Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday signed into law a measure requiring anyone convicted of sex crimes with children younger than 13 to be chemically castrated as a condition of parole.

Under the new law, offenders required to undergo the reversible procedure must begin the treatment at least a month before their release dates and continue treatments until a judge finds that it’s no longer necessary.

Ivey, a Republican, made no public statement about the measure. She had given little indication whether she supported the measure until Monday, the last day she could sign the bill.

Gov. Kay Ivey addresses the Alabama Legislature in Montgomery in January 2018.Brynn Anderson / AP file

The bill was introduced by Rep. Steve Hurst, a Republican representing Calhoun County, who said that if he had his way, offenders would be permanently castrated through surgery.

“If they’re going to mark these children for life, they need to be marked for life,” Hurst told NBC affiliate WSFA of Montgomery.

“My preference would be if someone does a small infant child like that, they need to die,” he said. “God’s going to deal with them one day.”

The Alabama chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, opposed the measure as unconstitutional.

“It could be cruel and unusual punishment,” Randall Marshall, the chapter’s executive director, told WSFA. “It also implicates right to privacy. Forced medications are all concerns.”

“They really misunderstand what sexual assault is about,” Marshall said. “Sexual assault isn’t about sexual gratification. It’s about power. It’s about control.”

Alabama is at least the seventh state allowing or requiring physical or chemical castration of some sex offenders, joining California, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Texas and Wisconsin. In most of those states, the treatment is a reversible chemical procedure, and in many of them, it is an optional process for which offenders can volunteer to win or speed up their parole.

The U.S. territory of Guam, in the Western Pacific, also allows voluntary chemical castration, although the procedure has never been carried out there. A bill in the Legislature seeks to make the procedure mandatory for offenders seeking parole, NBC affiliate KUAM of Hagatna reported.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/alabama-becomes-seventh-state-approve-castration-some-sex-offenses-n1016056


“If you’re fighting to defend the Constitution, if you find a way to do that that’s different and maybe more effective, then you have to think about that, ” said Rep. Justin Amash. | Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

congress

Rep. Justin Amash quit the conservative House Freedom Caucus on Monday night, weeks after becoming the lone Republican to call for President Donald Trump’s impeachment.

The Michigan lawmaker told a CNN reporter that he has “the highest regard for them, and they’re my close friends,” but he “didn’t want to be a further distraction for the group.” Amash’s decision to step down was confirmed to POLITICO by his office.

Story Continued Below

Amash, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, has long been a lone wolf in Congress, routinely bucking GOP leadership and defying Trump on a number of issues throughout the past two years.

But Amash’s support for impeachment roiled members of the Freedom Caucus, who found Amash’s criticism dead wrong. The group decided to uniformly oppose his impeachment stance last month, though they stopped short of kicking him out of the caucus — despite some lawmakers complaining that Amash was still a member.

Amash, a 39-year-old libertarian who rode the 2010 tea party wave to Congress, had stopped showing up to HFC meetings this year and even threatened to quit the group at one point last year after they didn’t stand up to Trump for attacking one of their own members, South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, who was facing a pro-Trump primary challenge. (Sanford lost his primary.)

Now, Amash finds himself in a similar position, facing two primary challenges back home and being ripped by Trump on Twitter. While Amash beat back a primary challenge from an establishment candidate in 2014, he faces a far more uncertain political future in the age of Trump, in which fealty to the president has often become a litmus test in the GOP.

There has also been speculation Amash might challenge Trump in 2020 as a libertarian candidate, something he did not rule out a recent town hall.

“I’ve said many times, I don’t rule things like that out,” Amash said. “If you’re fighting to defend the Constitution, if you find a way to do that that’s different and maybe more effective, then you have to think about that.”

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/10/justin-amash-house-freedom-caucus-1359614

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, could be facing a major challenger in their next Senate races — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY.

Top Democrats suspect that the freshman congresswoman will primary either Schumer in 2022 or Gillibrand in 2024, according to a report from Axios, Gillibrand, who is currently running for president, just won reelection during the 2018 midterms after vowing she would serve her full six-year term.

If AOC runs against the two party powerhouses — and wins — it wouldn’t be the first time she toppled a big-name Democrat after she defeated leading lawmaker Joe Crowley, who was the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus a member of Congress for nearly 20 years, during the New York primaries in 2018.

Since then, Ocasio-Cortez has become a household name and is leading the effort in promoting the Green New Deal in hopes of tackling climate change.

OCASIO-CORTEZ WANTS TO MAKE IT EASIER TO STUDY MAGIC MUSHROOMS, OTHER PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS

OCASIO-CORTEZ TWEETS CLAIM THAT ‘POWERFUL PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO BRIBE’ TRUMP INTO WAR

With massive support among progressives, the New York representative is seen as a kingmaker during the 2020 election and is weighing her options on who to back in the presidential race.

Senators Bernie Sanders, I-VT, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, have so far received the highest praise from the self-described Democratic Socialist.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

She has repeatedly blasted former Vice President Joe Biden, most recently for his previous support for the Hyde Amendment, which outlaws federal funding for abortions.

“If your pride is being a moderate centrist candidate, say that,” Ocasio-Cortez said last week. “Say, ‘I’m proud to be a centrist, I’m proud to be funded by Wall Street. I’m proud to not push as hard as I can on women’s rights.’ Say it, own it, be it, but don’t come out here and say you’re a progressive candidate, but at the same time not support repealing something as basic as the Hyde Amendment.”

