Native Hawaiians have objected to construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope for years. On Monday, about 300 protesters arrived to block workers from accessing the site on a mountain believed to be sacred land.
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Native Hawaiians have objected to construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope for years. On Monday, about 300 protesters arrived to block workers from accessing the site on a mountain believed to be sacred land.
AP
About 300 demonstrators are trying to halt construction on the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope, developers of which are supposed to break ground on Hawaii’s Big Island this week.
Before the sun came up on the summit of Mauna Kea, the island’s tallest mountain, a group of about half a dozen protesters chained themselves to a grate in the road at the base of the dormant volcano in an attempt to block workers from accessing the only paved road onto the what they say is a sacred site.
Imai Winchester, a teacher from Oahu who was among the protesters chained to the road, said he arrived at about 3 a.m. local time.
“A handful of us committed ourselves to this action to bring light to the situation here,” Winchester told KHON. The goal of the civil disobedience, he said, is to inform people about the “desecration of our lands, the failure of the state and its agencies to properly manage something that is important.”
He added that he expected to be arrested for the nonviolent protest but that it is the group’s “burden as well as our privilege to show our children and the rest of the world how much we love our land.”
Daniel Meisenzahl, a spokesman for the University of Hawaii, a member of the international partnership of scientists behind the telescope, said it is unclear if the protest has delayed construction convoys.
The TMT, as it is called, has been the object of intense opposition for nearly a decade and the building project has faced numerous delays, protests and lawsuits. But a decision by the state’s Supreme Court in October cleared the way for construction to begin after reinstating a building permit that was revoked years earlier. And last week, Gov. David Ige announced several roads would be closed beginning Monday to allow for the movement of large equipment onto the mountain.
The giant telescope, which it is estimated will take 10 years to complete, will be the largest instrument of its kind in the Northern Hemisphere and one of the most expensive.
The consortium behind the TMT International Observatory includes the University of California and the California Institute of Technology as well as scientific institutes in Canada, Japan, China and India.
Despite its place in Native Hawaiian culture as hallowed ground that contains ahus — religious altars made of stones — and serves as burial grounds for many of the island’s ancestors, Mauna Kea’s summit is the ideal location for the powerful TMT, scientists say.
“Located above approximately 40 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, [Mauna Kea] has a climate that is particularly stable, dry, and cold; all of which are important characteristics for capturing the sharpest images and producing the best science,” TMT International Observatory said in a statement.
The extremely dry air near the summit and absence of clouds and light pollution from that vantage point on the mountain will allow for a revolutionary understanding of the universe, according to telescope developers. And, due to its size — “three times as wide, with nine times more area than the largest existing visible-light telescope in the world” — astronomers expect to gain new insights into the earliest galaxies that formed, peering “back in time to almost 13 billion years ago.”
The mountain is already home to 13 telescopes housed at a dozen separate facilities, although five of those are scheduled to be decommissioned by the time the TMT is completed. According to the University of Hawaii’s Meisenzahl, two telescopes are in the process of being dismantled and another two have been identified for removal in coming years. He added that a fifth telescope has yet to be selected for removal.
“Hawaii is a unique place,” Meisenzahl said, noting that protesters gathered on the mountain were engaging in a peaceful, nonviolent form of protest called Kapu Aloha. “It’s a small island and everybody knows each other so law enforcement and opponents are working together. Despite what is happening today it’s a positive environment,” he added.
The four progressive congresswomen of color targeted in a racist tirade by President Trump that elicited widespread condemnation — including from some Republicans — are slated to hold a joint news conference on Monday to address the commander-in-chief’s controversial remarks.
Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts are set to make their first televised public statements about the president’s comments during the event at the Capitol in Washington at 5:00 p.m. ET.
Although he did not name them, Mr. Trump on Sunday morning posted a series of tweets deriding “‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen,” alluding to Omar, Pressley, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib — who’ve been engaged in a intra-party dispute with Democratic leadership in the House, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, over various legislative efforts, including on immigration.
“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.”
“These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!” the president added.
During an event at the South Lawn on Monday, the president doubled down on his statements, saying the progressive foursome “hate our country.”
Trump defends tweets and says if lawmakers have problem with U.S., “they should leave”
The comments drew swift and scathing condemnation on Sunday from Democrats in Congress and those hoping to challenge Mr. Trump in the general presidential election next year. Like others in her party who accused the president of stoking racial animus, Pelosi called the remarks “xenophobic.”
The speaker announced on Monday that Democratic lawmakers in the House will be introducing a resolution to condemn the president’s racist attack. She urged her Republican colleagues to support it.
Some also pointed to the factual inaccuracies in Mr. Trump’s comments. He claimed that the four Democratic congresswomen “originally came” from foreign countries but only Omar was born outside the U.S. Pressley, an African American, was born in Ohio. Ocasio-Cortez, of Puerto Rican heritage, was born in New York. Tlaib, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, was born in Detroit.
Omar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in Somalia, a country she and her family fled from because of a civil war and ethnic strife. They stayed in a refugee camp in Kenya before settling in the U.S. when she was 10 years old, and she became a citizen at 17.
Although some Republicans refused to address the comments or demurred when asked about them, several GOP lawmakers publicly denounced Mr. Trump’s comments on Monday. Most, however, stopped short of calling them racist and made sure to note that they believe Omar, Pressley, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib are far-left Democrats who hold fringe views.
“I disagree strongly with many of the views and comments of some of the far-left members of the House Democratic Caucus – especially when it comes to their views on socialism, their anti-Semitic rhetoric, and their negative comments about law enforcement,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said in a statement. “But the President’s tweet that some Members of Congress should go back to the ‘places from which they came’ was way over the line, and he should take that down.”
