for the palm-pressing, Beto seemed to draw energy from interacting with the public. In that sense, he had what Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had — an instinctive feel for the interpersonal part of campaigning. The retail nature of the business. Beto was a natural on the debate stage because he understood something profound about the ritual. It isn't actually a debate. It's an audition. It was less like Firing Line and more like American Idol. As often as possible, he kept a smile on his face and his eye on the camera, hoping the people watching at home would like him more than my guy. Beto had advantages that critics thought were problems. He didn't have a speechwriter, didn't have any outside consultants, and he didn't rely on big data. That made him dangerous. And difficult to prepare against in battle. No one understood this better than President Obama. "What I liked most about his race was that it didn't feel constantly poll-tested," Obama said on The Axe Files about Beto's campaign. "It felt as if he based his statements and his positions on what he believed. And that, you'd like to think, is normally how things work. Sadly it's not." Beto did things his way. When he committed to visiting all 254 counties in the state of Texas, some people dismissed him and others wrote it off as a gimmick he'd never pull off. But Beto was serious, logging tens of thousands of miles covering a state that's so big, it could house two Californias, four Floridas, 28 Vermonts or 221 Rhode Islands. Why'd he do it? Because he wanted to win over voters in places that others would have written off. How better to change someone's mind or heart than to meet them? The candidate did a lot of the driving himself, with aides in tow. He often spoke about how his never-ending tour of Texas felt a lot like his days managing his own punk band — called Foss — that he'd assembled in El Paso. He and his bandmates started a record label and booked tours, traveling the country and parts of Canada during his summers off from Columbia University, where he majored in English and captained the crew team. O'Rourke wasn't the best musician in the band, but he happily told reporters that he was the best roadie. That too was a big advantage. Many critics made fun of the not-so-proficient outtakes and videos of the band. But Beto learned important things in that period of his life. He learned how to command a stage. How to play with an audience. And how to let the audience play with him. No amount of coaching or consultants can teach that. Beto had a relentless energy. He was fueled by ambition but seemed to enjoy himself. That, I suspect, is something he learned on the road with his band mates. If a band isn't having fun, what's the point? Beto was good at teasing himself. He often brought up the fact that he was still working hard on one voter in Texas: his mom, who was a Republican. And he could be funny, joking about the low approval ratings of Congress. "Congress has an approval rating of around nine percent," he said. "Communism ten percent. Gonorrhea eight percent. We're right in the middle." Beto was a prodigious fundraiser, reeling in an astonishing $80 million. And more than $61 million came from ActBlue, an online portal for small dollar supporters. Beto had one last advantage: He had a real story about his roots. His El Paso story. He didn't always love his hometown, and like so many of us growing up, couldn't wait to escape — and leave tensions with his father behind. After wandering for a time and trying life in Brooklyn, he came to a life-altering conclusion: he wasn't a New Yorker after all. The journey home is a big theme in American life. And in Beto's. His story — although I heard it ad nauseum — was powerful. Proof you can indeed go home again. Beto lives a few blocks from the house he grew up in.
https://www.newsweek.com/2019/04/19/beto-orourke-ted-cruz-presidential-elections-donald-trump-1365360.html

Rob Friedlander: Beto O'Rourke first stated his support for impeaching President Trump **TWO YEARS AGO** while running for Senate in one of the most conservative states in the country. Why? Because he leads with the courage of his convictions. Always.
https://twitter.com/robsfriedlander/status/1156753152026300416

Man dies in front of 11-year-old daughter at US border detention camp
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/elections-2020/2019/07/31/beto-orourke-drops-trump-country-see-can-drum-support-after-better-debate-showing

The New York Times: What Beto Gets Right - His approach to both Medicare and the border.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/opinion/beto-orourke-medicare.html

Trump Golf Costs Top $110 Million -- More Than 1 Estimate For All Of Obama’s Travel
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-obama-golf_n_5d45c72de4b0acb57fcd4eb8