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ocasio-cortez-schumer-gillibrand-challenge-senate-report

NEW YORK – One person was killed when a helicopter crashed on the roof of a 54-story building in midtown Manhattan Monday, sparking a fire and drawing a massive emergency response.

It happened shortly before 2 p.m. under rainy conditions at the AXA Equitable building at 787 Seventh Ave. The crash spurred an evacuation as crews raced to the top floor to douse the flames.

Authorities say the pilot killed in the crash was the sole occupant of the helicopter, which was privately owned.

The pilot has been identified as Tim McCormack, of Dutchess County.

No one in the building or on the ground was injured.

The helicopter was owned by an upstate New York man who apparently used it to commute to the city.

The crash happened in a part of the city that is under a flight restriction due to its proximity to Trump Tower. Mayor Bill de Blasio says the helicopter would have needed the approval of LaGuardia Tower before heading there, but it’s unclear if that happened.

The mayor says there’s no indication that there is any terrorism linked to the crash, and says there is no ongoing danger to New Yorkers.

City officials say the crash sparked a fuel leak, which has since been mitigated. They say the building is safe.

“Thank God no other people were injured in this absolutely shocking, stunning incident,” said Mayor de Blasio, who lauded emergency crews for their quick response.

The helicopter had taken off from the 134th Street heliport and crashed approximately 11 minutes later.

Video posted to social media appeared to show the helicopter flying erratically ahead of the crash, suddenly plunging in the air before climbing higher.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.

 

hr{margin: 0px;} .stories-area > iframe {border: white;} div[data-mml-type]{ overflow: hidden; } div[data-mml-status=”draft”] {display: none !important;} div.fb-post span, div.fb-post span iframe{max-width: 100%;} div[data-mml-type=”twitter”].left, div[data-mml-type=”instagram”].left, div[data-mml-type=”facebook”].left{ float: left; position: relative; overflow:hidden; max-width:100%;}div[data-mml-type=”twitter”].right,div[data-mml-type=”instagram”].right,div[data-mml-type=”facebook”].right{ float: right; position: relative; overflow:hidden; max-width:100%;}div[data-mml-type=”twitter”].center,div[data-mml-type=”instagram”].center,div[data-mml-type=”facebook”].center{ width: 100% !important; overflow:hidden; text-align: center;}div[data-mml-type=”twitter”].center iframe,div[data-mml-type=”twitter”].center twitterwidget,div[data-mml-type=”instagram”].center iframe,div[data-mml-type=”facebook”].center iframe{ margin: auto !important;}div[data-mml-type=”facebook”].center > span{ margin: auto !important; display: block !important;} .mml-display-none{display: none !important;} div[data-mml-type=”gmaps”], div[data-mml-type=”youtube”] {position:relative; width:100%; padding-bottom:56.25%;} div[data-mml-type=”gmaps”] iframe, div[data-mml-type=”youtube”] iframe {position:absolute; left:0; top:0;} div[data-embed-type=”clip”],div[data-mml-type=”clip”]{position: relative;padding-bottom: 56.25%;width: 100%;box-sizing: border-box;} div[data-embed-type=”clip”] iframe { position: absolute;}]]>

Source Article from http://bronx.news12.com/story/40621200/fdny-responding-to-report-of-helicopter-crash-into-manhattan-building

President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States is working on a second deal with Mexico to curb migration to the United States. If the Mexican government fails to sign on, Trump warned, new tariffs will be imposed on the country.

But according to Mexico, this second deal doesn’t exist.

Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s top diplomat, said at a news conference in Mexico City Monday that there is no secret immigration deal. He added that both countries would monitor the flow of migrants before making any other policy decisions.

“Let’s have a deadline to see if what we have works and if not, then we will sit down and look at the measures you propose and those that we propose,” Ebrard said, according to the New York Times.

Hours earlier, Trump claimed on Twitter that the United States and Mexico have “fully signed and documented another very important part of the Immigration and Security deal with Mexico, one that the U.S. has been asking about getting for many years.”

The agreement, which has now been debunked by top Mexican officials, would have theoretically needed to be voted on in the Mexican legislature. If the “vote” failed, “tariffs will be reinstated,” Trump said.

Just three days ago, Trump announced that the two countries had reached an agreement and that U.S. tariffs on all Mexican imports would not go into effect as planned. Trump had originally called for tariffs of 5% on all Mexican imports beginning June 10 — which would gradually increase to 25% by October — unless Mexico did more to stop migrants from reaching the southern U.S. border.

“The Tariffs scheduled to be implemented by the U.S. on Monday, against Mexico, are hereby indefinitely suspended,” Trump wrote on Twitter Friday evening. “Mexico, in turn, has agreed to take strong measures to….stem the tide of Migration through Mexico, and to our Southern Border.”

That deal, however, did not call for new policies — and the press were quick to point this out. That may be why Trump is now mentioning a new deal in the works.

As part of Friday’s deal, Mexico will take “strong measures” towards enforcement and deploy members  of its National Guard to its southern border with Guatemala. Mexico also vowed to expand Migrant Protection Protocols — also known as “Remain in Mexico” — to other ports of entry along the Mexican border. Remain in Mexico is a U.S. policy that requires Central American migrants to stay in Mexico while their asylum cases play out in the U.S. immigration court system.