During the budget year for 2009, there were 35,811 asylum claims, and 8,384 were granted. During the 2018 budget year, there were 162,060 claims filed, and 13,168 were granted, according to the Associated Press.
But prosecutors, citing what they called Mr. Epstein’s “yearslong scheme to sexually abuse underage girls” and his fortune of at least $500 million, have argued that Mr. Epstein would pose a danger to the community and might flee the country if granted bond.
The government had also said Mr. Epstein might try to obstruct justice if he were given bail. Prosecutors said that last year he wired $350,000 to two people who were potential witnesses against him at a trial.
Mr. Epstein’s lawyers said on Monday that the payment could have been “an act of generosity” to Mr. Epstein’s associates, and that government lawyers were unable to prove otherwise.
Mr. Epstein, 66, who faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted on the charges, has been held since his July 6 arrest in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan, a highly secure jail that has housed accused terrorists, mobsters and, recently, the Mexican drug lord El Chapo.
In 2008, Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges in Florida as part of a secret deal with federal prosecutors to satisfy a potential indictment on similar charges. He ended up serving a 13-month sentence in a local jail and avoided federal prosecution.
That deal was brokered by R. Alexander Acosta, a former United States attorney in Miami who resigned last week as President Trump’s Labor Secretary after public outrage over the Epstein agreement reached a fever pitch.
On Monday, defense lawyers for Mr. Epstein listed four additional Justice Department officials — two of whom now hold high-level government positions — who approved Mr. Epstein’s deal at the time.
Fox News Flash top headlines for July 15 are here. Check out what’s clicking on Foxnews.com
A 3-year-old boy was killed in a tragic accident when he fell into unsecured grease trap behind a New York Tim Horton’s on Monday.
Efforts to revive the boy were unsuccessful, said Rochester Police Department investigator Francis Camp who choked back tears as he told reporters that the incident was a “horrible, horrible unimaginable, unspeakable tragedy.”
The toddler had come to work with his mother, an employee at the donut shop on Union Ave. in Rochester, officials said. She called cops shortly before 11 a.m. moments after her son wandered away from her side.
Camp said “a witness” found the boy, who was not identified, within minutes and removed him from the grease pit.
That person administered CPR, as did police officers and paramedics, the investigator said. The boy was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Camp described the grease pit as similar to a manhole, just steps from the rear of the donut shop. The lid covering it was plastic.
“The lid gave way and he fell into the grease trap,” he said. “It looks like it was an unsecured lid.”
Reporters watched as officers tried to comfort distraught Tim Horton employees at the scene.
Investigators were working to determine the size of the grease trap, which is typically a steel tank used to keep fats, oils, and grease out of the sanitary sewer system, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reported.
“What occurred today was a tragedy and on behalf of the Tim Hortons family, we offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the young boy who passed away,” Tim Hortons said.
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway was intially blocked by the White House from appearing before the House Oversight Committee. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Elijah Cummings threatened to hold Conway in contempt if she doesn’t testify before July 25.
White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday defied a congressional subpoena, refusing to show up for testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee about her violations of the Hatch Act and prompting House Democrats to threaten to hold her in contempt of Congress.
In a letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the panel, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone asserted the Trump administration’s long-standing view that current and former presidential advisers are “absolutely immune” from congressional testimony, writing: “Ms. Conway cannot be compelled to testify before Congress with respect to matters related to her service as a senior adviser to the president.”
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“Because of this constitutional immunity, and in order to protect the prerogatives of the Office of the President, the president has directed Ms. Conway not to appear at the committee’s scheduled hearing,” Cipollone continued.
Cummings threatened to hold Conway in contempt of Congress if she does not honor the subpoena before July 25.
“This is a clear cut case. We are not requiring her to testify about advice she gave the president or about the White House’s policy decisions,” Cummings said before adjourning Monday’s hearing.
“We are requiring her to testify before Congress about her multiple violations of federal law, her waste of taxpayer funds, and her actions that compromise public confidence in the integrity of the federal government,” he added.
Conway is just the latest administration official to find herself a target of House Democrats’ investigations. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham slammed House Democrats, accusing them of trying to “harass” the White House with their myriad probes targeting the president and his administration.
“Today, Chairman Cummings and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee continued their purely political campaign to harass the president and his close advisors,” Grisham said. “Democrats continue to overreach and politicize the Office of Special Counsel — this time, by trying to silence Kellyanne Conway with ill-founded, phony allegations about the Hatch Act.”
Cummings issued the subpoena after the White House previously blocked Conway from appearing before the committee voluntarily.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the federal agency that oversees Hatch Act compliance, cited Conway last month for multiple violations of the 1939 law, which prohibits government employees from participating in political speech while performing their official duties. The Democrat-led Oversight Committee has been looking into the issue.
“This illegal activity — and the ongoing effort to cover it up — must not be allowed to stand,” Cummings said.
While Conway has publicly pushed back against the OSC’s claims that she violated the Hatch Act multiple times, she has not taken up the Oversight Committee’s invitations for her to give her side. Her failure to show up for a hearing last month led the committee to authorize Cummings to issue a subpoena to compel her testimony.
OSC chief Henry J. Kerner, a Trump appointee who previously served as a GOP staffer on the Oversight panel, testified before the committee last month, calling Conway a repeat offender of the Hatch Act. His formal report on Conway’s violations recommended that President Donald Trump fire her; Trump has instead defended Conway.
Republican lawmakers, too, have rushed to Conway’s defense, claiming that the Hatch Act unfairly restricts Conway’s free speech rights.
