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Just in time for the Fourth of July, Nike and washed-up footballer Colin Kaepernick have joined forces in an America-bashing cavalcade. The enormous sportswear company planned to release a new red, white, and blue sneaker adorned with American Revolutionary Betsy Ross’ 13-star flag, this country’s first banner.

However, Kaepernick complained to Nike that this all-American symbol is – what else? – racist. “After images of the shoe were posted online, Mr. Kaepernick, a Nike endorser, reached out to company officials saying that he and others felt the Betsy Ross flag is an offensive symbol because of its connection to an era of slavery,” the Wall Street Journal reported.

So, Nike decided that they could not just do it. They scrapped the new product and, in turn, igniting a fresh national controversy.

NIKE DROPPED BETSY ROSS-THEMED FOURTH OF JULY SNEAKER AFTER COLIN KAEPERNICK COMPLAINED, REPORT SAYS

For starters, why is anyone listening to this creep?

Kaepernick is one of the most divisive people in this country. He started the “take-a-knee” movement that had Americans shouting at each other for perhaps 18 months or more. Rather than set aside our differences and unify ourselves through “The Star-Spangled Banner,” he chose to pit Americans against each other over one of the few things that hold us together.

Shame on him!

This punk has not played football since 2016. And he didn’t distinguish himself much, at that. I know nothing about football, and the less I learn about it, the better. What I do know is, rather than play ball, he created massive migraines for the entire NFL. When he got other players to take to their knees during the national anthem before games, he sent ratings into a tailspin as revolted fans clicked off their HDTVs. No wonder team owners dodged him like the measles.

If this bum has a problem with Betsy Ross’ 13-star flag and the original 13 colonies, then, as Brian Kilmeade observed Tuesday morning on “Fox & Friends,” Kaepernick has a problem with today’s American flag. It has 13 stripes, which also represent our original 13 colonies and the first 13 American states. So, Kaepernick’s fight is with any and every American flag created since 1776.

Disgusting!

As for Nike, shame on this corporate giant for caving into this loudmouth. Nike should have ignored Kaepernick and sold these shoes to the millions of Americans who love this country, rather than knuckle under to the rants of this solitary anti-American, tattoo-encrusted loser.

The only person to escape favorably from this needless mess is Gov. Doug Ducey, R-Ariz.

“Words cannot express my disappointment at this terrible decision,” Ducey said today via Twitter. ”I am embarrassed for Nike. Nike is an iconic American brand and American company. This country, our system of government and free enterprise have allowed them to prosper and flourish.”

“Instead of celebrating American history the week of our nation’s independence, Nike has apparently decided that Betsy Ross is unworthy, and has bowed to the current onslaught of political correctness and historical revisionism,” Ducey added. “It is a shameful retreat for the company. American businesses should be proud of our country’s history, not abandoning it.”

“Nike has made its decision, and now we’re making ours,” Ducey continued. “I’ve ordered the Arizona Commerce Authority to withdraw all financial incentive dollars under their discretion that the State was providing for the company to locate here.”

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Ducey concluded: “Arizona’s economy is doing just fine without Nike. We don’t need to suck up to companies that consciously denigrate our nation’s history…And finally, it shouldn’t take a controversy over a shoe for our kids to know who Betsy Ross is. A founding mother. Her story should be taught in all American schools. In the meantime, it’s worth googling her.”

Down with Kaepernick! Up with Ducey!

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY DEROY MURDOCK

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/deroy-murdock-nike-steps-on-its-own-shoelaces-in-latest-kaepernick-fiasco

Taken alone, that step does little to bring Iran closer to the potential development of a nuclear weapon. And the stockpile could easily be reduced to compliance by shipping the excess abroad. But the violation of the 2015 agreement nonetheless served as a warning that the pact itself was in imminent danger.

In response, top diplomats from the European Union, Britain, France and Germany released a statement on Tuesday warning that they were “extremely concerned” and that “our commitment to the nuclear deal depends on full compliance with Iran.“

“We are urgently considering next steps” under the terms of the 2015 agreement, the Europeans said, though they did not elaborate.

Mr. Rouhani’s statement on Wednesday appeared to rebuff those warnings, setting the stage for Iran to resume production of more highly enriched uranium.

The Iranians have said they are trying to preserve the nuclear deal, but they have expressed increasing impatience with the Europeans’ requests that Tehran abide by the 2015 agreement — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or J.C.P.O.A., — long after the Trump administration stamped it a dead letter.

“Iran is committed to the full implementation of the #JCPOA: as long as E3/EU implement THEIR economic commitments,” Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, wrote on Twitter late Tuesday night, referring to the European Union and its three signatories to the deal, Britain, France and Germany.

“So moving forward, Iran will comply with its commitments under the JCPOA in exactly the same manner as the EU/E3 have — and will — comply with theirs,” Mr. Zarif added. “Fair enough? “

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Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/world/middleeast/iran-uranium-enrichment-rouhani.html

President Donald Trump on Wednesday branded as “fake” news reports his administration was dropping plans to ask people if they are U.S. citizens on the 2020 census — despite officials in his own administration having said on Monday that the question will not be asked. 

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and a Justice Department lawyer had both said Monday that the Census Bureau is in the process of printing the census questionnaire without the citizenship question.

Their statements came four days after a Supreme Court decision that effectively blocked the question being added to the 2020 census questionnaire.

The high court ordered the case challenging the question to be reconsidered by a lower court, leaving the Commerce Department with little or no time to have the dispute settled legally before this past Monday’s deadline for printing the questionnaires.

But Trump, in a tweet Wednesday, said, “The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE!”

“We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question,” Trump wrote.

Trump’s use of the word “quest” echoed its use by The New York Times on Tuesday in its lead paragraph of a story that said the Trump administration, “in a dramatic about-face, abandoned its question to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.”

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s query as to wherther the census form will ask the citizenship question.

A Census Bureau spokesman referred questions about the president’s tweet to the Commerce Department, which did not immediate respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration’s plan to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census had been controversial since it was first announced in March 2018. In addition to that question, the Census Bureau at the time said that respondents would be asked how many people live in their residences, and those persons’ ages, sexes, Hispanic origin, race, relationship and homeownership status.

Critics of the citizenship question say it would reduce the census’s accuracy, and undercount minority populations, including immigrants.

An undercount of those groups in turn could affect the allocation of billions of dollars worth of federal funds, whose distribution often is related to census data. An undercount also could affect how district seats in the House of Representatives are drawn.

A citizenship question has not been posed to all U.S. households in decades.

On Tuesday, Ross, in a statement had said, “I respect the Supreme Court but strongly disagree with its ruling regarding my decision to reinstate a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.”

“The Census Bureau has started the process of printing the decennial questionnaires without the question. My focus, and that of the Bureau and the entire Department is to conduct a complete and accurate census,” Ross said.

Also Tuesday, a Department of Justice lawyer, in an email to legal challengers of the citizenship question, wrote, “”We can confirm that the decision has been made to print the 2020 Decennial Census questionnaire without a citizenship question, and that the printer has been instructed to begin the printing process.”

Democrats had celebrated that day the Trump administration’s apparent decision to abandon the controversial question for the upcoming census.

“Today’s decision is a welcome development for our democracy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at the time.

“House Democrats will be vigilant to ensure a full, fair and accurate Census.”

A spokesman for Pelosi did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for a statement on Trump’s tweet

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif. on Wednesday cited the Justice Department lawyer’s statement in a tart response to Trump’s new tweet.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/03/trump-says-absolutely-moving-forward-with-census-citizenship-question.html


AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Analysis

Other presidents have celebrated the Fourth. It’s hard to think of one who has less sense of what it’s about.

July 03, 2019

Jeff Greenfield is a five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst and author.

Since President Donald Trump announced his proposal for a military display and presidential speech on the National Mall, Trump’s critics across the political spectrum, have reached a consensus: The president’s intrusion into Independence Day is a hijacking. New York Times columnist Michelle Cottle complains that Trump is “trampling a longstanding tradition of keeping these events nonpartisan — apolitical even — and focused on bringing the nation together.” The same sentiment came from the Washington Post’s editorial page, and from conservative Trump skeptics like radio host Charlie Sykes and former GOP Congressman David Jolly.

It’s true that the president has upended many of the traditions of the celebration; the location of the fireworks have been moved; the president has demanded a heavy military presence, including tanks in the streets of Washington, and he plans to deliver a speech in front of a crowd where the choicest locations will be reserved for ticket holders, a feature somewhat at odds with Trump’s rhetorical scorn for the elites and D.C. insiders.

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By one measure, the criticism is overwrought. There have been presidents who’ve appeared during celebrations at the Capitol, most recently Harry Truman in 1951. President Richard Nixon offered up a videotaped speech aired on the Mall in 1970; other presidents, including Calvin Coolidge and John Kennedy, traveled to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall to mark the occasion. (If you want one measure of how far we have traveled since JFK’s time, note that he devoted much of his speech to celebrating the emerging European Union: “The United States looks on this vast new enterprise with hope and admiration,” JFK said “We do not regard a strong and united Europe as a rival but as a partner.”)

As for the parade—well, if Trump wants military armored vehicles to accompany the flyover by the Navy’s Blue Angels, stealth fighters and Air Force One, maybe he’s just trying to emulate Thomas Jefferson, who watched a military parade from the White House back in 1801, rather than the celebrations of military might more common to Moscow and Pyongyang.

And if Trump takes the opportunity to play politics with the speech, something he can rarely resist, it’s worth keeping in mind that political parties have been using the Fourth of July celebrations as platforms ever since our first parties, the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, began holding separate Independence Day events in several locations back in the 1790s.