Both issues, however, have already been actively addressed by the Mexican government. Mexico began deploying its National Guard to the border over a year ago, and the Remain in Mexico policy has already been expanded to multiple ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. Currently, over 10,000 Central American migrants have been returned to Mexico after applying for asylum in the United States.

When The New York Times published a story Sunday outlining how Mexico was already cooperating with the United States before the threat of tariffs, Trump accused the “failing” outlet of “sick journalism” and resumed tariff threats against Mexico.

Additionally, while Trump victoriously announced that the deal reached between the two countries would result in Mexico purchasing more agricultural goods from the United States, Mexico’s Ambassador to the United States Martha Bárcena appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation Sunday all but debunking that claim entirely.

“You have to remember that last year we were the third trade partner; we are now the first so we are your most important market and you are our most important market,” Barcena said.

“Is trade on agricultural products going to grow? Yes, it is going to grow and it is going to grow without tariffs and with USMCA ratification,” she added, referring to the trade deal between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, seen as the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

When pressed by host Margaret Brennan on whether there was any specific agreement by the Mexican government to buy additional U.S. agricultural products, Bárcena continued to sidestep.

“But there was no transaction that was signed off on as part of this deal is what I understand you’re saying,” Brennan said. “You’re talking about trade.”

A reluctant Bárcena replied, “I’m talking about trade and I am absolutely certain that the trade in agricultural goods will increase dramatically in the next few months.”

What the Trump administration really wants from Mexico is a “safe third country” agreement which would force migrants to apply for asylum there rather than in the United States. Mexico has been reluctant to cooperate with the United States on that front, citing lack of resources. Immigration activists claim such a policy will expose vulnerable Central American migrants to more harm.


Source Article from https://thinkprogress.org/trump-threatens-new-tariffs-over-a-deal-that-mexico-says-doesnt-exist-4d0a23986f21/

Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear speaks to the denomination’s executive committee in February. Church leaders meet this week to discuss clergy sexual abuse cases.

Mark Humphrey/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

Mark Humphrey/AP

Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear speaks to the denomination’s executive committee in February. Church leaders meet this week to discuss clergy sexual abuse cases.

Mark Humphrey/AP

Southern Baptists, who in 1995 apologized for their past defense of slavery and in 2017 denounced white supremacy, are resolved once again to show their sensitivity to a pressing social concern. The 2019 convention in Birmingham, Ala., is focusing heavily on the problem of sexual abuse by church leaders.

Among the resolutions likely to be debated are proposals to discipline churches that mishandle abuse allegations. Dozens of Southern Baptist women in recent years have come forward with stories of clergy misconduct and of church officials failing to respond. Earlier this year, The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News reported that nearly 400 male Southern Baptist leaders or volunteers had been accused of sexual misconduct over the past 20 years, involving more than 700 victims.

“There’s a question of, ‘Can we trust our church leaders not only [not to abuse] but also to prohibit people who could be abusers from having a place where they could do it with impunity?’ ” says Pastor J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. As one of his first acts after being elected at last year’s convention, Greear ordered the formation of an advisory council to draft recommendations for dealing with the abuse problem.

“You’re going to see a convention that is united in its agreement on the fact that this cannot be tolerated in our churches and that we have to do whatever it takes, regardless of what it costs us, to make our churches safe places,” Greear told NPR.

A report by the Southern Baptists’ own research organization recently found that about one out of three church members surveyed believe there are more accounts of sex abuse by pastors still to come.

Southern Baptist women who say church officials have been unresponsive to their allegations of abuse by clergy and other church staff are planning a rally outside the annual meeting in Birmingham to demand that women be “respected and honored” in SBC churches, that a clergy abuse offender database be created, and that pastors, seminary students and ministry leaders be required to participate in training on how to handle abuse.

The movement builds on longstanding efforts by a few Southern Baptist women to call attention to the problem of abuse in the church. Among them is Dee Parsons, who started a blog ten years ago after she was outraged by the failure of her North Carolina church to take action against an alleged abuser.

“I’m kind of a nobody,” Parsons told NPR, “and I figured nobody would be reading anything I had to say. I was started by the response I started getting. I think the problem in evangelical churches is worse than in the Catholic church.”

The women rallying outside the SBC meeting in Birmingham are linking the failure of Southern Baptist church leaders to move more forcefully against abusers in their ranks to what they call “the low view of women” in the church, saying it has contributed to “a culture that is friendly to abusers.”

Southern Baptist churches are not supposed to ordain women, and they are discouraged from allowing women to preach, at least on worship days. That policy derives from the philosophy of “complementarianism,” which holds that that men and women have different but complementary roles in the church, as outlined in the Bible.

A prominent Southern Baptist author and teacher, Beth Moore, has pushed the limits of what a woman can do in the church by speaking repeatedly on Sundays, thus inviting angry reactions from some male church leaders. Josh Buice, pastor of an SBC church in Georgia, went so far as to write a blog post, “Why the SBC Should Say ‘No More’ to Beth Moore.”

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville and an intellectual leader of his denomination, recently tweeted that Southern Baptists have “reached a critical moment … where there are now open calls to retreat from our biblical convictions on complementarianism.” He addressed the issue forcefully in one of his “Ask Anything Live” segments on YouTube.

“If you look at the denominations where women do the preaching, they’re also the denominations where people do the leaving,” Mohler said. “I think there’s just something about the order of creation that means that God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice.”

