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Today's News (2020/2/17)
Feb. 17th, 2020 04:34 pmSlow day, relatively speaking. Says a lot about how much insanity one becomes used to handling.
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Former Justice Dept. Lawyers Press for Barr to Step Down
More than 1,100 former prosecutors and officials who served in Republican and Democratic administrations signed an open letter condemning the president and the attorney general over the Stone case.
By Katie Benner
Feb. 16, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/us/politics/barr-trump-justice-department.html
WASHINGTON — More than 1,100 former federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials called on Attorney General William P. Barr on Sunday to step down after he intervened last week to lower the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation for President Trump’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr.
They also urged current government employees to report any signs of unethical behavior at the Justice Department to the agency’s inspector general and to Congress.
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Trust and consequences
The government required him to see a therapist. He thought his words would be confidential. Now, the traumatized migrant may be deported.
By Hannah Dreier Feb. 15, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/immigration-therapy-reports-ice/
It was time for another hearing in the ongoing efforts of the U.S. government to deport a Honduran teenager named Kevin Euceda, who had already been in detention for more than two years. In a Northern Virginia courtroom, U.S. immigration judge Helaine Perlman peered at a TV screen as a detainee came into blurry view: a slight 19-year-old with deep dimples and a V-shaped scar on his forehead. "Buenos días," Kevin said, hoping this was the day he would find out about his request for asylum, and then tried to follow along as Perlman began to explain the latest twist.
“I had made a decision granting your request — but the government disagreed with it,” she said. “They want me to make a new decision.”
Kevin was watching from a remote detention center. On one side of the judge, he could see his lawyers, ready to argue that he should be freed immediately. Across from them was a lawyer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), there to argue that Kevin should be deported. And in front of them all, inside a thick folder, was an old report from a shelter for immigrant children that was the reason the long-running matter of Kevin Euceda existed at all: “Youth reports history of physical abuse, neglect, and gang affiliation in country of origin. Unaccompanied child self-disclosed selling drugs. Unaccompanied child reports being part of witnessing torturing and killing, including dismemberment of body parts,” the report said.
The person who had signed it: A therapist at a government shelter for immigrant children who had assured Kevin that their sessions would be confidential. Instead, the words Kevin spoke had traveled from the shelter to one federal agency and then another, followed him through three detention centers, been cited in multiple ICE filings arguing for his detention and deportation, and now, in the fall of 2019, were about to be used against him once more.
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Trump's Secret Service hotel racket is hiding in plain sight. And he's getting away with it.
A complete accounting of how much taxpayers have forked over to the Trump Organization since its CEO's election is as likely as a Trump pardon for Michael Cohen.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-secret-service-hotel-racket-hiding-plain-sight-he-ncna1136746
Feb. 14, 2020, 8:14 AM PST
By Zach Everson
On Wednesday night, when President Donald Trump addressed supporters from behind a Trump Hotels lectern in a room at his Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., one of his company's most faithful customers accompanied him.
The U.S. Secret Service.
The government agency charged with protecting the president has paid his businesses at least $471,000 to fulfill its congressional mandate, according to documents The Washington Post recently obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. That's money from U.S. taxpayers flowing to the Trump Organization, with a venerable 155-year-old law enforcement organization being used like one of Michael Cohen's Delaware shell companies and serving as a conduit for presidential profit. And that $471,000 figure? It's only through April 2018.
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Harris, Castro introduce resolution condemning Trump aide Stephen Miller
By Zack Budryk - 02/13/20 03:29 PM EST
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/483001-harris-castro-introduce-resolution-condemning-trump-aide-stephen
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) introduced a resolution Thursday condemning White House adviser Stephen Miller and calling for his resignation, citing his role in the Trump administration’s controversial immigration policies and emails showing he promoted stories from white nationalist publications.
“Stephen Miller is the hateful force behind the cruel and xenophobic policies that have defined the Trump administration. His white supremacist, anti-immigrant ideology has no place in our country, let alone the White House,” Harris said in a statement. “I'm proud to lead this effort on behalf of immigrant families in California and throughout the country.”