Celebrations of the Fourth do not tend to benefit both parties equally, and here, Trump may well be demonstrating his instinctive grasp of which way a big event tends to nudge the populace. In 2011, two academics who studied the political effect of Fourth of July festivities concluded that: “Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party. … The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century, [so] there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican Party.”

So, yes, there’s been plenty of ground laid for the kind of thing Trump plans to do.

For all that, history also suggests there’s good reason that his plan is rubbing people the wrong way. For one, it really is rare; it’s far more common for presidents to vacate Washington on the Fourth of July, or to remain at the White House, than to insert themselves into the proceedings.

And on a more troubling level, what Trump is doing is wreathing himself in the most potent symbols of American history—delivering a speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, site of the 1963 March on Washington, looking across at a landscape of monuments—without any appreciation for the history that made that whole landscape possible. Perhaps uniquely among American presidents, he sees himself without any connection to the American story, any link to presidents past, other than his manifest superiority to any of them.

Someone who can say of himself that he has been treated worse than any president in history—four of whom were assassinated—has an impressively unique understanding of his own role in the American story, to say the least. He has rarely if ever reached back to his predecessors to find any kind of meaningful historical connection, especially the kind that would reach across lines of party and ideology to find common national ground on a day like the Fourth. Kennedy often reached back to the first generation of American political leaders; Ronald Reagan quoted FDR and JFK in many of his addresses.

Trump prefers to think of himself as the lone, overarching figure who can bend history to his will. “I alone can fix it,” he said in his 2016 acceptance speech. Neither that speech, nor his inaugural, invoked the name of any past leader. He appears to believe that the American economy turned 180 degrees on the day of his inauguration, rather than moving on the same upward trajectory it had been on for the better part of a decade. Nor is he bound by the restraints that have guided his predecessors in understanding when partisan politics ought to give way to more unifying themes.

This is, after all, a president who went to a CIA commemoration of its fallen agents and bragged (falsely) about the size of his inaugural audience and the number of times he appeared on the cover of Time magazine. This is the president who has repeatedly made blatantly political arguments in speeches to different branches of the military, when his long line of predecessors as commander in chief all somehow managed to observe the bright line between national leadership and partisan brawling.

There’s also a more personal dimension to the Trumpification of the Fourth. Throughout his presidency, he has taken outsize delight in over-the-top celebrations and honors given him by foreign governments, a delight that seems to translate into bizarre foreign policies. Receive the Gold Medallion from Saudi Arabia, and you brush aside the kingdom’s murder and dismemberment of an American resident. Enjoy lavish banquets in China, and the brutal crackdown on a million Uighurs goes unmentioned. Get a “beautiful letter” from Kim Jong Un and maybe North Korea can keep its nukes. (And would you really be totally shocked if Kim showed up at the White House to help Trump celebrate the Fourth?)

Trump has been obsessed by the idea of a massive military parade ever since attending the Bastille Day celebration in Paris two years ago, first ordering up a Veterans Day parade for 2018 that was canceled only after the price tag proved embarrassingly high. For someone who literally cannot grasp the possibility that more people voted for his opponent than him, or that fewer people came to his inaugural than his predecessor’s, it is not much of a reach to imagine that in the president’s mind he will see the flyovers and the fireworks as a nation paying tribute to the greatness of a man, rather than the other way around.

It is true that, on some public occasions, Trump has been able to subordinate this vanity to a sense of occasion, at least in his literal words. His speech in Normandy at the 75th anniversary of D-Day was an unexceptionable tribute to the men who stormed the beaches, although a different White House might have thought better of staging an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in front of a graveyard filled with the bodies of those men. He has delivered State of the Union speeches without describing Democrats in the House chamber as treasonous, or the media in the press sections as enemies of the people.

What remains unsettling, however, is the thoroughly reasonable conviction that when the president delivers such homilies, he has no real connection to those words. At any moment, it’s plausible to expect that the id will drive the superego from the podium, and the explosion of grievance, self-pity and rage will erupt—dominating a day that has in recent times been free of political division.

To be fair, however, that would not be the worst result of a presidential Fourth. Back in 1845, President James Polk presided over a fireworks display at the White House. During the festivities, 12 rockets were accidentally fired into the crowd, and two people were killed. If the worst thing that happens tomorrow is just a speech, we can be thankful for small favors.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/03/fourth-of-july-donald-trump-military-display-national-mall-227263

July 3 at 7:17 AM

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday warned that Iran would increase its enrichment of uranium this weekend to whatever level was needed beyond the cap set by the nuclear agreement, a move that could add to an escalation with the United States. 

Iran has repeatedly threatened to increase enrichment above the 3.67 percent level allowed under the nuclear deal by July 7 unless it receives some relief from U.S. sanctions. European countries are struggling to meet Tehran’s demands to keep the 2015 nuclear deal alive. 

“Our enrichment rate is not going to be 3.67 percent anymore,” Rouhani said. “It’s going to be as much as we want it to be.”  

Rouhani’s comments, carried by the state broadcaster, came after Iran on Monday breached the 300 kilogram (660 pound) limit for low-enriched uranium allowed under the deal. 

That move did not put Iran significantly closer to holding enough high-enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon, whereas increasing uranium enrichment levels could reduce its so-called “break out” time to make that possible. 

Uranium enriched at low levels is suitable for fuel in a nuclear reactor but if it is enriched to much higher levels, around 90 percent, it can be used as fissile material in a nuclear weapon. 

Iran has previously said it plans to raise enrichment to 20 percent — the level it possessed in its stockpile before the deal. That move would mean Tehran could jump to producing weapons-grade uranium more quickly.   

Experts estimate that before the nuclear deal the amount of time that Iran needed to be able to have enough material for a nuclear bomb was around two or three months, with the accord increasing that time period to around a year.

Iran argues that it should no longer be bound by the limits of the deal if it does not also benefit from the sanctions relief that the 2015 agreement promises in exchange. Since withdrawing from the deal last year the United States has reimposed sanctions, which has also made it difficult for European companies to trade with Iran. 

In the early hours of Wednesday morning President Trump tweeted that Iran had been “violating” the nuclear deal “long before I became President,” without providing any evidence for his assertions. “And now they have breached their stockpile limit,” he concluded. Not Good!”  

Inspectors from the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, tasked with verifying whether Iran was sticking to the deal, had said it was compliant until Monday, when Iran said it was breaking the stockpile limit.

The unraveling of the 2015 deal comes against the backdrop of increased friction in the Persian Gulf, as analysts say that Tehran is determined to show strength in the face of increasing U.S. sanctions. Trump said he came close to carrying out strikes against Iran late last month after it shot down an American surveillance drone. 

The United States has also pointed the finger at Tehran for explosions caused by limpet mines on petrochemical tankers in the Gulf of Oman, a charge Iran denies. Oil infrastructure has also been attacked in Saudi Arabia and rockets have been fired at U.S. bases in Iraq, where Iran backs numerous Shiite militias. 

Rouhani said the position of the United States with regards to the nuclear deal was contradictory. Trump repeatedly criticized the nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, describing it as “bad” and “rotten” before withdrawing from it last year, but U.S. officials have since criticized Iran for reducing its commitments under it.  

“It’s interesting that until today the U.S. was referring to the JCPOA as a bad agreement, but now that Iran has decided to distance itself from this ‘bad agreement’ their shouts and cries are spread all over the world,” Rouhani said. 

As sanctions cripple its economy, Iran took the largely symbolic step of crossing the 300 kilogram threshold on Monday. Holding to its threat of increasing enrichment levels of uranium to beyond 3.67 percent would be seen as a much more serious breach of the deal, and one that could finally kill it by triggering Europe to reimpose its own sanctions. 

Before the nuclear deal, Iran had been building a heavy water reactor at Arak which experts deemed a high proliferation risk that could give Iran the capacity to produce weapons-grade plutonium. The nuclear deal required Iran redesign the plant and pour concrete into the pipes of the reactor’s calandria, or core. “If you don’t comply with your commitments, the reactor will return to its previous situation,” Rouhani said.  

The nuclear deal “is either good or bad,” said Rouhani. “If its good, everyone should comply to their commitments,” he said. “Comparing your level of commitment to ours, how do you even allow yourselves to object?” 

In an effort to keep Iran in the deal, European countries have attempted to set up a trading system that would shield European companies from U.S. sanctions when trading with Iran. But Iran has said the Instex trading system falls short of their expectations, which include being able to sell oil. Washington has threatened any country buying Iranian oil with sanctions. 

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iranian-president-warns-tehran-will-takenext-step-and-increase-enrichment-on-sunday/2019/07/03/2014e944-9d01-11e9-83e3-45fded8e8d2e_story.html

As the president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing 16,000 Border Patrol agents, I am personally and professionally offended by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrageous, inflammatory and false claims about the dedicated law enforcement officers I represent.

Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., once again tweeted Tuesday to describe our detention facilities for illegal immigrants as “concentration camps” – absurdly comparing these facilities to the death camps run by the Nazis who murdered 6 million Jews and millions of others during World War II.

This is a horrible insult to the memories of the innocent men, women and children slaughtered by the Nazis, and to our Border Patrol agents – implying that our agents are no different from the Nazi butchers. The outrageousness of this vicious slander is breathtaking – especially coming from a member of Congress.

OCASIO-CORTEZ REPEATS ‘CONCENTRATION CAMP’ COMPARISON, DESPITE CRITICISM OVER REMARK

I am disgusted by Ocasio-Cortez’s lies and her determination to needlessly and dangerously inflame public sentiment regarding the crisis on our southern border by abandoning facts and making wild and unsupported accusations.

The congresswoman is clearly using phrases designed to enrage the uninformed and to pander to a base that wants open borders and unlimited illegal immigration.