In response to the growing controversy, Moore has gently chided the Southern Baptist men who have criticized her.

“I am not the enemy,” she told Mohler, and in another tweet, she said that when women address a Southern Baptist congregation, it does not mean that they want to become pastors.

“Troubled brothers, try to relax,” she wrote. “I do not see a female takeover on the horizon. Have some herbal tea.”

SBC President Greear, a relatively young church leader at 46, has attempted to steer a moderate course on the issue of women’s roles in the church, suggesting that women should be free to explain and exhort from the pulpit during the sermon’ time, as long they do not take on the official teaching responsibility of the church.

At this week’s convention, however, Greear says he will try to keep the focus on his own priorities and avoid issues that could prove divisive.

Among those is politics.

When Vice President Mike Pence used an appearance before last year’s SBC annual meeting to tout the accomplishments of the Trump administration, Greear made known his disappointment, saying it sent “a terribly mixed signal.”

In an interview, Greear said he would like Southern Baptists to move beyond their reputation as representing the white evangelical base of the Republican Party.

“What brings us together should not be a cultural identity. It should not be a political persuasion,” he said. “Southern Baptists are supposed to be a people that are united around the gospel and the gospel mission.”

The theme of the 2019 SBC meeting, Greear says, is “The Gospel Above All.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/06/10/731405246/southern-baptists-to-confront-sexual-abuse-and-the-role-of-women-in-the-church

The U.S. and Mexico struck a deal on Friday to avoid a new trade war. President Trump had said he would impose a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports starting Monday if Mexico didn’t promise to tighten its borders to prevent undocumented immigrants from entering. Myron Brilliant, U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive vice president, joins ‘Squawk Box’ to discuss.


“The weaponization of tariffs — the increase of threats on our economy on our farmers, our manufacturers, our consumers — is going to hurt our country. It also creates uncertainty with our trading partners,” he said.


Shortly after Brillant’s interview, President Trump called in to CNBC to argue his case for why tariffs are effective.


“If we didn’t have tariffs we wouldn’t have made a deal with Mexico,” Trump said.

Source Article from https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/06/10/chamber_of_commerce_vp_myron_brilliant_weaponization_of_tariffs_is_going_to_hurt_our_country.html

House Democrats are looking to “destroy” the Trump presidency with a continued effort to revive the Mueller report, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

“There is nothing going on in the House about protecting the 2020 election, they are trying to nullify the 2016 election. Mueller has spoken, he found no 
collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians after two years, 25 million dollars, 19 lawyers and 40 FBI agents,” Graham told “The Story with Martha MacCallum” Monday.

“He decided not to bring any charges regarding the obstruction of justice because there is no crime here. The bottom line is what the House is doing is politically motivated, trying to destroy the Trump presidency.”

HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE TO HOLD MUELLER REPORT HEARING WITH WATERGATE FIGURE JOHN DEAN

Dean, the former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, testified before the House Judiciary Committee Monday saying that he sees “remarkable parallels” between Watergate and the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

Graham assured MacCallum that the Senate was done with the Mueller report.

“I can assure you that we are done with the Mueller investigation in the Senate. They can talk to John Dean until the cows come home, we are not doing anything in the Senate regarding the Mueller report,” Graham said.

The senator also said that Attorney General William Bar and U.S. Attorney John Durham are focusing on the origins of the Russia investigation, trying to get answers to some important questions.

CARTER PAGE: FBI INFORMANT ‘INTENSIFIED’ COMMUNICATIONS JUST BEFORE FISA WARRANT OBTAINED

“Nobody from the FBI, no one ever told candidate Trump that ‘we think some people working for you may be working with the Russians.’ Why did they not tell Trump what they told the Democratic Party?” Graham said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Justice Department revealed Monday it is investigating the activities of several “non-governmental organizations and individuals” and that it was looking into the involvement of “foreign intelligence services.”

Fox News’ Gregg Re and Alex Pappas contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sen-graham-house-dems-trying-to-destroy-trump-presidency

A helicopter crashed onto the roof of a 54-story building Monday afternoon in Midtown Manhattan, killing the pilot, New York City police and fire officials said. No one else was injured in the crash, which officials said appeared to be an accident — not an act of terrorism. The crash sparked a two-alarm fire at the building, located at 787 7th Avenue, between 51st and 52nd Streets, not far from Times Square.

A New York City Police Department source told CBS News that the helicopter crash-landed on the roof but did not go into the building. The weather was foggy and rainy at the time.

A photo tweeted by the FDNY showed firefighters on the roof amid the scorched wreckage after the fire was put out. Only a small portion of the helicopter, possibly part of the tail section, appeared to be still intact.

Firefighters amid the wreckage of a helicopter that crashed onto the roof of a Manhattan office building, June 10, 2019.

FDNY via Twitter


The helicopter took off at around 1:32 p.m. from the 34th St. heliport and crashed 11 minutes later, according to Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill. It’s unclear where it was headed.

The pilot, identified as Tim McCormick, was the only person aboard the helicopter. “McCormick is an experienced pilot and very well respected in the aircraft community,” said Paul Dudley, airport manager in Linden, New Jersey, where the helicopter flew out of. Dudley said he believes the helicopter must have had a mechanical problem and that McCormick was trying to land on top of the building to spare the people on the ground.

Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro said some fuel leaked from the crash but that it was no longer an issue.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo was on the scene shortly after the crash and told CBS New York that it appeared the helicopter tried to make an emergency landing on the roof.

“There was a helicopter that made a forced landing, emergency landing, or landed on the roof of the building for one reason or another,” Cuomo said. “There was a fire that happened when the helicopter hit the roof. … The fire department believes the fire is under control. There may be casualties involved with people who were in the helicopter.”

Cuomo also said the incident does not appear to be terror-related.

“If you’re a New Yorker you have a level of PTSD from 9/11 … so as soon as you hear an aircraft hit a building, I think my mind goes where every New Yorker’s mind goes. But there’s no indication that that is the case,” Cuomo said.

During a press conference, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio also stressed that it appeared to be an accident. “I want to say the most important thing first: There is no indication at this time that this was an act of terror and there is no ongoing threat to New York City based on all the information we have now.”

NYC mayor: No indication of terrorism in helicopter crash

The FAA issued a statement providing further details, including that the helicopter was an Agusta A109E. “FAA air traffic controllers did not handle the flight. The National Transportation Safety Board will be in charge of the investigation and will determine probable cause of the accident. We will release the aircraft registration after NYC officials will release the pilot’s name,” the agency said.

A view of 787 7th Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. A helicopter crashed on the building’s roof on June 10, 2019.

BRENDAN MCDERMID / REUTERS


“The building shook,” a man who said he worked on the 38th floor told CBS New York. “It sounded like a small engine plane at first then I just felt the building shake,” he said. 

Hundreds of people who worked in the building had to evacuate. 7th Avenue is closed to traffic and the NYPD advised people to avoid the area.

President Trump was briefed on the incident and lauded the emergency personnel who responded to the scene. “Phenomenal job by our GREAT First Responders who are currently on the scene,” the president said in a tweet.

Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/helicopter-crashes-into-midtown-manhattan-building-today-live-updates-2019-06-10/

WASHINGTON — Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean, who played a key role in the Watergate hearings in the 1970s, compared the findings in the Mueller report to Watergate on Monday as Democrats launched an ambitious wave of hearings and votes targeting President Donald Trump and his administration.

Dean, who has been critical of Trump’s actions in office, said the decision by former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn to turn down a subpoena to testify before the committee amounted to “perpetuating a cover-up,” adding that the report by Robert Mueller documenting Trump’s actions had highlighted several key areas calling for congressional intervention.

“Special counsel Mueller has provided this committee with a road map,” Dean said in his opening statement at the Monday afternoon hearing.

Earlier Monday, before Dean’s testimony, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., reached a deal with the Department of Justice over obtaining underlying evidence from the Mueller report related to possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

The House planned to vote Tuesday on a civil contempt resolution that would authorize Democrats, with the assistance of the House general counsel, to go to court and enforce subpoenas, including against McGahn. Separately, the measure includes language that would reaffirm the authority that House committee chairs have to expedite going to court to enforce their subpoenas.

And the House Intelligence Committee was expected to hold a rare open hearing Wednesday on the counterintelligence implications of the Mueller report, at which Stephanie Douglas and Robert Anderson, former executive assistant directors of the FBI’s national security branch, are scheduled testify.

The Democrats’ push began Monday with testimony from Dean, who in a brief appearance and eight pages of written testimony laid out six “illustrative” examples of parallels between the Mueller report and Watergate.

Dean wrote that while both Trump and Nixon were not found to have committed crimes, both the Russia probe and Watergate resulted in obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report, he wrote, “finds no illegal conspiracy, or criminal aiding and abetting, by candidate Trump with the Russians,” and during Watergate, he said, “I am aware of no evidence that Nixon was involved with or had advance knowledge of the Watergate break-in and bugging, or the similar plans for Senator McGovern.”

“Yet events in both 1972 and 2016 resulted in obstruction of the investigations,” he continued.

Dean told the panel that McGahn should testify before the Judiciary Committee. McGahn has defied a subpoena from Nadler to do so.

“First, he is a key witness in understanding the Mueller report. Secondly, I believe as an attorney, he has an ethical obligation to testify,” Dean wrote in his testimony. “I sincerely hope that Mr. McGahn will voluntarily appear and testify. His silence is perpetuating an ongoing cover-up, and while his testimony will create a few political enemies, based on almost 50 years of experience I can assure him he will make far more real friends.”

At the White House Monday, Trump dismissed Dean’s statement, telling reporters that the former White House counsel had “been a loser for many years.” He tweeted something similar shortly before the testimony began, adding that “Democrats just want a do-over which they’ll never get!”

Dean’s testimony on Mueller’s report Monday came in lieu of an appearance by the author himself. Mueller, who had been negotiating with the committee about providing testimony to Congress about his two-year investigation, recently made clear that he does not want or plan to speak further about the investigation.

Still, Nadler said last week that he was “confident” the special counsel will still come speak to Congress soon — and is prepared to issue a subpoena to compel him to do so, if necessary.

Other witnesses slated to testify at the hearing Monday included Joyce White Vance, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama; Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan; and John Malcolm, vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government and director of the Meese Center for Legal & Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/democrats-launch-trump-investigative-offensive-watergate-figure-john-dean-testimony-n1015876

CLOSE

President Donald Trump has called off plans to place tariffs on Mexico.
Buzz60

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back Monday against criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration deal with Mexico, calling it a “significant win” for the U.S.  He disputed reports that Mexico had already agreed to most of the provisions months ago, before last week’s frenzied negotiations

Pompeo also repeated President Donald Trump’s claim that there are other undisclosed elements of the agreement, but he declined to provide any specifics.