“This hearing is solely for the purpose of creating political theater,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the Oversight Committee.
In his report, Kerner said Conway violated the Hatch Act when she spoke multiple times about the 2020 presidential race, in addition to the Alabama Senate election in 2017.
“Ms. Conway’s advocacy against the Democratic candidates and open endorsement of the president’s re-election effort during both official media appearances and on her Twitter account constitute prohibited personnel activity under the Hatch Act,” Kerner wrote.
Tania and Joseph’s 3-year-old daughter, Sofia, plays with a car in the shade at a shelter in Juárez, Mexico, last week. Sofia has a serious heart condition and had a heart attack.
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Tania and Joseph’s 3-year-old daughter, Sofia, plays with a car in the shade at a shelter in Juárez, Mexico, last week. Sofia has a serious heart condition and had a heart attack.
Claire Harbage/NPR
At a Border Patrol holding facility in El Paso, Texas, an agent told a Honduran family that one parent would be sent to Mexico while the other parent and their three children could stay in the United States, according to the family. The agent turned to the couple’s youngest daughter — 3-year-old Sofia, whom they call Sofi — and asked her to make a choice.
“The agent asked her who she wanted to go with, mom or dad,” her mother, Tania, told NPR through an interpreter. “And the girl, because she is more attached to me, she said mom. But when they started to take [my husband] away, the girl started to cry. The officer said, ‘You said [you want to go] with mom.’ “
Tania and her husband, Joseph, said they spent parts of two days last week trying to prevent the Border Patrol from separating their family. They were aided by a doctor who had examined Sofi and pleaded with agents not to separate the family, Joseph and Tania said. [NPR is not using migrants’ last names in this story because these are people who are in the middle of immigration proceedings.]
Tania and Joseph said they spent parts of two days last week trying to prevent the Border Patrol from separating their family.
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Tania and Joseph said they spent parts of two days last week trying to prevent the Border Patrol from separating their family.
Claire Harbage/NPR
Morning Editionreported last week on the Honduran family, who were sent back to Juárez, Mexico, after crossing into El Paso in April. They are part of a Trump administration program called Migrant Protection Protocols — also known as “remain in Mexico” — which requires thousands of Central American migrants to wait in dangerous cities in northern Mexico while their immigration cases are handled by U.S. courts.
At a hearing on Wednesday, the family’s lawyer, Linda Rivas of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, asked that they be removed from MPP because of Sofi’s heart condition. The couple has two other children, a 9-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son.
Sofi’s chest bears the scar of an earlier surgery. Rivas presented evidence from a Mexican health clinic that the 3-year-old girl had suffered a heart attack, a revelation that seemed to stun Immigration Judge Nathan Herbert. The judge said he didn’t have the authority to remove the family from MPP but asked the Department of Homeland Security lawyer to take note of Rivas’ concerns.
On Thursday, Sofi was examined by a doctor working on contract for DHS, who told Border Patrol agents the girl had a serious heart condition, Rivas said. Tania and Joseph don’t remember the doctor’s name.
Sofi’s 6-year-old brother plays with other children at a shelter in Juárez last week.
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Sofi’s 6-year-old brother plays with other children at a shelter in Juárez last week.
Claire Harbage/NPR
“They spoke to me at around 3 or 3:30 p.m., and they told me: ‘Sign here, because we are giving you and your children permission.’ And I said, ‘I came with the children’s father,’ and he said, ‘Not him. Only you and your children.’ And the doctor said it’s important for the family to stay [together], and even the doctor said ‘They entered as a family and they have to leave as a family.’ “
The agent insisted on the separation and asked Sofi which parent she wanted to go with, Tania said.
“The doctor told me, don’t let them ask her because they don’t have the right to ask a minor,” she said.
The doctor stayed an hour after his shift ended at 9 p.m. Thursday trying to prevent the separation, Tania said.
When the three children realized the family faced separation, they latched on to Joseph — the son around his neck and a daughter around each leg, the parents said. Joseph was taken to another cell.
“I was going to be separated from my children and my wife, and I would have to go back to Juárez on my own,” Joseph said through an interpreter. “I felt devastated.”
The family’s fate was left unresolved Thursday night. The doctor returned Friday morning and made the case for keeping the family together to another Border Patrol agent, Tania said.
“He explained to the other officer that they all have to enter as a family. It was the morning shift officer. He replied, yes, he was going to give him [Joseph] entrance. He also said they were giving us different court dates and the doctor told him, no, that we had entered as a family and that they had to give us the same date to all,” Tania said.
The family was released on Friday to an El Paso migrant shelter and spent Saturday at a small Airbnb. On Sunday they flew from El Paso to join relatives in the Midwest.
Linda Rivas, executive director of Las Americas Immigration Advocacy Center, represents Tania and Joseph. Rivas asked the family be removed from Migrant Protection Protocols because of Sofi’s heart condition.
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Linda Rivas, executive director of Las Americas Immigration Advocacy Center, represents Tania and Joseph. Rivas asked the family be removed from Migrant Protection Protocols because of Sofi’s heart condition.
Claire Harbage/NPR
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to NPR’s questions about the family’s treatment while in Border Patrol custody or about the decision to remove them from MPP and allow them to stay in the U.S.
DHS guidelines say that people with “known physical/mental health issues” are exempt from MPP, but the Border Patrol twice sent Sofi and her family back to Juárez — the first time in April, then again in June after El Paso Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz brought the family to a port of entry and implored that they be allowed to stay in the United States because of the child’s illness.