Ocasio-Cortez made an outrageous claim this week about a woman being told to drink toilet water in a detention facility. This false claim is easily disproven with actual video.

Ocasio-Cortez is basing her claim on a single female detainee who reportedly told the congresswoman that an agent told her to “drink toilet water.” That’s it.

The congresswoman is clearly not on a “fact-finding” mission – she is on a propaganda mission. She made up her mind long before visiting a detention facility in Texas that Border Patrol agents are bad people. And she obviously believes that all illegal immigrants are innocent victims, and that photo ops and lies can help her spread her propaganda to an uninformed public.

Instead, Ocasio-Cortez is playing politics with illegal immigrants. She seeks to raise her profile higher in the media and portray herself as the champion of the detainees – when she is in fact working against their best interests.

Ocasio-Cortez plays off people’s emotions. She is on record as saying facts don’t matter as long as she is “morally right.” Enough said.

I don’t use the word “propaganda” lightly. But it is widely understood to mean spreading information that is not true, but rather used to influence people and further an agenda while appealing to emotions. That is exactly what Ocasio-Cortez does.

I prefer using facts. The facts do not support Ocasio-Cortez. Detainees have never been told to drink toilet water. And Border Patrol agents are doing everything in their power to treat the illegal immigrants as humanely as possible under overcrowded conditions.

I find it interesting that every time Ocasio-Cortez is found to be wrong about something – and that’s quite often – she simply doubles down and redirects with new “information.”

In this case, when presented with facts about drinking fountains in jails being connected to toilets – with separate water lines – she says “yes, the drinking fountains are attached to the toilets, but the drinking fountains weren’t working.” This is not true and easily debunked with facts. Almost every facility we have is blanketed with video cameras.

Border Patrol agents have been vilified by some politicians and many in the mainstream media for decades, and 99 percent of the time this criticism is unfair and completely inaccurate.

By comparing Border Patrol agents to Nazis, Ocasio-Cortez is trying to dehumanize us. Interestingly, this is the same thing she accuses us of doing with the thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants we are charged with arresting, detaining and caring for

Border Patrol agents do not drag thousands of innocent children across the border. We don’t risk their lives by exposing them to harsh weather and circumstances no child should be exposed to. Those deeds are carried out by their parents, relatives and the ruthless coyotes who profit from human misery.

We don’t write the immigration laws – Congress does. We don’t determine how much money and manpower we get to enforce those laws – Congress does.

Ocasio-Cortez can seek approval for any changes in the law and in funding that she wishes. But she should stop blaming us for enforcing the law and carrying out our assigned duties. We’re doing the best we can with what we have to work with.

Ocasio-Cortez voted not to fund better facilities and conditions for the illegal immigrants we detain. So if she wants to know who is responsible for wanting to continue the current conditions in these facilities all she has to do is look in the mirror, and look at other lawmakers who support her position. She can make excuses, but one has to legitimately question whose best interests she is looking out for.

The congresswoman is not a fiscal conservative, so her opposition to providing increased funding to help us better care for detainees is not caused by her desire to cut government spending.

Instead, Ocasio-Cortez is playing politics with illegal immigrants. She seeks to raise her profile higher in the media and portray herself as the champion of the detainees – when she is in fact working against their best interests.

I am proud of the Border Patrol agents who work tirelessly for the American public to uphold the rule of law and defend the sanctity of life.

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I’m not blind to the fact that we will always have a few people in such a large organization who say and do unprofessional things. You can find a small percentage of people who act improperly among elected officials, members of the media, the medical profession, the clergy and in every other profession.

But I know for a fact that the vast majority of people I’ve worked with over the years in the Border Patrol are honorable, decent and hardworking public servants. Ocasio-Cortez should be ashamed of herself for trying to demonize us and turn public sentiment against us.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY BRANDON JUDD

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/brandon-judd-ocasio-cortezs-attacks-on-border-patrol-are-outrageous-and-based-on-lies

The first African-American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate says Kamala Harris “got it wrong” when she criticized Joe Biden over racial issues during a Democratic debate last week.

Carol Moseley Braun, who represented Illinois in the Senate for one term, from 1993 to 1999, said it was “sad” that Harris, a U.S. senator from California, chose to attack Biden, the former vice president and U.S. senator from Delaware.

“We can be proud of her nonetheless, but her ambition got it wrong about Joe,” Moseley Braun said, according to Politico. “He is about the best there is. For her to take that tack is sad.”

HARRIS CAPITALIZES ON DEBATE PERFORMANCE, AS BIDEN DEFENDS RECORD ON RACE

“We can be proud of her nonetheless, but her ambition got it wrong about Joe. He is about the best there is. For her to take that tack is sad.”

— Carol Moseley Braun, former U.S. senator

During last Thursday’s debate in Miami, Harris blasted Biden’s decades-ago work with segregationist senators, making the point personal by explaining she was a member of only the second class of black children in California to be bused to school in an effort to force desegregation.

Former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun. (Associated Press)

“That little girl was me,” Harris told the former vice president.

The confrontation was viewed as a key moment for Harris, whom some claimed had “won” the debate among 10 candidates. Harris’s campaign said it raised more than $2 million in the 24 hours immediately after the debate.

Some of the money came from sales of $30 T-shirts with a photo of Harris as a child and the quote from the debate.

Biden, meanwhile, got involved in another race-related controversy the next day, when he made a remark in Chicago.

“That kid wearing a hoodie may very well be the next poet laureate and not a gangbanger,” Biden said during a speech at the headquarters of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a group of nonprofits organized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

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The comment drew backlash from Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and others, who took issue with Biden’s choice of words.

Moseley Braun, meanwhile, continues to stand by Biden, Politico reported. The 71-year-old Chicago native had previously endorsed Biden for president, the report said.

Fox News’ Brie Stimson and Danielle Wallace contributed to this story.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kamala-harris-got-it-wrong-in-sad-attack-on-biden-former-us-senator-says

Migrants who’ve been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States, sit in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas in June 2018. On Tuesday a federal judge ruled that asylum-seeking migrants can not be denied bond and held indefinitely.

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Migrants who’ve been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States, sit in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas in June 2018. On Tuesday a federal judge ruled that asylum-seeking migrants can not be denied bond and held indefinitely.

AP

A Seattle federal judge ruled Tuesday that asylum-seeking migrants detained for being in the U.S. illegally have the right to a bond hearing in immigration court rather than being held until their cases are complete.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said it is unconstitutional to detain migrants who fled to the U.S. seeking asylum protections indefinitely.

The decision reverses an April directive from Attorney General William Barr ordering immigration judges not to release migrants on bail after an applicant successfully establishes “a credible fear of persecution or torture” in the home country — a policy that has been in place since 2005.

“The court finds that plaintiffs have established a constitutionally-protected interest in their liberty, a right to due process, which includes a hearing before a neutral decision maker to assess the necessity of their detention and a likelihood of success on the merits of that issue,” Pechman wrote.

In her ruling, Pechman also took issue with an aspect of Barr’s policy that left open the possibility that migrants, still awaiting a hearing, could be re-detained by ICE after being released on bond.

“The Government’s unwillingness to unconditionally assert that Plaintiff’s will not be re-detained means that the specter of re-detention looms and these Plaintiff’s and many members of their class face the real and imminent threat of bondless and indefinite detention…,” she said.

The ruling comes amid a widespread shortage of immigration judges that has caused massive delays in processing hearings. The most recent data available from The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows a total of 424 judges nationwide face a backlog of 892,517 cases on the courts’ active dockets as of the end of April.

“The three largest immigration courts were so under-resourced that hearing dates were being scheduled as far out as August 2023 in New York City, October 2022 in Los Angeles, and April 2022 in San Francisco,” TRAC reports.

Pechman also modified a preliminary injunction issued earlier this year. The new injunction requires the government to ensure bond hearings are held within seven days after they are requested by eligible asylum-seekers. If the government exceeds that limit, the undocumented immigrant must be released.

Immigrant rights advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, sued to block the policy, which was set to take effect this month.

In a statement Matt Adams, legal director of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project said, “The court reaffirmed what has been settled for decades: that asylum seekers who enter this country have a right to be free from arbitrary detention.”

Michael Tan, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project added, “Try as it may, the administration cannot circumvent the Constitution in its effort to deter and punish asylum-seekers applying for protection.”

The Department of Justice is expected to appeal the ruling quickly.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/07/03/738385096/federal-judge-blocks-trump-policy-ordering-indefinite-detention-for-asylum-seeke

KHARTOUM – On the night of April 10, Sudan’s feared spymaster, Salah Gosh, visited President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in his palace to reassure the leader that mass protests posed no threat to his rule.

For four months, thousands of Sudanese had been taking to the streets. They were demanding democracy and an end to economic hardship.

Gosh told his boss, one of the Arab world’s longest serving leaders, that a protest camp outside the Defence Ministry nearby would be contained or crushed, said four sources, one of whom was present at the meeting.

His mind at ease, Bashir went to bed. When he woke, four hours later, it was to the realization that Gosh had betrayed him. His palace guards were gone, replaced by regular soldiers. His 30-year rule was at an end.

A member of Bashir’s inner circle, one of a handful of people to speak with him in those final hours, said the president went to pray. “Army officers were waiting for him when he finished,” the insider told Reuters.

They informed Bashir that Sudan’s High Security Committee, made up of the defence minister and the heads of the army, intelligence and police, was removing him from power, having concluded he’d lost control of the country.

He was taken to Khartoum’s Kobar jail, where he’d imprisoned thousands of political opponents during his rule. There he remains. It was a remarkably smooth putsch against a man who had seen off rebellions and attempted coups, survived U.S. sanctions and evaded arrest by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes in Darfur.