“There were a number of commitments made. I can’t go into them in detail here,” Pompeo told reporters in a hastily announced news conference Monday. 

Mexico’s foreign secretary Marcelo Ebrard said on Monday that there were no additional elements of the agreement.

Asked specifically about Trump’s assertion that Mexico had agreed to buy more U.S. agricultural products, Ebrard responded: “There is no agreement of any kind that hasn’t been made known. Everything I am saying was made known Friday.” 

In that 468-word deal announced Friday, Mexico agreed to increase security along its southern border with Guatemala, where many Central Americans are crossing into Mexico on their way to the U.S. Pompeo said Mexican officials promised to send 6,000 National Guard troops to stop those crossings, the largest such deployment. 

Mexico also agreed to expand a U.S. policy in which migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. will be sent back to Mexico to wait for their claims to be adjudicated, a process that can take months.

“I’ve seen some reporting that says that these countless hours were nothing, that they amounted to a waste of time,” Pompeo said in remarks at the State Department. 

The New York Times reported Saturday that Mexico had already agreed to most of the provisions outlined in Friday’s deal during previous rounds of negotiations. The news organization said, for example, that Mexico promised in December to let the U.S. deport more asylum-seekers back to Mexico until their asylum claims were adjudicated. 

Pompeo sharply rejected that report.

“The scale, the effort, the commitment here is very different from what we were able to achieve back in December,” he said. Friday’s deal “wouldn’t have happened” if Trump hadn’t threatened to impose an escalating series of tariffs on all Mexican imports, he said. 

Trump said on May 30 that he would impose a 5% tariff on all Mexican goods, starting June 10, unless the Mexican government stopped the flow of migrants to the U.S. border. Trump said he would increase those levies 5 percentage points each month, until they hit 25%.

“It’s what prompted this series of conversations,” Pompeo said of Trump’s tariff threat. 

Critics have said Trump created a crisis with the threatened tariffs and then “solved” it by signing off on a relatively modest agreement.  

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York called the deal “nothing more than warmed up leftovers.”  

“The president claims a bogus agreement with Mexico, which contains policies that Mexico volunteered to do months ago,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor Monday.

But Pompeo said Friday’s deal was “diplomacy at its finest.”

He said the U.S. had been sending about 200 asylum-seeks a day back to Mexico and under the new deal, the U.S. could send back “thousands” every day.

“We now have the capacity to do this full throttle … in a way that will make a fundamental difference in the calculus” for migrants hoping to come to the U.S., he said. 

The Trump administration had initially demanded that Mexico agree to be designated as a safe third-party country, which would have meant accepting asylum applications from thousands of Central American migrants.

Ebrard said Mexico rejected that. He did say the U.S. would re-evaluate the migration situation after 45 days, and they might hold broader talks with other countries to negotiate asylum policies across the region.

Contributing: correspondent David Agren

More: Trump is avoiding a crisis of his own making with US-Mexico migrant deal, critics say

More: Donald Trump rips U.S. Chamber of Commerce for attacking his tariff strategy

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/06/10/mexico-tariffs-pompeo-defends-immigration-deal-amid-criticism/1411749001/

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Monday that photos of travelers had been compromised as part of a “malicious cyberattack,” raising concerns over how federal officials’ expanding surveillance efforts could imperil Americans’ privacy.

Customs officials said in a statement Monday that the images, which included photos of people’s faces and license plates, had been compromised as part of an attack on a federal subcontractor.

CBP makes extensive use of cameras and video recordings at airports and land border crossings, where images of vehicles are captured. Those images are used as part of a growing agency facial-recognition program designed to track the identity of people entering and exiting the U.S.

CBP says airport operations were not affected by the breach, but declined to say how many people might have had their images stolen. CBP processes more than a million passengers and pedestrians crossing the U.S. border on an average day, including more than 690,000 incoming land travelers.

A CBP statement said the agency learned of the breach on May 31 and that none of the image data had been identified “on the Dark Web or Internet.” But reporters at The Register, a British technology news site, reported late last month that a large haul of breached data from the firm Perceptics was being offered as a free download on the dark web.

CBP would not say which subcontractor was involved. But a Microsoft Word document of CBP’s public statement, sent Monday to Washington Post reporters, included the name “Perceptics” in the title: “CBP Perceptics Public Statement.”

Perceptics representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

CBP spokeswoman Jackie Wren said she was “unable to confirm” if Perceptics was the source of the breach.

The breach raised alarms in Congress, where lawmakers have questioned whether the government’s expanded surveillance measures could threaten constitutional rights and open millions of innocent people to identity theft.

“If the government collects sensitive information about Americans, it is responsible for protecting it — and that’s just as true if it contracts with a private company,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement to The Post. “Anyone whose information was compromised should be notified by Customs, and the government needs to explain exactly how it intends to prevent this kind of breach from happening in the future.”

Wyden said the theft of the data should alarm anyone who has advocated expanded surveillance powers for the government. “These vast troves of Americans’ personal information are a ripe target for attackers,” he said.

Civil rights and privacy advocates also called the theft of the information a sign that the government’s growing database of identifying imagery had become an alluring target for hackers and cybercriminals.