The family fled Honduras after Tania witnessed her mother get killed. Her sister-in-law also was a witness and was later kidnapped, tortured and slain to keep her from testifying. The gang MS-13 then posted a note on the family’s door telling them they had 45 minutes to leave, Tania said. That’s when the family left to seek asylum in the U.S.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat whose office assisted the family in its efforts to be removed from the MPP program, said she is asking DHS to investigate allegations that the Border Patrol planned to separate the family and asked a 3-year-old girl to pick which parent she would go with.
“It’s an outrage, and it’s absolutely horrifying that a toddler would be asked to choose between two parents. It was just stunning to me. It’s one thing to read about it; it’s another thing to actually hear a parent recounting the story firsthand in their own voice,” Escobar said.
The family will pursue its asylum claim in U.S. immigration court.
“We cannot go back to Honduras,” Tania said. “We hope that the children could study here because in Honduras there are no opportunities for the children to go to school, for them to grow. We are honest people. We don’t want to harm anyone. We just want an opportunity.”
Mr. Trump said his “go back” comments to the lawmakers was a suggestion that the leave the country if they disliked America so much.
Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, and Patrick Toomey, of Pennsylvania suggested the president steer clear from personal attacks and instead focus on policy.
“We all know that A.O.C. and this crowd are a bunch of communists,” Mr. Graham said on Fox News. “They hate Israel, they hate our own country.” But he also pushed back against the president’s suggestion that the women are not American.
“They are American citizens,” Mr. Graham said. “They won an election. Take on their policies. The bottom line here is this is a diverse country.”
He added, “Mr. President, you’re right about their policies. You’re right about where they will take the country. Just aim higher.”
For months there has been a rift between Ms. Pelosi and the four lawmakers, and last week tensions grew when Ms. Pelosi pointedly said they had no following in Congress. The four lawmakers, who call themselves “the squad,” opposed a $4.6 billion aid package for the border, approved by Congress, because they said it supported Mr. Trump’s immigration policies.
The Trump administration announced Monday it will move to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants in the government’s latest major attempt to restrict the influx of migrant families coming to the United States.
The new rule says asylum-seekers at the southern border who pass through another country and do not seek asylum there will not be eligible for the protection in the U.S., according to a statement from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
As a practical matter, it means that migrants coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador cannot seek asylum if they didn’t first do so in Mexico. The rule would also apply to many other asylum-seekers who come to the U.S. southern border from other countries.
“Until Congress can act, this interim rule will help reduce a major ‘pull’ factor driving irregular migration to the United States and enable DHS and DOJ to more quickly and efficiently process cases originating from the southern border, leading to fewer individuals transiting through Mexico on a dangerous journey,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan said in the statement.
Attorney General William Barr called the interim final rule a “lawful exercise of authority provided by Congress to restrict eligibility for asylum.”
The change is a unilateral move by the Trump administration and has not been agreed to by Mexico. American officials were negotiating a similar deal with Guatemala, which would have required immigrants from El Salvador and Honduras to apply for asylum there. But that deal, and a meeting with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, was abruptly called off Sunday after the Guatemalan Constitutional Court ruled against the proposal.
The new rule is subject to three exceptions, according to the statement. The exceptions were for migrants who did apply for protection in at least one of the countries and were denied, migrants who demonstrate they meet the definition of a “victim of a severe form of trafficking in persons,” or came to the U.S. through only a country or countries that were not parties to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1967 Protocol, or the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The rule is set to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday and would be effective immediately, according to the statement.
It is likely to face a legal challenge from immigrant rights and civil liberties groups.In the past, federal judges have blocked other attempts by the administration to change the asylum policy, most notably the president’s effort to deny the protection to anyone who did not enter the U.S. through a legal port of entry.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Monday morning it would “sue swiftly” over the rule.
“The Trump administration is trying to unilaterally reverse our country’s legal and moral commitment to protect those fleeing danger,” Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project at the ACLU, said in a statement. “This new rule is patently unlawful and we will sue swiftly.”
Under U.S. and international law, a person may seek asylum based on persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. As a signatory to an international asylum treaty, the U.S. has a legal obligation to provide protection and certain rights to people who arrive at the border seeking asylum.
Administration officials said the immigration system has been swamped by asylum-seekers, with cases in immigration courts tripling between 2013 and 2018. But the number of people actually granted asylum is a small fraction of the total applicant pool.
The rule said it “mitigates the strain on the country’s immigration system by more efficiently identifying aliens who are misusing the asylum system to enter and remain in the United States rather than legitimately seeking urgent protection from persecution or torture.”
The move represents an escalation of President Donald Trump’s attempt to deter Central American families from coming to the United States to seek asylum. Earlier this year, the administration also enacted a policy forcing some migrants to wait in Mexico for the duration of their asylum cases. The administration has since been expanding the policy to force migrants to wait in multiple cities in Mexico.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke acknowledged Sunday that his ancestors, as well as his wife Amy’s, had owned slaves. O’Rourke wrote in a post on Medium that his paternal great-great-great grandfather enslaved two women in the 1850s. His maternal great-great-great grandfather, he added, “most likely” also owned slaves.
“I benefit from a system that my ancestors built to favor themselves at the expense of others,” O’Rourke wrote in the post. “That only increases the urgency I feel to help change this country so that it works for those who have been locked-out of — or locked-up in — this system.”
O’Rourke’s disclosure was made shortly before the publication of a report in The Guardian that detailed the former Texas congressman’s slave-owning ancestry.
Genealogy website Ancestry.com has “abundant documentation” of O’Rourke’s and his wife’s ancestors’ slave-owning and their support for the Confederacy, The Guardian reported, noting that O’Rourke is listed as a member of the site.
