Source: NBC News



The findings counter the statement by a top Trump admin official that reports of poor conditions for migrants at border stations were “unsubstantiated.”


July 1, 2019, 4:30 AM EDT / Updated July 1, 2019, 7:50 AM EDT

By Julia Ainsley and Jacob Soboroff

WASHINGTON — The government’s own internal watchdog warned as far back as May that conditions at an El Paso, Texas, border station were so bad that border agents were arming themselves against possible riots, countering Friday’s assertion by a top Trump administration official that reports of poor conditions for migrants were “unsubstantiated.”

In an internal report prepared by the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General and obtained by NBC News, inspectors noted during a May 7 tour of a border station in the El Paso sector that only four showers were available for 756 immigrants, over half of the immigrants were being held outside, and immigrants inside were being kept in cells maxed at over five times their capacity.

Border agents remained armed in holding areas because they were worried about the potential for unrest, the report said.

A cell meant for a maximum of 35 held 155 adult males with only one toilet and sink. The cell was so crowded the men could not lie down to sleep. Temperatures in the cells reached over 80 degrees, the report said.



Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/dhs-warned-may-border-station-conditions-so-bad-agents-feared-n1025136

By Connor Mannion Jun 30th, 2019, 9:26 pm

Sen. Kamala Harris told MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt that she had been preparing to confront Joe Biden at the Democratic debates over his comments recalling his work with segregationists.

Harris had a much-talked about confrontation with the former vice president at the Thursday debate broadcast by NBC, where she grilled his opposition to busing and his praise of the civility of working with segregationist Democratic senators.

“Clearly you were ready for it. When did you decide that was what you were gonna do?” Hunt asked.

“I have to be obviously candid with you. From the moment that I heard his comments about the segregationists, it was troubling and it was hurtful,” Harris said. “To hear those words from someone I respect in a way that kind of–that suggest a bit of nostalgia about who they are, about segregationists.”

“I felt the need that — to make sure that everyone was remembering or had thought about the real impact,” she continued. “I just felt the need to talk about it not as some academic discussion.”

“Do you think Biden is out of touch?” Hunt asked Harris.

“No, not necessarily,” Harris responded. “I think he and I have a difference of opinion about the significance of who those people were and our perspective on perhaps how we think of them in terms of their reputation.”

video
https://www.mediaite.com/election-2020/kamala-harris-says-she-prepped-to-confront-biden-at-debate-i-just-felt-the-need-to-talk-about-it/

By Ken Meyer Jul 1st

As President Donald Trump came off of his unprecedented visit to North Korea over the weekend, a new report suggests that the Trump administration is thinking about a new arrangement in which the Hermit Kingdom is allowed to remain a nuclear power.

[iNew York Times reports] that the White House could be willing to accept a “nuclear freeze” in which they allow North Korea to maintain their current capacity for nuclear power. This would run counter to the administration’s repeated calls for complete denuclearization, and the Times‘ reporting says that while it could stem the growth of North Korea’s arsenal, it would not “dismantle any existing weapons, variously estimated at 20 to 60. Nor would it limit the North’s missile capability.”

From NYT:



Sources say it isn’t clear if North Korea would accept the terms of the deal as reported, and National Security Advisor John Bolton is responding that he and his team haven’t been involved in negotiating this proposal.

https://twitter.com/AmbJohnBolton/status/1145646367865528320

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https://www.mediaite.com/news/trump-administration-reportedly-considering-acceptance-of-north-korea-as-a-nuclear-power/

From the founder’s comment about a racial slur in 1979 to allegations of physical abuse in 2017, VisionQuest has been dogged by controversy.

Michael Daly
Special Correspondent

Published 07.01.19 4:44AM ET

Migrant children may soon be housed at a for-profit facility in Philadelphia managed by the same company that ran a juvenile detention center there until state authorities shut it down amid allegations of physical abuse two years ago.

The City of Brotherly Love is also a sanctuary city and it is staging a legal fight to block a federally funded $5 million plan by VisionQuest to hold 60 migrant children aged 13 to 17 at a facility called the Grace Dix Center. A judge found in favor of VisionQuest, but the city has appealed.