“This breach comes just as CBP seeks to expand its massive face recognition apparatus and collection of sensitive information from travelers, including license plate information and social media identifiers,” said Neema Singh Guliani, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This incident further underscores the need to put the brakes on these efforts and for Congress to investigate the agency’s data practices. The best way to avoid breaches of sensitive personal data is not to collect and retain it in the first place.”

CBP said copies of “license plate images and traveler images collected by CBP” had been transferred to the subcontractor’s company network, violating the agency’s security and privacy rules. The subcontractor’s network was then attacked and breached. No CBP systems were compromised, the agency said.

It’s unclear whether passport or facial-recognition photos were included in the breach.

Perceptics and other companies offer automated license-plate-reading devices that federal officials can use to track a vehicle, or its owner, as it travels on public roads.

Immigration agents have used such databases to track down people who may be in the country illegally. Police agencies have also used the data to look for potential criminal suspects.

Perceptics, based in Tennessee, has championed its technology as a key part of keeping the border secure. “You want technology that generates data you can trust and delivers it when and where you need it most,” a marketing website says.

The company also said recently that it had installed license-plate readers at 43 U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint lanes across Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas, saying they offered border guards “superior images with the highest license plate read rate accuracy in North America.”

The federal government, as well as the group of private contractors it works with, has access to a swelling database of people’s cars and faces, which it says is necessary to enhance security and enforce border laws.

The FBI has access to more than 640 million photos, including from passports and driver’s licenses, that it can scan with facial-recognition systems while conducting criminal investigations, a representative for the Government Accountability Office told the House Committee on Oversight and Reform at a hearing last week.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he intended to hold hearings next month on Homeland Security’s use of biometric information.

“Government use of biometric and personal identifiable information can be valuable tools only if utilized properly. Unfortunately, this is the second major privacy breach at DHS this year,” Thompson said, referring to a separate breach in which more than 2 million U.S. disaster survivors had their information revealed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “We must ensure we are not expanding the use of biometrics at the expense of the privacy of the American public. “

Nick Miroff and Tony Romm contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/10/us-customs-border-protection-says-photos-travelers-into-out-country-were-recently-taken-data-breach/

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (KABC) — Charles “Chase” Merritt was found guilty of murder in the killing of a family of four, who disappeared in 2010 and were later discovered thee years later near Victorville.

Merritt is accused of killing the McStay family of four in 2010. The 62-year-old Merritt had pleaded not guilty to charges he murdered his business partner, Joseph McStay, his wife Summer, and the couple’s four and three-year-old sons.

The family vanished from their home in 2010 in Fallbrook. The remains of the family were discovered in two shallow graves in 2013 near Victorville. Merritt was arrested a year later.

A verdict was reached Friday by jurors, but it was not announced publicly until Monday.

Source Article from https://www.turnto23.com/news/state/southern-california-man-convicted-of-killing-family-of-four-family-found-buried-in-desert

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/10/us/helicopter-building-new-york/index.html

Republicans cheered the agreement. Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said “today’s good faith provision from the administration further debunks claims that the White House is stonewalling Congress.”

News of the deal also comes just hours before the committee is scheduled to convene the first of a series of hearings focused on the findings of Mr. Mueller’s obstruction of justice investigation — a much-anticipated session that underscores the Democrats’ dilemma in the wake of Mr. Mueller’s report.

Because the Trump administration has blocked relevant witnesses from testifying, Monday’s session will star John W. Dean, a former White House counsel who turned against President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate affair, and former federal prosecutors, who will assess the implications of the special counsel’s findings. The testimony is expected to be limited to the contents of Mr. Mueller’s 448-page report already voluntarily made public by Mr. Barr.

Weeks ago, the Judiciary Committee requested — and then subpoenaed — the full text of Mr. Mueller’s report without redactions, as well as all of the evidence underlying it. Mr. Barr initially refused and after negotiations broke down, Mr. Trump asserted executive privilege over all the material. Democrats then voted to recommend the House hold Mr. Barr in contempt.

But in recent weeks, the Justice Department appeared amenable to a proposed compromise that would give the committee access to F.B.I. interview summaries with key witnesses, contemporaneous notes taken by White House aides, and certain memos and messages cited in the report.

The more limited request outlined in recent weeks includes the F.B.I. summaries — called 302 reports — with Mr. McGahn, who served as a kind of narrator for Mr. Mueller as he assembled an obstruction case. Mr. Mueller ultimately concluded that Justice Department policy prevented him from contemplating charges against Mr. Trump and instead left action to Congress.

Democrats asked for summaries from interviews with Annie Donaldson, Mr. McGahn’s chief of staff; Hope Hicks, the former communications director; Reince Priebus and John F. Kelly, former White House chiefs of staff; Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s one-time fixer and personal lawyer; and Mr. Sessions, among others.

Democrats had also requested detailed notes taken by Ms. Donaldson about White House meetings and Mr. McGahn’s interactions with the president that proved pivotal for Mr. Mueller’s team, as well as notes taken by Joseph H. Hunt, Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff when he was attorney general. Other documents in the narrowed request included a draft letter justifying the firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director; a White House counsel memo on the firing of Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser; and other documents created by the White House.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/us/politics/mueller-judiciary-committee.html

Even as he again hailed his administration’s last-minute, much-heralded deal on Friday with Mexico as a “successful agreement” to address illegal immigration at the southern border, President Trump on Sunday bluntly suggested he might again seek to impose punishing tariffs on Mexico if its cooperation falls short in the future.