Reuters interviewed a dozen sources with direct knowledge of events leading up to the coup to piece together how Bashir finally lost his grip on power. These sources, including a former government minister, a member of Bashir’s inner circle and a coup plotter, portrayed a leader who was skilled at manipulating and controlling rival Islamist and military factions in Sudan, but increasingly isolated in a changing Middle East.

They described how Bashir mishandled one key relationship – with the United Arab Emirates. Oil-rich UAE had previously pumped billions of dollars into Sudan’s coffers. Bashir had served UAE interests in Yemen, where the Emirates and Saudi Arabia are waging a proxy war against Iran. But at the end of 2018, as Sudan’s economy imploded and protesters took to the streets, Bashir found himself without this powerful, and wealthy, friend.

 The sources recounted how National Intelligence and Security Service head Gosh contacted political prisoners and Sudanese opposition groups to seek their support in the weeks before the generals moved against Bashir. And in the days before the coup, these sources said, Gosh made at least one phone call to intelligence officials in the UAE to give them advance warning of what was about to happen.

The UAE and Saudi governments didn’t respond to detailed questions from Reuters for this article. UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote on Twitter in June, after Bashir’s removal, that the Emirates were in communication “with all Sudanese opposition elements and the Transitional Military Council” that has assumed power.

“There is no doubt it is a sensitive period after years of Bashir’s dictatorship and Muslim Brotherhood,” Gargash went on, referring to Bashir’s Islamist allies in Sudan.

A betrayal

Relations between Bashir and the UAE were still warm in February 2017, when Bashir visited Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi. Some 14,000 Sudanese troops were fighting in Yemen as part of a Saudi and UAE-led military coalition against Iranian-aligned rebels.

The prince, known among diplomats as MbZ, was now hoping for Bashir’s cooperation in another regard – cracking down on Islamists – said a senior official in the Sudanese government who was briefed on the meeting by Bashir.

The UAE was leading regional efforts to counter political Islam, which it and Saudi Arabia viewed as a direct threat to monarchic rule and the region. Those efforts gained new urgency from 2011, when the Arab Spring uprisings swept the Middle East. One Islamist group in particular was going from strength to strength: the Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE and Saudi Arabia consider the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood says it is peaceful.

In 2012, Egyptians elected Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi as their first Islamist president. He was ousted by the army a year later, to the satisfaction of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which together with Gulf ally Kuwait sent $23 billion in aid to Cairo over the next 18 months.

In Sudan, the influence of Islamists was more deeply entrenched than in Egypt, and stretched back decades. Bashir seized power in 1989 as the head of an Islamist junta. Now Islamists controlled the military, intelligence services and key ministries. According to the senior government official, Bashir and MbZ reached “an understanding” that Bashir would root out Islamists and, in return, the UAE would provide Sudan with financial support. Bashir didn’t indicate how he planned to do this.

In broadcast remarks during the meeting, MbZ thanked the Sudanese leader for sending his troops to support the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen. “I want to say a word of truth about the president. When the going got tough and things got worse, Sudan supported the Arab alliance without asking for anything in return,” said MbZ, sitting alongside Bashir.

Watching officials cheered and clapped.

Billions of dollars from the UAE flowed to Sudan after the Abu Dhabi talks. The UAE state news agency reported that in the year to March 2018, the UAE channeled a total $7.6 billion in the form of support to Sudan’s central bank, in private investments and investments through the Abu Dhabi Fund For Development.

One of Bashir’s most trusted aides, the director of his office, Taha Osman al-Hussein, was charged with handling Sudan’s relations with the UAE and with Saudi Arabia. Hussein, a former intelligence officer, was described by colleagues as ambitious and skilled. But government ministers resented his influence, complaining they couldn’t get to Bashir without going through Hussein, and that Hussein effectively controlled foreign policy. In one instance, he made an important foreign policy announcement to Sudan’s state news agency and Saudi Arabia’s press agency, bypassing the Foreign Ministry.

“He was the man who had a magic hold on Bashir’s mind,” said Ghamar Habani, a senior official in Bashir’s National Congress Party. 

Hussein’s enemies, including Sudan’s then spy chief and leading politicians, publicly accused him of spying for Saudi Arabia. Sudanese intelligence alleged Saudi Arabia and the UAE had deposited $109 million for Hussein in a bank account in Dubai. Hussein denied these allegations, which Sudanese media reported at the time, in meetings with Bashir, several sources told Reuters.

Bashir finally dismissed Hussein in June 2017 when it emerged he’d taken Saudi citizenship, said the former government official. Hussein moved to Riyadh and became an adviser to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, a position he still holds, shuttling between the two states.

Reuters couldn’t reach Hussein for comment. The UAE and Saudi governments didn’t respond to questions about the matter.

“The issue of Taha (Hussein) left a big scar on Bashir,” said Habani, the senior member of Bashir’s National Congress Party.

His sacking was also a blow to the UAE.

”We are Islamists”

In the summer of 2017, a diplomatic crisis exploded among Gulf Arab states. The UAE and Saudi Arabia severed relations with Qatar, angered by its continuing support for the Muslim Brotherhood. The rift put Bashir in a difficult position. Qatar, like the UAE, had provided billions of dollars of financial aid to Sudan’s impoverished economy.

Bashir’s Islamist allies in Sudan pressed him to maintain links with Qatar and not to take sides in the dispute. Their message was very clear, said the former government official, “we should keep relations with Qatar.”

In March 2018, Sudan and Qatar announced plans for a $4 billion agreement to jointly develop the Red Sea port of Suakin off Sudan’s coast.  

Bashir had chosen not to throw his support behind the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the dispute.

He had also opted not to diminish the influence of Islamists in his government. The senior government official said Bashir was afraid to alienate powerful Islamist figures. Among these powerbrokers was Ali Osman Taha, a former first vice president, and his successor Bakri Hassan Saleh, who took part in the coup that brought Bashir to power. Reuters couldn’t reach Taha or Saleh for comment.

By October 2018, Sudan was sliding into an economic crisis, with bread, fuel and hard currency in short supply. At a meeting of Bashir’s National Congress Party, Habani, the party official, asked the president why the UAE and Saudi Arabia weren’t coming to Sudan’s aid.

“Our brothers want me to get rid of you Islamists,” she quoted him as replying.

In December 2018, the UAE halted fuel supplies to Sudan, three Sudanese officials said, unhappy that Bashir wasn’t meeting his end of the bargain to squeeze out Islamists. “The Emirates and Saudi decided not to support Bashir financially because he refused to get rid of the Islamists and would not give in to pressure to support Saudi Arabia and the Emirates against Qatar,” said Habani. “They would not accept that Sudan would not take sides.”

In February 2019, Bashir appeared to seal his fate at a meeting of Sudan’s Shura Council, composed of the country’s top leaders. By now protests at soaring bread prices were raging across the country. Bashir declared: “We are Islamists and proud to be Islamists.”  

The senior government official said this was the point of no return. It was clear that Bashir wasn’t going to take on the Islamists.

Increasingly desperate for money, Bashir travelled to Qatar later the same month for talks with the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. According to the member of Bashir’s inner circle, the emir had offered Bashir a billion dollar lifeline. But Bashir returned home empty handed, the source said, after the emir revealed he was under pressure from “certain parties” to change his mind. The emir didn’t specify who these parties were.

Contacted by Reuters, an official at Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Qatar’s support for Sudan “is aimed toward the prosperity and well being of its people and is not tied to a certain political party or regime.” Qatar wasn’t pressured by a third party to stop its aid for Sudan, and development projects in Sudan were ongoing, the official said.

A plot

Behind the scenes, the plot to remove Bashir was taking shape.

An opposition leader, who was among political prisoners in Khartoum’s Kobar prison, where Bashir is now being held, recounted how spymaster Gosh unexpectedly appeared at the jail in the early days of January 2019 and met with eight opposition figures.

Gosh told the prisoners he had come from Abu Dhabi, with a promise from the UAE of fuel and other economic aid. He wanted the prisoners to support an outline plan for a new political system in Sudan. A source close to Gosh confirmed the conversation. 

Gosh returned to the prison 10 days later. This time he visited 26 cells holding political prisoners. “From then on conditions improved. We were given free cigarettes and a TV and chewing tobacco,” said the opposition leader, who is now at liberty along with all the others. “We found it very strange that the intelligence chief would visit opposition prisoners. But when the coup happened I understood why.”

According to a senior Western diplomat in Khartoum, the member of Bashir’s inner circle and the source close to Gosh, in mid-February the UAE and Gosh proposed a dignified exit for the president. Under the plan, Bashir would stay in power for a transitional period to be followed by elections.

Gosh declared in a press conference on Feb. 22 that Bashir was stepping down as leader of the National Congress Party and wouldn’t seek reelection in 2020. But in a televised address shortly afterwards, Bashir made no reference to quitting as party leader, and he told party members later the same day that Gosh had overstated the matter.

Moves against Bashir began to accelerate.

The UAE made contacts with Sudanese opposition parties and rebel groups who had waged war against Bashir to discuss “the political situation in Sudan post Bashir,” said a rebel leader and a person who acted as a liaison between the sides.

“The Emirates and Saudi decided not to support Bashir financially because he refused to get rid of Islamists.”

Ghamar Habani, a senior official in Bashir’s National Congress Party

When protesters set up camp outside the Defence Ministry, not far from Bashir’s residence, on April 6, Gosh’s National Intelligence and Security Service did nothing to stop them. “That’s when we realized the army was taking over,” said Habani, the senior member of Bashir’s National Congress Party.

Gosh reached out to top officials including the defence minister, the army chief of staff and the police chief. They agreed it was time to end Bashir’s rule. A source close to Gosh said each of the men realized “Bashir was finished.” A spokesman for the Transitional Military Council that now rules Sudan confirmed that Gosh took a lead role.