RELATED: Beto O’Rourke throughout his political career
**ADVANCE FOR MONDAY, OCT 31** El Paso City Representatives Steve Ortega, left and Beto O’Rourke pose with a backdrop of Downtown El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005. The two and three other colleagues, all political newcomers under 35, were elected this year to the El Paso city council. The group of young up-and-comers say they took on their public roles to make El Paso the kind of city it should be, the kind it has long struggled to become. (AP Photo/El Paso Times, Victor Calzada)
US Rep. Beto O’Rourke (R), D-TX, speaks during a meeting with One Campaign volunteers including Jeseus Navarrete (L) on February 26, 2013 in O’Rouke’s office in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGANWith the United States days away from billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, anti-poverty campaigners fear that reductions in foreign aid could potentially lead to thousands of deaths. The world’s largest economy faces $85 billion in cuts virtually across the board starting on March 1, 2013 unless the White House and Congress reach a last-minute deal ahead of the self-imposed deadline known as the sequester. While the showdown has caused concern in numerous circles, activists are pushing hard to avoid a 5.3 percent cut in US development assistance which they fear could set back programs to feed the poor and prevent disease. ‘The sequester is an equal cut across the board, but equal cuts don’t have equal impact,’ said Tom Hart, US executive director of the One campaign, the anti-poverty group co-founded by U2 frontman Bono. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
US Rep. Beto O’Rourke , D-TX, meets with One campaign volunteers on February 26, 2013 in O’Rouke’s office in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. With the United States days away from billions of dollars in automatic spending cuts, anti-poverty campaigners fear that reductions in foreign aid could potentially lead to thousands of deaths. The world’s largest economy faces $85 billion in cuts virtually across the board starting on March 1, 2013 unless the White House and Congress reach a last-minute deal ahead of the self-imposed deadline known as the sequester. While the showdown has caused concern in numerous circles, activists are pushing hard to avoid a 5.3 percent cut in US development assistance which they fear could set back programs to feed the poor and prevent disease. ‘The sequester is an equal cut across the board, but equal cuts don’t have equal impact,’ said Tom Hart, US executive director of the One campaign, the anti-poverty group co-founded by U2 frontman Bono. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. citizen Edgar Falcon, second from right, and Maricruz Valtierra of Mexico, second from left, laugh while El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke, right, and Judge Bill Moody, left, congratulate them after the couple was married at U.S.-Mexico border, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2013 in El Paso, Texas. Like many other couples made up of a US citizen and a foreigner, Falcon and Valtierra, who has been declared inadmissible after an immigration law violation, hope immigration reform will help them live together in the U.S. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca)
Congressman Beto O’Rourke, center, speaks at a new conference accompanied by Lillian D’Amico, left, mother of a deceased veteran, and Melinda Russel, a former Army chaplain, in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday, June. 4, 2014. A survey of hundreds of West Texas veterans conducted by O’Rourke’s office has found that on average they wait more than two months to see a Veterans Affairs mental health professional and even longer to see a physician. (AP Photo/Juan Carlos Llorca)
Democratic candidate for the US Senate Beto ORourke addresses his last public event in Austin before election night at the Pan American Neighborhood Park on November 4, 2018 in Austin, Texas. – One of the most expensive and closely watched Senate races is in Texas, where incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz is facing Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke, 46, whose given names are Robert Francis but who goes by Beto, is mounting a suprisingly strong challenge to the 47-year-old Cruz in the reliably Republican ‘Lone Star State.’ O’Rourke, a three-term congressman and former member of a punk band, is drawing enthusiastic support from many urban dwellers in Texas while Cruz does better in conservative rural areas.
Plucking the Senate seat from Cruz, who battled Donald Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, would be a major victory for the Democratic Party. (Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO / AFP) (Photo credit should read SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, left, and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, right, take part in a debate for the Texas U.S. Senate, Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018, in San Antonio. (Tom Reel/San Antonio Express-News via AP, Pool)
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Andrew Jasper, O’Rourke’s paternal great-great-great grandfather, enslaved two women named Eliza and Rose, both of whom were auctioned off in a “crying sale” after Jasper died, the report said.
Amy O’Rourke’s family had also owned several slaves, including ”‘one negro man called Peter,’ ‘a boy called Darsy,’ ‘a girl called Sally,’ a ‘negro man called Ned’ and ‘one other called Moses,’” the report added, citing a 1798 probate record.
O’Rourke told the outlet that he and his wife had known “nothing” about their families’ slave-owning past, and had been deeply troubled by the revelation.
“Amy and I sat down and talked through this,” O’Rourke said. “How Andrew was able, through his descendants, to pass on the benefits of owning other human beings. And ultimately I and my children are beneficiaries of that.”
O’Rourke, who has previously expressed support for reparations for descendants of slaves, reiterated this position on Sunday night.
“I will continue to support reparations, beginning with an important national conversation on slavery and racial injustice,” he wrote on Medium.
O’Rourke said it’s critical that Americans “know our own story as it relates to the national story.”
“It is only then, I believe, that we can take the necessary steps to repair the damage done and stop visiting this injustice on the generations that follow ours,” he said.
Last week, an NBC News report revealed that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s two great-great-great grandfathers had enslaved at least 14 people in Alabama in the 1800s.
“You know, I find myself once again in the same position” as Obama, McConnell said at a press conference when asked about the NBC report.
“We both oppose reparations, and we both are the descendants of slaveholders,” he said.
McConnell failed to clarify that while Obama is the descendant of slave owners, the former president also counts the first African slave in the American colonies as an ancestor, according to Ancestry.com; and while the Republican senator from Kentucky has dismissed reparations because, he said, “no one currently alive was responsible” for slavery, Obama has argued that it’s “hard to find a model” for reparations which could be effectively administered and would have political support.