The president and other key administration officials also sharply disputed a New York Times report claiming the Friday deal “largely” had been negotiated months ago, and hinted that not all major details of the new arrangement have yet been made public.

In its report, the Times acknowledged that Mexico’s pledge to deploy up to 6,000 national guard troops to its southern border with Guatemala “was larger than their previous pledge,” and that Mexico’s “agreement to accelerate the Migrant Protection Protocols could help reduce what Mr. Trump calls ‘catch and release’ of migrants in the United States by giving the country a greater ability to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico.”

U.S. officials had been working to expand the migrant program, which already has led to the return of about 10,000 people, and said Friday’s agreement was a major push in that direction. Nevertheless, the Times, citing unnamed officials from Mexico and the U.S., reported that the concessions already had been hashed out in a more limited form.

WATCH: ACTING DHS SECRETARY DISPUTES NEW YORK TIMES REPORT, SAYS ‘ALL OF’ THE DEAL IS ‘NEW’

“Another false report in the Failing @nytimes,” Trump wrote. “We have been trying to get some of these Border Actions for a long time, as have other administrations, but were not able to get them, or get them in full, until our signed agreement with Mexico. Additionally, and for many years Mexico was not being cooperative on the Border in things we had, or didn’t have, and now I have full confidence, especially after speaking to their President yesterday, that they will be very cooperative and want to get the job properly done.”

That might have been a reference to discussions about Mexico becoming a “safe third country,” which would make it harder for asylum-seekers who pass through the country to claim refuge in the U.S. The idea, which Mexico has long opposed, was discussed during negotiations, but Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard has said his country did not agree to it, even as Mexican diplomats said negotiations on the topic will continue.

And, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” insisted “all of it is new,” including the agreement to dispatch around 6,000 National Guard troops — a move Mexico has described as an “acceleration.”

A Mexican Army soldier near an immigration checkpoint in Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, this past Saturday. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

“This is the first time we’ve heard anything like this kind of number of law enforcement being deployed in Mexico to address migration, not just at the southern border but also on the transportation routes to the northern border and in coordinated patrols in key areas along our southwest border,” he said, adding that “people can disagree with the tactics” but that “Mexico came to the table with real proposals” that he said will be effective, if implemented.

The agreement between the U.S. and Mexico headed off a 5 percent tax on all Mexican goods that Trump had threatened to impose starting Monday. The tariffs were set to rise to 15 percent on August 1, 2019, to 20 percent on September 1, 2019, and to 25 percent on October 1, 2019.

But, Trump suggested Sunday, the threat of tariffs is not completely removed.

“Importantly, some things not mentioned in [yesterday’s] press release, one in particular, were agreed upon,” Trump continued. “That will be announced at the appropriate time. There is now going to be great cooperation between Mexico & the USA, something that didn’t exist for decades. However, if for some unknown reason there is not, we can always go back to our previous, very profitable, position of Tariffs – But I don’t believe that will be necessary. The Failing @nytimes, & ratings challenged @CNN, will do anything possible to see our Country fail! They are truly The Enemy of the People!”

Democrats seeking to unseat President Trump in 2020, meanwhile, said the Times report was evidence that the administration merely was trying to save face, after Trump suddenly announced his plan for the tariffs less than two weeks ago, on May 30.

Bernie Sanders, for example, derided Trump on Sunday for purportedly picking unnecessary and economically costly fights with a variety of countries.

“I think what the world is tired of and what I am tired of is a president who consistently goes to war, verbal war with our allies, whether it is Mexico, whether it is Canada,” Sanders said.

But, in a tense moment on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sanders struggled when asked by host Dana Bash why he had called the situation at the southern border a “fake crisis” engineered by the White House.

“Immigration officials have arrested or encountered more than 144,000 migrants at the southern border in May, the highest monthly total in 13 years,” Bash began. “Border facilities are dangerously overcrowded; migrants are actually standing on toilets to get space to breathe. How is that not a crisis?”

Sanders responded that the president has been “demonizing” immigrants.

Beto O’Rourke, in a separate interview, conceded only that Trump may have helped accelerate the implementation of a previously existing arrangement.

“I think the president has completely overblown what he purports to have achieved. These are agreements that Mexico had already made and, in some case, months ago,” O’Rourke said on ABC News’ “This Week.” “They might have accelerated the timetable, but by and large the president achieved nothing except to jeopardize the most important trading relationship that the United States of America has.”

Mexican officials, meanwhile, insisted that they would remain engaged in active negotiations with the Trump administration.

“We want to continue to work with the U.S. very closely on the different challenges that we have together, and one urgent one at this moment is immigration,” Mexican diplomat Martha Barcena said Sunday.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

She told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that the countries’ “joint declaration of principles… gives us the base for the road map that we have to follow in the incoming months on immigration and cooperation on asylum issues and development in Central America.”

Barcena added that the U.S. wanted to see the number of migrants crossing the border to return to levels seen in 2018.

Fox News’ Bret Baier, Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-very-profitable-tariffs-mexico-deal-breakthrough

Trump says Facebook, Amazon and Google were colluding with…

In a live interview with CNBC, Trump addressed antitrust, saying, “obviously there is something going on in terms of monopoly.”

read more

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/10/trump-if-president-xi-does-not-attend-g20-more-china-tariffs-will-go-into-effect-immediately.html