Bashir’s long-time ally, militia leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, was the last to join the conspiracy. Dagalo is better known as Hemedti, a name given to him by his grandmother. He leads Sudan’s feared Rapid Support Forces, a heavily-armed paramilitary unit that numbers in the tens of thousands and controls Khartoum.

Bashir’s fate was settled and in the early hours of April 11 he was removed from power.  

A few days later, Hussein, Bashir’s former pointman for relations with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, traveled back to Sudan as part of a Saudi and UAE delegation that met Sudan’s new military rulers.

On April 21, the UAE and Saudi Arabia announced they would deliver $3 billion worth of aid for Sudan. Hemedti subsequently said Sudanese troops would remain in Yemen.

Around the same time, opposition and rebel groups were meeting with UAE officials in Abu Dhabi. Ahmed Tugod, a senior official in Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement, was among those who attended the talks. He said UAE officials wanted to hear their views on reconciliation and stability. “We focused on the peace process and how to resolve the conflict in the war zones,” Tugod said.

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, oversaw contacts between the UAE and the rebel groups, said Tugod and the person who liaised. Reuters questions to Sheikh Mansour, sent via the UAE Foreign Ministry and Media Council, went unanswered.

An effort by Qatar to send its foreign minister for talks in Khartoum was rebuffed. 

In the weeks after Bashir’s removal, his old ally Hemedti emerged as the most powerful figure in Sudan, as deputy head of the Transitional Military Council that now runs the country. The former livestock trader gained international notoriety as one of the most ruthless militia commanders in the Darfur war that began in 2003. His militias were accused by human rights groups of atrocities including burning villages and raping and killing civilians. Hemedti has denied the allegations, as did Bashir’s government.

Gosh resigned his position on the Transitional Military Council on April 13. The spymaster was reviled by the protesters, and came under huge pressure to step down. Gosh’s whereabouts are unknown but security forces are deployed around his house in Khartoum.

On June 3, Hemedti’s soldiers crushed the sit-in outside the Defence Ministry, opening fire on protesters. Opposition medics say over 100 people were killed. Sudanese authorities put the number at 62. Then the soldiers set about clearing away the placards and banners, emblazoned with the slogans, “We don’t want to be like Egypt” and “United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia stop interfering in Sudan.”

Bashir’s Betrayal

By Khalid Abdelaziz, Michael Georgy and Maha El Dahan

Photo editing: Simon Newman

Design: Pete Hausler

Edited by Janet McBride 

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-bashir-fall/

As the president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union representing 16,000 Border Patrol agents, I am personally and professionally offended by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s outrageous, inflammatory and false claims about the dedicated law enforcement officers I represent.

Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., once again tweeted Tuesday to describe our detention facilities for illegal immigrants as “concentration camps” – absurdly comparing these facilities to the death camps run by the Nazis who murdered 6 million Jews and millions of others during World War II.

This is a horrible insult to the memories of the innocent men, women and children slaughtered by the Nazis, and to our Border Patrol agents – implying that our agents are no different from the Nazi butchers. The outrageousness of this vicious slander is breathtaking – especially coming from a member of Congress.

OCASIO-CORTEZ REPEATS ‘CONCENTRATION CAMP’ COMPARISON, DESPITE CRITICISM OVER REMARK

I am disgusted by Ocasio-Cortez’s lies and her determination to needlessly and dangerously inflame public sentiment regarding the crisis on our southern border by abandoning facts and making wild and unsupported accusations.

The congresswoman is clearly using phrases designed to enrage the uninformed and to pander to a base that wants open borders and unlimited illegal immigration.

Ocasio-Cortez made an outrageous claim this week about a woman being told to drink toilet water in a detention facility. This false claim is easily disproven with actual video.

Ocasio-Cortez is basing her claim on a single female detainee who reportedly told the congresswoman that an agent told her to “drink toilet water.” That’s it.

The congresswoman is clearly not on a “fact-finding” mission – she is on a propaganda mission. She made up her mind long before visiting a detention facility in Texas that Border Patrol agents are bad people. And she obviously believes that all illegal immigrants are innocent victims, and that photo ops and lies can help her spread her propaganda to an uninformed public.

Instead, Ocasio-Cortez is playing politics with illegal immigrants. She seeks to raise her profile higher in the media and portray herself as the champion of the detainees – when she is in fact working against their best interests.

Ocasio-Cortez plays off people’s emotions. She is on record as saying facts don’t matter as long as she is “morally right.” Enough said.

I don’t use the word “propaganda” lightly. But it is widely understood to mean spreading information that is not true, but rather used to influence people and further an agenda while appealing to emotions. That is exactly what Ocasio-Cortez does.

I prefer using facts. The facts do not support Ocasio-Cortez. Detainees have never been told to drink toilet water. And Border Patrol agents are doing everything in their power to treat the illegal immigrants as humanely as possible under overcrowded conditions.

I find it interesting that every time Ocasio-Cortez is found to be wrong about something – and that’s quite often – she simply doubles down and redirects with new “information.”

In this case, when presented with facts about drinking fountains in jails being connected to toilets – with separate water lines – she says “yes, the drinking fountains are attached to the toilets, but the drinking fountains weren’t working.” This is not true and easily debunked with facts. Almost every facility we have is blanketed with video cameras.

Border Patrol agents have been vilified by some politicians and many in the mainstream media for decades, and 99 percent of the time this criticism is unfair and completely inaccurate.

By comparing Border Patrol agents to Nazis, Ocasio-Cortez is trying to dehumanize us. Interestingly, this is the same thing she accuses us of doing with the thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants we are charged with arresting, detaining and caring for

Border Patrol agents do not drag thousands of innocent children across the border. We don’t risk their lives by exposing them to harsh weather and circumstances no child should be exposed to. Those deeds are carried out by their parents, relatives and the ruthless coyotes who profit from human misery.

We don’t write the immigration laws – Congress does. We don’t determine how much money and manpower we get to enforce those laws – Congress does.

Ocasio-Cortez can seek approval for any changes in the law and in funding that she wishes. But she should stop blaming us for enforcing the law and carrying out our assigned duties. We’re doing the best we can with what we have to work with.

Ocasio-Cortez voted not to fund better facilities and conditions for the illegal immigrants we detain. So if she wants to know who is responsible for wanting to continue the current conditions in these facilities all she has to do is look in the mirror, and look at other lawmakers who support her position. She can make excuses, but one has to legitimately question whose best interests she is looking out for.

The congresswoman is not a fiscal conservative, so her opposition to providing increased funding to help us better care for detainees is not caused by her desire to cut government spending.

Instead, Ocasio-Cortez is playing politics with illegal immigrants. She seeks to raise her profile higher in the media and portray herself as the champion of the detainees – when she is in fact working against their best interests.

I am proud of the Border Patrol agents who work tirelessly for the American public to uphold the rule of law and defend the sanctity of life.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

I’m not blind to the fact that we will always have a few people in such a large organization who say and do unprofessional things. You can find a small percentage of people who act improperly among elected officials, members of the media, the medical profession, the clergy and in every other profession.

But I know for a fact that the vast majority of people I’ve worked with over the years in the Border Patrol are honorable, decent and hardworking public servants. Ocasio-Cortez should be ashamed of herself for trying to demonize us and turn public sentiment against us.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE BY BRANDON JUDD

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/brandon-judd-ocasio-cortezs-attacks-on-border-patrol-are-outrageous-and-based-on-lies

As preparations were underway for President Trump’s announced “Salute to America” celebration in Washington on July 4, a few problems emerged along the way as military vehicles were hauled into the capital city.

Some M1A1 Abrams tanks, set to be part of the celebration, rolled into the edge of Washington from Georgia’s Fort Stewart on Tuesday morning.

By evening trailers were spotted outside the Washington Nationals game carrying the tanks into the city.

MSNBC’S JOY REID SAYS TRUMP IS USING TANKS AT 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION AS A ‘THREAT’ TO AMERICANS

Earlier in the day, however, a flatbed carrying the tanks was apparently unable to clear an underpass, according to photos tweeted by a Politico reporter. A crane was later employed to resolve the issue.

Concern had arisen among critics and the District of Columbia government that the tanks posed potential logistical and cost issues, after Trump’s proposal to include tanks and other military vehicles in Thursday’s festivities.

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Thomas Spoehr, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, told the Daily Reporter that some local roads are ill-equipped to handle the weight of the tanks.

“The tank kind of hangs off a smidge on either side, so it takes up more than a lane when driving,” Spoehr said. “You’re going to want to do it at a time of low traffic.”

A trailer carrying the tanks also risks crushing a sidewalk if it makes too sharp a turn in a city, Spoehr added.

Trump’s proposal to have a military “Salute to America,” featuring military bands and flyovers, departs significantly from previous Fourth of July celebrations.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“I’m going to say a few words and we’re going to have planes going overhead, the best fighter jets in the world and other planes, too,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tanks-fail-to-clear-overpass-on-way-to-july-fourth-celebration

KHARTOUM – On the night of April 10, Sudan’s feared spymaster, Salah Gosh, visited President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in his palace to reassure the leader that mass protests posed no threat to his rule.

For four months, thousands of Sudanese had been taking to the streets. They were demanding democracy and an end to economic hardship.

Gosh told his boss, one of the Arab world’s longest serving leaders, that a protest camp outside the Defence Ministry nearby would be contained or crushed, said four sources, one of whom was present at the meeting.

His mind at ease, Bashir went to bed. When he woke, four hours later, it was to the realization that Gosh had betrayed him. His palace guards were gone, replaced by regular soldiers. His 30-year rule was at an end.

A member of Bashir’s inner circle, one of a handful of people to speak with him in those final hours, said the president went to pray. “Army officers were waiting for him when he finished,” the insider told Reuters.