President Trump Hosts the 3rd Annual Made in America Product Showcase on the South Lawn of the White House. #FoxNews
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PHILADELPHIA — Sen. Elizabeth Warren stole the show at Netroots Nation’s presidential forum, if only for the fact that she was the lone top-tier presidential candidate who showed up.
Warren, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Gov. Jay Inslee, and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro attended the presidential forum at Netroots, an annual gathering of nearly 4,000 progressive activists. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris, on the other hand, were noticeably absent.
“I don’t know why you’d cede that territory to a frontrunner,” Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas, a Netroots board member, told Vox. “Warren’s the one who made out like a bandit here. She gets the whole court, queen of the night.”
But to say the organized progressive activist community has decided on Warren as its nominee more than a year ahead of the 2020 presidential election would be premature. Netroots, usually a good litmus test of who the Democratic base is excited about in presidential cycles, was more muted and cautious than in past years.
Unsurprisingly, Warren was a clear favorite; she has been coming to Netroots since she was a Harvard Law School professor in charge of creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and she was welcomed with chants of “Warren! Warren! Warren!” as she took the stage. But conversations with several of the most prominent activists groups and progressive think tanks during the weekend events revealed that Warren doesn’t have the progressive wing sewn up yet. And while Sanders and Harris were absent, their surrogates and fans certainly were not. The same couldn’t be said for others like South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg or Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), however.
“You had the Buttigieg boomlet earlier this year and you might have thought that might have continued into a place like this, but it really hasn’t,” Neil Sroka, a spokesperson for progressive political action committee Democracy For America, said. “What’s pretty clear is it’s Bernie, it’s Warren, and maybe it’s Kamala.”
“Frankly, I think a lot of the people here are going to be making strategic decisions on who they vote for in the primary,” he said. “At the end of the day everyone here is committed to electing an inclusive populist champion for president.”
While attendees have yet to identify which of those three candidates is their favorite, it was clear the conference’s progressives had identified their enemy: Vice President Joe Biden, the frontrunner in the 2020 field. The weekend even featured a pop-up podcast titled “Why Joe Biden is the least electable major Democrat for president in 2020.”
“Nobody’s excited about Biden,” Moulitsas said bluntly. “He’s old, tired, and elite.”
Three names that matter: Warren, Harris, and Sanders
Bernie Sanders’s campaign co-chair Sen. Nina Turner, joined by local politicians, hospital workers and union members, protests the imminent closure of Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia.Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Seven months from when the first 2020 voters have a say in the Democratic primary in Iowa, progressives are winnowing down a deep field of candidates in a party that’s increasingly turned toward more left-wing ideals — from public health care to wealth taxes and free college proposals.
But at Netroots, only three names had any meaningful energy behind them: Sanders, Harris, and, of course, Warren.
Across the street from the Netroots convention on Thursday, Sanders’s campaign co-chair Nina Turner took the stage at a protest outside Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Hospital, a local institution that’s set to shutter in coming weeks. Among the protest’s attendees were local activists, physicians, and Netroots attendees showing solidarity with the movement. Sanders himself wasn’t in attendance, but it was a show of the political revolution he’s been trying to build a campaign around.
“With these hands we will save Hahnemann hospital, and with these hands we will elect Sen. Bernie Sanders as the next president of the United States of America,” Turner said to a crowd with raised arms chanting “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie.” Sanders is scheduled to rally at the hospital Monday.
Harris’s moment came through Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who has already endorsed the senator in the 2020 elections. Lee was honored as a voice to be listened to — a thought leader — as first-term Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar (MN), Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Deb Haaland (NM) showered her with praise. Lee’s message: that the progressive movement must fight for their candidate, “whoever she may be.”
Grassroots activists are a constituency Warren has been cultivating for more than a decade, since she created the CFPB and garnered a reputation for taking on big banks and corporations. When she took the stage at Philadelphia’s convention center, the crowd went wild. Notably, she was also the only candidate with a sustained protest happening in the middle of her speech, with immigration activists demanding to know whether Warren would give 11 million undocumented immigrants citizenship and reunite families. Warren offered her immigration proposal, which would do that.
Progressives are thinking about who can win
Biden’s lead in the polls means progressive activists are approaching their choices in the primary with some caution.
“I like both of them — Bernie and Warren — I trust both of them. Ultimately, it will be where are they in January or February of next year?” Sroka said. “Who is up and who is down?”
Warren’s biggest challenge is still with black voters, whom she is struggling with compared to Sanders, Harris, and Biden. A recent Morning Consult poll showed Warren netting just 7 percent of black voters who said she was their first choice, compared to 21 percent for Sanders and 16 percent for Harris (and Biden in the lead with 38 percent).
But there’s reason to believe Warren could grow her support with voters of color, She the People president and founder Aimee Allison said at the conference.
“We look at the impact of her speaking our language, calling out our community specifically in her policy prescriptions,” Allison told Vox. “That’s a winning combo.”
She said Harris not shying away from her own experiences as a woman of color and claiming her identity in front of a national Democratic audience is also a very appealing message. She added that while Sanders’s policies help uplift people, she believes the senator from Vermont still struggles with finding the language to describe the community.
“In our presidential forum, I cringed when Bernie Sanders used the word ‘minority,’” Allison said. “When you say minority, you unsee people of color. We are the majority in many of the states you have to win — Florida, Georgia, California, Arizona, Nevada.”
Last year’s Netroots was full of chatter about the Warren/Sanders divide in the progressive wing, but Sanders’s dominance didn’t seem assured this year. It was clear that Warren has staked her claim to Sanders’s base.