Popular opposition to the plan in Philadelphia was stoked when the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the company’s founder, Robert Burton, overheard two counselors-in-training chatting with each other and told them, “Don’t speak Spanish.”

That was just the latest in a long series of troubling incidents at VisionQuest, stretching all the way back to 1979 when Burton was quoted as saying the use of the N-word is “not necessarily improper.”

Back then, Burton did allow to the Arizona Daily Star that the word had been directed “inappropriately” by one of his staff to a 17-year-old girl in a group home run by his enterprise.

more
https://www.thedailybeast.com/visionquest-for-profit-firm-tapped-to-house-migrant-kids-in-philadelphia-has-sordid-history?ref=home

BY CAMILO MONTOYA-GALVEZ

JULY 1, 2019 / 6:19 AM / CBS NEWS

Since the Trump administration implemented its controversial "Remain in Mexico" policy in the Texas border city of El Paso in late March, more than 6,500 asylum seekers have been sent back to neighboring Ciudad Juárez, the largest city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

While they wait for their day in a U.S. court, these Central American migrants struggle to find shelter and employment in Mexico, some face persecution and extortion and most will show up to court without a lawyer.

The Trump administration has begun to accelerate "Remain in Mexico" in El Paso and two other locations: the California border cities of San Diego and Calexico. More than 15,000 asylum seekers have now been returned to Mexico.

A small cohort of local non-profits and pro bono attorneys in the El Paso area have mobilized to help them with legal counsel. But they face limited resources, logical barriers and safety concerns to help thousands of migrants stranded in one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico and the Western Hemisphere.

more
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-remain-in-mexico-policy-thousands-of-asylum-seekers-in-mexico-and-few-lawyers-to-help-them/

By Tory Newmyer
July 1 at 7:28 AM

The trade truce that President Trump negotiated with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Japan over the weekend offers less than meets the eye.

Business leaders are sighing with relief that the agreement forestalls the imposition of tariffs on an additional $300 billion of Chinese goods. But otherwise it mostly appeared to lock in place a status quo that could augur an extended economic cold war between the world’s two largest economies.

The proof of that, analysts say, will be evident in the results the truce produces. Among other things, look for those results to include a stock market bump that’s short-lived; no new clarity for Federal Reserve officials trying to determine whether to cut interest rates; a continuing escalation between the United States and China in tensions over technology; and corporate chiefs holding back on major investments and continuing to migrate supply chains out of China.

1. The stock market.

The market just concluded a strong half-year, with the S&P 500 up 17 percent over that period and the Dow Jones industrial average climbing 14 percent. That represents the Dow's strongest first-half performance in two decades, capped by its best June since 1938. Investor bullishness came despite Trump's intensifying trade war with China, and threatening escalations on other fronts, including Mexico and the European Union. But several Wall Street watchers, weighing in over the weekend, said the Osaka cease-fire won’t translate into a sustained rally for stocks, because investors probably will recognize its limits.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-finance-202/2019/07/01/the-finance-202-trump-s-deal-with-china-offers-less-than-meets-the-eye/5d193bba1ad2e552a21d51cb/

by Alberto Luperon | 2:46 pm, June 30th, 2019

A former colleague of Attorney General William Barr is arguing that the AG misled the public about the results of the Mueller investigation in order to better establish a presidency exercising “unchecked” executive power. He also pointed forward an “unsolicited” anti-Mueller memo that Barr wrote before becoming AG.

From a new op-ed in The Atlantic by Donald Ayer, who preceded Barr as Deputy Attorney General when George H.W. Bush was president:



Ayer described Barr as long being a “fierce advocate of unchecked presidential power.” (Georgetown Law Professor Jonathan Turley, a friend of Barr’s, previously told The New York Times the AG’s “default” is Article II of the Constitution.) But Ayer now looks at the extent that Barr went to expand executive power.