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Florida man complains after dialysis center prevents him from bringing Trump cutout to treatment
By Brooke Seipel - 02/14/20
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/483204-florida-man-complains-after-dialysis-center-prevents-him-from-bringing-trump
A Florida man whose family cannot be with him during his hours-long weekly dialysis treatments is upset with medical staff who say he can't bring a lifesize cutout of President Trump.
...
Gibson complained that the Trump cutout is not disruptive and he does not understand why it is not allowed. He stopped going for treatment over the incident.
...
"While we cannot discuss any specific individual, we strongly support the ability of all our patients to express their views, which includes bringing reasonably sized items into our dialysis centers that do not create safety or infection control issues, or interfere with caregivers on the treatment floor," Brad Puffer said.
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Bolton to break his silence as White House wrangles over content of his book
Anchor Muted Background
Kylie Atwood
By Vivian Salama and Kylie Atwood, CNN
Updated 2:21 PM ET, Mon February 17, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/17/politics/john-bolton-white-house-book/index.html
Washington (CNN) - President Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton is due to make his first public speech since the impeachment inquiry into Trump wrapped up, even as his lawyers continue to wrangle with the White House over the contents of his highly anticipated book.
Bolton, whose views of the President's policies toward Ukraine were cited by multiple impeachment witnesses, hasn't publicly commented about the events that unfolded last year.
Bolton's speech on Monday evening at Duke University, the first of two public appearances this week which is billed as focusing on national security challenges facing the country, isn't expected to directly address the issue of impeachment or the ongoing conflict over the contents of his manuscript though he is due to take questions. His other post-White House public speaking engagements have focused strictly on national security policy though he has not been shy to speak out on issues like North Korea where he disagrees with Trump.
The New York Times reported last month that Bolton, in his unpublished manuscript, alleges that Trump directed him to help with his pressure campaign to get damaging information on Democrats from Ukraine. According to the Times, he also alleges that Trump didn't want to lift a hold on military aid to Ukraine until officials there complied with the request. Bolton's lawyers have not denied the substance of the New York Times reports but have condemned the leaks behind it.
-----
Former Justice Dept. Lawyers Press for Barr to Step Down
More than 1,100 former prosecutors and officials who served in Republican and Democratic administrations signed an open letter condemning the president and the attorney general over the Stone case.
By Katie Benner
Feb. 16, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/us/politics/barr-trump-justice-department.html
WASHINGTON — More than 1,100 former federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials called on Attorney General William P. Barr on Sunday to step down after he intervened last week to lower the Justice Department’s sentencing recommendation for President Trump’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr.
They also urged current government employees to report any signs of unethical behavior at the Justice Department to the agency’s inspector general and to Congress.
-----
Trust and consequences
The government required him to see a therapist. He thought his words would be confidential. Now, the traumatized migrant may be deported.
By Hannah Dreier Feb. 15, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/national/immigration-therapy-reports-ice/
It was time for another hearing in the ongoing efforts of the U.S. government to deport a Honduran teenager named Kevin Euceda, who had already been in detention for more than two years. In a Northern Virginia courtroom, U.S. immigration judge Helaine Perlman peered at a TV screen as a detainee came into blurry view: a slight 19-year-old with deep dimples and a V-shaped scar on his forehead. "Buenos días," Kevin said, hoping this was the day he would find out about his request for asylum, and then tried to follow along as Perlman began to explain the latest twist.
“I had made a decision granting your request — but the government disagreed with it,” she said. “They want me to make a new decision.”
Kevin was watching from a remote detention center. On one side of the judge, he could see his lawyers, ready to argue that he should be freed immediately. Across from them was a lawyer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), there to argue that Kevin should be deported. And in front of them all, inside a thick folder, was an old report from a shelter for immigrant children that was the reason the long-running matter of Kevin Euceda existed at all: “Youth reports history of physical abuse, neglect, and gang affiliation in country of origin. Unaccompanied child self-disclosed selling drugs. Unaccompanied child reports being part of witnessing torturing and killing, including dismemberment of body parts,” the report said.