“At the end of the day, someone is going to go against Biden or Kamala, and if the socialist left fully ends up lining behind Bernie against Kamala, that’s going to be a longer-term problem for the socialist left,” Sean McElwee, with the progressive think tank Data for Progress, said. “You don’t want socialism to be seen as white male identity politics, and Warren is able to build a coalition.”
And Harris has emerged as a potential compromise for progressives — a negotiation that could be had.
Progressives have a clear enemy, but they don’t have a leader
Progressives may not know exactly who they want to be the Democratic nominee in 2020, but they know who they don’t want: Joe Biden.
Some activists at Netroots conceded they would support Biden in a general election if they had no other choice. But as far as exciting the base at Netroots, Biden seemed to represent everything attendees disdain, particularly because, despite clearly trying to capitalize on his ties to Obama’s progressive brand, Biden hasn’t made an effort to cultivate a progressive base.
“Biden is using a strategy of running out the clock,” said Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party. “There’s a number of forums and spaces he could place himself in, in order to be scrutinized by the grassroots. Our job is not to coronate the person that the Third Way and elite media decision-makers think is most electable.”
“Biden’s campaign headquarters is four blocks away, and the only person I have seen come here is his digital guy,” Sroka said. “The fact that they are not even working to try and make the argument to this community is the sign of a campaign that doesn’t get where the future of the party is.”
The Biden campaign would not comment on their presence at the conference.
Underscoring the theme of there being a top-tier group of three, some Netroots attendees were gifted a six-pack of craft beers by event organizers. Warren, Sanders, and Harris were the only presidential candidates with a beer named after them: There was the “Professor Warren Perfect Plan Pale Ale” (a “quasi-session beer”), the “Kamala’s California Common” (a lager), and the “Bernie’s Barleywine” (“Gritty’s favorite beer”).
Joe Biden and the group of other moderate white men running for president, however, were symbolized by the “Average Centrist White Guy Cream Ale” — “pale and not strong,” according to the beer guide handed out to attendees.
While progressives are only one segment of the Democratic electorate, Biden, and other candidates Netroots attendees were less than enthused about, could use their support. Particularly as it was progressives who helped energize the party’s base ahead of the 2018 midterm elections that saw Democrats retake the House of Representatives.
Washington (CNN)Immigrant rights advocates across the United States told CNN they saw few signs over the weekend of the ICE raids that Trump administration officials had warned would begin Sunday.
The raids are slated for Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco, a senior immigration official said. New Orleans is also on the list, but the city tweeted last week that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it would suspend operations through the weekend in areas hit by Tropical Storm Barry, which weakened to a tropical depression Sunday.
Accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is willing to post bail as high as $100 million, his lawyer said Monday, as a prosecutor argued that the case against the wealthy investor is “already significantly stronger and getting stronger every single day.”
Two accusers of Epstein also urged Judge Richard Berman at a detention hearing in Manhattan federal court to keep him locked up without bail, as prosecutors also are arguing.
Berman said he will wait until Thursday morning to decide whether to grant Epstein bail.
“Your honor, my name is Courtney Wild and I was sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein at the age of 14,” one of the accusers told Berman. “He is a scary person to have walking the street.” Wild said that she was abused by Epstein in Palm Beach, Florida.
The other accuser, Annie Farmer, told Berman, “I was 16 years old when I had the misfortune of meeting Mr. Epstein here in New York.”
“I want to voice my support” that Epstein not get bail, Farmer said. She said that Epstein “was inappropriate with me,” but declined to provide further details in court.
“We know they have found photos of young women in his home,” she noted, referring to what prosecutors have said was a “vast trove” of lewd photos of young women or girls that investigators discovered in Epstein’s New York residence.
Before the accusers spoke, assistant U.S. Attorney Alex Rossmiller said that a number of other witnesses contacted authorities after Epstein was recently indicted, and that prosecutors are trying to corroborate their allegations against him.
Rossmiller also revealed that investigators found in Epstein’s $77 million Manhattan townhouse a locked safe containing “piles of cash” and “dozens of diamonds,” as well as an expired passport dating to the 1980s from another country that has Epstein’s photograph on it — but with a different name and a stated residence of Saudi Arabia.
Rossmiller also said that “many, many photographs” of young-looking girls were found in the safe, and that the prosecutors have identified at least one person among them claims to be a victim of Epstein’s.
Epstein’s lawyer told a judge that he was authorized by Epstein to agree to whatever bail conditions the judge sets, even if he sets bail at a whopping $100 million.
The lawyer, Martin Weinberg, said that contrary to numerous media accounts, Epstein is not a billionaire.
Rossmiller fought back against a call by Epstein’s lawyers that he be released on bail and then confined, with few exceptions, to the Upper East Side townhouse, with round-the-clock monitoring by security paid for by Epstein, as well as an electronic tracking device.
“What the defendant is asking for here is special treatment, to build his own jail, to be limited in his own gilded cage,” Rossmiller said. “A person who needs these conditions should be detained.”
President Jimmy Morales has been under pressure from the US, but Guatemala’s constitutional court granted an injunction late on Sunday which effectively blocks him from signing the deal.
“Safe third country” agreements require migrants to seek asylum in the first country designated as “safe” they reach rather than proceed to a country of their choice.
Such a deal would affect the thousands of Hondurans and Salvadoreans who cross Guatemala on their way north to the US, who – under such a deal – would face being sent back to Guatemala, the first “safe” country they entered.
In its injunction, the court said that any such agreement would have to be approved by Guatemala’s Congress first, effectively tying President Morales’s hands.
Designating Guatemala as a “safe third country” has met with stiff opposition in the Central American nation with both of the candidates for president in the upcoming election rejecting it.