They informed Bashir that Sudan’s High Security Committee, made up of the defence minister and the heads of the army, intelligence and police, was removing him from power, having concluded he’d lost control of the country.

He was taken to Khartoum’s Kobar jail, where he’d imprisoned thousands of political opponents during his rule. There he remains. It was a remarkably smooth putsch against a man who had seen off rebellions and attempted coups, survived U.S. sanctions and evaded arrest by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes in Darfur.

Reuters interviewed a dozen sources with direct knowledge of events leading up to the coup to piece together how Bashir finally lost his grip on power. These sources, including a former government minister, a member of Bashir’s inner circle and a coup plotter, portrayed a leader who was skilled at manipulating and controlling rival Islamist and military factions in Sudan, but increasingly isolated in a changing Middle East.

They described how Bashir mishandled one key relationship – with the United Arab Emirates. Oil-rich UAE had previously pumped billions of dollars into Sudan’s coffers. Bashir had served UAE interests in Yemen, where the Emirates and Saudi Arabia are waging a proxy war against Iran. But at the end of 2018, as Sudan’s economy imploded and protesters took to the streets, Bashir found himself without this powerful, and wealthy, friend.

 The sources recounted how National Intelligence and Security Service head Gosh contacted political prisoners and Sudanese opposition groups to seek their support in the weeks before the generals moved against Bashir. And in the days before the coup, these sources said, Gosh made at least one phone call to intelligence officials in the UAE to give them advance warning of what was about to happen.

The UAE and Saudi governments didn’t respond to detailed questions from Reuters for this article. UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote on Twitter in June, after Bashir’s removal, that the Emirates were in communication “with all Sudanese opposition elements and the Transitional Military Council” that has assumed power.

“There is no doubt it is a sensitive period after years of Bashir’s dictatorship and Muslim Brotherhood,” Gargash went on, referring to Bashir’s Islamist allies in Sudan.

A betrayal

Relations between Bashir and the UAE were still warm in February 2017, when Bashir visited Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi. Some 14,000 Sudanese troops were fighting in Yemen as part of a Saudi and UAE-led military coalition against Iranian-aligned rebels.

The prince, known among diplomats as MbZ, was now hoping for Bashir’s cooperation in another regard – cracking down on Islamists – said a senior official in the Sudanese government who was briefed on the meeting by Bashir.

The UAE was leading regional efforts to counter political Islam, which it and Saudi Arabia viewed as a direct threat to monarchic rule and the region. Those efforts gained new urgency from 2011, when the Arab Spring uprisings swept the Middle East. One Islamist group in particular was going from strength to strength: the Muslim Brotherhood. The UAE and Saudi Arabia consider the Brotherhood a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood says it is peaceful.

In 2012, Egyptians elected Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi as their first Islamist president. He was ousted by the army a year later, to the satisfaction of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which together with Gulf ally Kuwait sent $23 billion in aid to Cairo over the next 18 months.

In Sudan, the influence of Islamists was more deeply entrenched than in Egypt, and stretched back decades. Bashir seized power in 1989 as the head of an Islamist junta. Now Islamists controlled the military, intelligence services and key ministries. According to the senior government official, Bashir and MbZ reached “an understanding” that Bashir would root out Islamists and, in return, the UAE would provide Sudan with financial support. Bashir didn’t indicate how he planned to do this.

In broadcast remarks during the meeting, MbZ thanked the Sudanese leader for sending his troops to support the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen. “I want to say a word of truth about the president. When the going got tough and things got worse, Sudan supported the Arab alliance without asking for anything in return,” said MbZ, sitting alongside Bashir.

Watching officials cheered and clapped.

Billions of dollars from the UAE flowed to Sudan after the Abu Dhabi talks. The UAE state news agency reported that in the year to March 2018, the UAE channeled a total $7.6 billion in the form of support to Sudan’s central bank, in private investments and investments through the Abu Dhabi Fund For Development.

One of Bashir’s most trusted aides, the director of his office, Taha Osman al-Hussein, was charged with handling Sudan’s relations with the UAE and with Saudi Arabia. Hussein, a former intelligence officer, was described by colleagues as ambitious and skilled. But government ministers resented his influence, complaining they couldn’t get to Bashir without going through Hussein, and that Hussein effectively controlled foreign policy. In one instance, he made an important foreign policy announcement to Sudan’s state news agency and Saudi Arabia’s press agency, bypassing the Foreign Ministry.

“He was the man who had a magic hold on Bashir’s mind,” said Ghamar Habani, a senior official in Bashir’s National Congress Party. 

Hussein’s enemies, including Sudan’s then spy chief and leading politicians, publicly accused him of spying for Saudi Arabia. Sudanese intelligence alleged Saudi Arabia and the UAE had deposited $109 million for Hussein in a bank account in Dubai. Hussein denied these allegations, which Sudanese media reported at the time, in meetings with Bashir, several sources told Reuters.

Bashir finally dismissed Hussein in June 2017 when it emerged he’d taken Saudi citizenship, said the former government official. Hussein moved to Riyadh and became an adviser to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, a position he still holds, shuttling between the two states.

Reuters couldn’t reach Hussein for comment. The UAE and Saudi governments didn’t respond to questions about the matter.

“The issue of Taha (Hussein) left a big scar on Bashir,” said Habani, the senior member of Bashir’s National Congress Party.

His sacking was also a blow to the UAE.

”We are Islamists”

In the summer of 2017, a diplomatic crisis exploded among Gulf Arab states. The UAE and Saudi Arabia severed relations with Qatar, angered by its continuing support for the Muslim Brotherhood. The rift put Bashir in a difficult position. Qatar, like the UAE, had provided billions of dollars of financial aid to Sudan’s impoverished economy.

Bashir’s Islamist allies in Sudan pressed him to maintain links with Qatar and not to take sides in the dispute. Their message was very clear, said the former government official, “we should keep relations with Qatar.”

In March 2018, Sudan and Qatar announced plans for a $4 billion agreement to jointly develop the Red Sea port of Suakin off Sudan’s coast.  

Bashir had chosen not to throw his support behind the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the dispute.

He had also opted not to diminish the influence of Islamists in his government. The senior government official said Bashir was afraid to alienate powerful Islamist figures. Among these powerbrokers was Ali Osman Taha, a former first vice president, and his successor Bakri Hassan Saleh, who took part in the coup that brought Bashir to power. Reuters couldn’t reach Taha or Saleh for comment.

By October 2018, Sudan was sliding into an economic crisis, with bread, fuel and hard currency in short supply. At a meeting of Bashir’s National Congress Party, Habani, the party official, asked the president why the UAE and Saudi Arabia weren’t coming to Sudan’s aid.

“Our brothers want me to get rid of you Islamists,” she quoted him as replying.

In December 2018, the UAE halted fuel supplies to Sudan, three Sudanese officials said, unhappy that Bashir wasn’t meeting his end of the bargain to squeeze out Islamists. “The Emirates and Saudi decided not to support Bashir financially because he refused to get rid of the Islamists and would not give in to pressure to support Saudi Arabia and the Emirates against Qatar,” said Habani. “They would not accept that Sudan would not take sides.”

In February 2019, Bashir appeared to seal his fate at a meeting of Sudan’s Shura Council, composed of the country’s top leaders. By now protests at soaring bread prices were raging across the country. Bashir declared: “We are Islamists and proud to be Islamists.”  

The senior government official said this was the point of no return. It was clear that Bashir wasn’t going to take on the Islamists.

Increasingly desperate for money, Bashir travelled to Qatar later the same month for talks with the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. According to the member of Bashir’s inner circle, the emir had offered Bashir a billion dollar lifeline. But Bashir returned home empty handed, the source said, after the emir revealed he was under pressure from “certain parties” to change his mind. The emir didn’t specify who these parties were.

Contacted by Reuters, an official at Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Qatar’s support for Sudan “is aimed toward the prosperity and well being of its people and is not tied to a certain political party or regime.” Qatar wasn’t pressured by a third party to stop its aid for Sudan, and development projects in Sudan were ongoing, the official said.

A plot

Behind the scenes, the plot to remove Bashir was taking shape.

An opposition leader, who was among political prisoners in Khartoum’s Kobar prison, where Bashir is now being held, recounted how spymaster Gosh unexpectedly appeared at the jail in the early days of January 2019 and met with eight opposition figures.

Gosh told the prisoners he had come from Abu Dhabi, with a promise from the UAE of fuel and other economic aid. He wanted the prisoners to support an outline plan for a new political system in Sudan. A source close to Gosh confirmed the conversation. 

Gosh returned to the prison 10 days later. This time he visited 26 cells holding political prisoners. “From then on conditions improved. We were given free cigarettes and a TV and chewing tobacco,” said the opposition leader, who is now at liberty along with all the others. “We found it very strange that the intelligence chief would visit opposition prisoners. But when the coup happened I understood why.”

According to a senior Western diplomat in Khartoum, the member of Bashir’s inner circle and the source close to Gosh, in mid-February the UAE and Gosh proposed a dignified exit for the president. Under the plan, Bashir would stay in power for a transitional period to be followed by elections.

Gosh declared in a press conference on Feb. 22 that Bashir was stepping down as leader of the National Congress Party and wouldn’t seek reelection in 2020. But in a televised address shortly afterwards, Bashir made no reference to quitting as party leader, and he told party members later the same day that Gosh had overstated the matter.

Moves against Bashir began to accelerate.

The UAE made contacts with Sudanese opposition parties and rebel groups who had waged war against Bashir to discuss “the political situation in Sudan post Bashir,” said a rebel leader and a person who acted as a liaison between the sides.

“The Emirates and Saudi decided not to support Bashir financially because he refused to get rid of Islamists.”