Ayer found that in the AG’s opinion, there shouldn’t even have been a special counsel: “in Barr’s view, the only check on gross misconduct by the president is impeachment, and the very idea of an independent or special counsel investigating the president is a constitutional anathema.”

more
https://lawandcrime.com/politics/in-brutal-assessment-of-barr-ex-colleague-says-ag-backs-trump-to-boost-executive-power/

By Tommy Christopher June 30th, 2019, 1:30 pm

-snip-

Independent Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said that busing to combat school segregation is not “optimal,” and asked “Does anybody think it’s a good idea to put a kid on a bus, travel an hour to another school, and to another neighborhood that he or she doesn’t know?”

On Sunday morning;s edition of This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Sanders expressed qualified support for busing, but also criticized the policy that became a flashpoint at Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate.

Host George Stephanopoulos began by referencing the blockbuster exchange between California Senator Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden, and said “I want to bring the debate forward. You’ve mentioned — you’re concerned about the idea of resegregation of our schools. Does that mean that busing should be on the table today?”

Sanders initially dodged the busing question, telling Stephanopoulos that “resegregation is a very, very serious problem,” and adding that “the federal government has failed in fighting for fair housing legislation.”

“We need basically, in this country, well-funded public schools, we need to honor our teachers, respect teachers, make sure that they’re earning a living wage,” Sanders said. “We need to take care of those schools today, which have a lot of kids who are, in some cases, actually hungry, coming from troubled families. We need to build public education in this country. We need to make sure that kids go to community schools, which are integrated and that means we have to focus on fair housing legislation and enforcement.”

more + video
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-knocks-busing-on-this-week-does-anybody-think-its-a-good-idea/

BY BO ERICKSON

JUNE 30, 2019 / 12:08 PM / CBS NEWS

Former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign accused President Trump of "coddling" dictators in his meetings with North Korea's Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan while overseas.

"President Trump's coddling of dictators at the expense of American national security and interests is one of the most dangerous ways he's diminishing us on the world stage and subverting our values as a nation," Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement to CBS News.

The president held a last-minute meeting with Kim in the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea on Sunday, becoming the first sitting president to set foot on North Korean soil. His meeting with Kim came after the G20 summit in Japan, where he met with Putin and Erdogan.

As the president was flying back from his overseas trip, the Biden campaign said Mr. Trump "yet again fawned over Kim Jong-un — to whom he's made numerous concessions for negligible gain."

more
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-2020-campaign-accuses-trump-of-coddling-dictators-in-meetings-with-kim-jong-un-putin-and-erdogan/

CBS NEWS June 30, 2019, 11:37 AM

The following is a transcript of the interview with Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota that aired Sunday, June 30, 2019, on "Face the Nation."

MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back. We are now joined by Minnesota senator and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar. She joins us from Minneapolis. Good morning, senator.

SENATOR AMY KLOBUCHAR: Thanks, Margaret. Hello.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We saw this historic moment with President Trump stepping into North Korea. And I wonder, if you're commander in chief, would you continue the diplomacy that he has started?

SEN. KLOBUCHAR: You always have to talk to everyone when it is American security and the world's security at stake. But he keeps having these summits and meetings that really don't produce anything. There's been a number of them now, and this time, you know, you just can't look at this as going over and talking to your dictator next door and bringing them a hot dish over the fence. There is a lot more. And what this is about, is making sure that there are measurable results, that we have a plan when we go in there and we just haven't seen that. In fact, just in May you saw North Korea launch another missile into the sea in violation of the U.N. resolution and to me, you need to have a plan to denuclearize that peninsula or at least reduce those weapons immediately, and I just don't see that happening, yes.

But yet, we know that talks are good, but I just don't see this president- when you look at what happened in Iran when he got out of that agreement and we were 10 minutes away from war and a month away from them blowing the caps when it comes to uranium- enriching uranium. When you look what he did with the nuclear agreement with Russia, he is constantly- climate change pulling us back from working with our allies to try to solve these problems.

more
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-sen-amy-klobuchar-on-face-the-nation-june-30-2019/