The person who had signed it: A therapist at a government shelter for immigrant children who had assured Kevin that their sessions would be confidential. Instead, the words Kevin spoke had traveled from the shelter to one federal agency and then another, followed him through three detention centers, been cited in multiple ICE filings arguing for his detention and deportation, and now, in the fall of 2019, were about to be used against him once more.
-----
Trump's Secret Service hotel racket is hiding in plain sight. And he's getting away with it.
A complete accounting of how much taxpayers have forked over to the Trump Organization since its CEO's election is as likely as a Trump pardon for Michael Cohen.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-secret-service-hotel-racket-hiding-plain-sight-he-ncna1136746
Feb. 14, 2020, 8:14 AM PST
By Zach Everson
On Wednesday night, when President Donald Trump addressed supporters from behind a Trump Hotels lectern in a room at his Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., one of his company's most faithful customers accompanied him.
The U.S. Secret Service.
The government agency charged with protecting the president has paid his businesses at least $471,000 to fulfill its congressional mandate, according to documents The Washington Post recently obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. That's money from U.S. taxpayers flowing to the Trump Organization, with a venerable 155-year-old law enforcement organization being used like one of Michael Cohen's Delaware shell companies and serving as a conduit for presidential profit. And that $471,000 figure? It's only through April 2018.
-----
Harris, Castro introduce resolution condemning Trump aide Stephen Miller
By Zack Budryk - 02/13/20 03:29 PM EST
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/483001-harris-castro-introduce-resolution-condemning-trump-aide-stephen
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) introduced a resolution Thursday condemning White House adviser Stephen Miller and calling for his resignation, citing his role in the Trump administration’s controversial immigration policies and emails showing he promoted stories from white nationalist publications.
“Stephen Miller is the hateful force behind the cruel and xenophobic policies that have defined the Trump administration. His white supremacist, anti-immigrant ideology has no place in our country, let alone the White House,” Harris said in a statement. “I'm proud to lead this effort on behalf of immigrant families in California and throughout the country.”
-----
Florida man complains after dialysis center prevents him from bringing Trump cutout to treatment
By Brooke Seipel - 02/14/20
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/483204-florida-man-complains-after-dialysis-center-prevents-him-from-bringing-trump
A Florida man whose family cannot be with him during his hours-long weekly dialysis treatments is upset with medical staff who say he can't bring a lifesize cutout of President Trump.
...
Gibson complained that the Trump cutout is not disruptive and he does not understand why it is not allowed. He stopped going for treatment over the incident.
...
"While we cannot discuss any specific individual, we strongly support the ability of all our patients to express their views, which includes bringing reasonably sized items into our dialysis centers that do not create safety or infection control issues, or interfere with caregivers on the treatment floor," Brad Puffer said.
-----
Bolton to break his silence as White House wrangles over content of his book
Anchor Muted Background
Kylie Atwood
By Vivian Salama and Kylie Atwood, CNN
Updated 2:21 PM ET, Mon February 17, 2020
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/17/politics/john-bolton-white-house-book/index.html
Washington (CNN) - President Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton is due to make his first public speech since the impeachment inquiry into Trump wrapped up, even as his lawyers continue to wrangle with the White House over the contents of his highly anticipated book.
Bolton, whose views of the President's policies toward Ukraine were cited by multiple impeachment witnesses, hasn't publicly commented about the events that unfolded last year.
Bolton's speech on Monday evening at Duke University, the first of two public appearances this week which is billed as focusing on national security challenges facing the country, isn't expected to directly address the issue of impeachment or the ongoing conflict over the contents of his manuscript though he is due to take questions. His other post-White House public speaking engagements have focused strictly on national security policy though he has not been shy to speak out on issues like North Korea where he disagrees with Trump.
The New York Times reported last month that Bolton, in his unpublished manuscript, alleges that Trump directed him to help with his pressure campaign to get damaging information on Democrats from Ukraine. According to the Times, he also alleges that Trump didn't want to lift a hold on military aid to Ukraine until officials there complied with the request. Bolton's lawyers have not denied the substance of the New York Times reports but have condemned the leaks behind it.