Ghamar Habani, a senior official in Bashir’s National Congress Party

When protesters set up camp outside the Defence Ministry, not far from Bashir’s residence, on April 6, Gosh’s National Intelligence and Security Service did nothing to stop them. “That’s when we realized the army was taking over,” said Habani, the senior member of Bashir’s National Congress Party.

Gosh reached out to top officials including the defence minister, the army chief of staff and the police chief. They agreed it was time to end Bashir’s rule. A source close to Gosh said each of the men realized “Bashir was finished.” A spokesman for the Transitional Military Council that now rules Sudan confirmed that Gosh took a lead role.

Bashir’s long-time ally, militia leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, was the last to join the conspiracy. Dagalo is better known as Hemedti, a name given to him by his grandmother. He leads Sudan’s feared Rapid Support Forces, a heavily-armed paramilitary unit that numbers in the tens of thousands and controls Khartoum.

Bashir’s fate was settled and in the early hours of April 11 he was removed from power.  

A few days later, Hussein, Bashir’s former pointman for relations with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, traveled back to Sudan as part of a Saudi and UAE delegation that met Sudan’s new military rulers.

On April 21, the UAE and Saudi Arabia announced they would deliver $3 billion worth of aid for Sudan. Hemedti subsequently said Sudanese troops would remain in Yemen.

Around the same time, opposition and rebel groups were meeting with UAE officials in Abu Dhabi. Ahmed Tugod, a senior official in Darfur’s rebel Justice and Equality Movement, was among those who attended the talks. He said UAE officials wanted to hear their views on reconciliation and stability. “We focused on the peace process and how to resolve the conflict in the war zones,” Tugod said.

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, oversaw contacts between the UAE and the rebel groups, said Tugod and the person who liaised. Reuters questions to Sheikh Mansour, sent via the UAE Foreign Ministry and Media Council, went unanswered.

An effort by Qatar to send its foreign minister for talks in Khartoum was rebuffed. 

In the weeks after Bashir’s removal, his old ally Hemedti emerged as the most powerful figure in Sudan, as deputy head of the Transitional Military Council that now runs the country. The former livestock trader gained international notoriety as one of the most ruthless militia commanders in the Darfur war that began in 2003. His militias were accused by human rights groups of atrocities including burning villages and raping and killing civilians. Hemedti has denied the allegations, as did Bashir’s government.

Gosh resigned his position on the Transitional Military Council on April 13. The spymaster was reviled by the protesters, and came under huge pressure to step down. Gosh’s whereabouts are unknown but security forces are deployed around his house in Khartoum.

On June 3, Hemedti’s soldiers crushed the sit-in outside the Defence Ministry, opening fire on protesters. Opposition medics say over 100 people were killed. Sudanese authorities put the number at 62. Then the soldiers set about clearing away the placards and banners, emblazoned with the slogans, “We don’t want to be like Egypt” and “United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia stop interfering in Sudan.”

Bashir’s Betrayal

By Khalid Abdelaziz, Michael Georgy and Maha El Dahan

Photo editing: Simon Newman

Design: Pete Hausler

Edited by Janet McBride 

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/sudan-bashir-fall/

WASHINGTON – A Navy SEAL was found not guilty on Tuesday of premeditated murder after being charged with killing a teenage Islamic State prisoner in Iraq.

Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher was accused of stabbing a teenage prisoner in the neck and body. He went on to pose with the prisoner’s body and included it as a prop in his re-enlistment ceremony, and bragged that he “got this one with my knife.” In addition, he was also accused of shooting two civilians.

Gallagher was found guilty on one of seven charges: posing for a photo with a human casualty. According to CNN, Gallagher faces a maximum sentence of four months. However, he has already served 201 days.

He was found not guilty of premeditated murder, willfully discharging a firearm to endanger human life, retaliation against members of his platoon for reporting his alleged actions, obstruction of justice, and the attempted murders of two noncombatants.

Gallagher had pleaded not guilty to all charges, contending that his accusers, members of his platoon, were “disgruntled subordinates who could not meet his high standards.” 

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The verdict comes after a tumultuous court-martial.

A SEAL medic who was a key witness initially told prosecutors ahead of the trial that Gallagher had walked up and stabbed the teenage prisoner. The medic said he then tried to revive the prisoner.

However, during the trial, the medic said testified he was the one who killed the teenager, according to the Associated Press. The medic, Corey Scott, testified on June 20 that he suffocated the boy after Gallagher stabbed him, claiming that he did it as an act of mercy. He had previously not told prosecutors that, and his account only changed after he was granted immunity.

In addition, the prosecution had already faced ethics questions ahead of the court-martial, which began in June.

At hearings in May, it was revealed that the prosecution sought to track emails from Gallagher’s defense team in an effort to find a leak to the media. Cmdr. Christopher Czaplak, the then-lead prosecutor, and agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service sent emails embedded with hidden tracking software to Gallagher’s lawyers and a journalist for the Navy Times, according to the New York Times.

Several outlets in May reported that President Donald Trump was considering a pardon for Gallagher. The president in March also moved Gallagher to “less restrictive confinement” due to the “honor of his past service to our country.”

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Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/02/navy-seal-edward-gallagher-found-not-guilty-premeditated-murder/1634338001/

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A senior U.S. official told the Commerce Department’s enforcement staff this week that China’s Huawei should still be treated as blacklisted, days after U.S. President Donald Trump sowed confusion with a vow to ease a ban on sales to the firm.

Trump surprised markets on Saturday by promising Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan that he would allow U.S. companies to sell products to Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL].

In May, the company was added to the so-called Entity List, which bans American firms from selling to it without special permission, as punishment for actions against U.S. national security interests.

Trump’s announcement on Saturday – an olive branch to Beijing to revive stalled trade talks – was cheered by U.S. chipmakers eager to maintain sales to Huawei, the world’s largest telecoms equipment maker and a key U.S. customer.

But Trump’s comments also spawned confusion among industry players and government officials struggling to understand what Huawei policy he had unveiled.

In an email to enforcement staff on Monday that was seen by Reuters, John Sonderman, Deputy Director of the Office of Export Enforcement, in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), sought to clarify how agents should approach license requests by firms seeking approval to sell to Huawei.

All such applications should be considered on merit and flagged with language noting that “This party is on the Entity List. Evaluate the associated license review policy under part 744,” he wrote, citing regulations that include the Entity List and the “presumption of denial” licensing policy that is applied to blacklisted companies.

He added that any further guidance from BIS should also be taken into account when evaluating Huawei-related license applications.

Huawei told Reuters earlier on Wednesday that founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei had said Trump’s statements over the weekend were “good for American companies”.

“Huawei is also willing to continue to buy products from American companies. But we don’t see much impact on what we are currently doing. We will still focus on doing our own job right,” a Huawei spokesman said in an email.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A person familiar with the matter said the letter was the only guidance that enforcement officials had received after Trump’s surprise announcement on Saturday. A presumption of denial implies strict review and most licenses reviewed under it are not approved.

It is unclear when the Commerce Department will provide its enforcement staff with additional guidance, based on Trump’s promises, and how that might alter the likelihood of obtaining licenses.

The internal memo, not previously reported, came as White House advisers also scrambled to shed light on Trump’s announcement.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro noted on Tuesday that the government would allow “lower tech” chip sales to the company, which don’t impact national security.

The United States has accused Huawei of stealing American intellectual property and violating Iran sanctions.

It has launched a lobbying effort to convince U.S. allies to keep Huawei out of next-generation 5G telecommunications infrastructure, citing concerns the company could spy on customers. Huawei has denied the allegations.

Reporting by Alexandra Alper; Additional Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York, Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Sijia Jiang in Hong Kong; Editing by Michael Perry and Muralikumar Anantharaman

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-usa-huawei/us-government-staff-told-to-treat-huawei-as-blacklisted-idUSKCN1TY07N

The Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security observed overcrowding of families on June 10 at a detention center in McAllen, Texas. The OIG issued a blistering report raising concerns that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk to DHS agents and detainees.

Office of Inspector General


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Office of Inspector General

The Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security observed overcrowding of families on June 10 at a detention center in McAllen, Texas. The OIG issued a blistering report raising concerns that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk to DHS agents and detainees.

Office of Inspector General

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General is warning about “dangerous overcrowding” in Border Patrol facilities in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.

In a strongly worded report, the inspector general said the prolonged detention of migrants without proper food, hygiene or laundry facilities — some for more than a month — requires “immediate attention and action.”

The report comes amid growing outrage over detention conditions for migrants and follows reports that migrant children were kept in squalid conditions without enough food and basic necessities in a Border Patrol station in West Texas.

Inspectors from DHS’s Office of Inspector General in June visited Border Patrol facilities and ports of entry across the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, the busiest sector in the country for illegal border crossings.

“We are concerned that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk to the health and safety of DHS agents and officers, and to those detained,” they wrote.

In its response to the report, the Department of Homeland Security says the surge of migrants crossing the Southern border has led to an “acute and worsening crisis.”

“The current migration flow and the resulting humanitarian crisis are rapidly overwhelming the ability of the Federal Government to respond,” DHS says.

In May, according to DHS, an average of more than 4,600 people a day crossed illegally or arrived at ports of entry without the proper documents, compared to less than 700 a day in the same period two years ago.

DHS says Customs and Border Protection facilities are at “peak capacity” and that the agency is adding detention capacity at three tent facilities in order to improve the conditions for migrants. CBP also says it “continues to take steps to address the health and safety of those in custody,” including by expanding medical services.

The inspector general’s office released a report in May describing similarly dangerous overcrowding conditions in Border Patrol cells in the El Paso region.