While Guatemalans say they fear becoming a “dumping ground” for migrants, human rights groups have pointed to Guatemala’s high levels of crime as a reason for it not qualifying as a suitable “safe third country”.
Media captionYazmin Juarez testifies about daughter’s death at US congressional hearing
On Sunday, the government issued a statement denying it had any plans to sign such a deal.
Only last month, Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart said Guatemalan officials were discussing such a “safe third country” agreement with the US – with US sources confirming such a deal was under discussion.
It is not clear whether the planned meeting between Mr Morales and President Donald Trump will take place anytime soon now that the deal is off the table.
Guatemala, as well as its southern neighbours, El Salvador and Honduras, have all been struggling to curb the flow of people leaving for the US.
The case of a Salvadorean migrant who drowned alongside his daughter trying to cross the Rio Grande prompted Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele to say his country had to do more to fix the problems forcing people to leave.
Media captionEl Salvador’s President Bukele: “It is our fault”
Democratic front-runner Joe Biden today will unveil a health plan that’s intended to preserve the most popular parts of Obamacare — from Medicaid expansion to protections for patients with pre-existing conditions — and build on them with a new government-run public insurance option.
Biden would also empower Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices, allow the importation of prescription drugs from abroad and extend tax credits to help tens of millions of Americans buy lower-priced health insurance.
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The plan — which the campaign says will cost $750 billion over a decade, to be paid for by reversing some of the Trump administration’s tax cuts — is less transformative than the “Medicare for All” proposal advanced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and supported by some other Democrats, which would effectively do away with private insurance and shift all Americans to government-run health care.
“I understand the appeal of Medicare for All,” Biden said in a video posted this morning. “But folks supporting it should be clear that it means getting rid of Obamacare. And I’m not for that.”
Progressives have argued that Democratic candidates should aim for Medicare for All because it protects the party from starting with — and settling for — a more incremental compromise. Democrats and former President Barack Obama previously supported a public option that could compete with private health plans before dropping it as part of negotiations around the Affordable Care Act.
On a call with reporters on Sunday, campaign staff stressed that Biden wouldn’t settle for a watered-down compromise as president and that his plan would help 97 percent of Americans get health coverage. Nearly 5 million Americans in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid would get premium-free access to Biden’s new public option, for instance.
“We’re starting with the Affordable Care Act as the base and going to insist on the elements that we sought last time,” said a senior Biden campaign official. “And we’ll get them this time.”
The Biden administration also would allow all shoppers on the individual insurance market to qualify for tax credits, which are currently capped at 400 percent of the federal poverty line.
Speaking with reporters, campaign staff slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to strike down the ACA in courtand also addressed Biden’s differences with rival candidates. Biden on Friday suggested that there would be “a hiatus of six months, a year, two, three” that would put patients at risk if Democrats pursued Medicare for All — a claim that Sanders swiftly attacked as “misinformation.”
In response to POLITICO’s questions, Biden’s campaign said the former vice president was emphasizing the need for immediate action.
“We can’t afford the years it will take in order to write and maybe pass Medicare for All,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. “A stop in progress is unacceptable. That’s why the Biden Plan builds on Obamacare and works toward achieving universal coverage as soon as possible.”
Health policy experts said that Biden’s coverage plan appears to be more politically feasible than Sanders’ proposal.
“Building on the ACA is the quickest way to get more people insured and improve affordability, while not taking on any powerful health industry group or disrupting coverage for those who already have it,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president of health policy for the Kaiser Family Foundation. But incremental improvements to the ACA would leave “an inefficient and costly health care system in place,” Levitt added, preserving high prices and high deductibles for the roughly 160 million Americans with employer-based health coverage.
Biden also will announce new ideas to combat the nation’s high drug prices. Pointing to lessons learned from his signature cancer initiative, the former vice president says he’ll have the Department of Health and Human Services establish an independent review board that will link the price of new specialty drugs to the average price in other countries. His plan also calls for capping most drug price increases at the rate of inflation.
Meanwhile, Biden would seek to expand access to abortion and contraception, reiterating his recent calls — like those of other Democratic candidates — to enshrine Roe v. Wade in federal law and restore federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Biden’s plan also takes aim at health care providers, suggesting that he’ll try to tackle problems like unexpected large medical bills and health care market concentration, although the details released by the campaign are sparse. Biden also would double investment in community health centers, arguing that the centers help reach underserved populations.
Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke revealed Sunday he was recently given documents showing he and his wife, Amy, are descendants of slave owners.
O’Rourke, a former congressman from Texas, wrote in a Medium post that the legacy of slavery “now has a much more personal connection.”
O’Rourke said his paternal great-great-great grandfather owned two slaves, Rose and Eliza, in the 1850s, and someone who could be his maternal great-great-great grandfather owned slaves in the 1860s. Documents also show O’Rourke’s wife has an ancestor who owned slaves and another who was a member of the Confederate Army.
“I benefit from a system that my ancestors built to favor themselves at the expense of others. That only increases the urgency I feel to help change this country so that it works for those who have been locked-out of — or locked-up in — this system,” he wrote.
“As a person, as a candidate for the office of the Presidency, I will do everything I can to deliver on this responsibility,” he continued.
The disclosure comes after the Guardian contacted O’Rourke about his family’s ties to slave holders. O’Rourke told the news outlet that he and his wife had not previously known that part of their families’ histories.
O’Rourke said he continues to support reparations for the descendants of slaves, which has gained popularity among Democratic candidates.
“We all need to know our own story as it relates to the national story, much as I am learning mine. It is only then, I believe, that we can take the necessary steps to repair the damage done and stop visiting this injustice on the generations that follow ours,” O’Rourke wrote.
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