The latest report from the Rio Grande Valley includes photos of migrants penned into overcrowded Border Patrol facilities — including one man pressing a cardboard sign to a cell window with the word “Help.”

The inspectors quote one unnamed senior manager calling the situation a “ticking time bomb.”

Inspectors found that hundreds of children were held for longer than the 72 hours, the maximum time federal rules allow. In some cases, kids were held for more than two weeks. And some adults were kept in standing-room-only cells, without access to showers, for more than a week.

Inspectors said Border Patrol management informed them there had been “security incidents,” such as detainees clogging toilets with Mylar blankets and socks in order to be released from their cells during maintenance.

“We ended our site visit at one Border Patrol facility early because our presence was agitating an already difficult situation,” the inspectors wrote. “Specifically, when detainees observed us, they banged on the cell windows, shouted, pressed notes to the window with their time in custody, and gestured to evidence of their time in custody (e.g., beards).”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/738179391/dhs-inspector-general-finds-dangerous-overcrowding-in-border-patrol-facilities

Two M1 Abrams tanks and two Bradley Fighting Vehicles were to be moved into place Tuesday night to be on “static display” during President Donald Trump‘s “Salute to America,” a defense official told ABC News, as part of the president’s effort to re-shape the annual July Fourth celebration on the National Mall.

Suitable locations around the Lincoln Memorial that can bear the tanks’ 60-ton weight were being looked at as possible locations, another defense official told ABC News.

Patrick OGara/ABC News
Two M1 Abrams tanks and two Bradley Fighting Vehicles transported to Washington DC for July 4 festivities are seen at a rail head in Washington D.C.

Trump was set to give a speech at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday in front of the Lincoln Memorial, highlighting the U.S. military, and multiple fighters and other aircraft were preparing for flyovers above the Mall during the president’s remarks.

Trump tweeted on Tuesday, “The Pentagon & our great Military Leaders are thrilled to be doing this & showing to the American people, among other things, the strongest and most advanced Military anywhere in the World. Incredible Flyovers & biggest ever Fireworks!”

But one thing that’s not known is how much the military’s participation will cost taxpayers. Officials are saying little and congressional Democrats have complained their questions aren’t being answered.

The flyovers will include the Navy’s Blue Angels flight demonstration team as well as other aircraft from the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. That includes one of the Boeing 747s that serves as Air Force One and the public’s first look at the new version of the Marine One helicopter that is not yet on active duty.

Typically, the costs associated with military flyovers at civilian events are said to be covered by annual training budgets, but for now there’s no real estimate for what the final tab will be for the military’s participation in the July Fourth events.

“The cost to DoD for support to the Salute to America is undetermined at this time,” said Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell, a Pentagon spokesman. “The DoD will collect all associated cost data from the individual services.”

Patrick OGara/ABC News
Two M1 Abrams tanks and two Bradley Fighting Vehicles transported to Washington DC for July 4 festivities are seen at a rail head in Washington D.C.

On hand for Trump’s event at the Lincoln Memorial will be some of the nation’s senior military leaders, including some of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to a defense official.

But the military’s role in the event has garnered criticism from one veterans group.

“No political candidate or party, no government office and no elected official should co-opt Independence Day for partisan agendas,” Jeremy Butler, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, wrote in Time magazine.

“In our increasingly divided society, Independence Day is one where all Americans can celebrate the great gift of our freedom together. To cheapen that gift with partisan actions dishonors the sacrifices of men and women who protect that freedom with their lives.”

Gunnery Sgt. Christopher Giannetti/U.S. Marine Corps
An F/A-18D Hornet, with Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 224, conducts an aerial refuel in Norway, during Exercise Trident Juncture 18, Oct. 24, 2018.

At the same time, the Veterans of Foreign Wars has not seen many complaints on its social media platforms

“I can’t speak for VFW’s huge membership but on behalf of the National Organization we are not going to judge how the President of the United States chooses to celebrate Independence Day, which is one of only three military holidays (along with Memorial Day and Veterans Day),” said Joe Davis, the VFW’s Director of Communications and Public Affairs.

Most of the military aircraft participating in the flyovers will be making roundtrips to the Washington, D.C., area from their bases. They include Air Force F-22s, an Air Force B-2 Stealth bomber from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, the 747 that serves as Air Force One from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, two Navy F/A-18Es from Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia, 2 Marine MV-22s from Quantico, Virginia, and the new Marine One VH-92 that isn’t in service yet and will be flown by its manufacturer, Sikorsky.

However, two Navy F-35C Joint Strike Fighters will fly cross country from Lemoore, California, to be in place ahead of Thursday’s events.

The military will likely call the transport of the armored vehicles and the use of military aircraft flying above the nation’s capital as training missions, the rationale being that the aircraft would be flying training missions anyway.

This is the standard used for dedicating specific aircraft to fly over major sporting events like the Super Bowl.

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images
Air Force One, with President Donald Trump, lands at the Osaka International Airport for the G-20 Summit, June 27, 2019, in Osaka, Japan.

The military services include the costs of training flights into their annual budgets, so no extra costs will likely be incurred for those aircraft flying to the D.C. area from bases across America.

For example, the entire B-2 Stealth bomber fleet is stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. The aircraft’s round trip flight to Washington and back will be covered by training budgets, including the plane’s $122,000 per hour flight cost that includes the cost of fuel, the flight and overhaul costs for the aircraft and its engine.

After all the talk about the military’s role and its preparations for the new July Fourth celebration, it may all come down to the weather. As of Tuesday evening, weather forecasts called for a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms on Thursday night in the Washington, D.C., area.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tanks-fighters-readied-trumps-july-4th-celebration-taxpayer/story?id=64087608

The Trump administration says the 2020 Census questionnaire is moving ahead without a question about citizenship.

That’s according to an attorney for a civil rights group that helped fight the addition of the question.

Kristen Clarke said Tuesday that Trump administration attorneys notified parties in lawsuits challenging the question that the printing of the hundreds of millions of documents for the 2020 counts would be starting soon.




The White House didn’t immediately comment on the decision. President Donald Trump has decried last week’s Supreme Court ruling saying the question was sought under a false pretext.

Spokespeople for the U.S. Census Bureau have not responded to emails or phone calls seeking comment.

Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/07/02/lawyer-census-to-be-printed-without-citizenship-question/23761635/

Image copyright
Office of Inspector General

Image caption

Overcrowding at a border facility in McAllen, Texas

A report from an internal US watchdog has found “dangerous overcrowding” in migrant detention centres in the south and urged authorities to act.

Jarring photos of facilities in the Rio Grande show 51 female migrants held in a cell made for 40 men, and 71 males held in a cell built for 41 women.

Adults were packed in standing room only cells for a week, with others held in overcrowded cells for over a month.

One facility manager called the situation “a ticking time bomb”.

“We are concerned that overcrowding and prolonged detention represent an immediate risk to the health and safety of [Department of Homeland Security] agents and officers, and to those detained,” inspectors said in the report.

Image copyright
Office of Inspector General

Image caption

Families packed into another facility in Weslaco, Texas

The inspectors, from the US inspector general, visited seven sites throughout the Rio Grande valley in southern Texas.

At the facilities, the inspectors found that 30% of the detained children had been held for longer than the 72 hours permitted. Some had no access to showers or hot meals and had little access to clean clothes.

“When detainees observed us, they banged on the cell windows, shouted, pressed notes to the window with their time in custody, and gestured to evidence of their time in custody,” like facial hair, the report said.

They described detainees clogging toilets with blankets and socks in order to be released while the cells were fixed.

Image copyright
Office of Inspector General

Image caption

A photo from a border facility shows 51 adult females held in a 40-person capacity cell (left) and 71 adult males held in a cell meant for 41 (right)

The report says these conditions directly contradict the US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) own standards.

The inspectors called upon the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take “immediate steps to alleviate dangerous overcrowding”.

According to the CBP, the Rio Grande has the highest volume of migrants on the southwest border, recording almost 250,000 apprehensions so far this year – marking a 124% increase from 2018.

On Tuesday, the DHS said they would build two tents to house additional migrants by the end of July. The agency added that fewer children are in their care than earlier this month.

The DHS had 2,800 children in detention on 7 June, according to government figures. By 25 June, less than 1,000 were in custody, it said.

In recent weeks, conditions at these facilities have been at the foreground of US politics.

Media captionUS migrant children “hungry, dirty, sick and scared” – lawyer Elora Mukherjee

Lawyers were given access by a judge to one facility in Clint, Texas, where they reported appalling conditions inside.

Children were “locked up in horrific cells where there’s an open toilet in the middle of the room” where they ate and slept, one of the lawyers told the BBC.

Last week lawmakers passed a bill to send $4.6bn (£3.6bn) to address the ongoing crisis at the border, amid growing outrage over the conditions.

The detention facilities “will shock the conscience of this country,” Democratic White House contender Beto O’Rourke said after a visit to a migrant centre.

Democrats, who have been touring the facilities in the past week, have decried the conditions inside, with one Democratic congresswoman claiming that border agents had told a detainee to drink from a toilet bowl.

Border officials have disputed her allegation, saying a sink in the cell that holds drinking water and drains into a toilet below was broken during her visit, and that migrants were given bottled water instead.

A Trump administration official, who did not wish to be named, told CBS News that “the toilets are connected to the sinks and the sinks dispense safe drinking water”.

“The sink on top of the toilets broke. But as soon as the sinks broke, border patrol put out jugs of water for migrants to drink right when that happened. The jugs were right there for everyone to drink.”

The row erupted as immigration officials said they would investigate a secret Facebook group of more than 9,000 current or former immigration agents. The group had allegedly been mocking migrants and using slurs and insults to describe visiting lawmakers.

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Media captionDemocrats say detention centres ‘will shock the conscience of this country’

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Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48842434