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U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren participates in a reenacted swearing-in with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in the Old Senate Chamber at the U.S. Capitol January 3, 2013.

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U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren participates in a reenacted swearing-in with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in the Old Senate Chamber at the U.S. Capitol January 3, 2013.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In 2005, bankruptcy was on the rise and had been for years.

Lawmakers were pondering why, exactly, that was happening — and what, if anything, they should do about it — when two future presidential rivals squared off over a bankruptcy overhaul bill that would restrict who could write off their personal debts.

In one corner, Joe Biden — one of the staunchest Democratic advocates for the bill and a senator from Delaware, home to several large credit card companies. He was also the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, which was debating the bill.

In the other corner, Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law professor who had fought against this type of bankruptcy overhaul for years, and who was on a panel convened for a hearing over the bill.

Their conversation started off with a testy (but weedy) exchange about bankruptcy courts. And it escalated from there, with plenty of interruptions and the occasional barb — Biden at one point cast Warren’s arguments as “mildly demagogic.” It ended with a tense dispute over what, exactly, the dispute ought to be.

WARREN: [Credit card companies] have squeezed enough out of these families in interest and fees and payments that never pay down principle.

BIDEN: Maybe should talk about usury rates. That maybe, that’s what we should be talking about; not bankruptcy.

WARREN: Senator, I’ll be the first. Invite me.

BIDEN: Now, I know you will, but let’s call a spade a spade. Your problem with the credit-card companies is usury rates, from your position. It’s not about the bankruptcy bill.

WARREN: But senator, if you’re not going to fix that problem, you can’t take away the last shred of protection for these families.

BIDEN: OK, I get it. [pause] You’re very good, professor.

It was heated debate with a polite, even charming end — complete with laughter throughout the hearing room, but the stakes are higher now, with both Warren and Biden potentially poised to share a debate stage.

And while debate over a 14-year-old bankruptcy bill might otherwise be largely forgotten by now, the 2020 presidential election has made the disagreements between Biden and Warren relevant again — and shows how their exchange over that 2005 bill show up in their current presidential campaign strategies.

With Democrats in the minority in the Senate in 2005, Biden argues he was trying to make a Republican bill better. Warren thought, even then, it was fundamentally flawed and bad for consumers.

What the bill did

A major question at the heart of the 2005 bankruptcy bill was why bankruptcies were on the rise.

One side — including Warren and many Democrats — said it was because people were financially strapped due to major obligations like medical debt, and that credit card companies were exacerbating the problem.

Others — largely Republicans, but also some Democrats, like Biden — said that it was a combination of irresponsible spending and a system that made it too easy to apply for bankruptcy, leading to abuse. That abuse, these lawmakers argued, leads to higher costs for other people seeking credit.

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The 2005 bill restricted who could discharge their debts via Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and also made the process more difficult. It included a means test, in the form of comparing a person’s income with their state’s median income. The goal, proponents argued, was to make sure that people who could still pay their debts weren’t able to unfairly escape their debts, while also ensuring that people who couldn’t pay were able to get relief.

The bill also said that a person had to go through credit counseling before obtaining bankruptcy.

Opponents, however, cast bankruptcy as an important financial protection that the legal system provides to people in difficult circumstances. They thought that the bill would make it unduly hard to file, enriching credit card companies in the process. And indeed, as they argued, credit card companies themselves had lobbied for it.

Warren and her fellow opponents also argued that bankruptcy was a women’s issue, as single and divorced women were disproportionately represented among bankruptcy filers. Passing this type of reform would therefore disproportionately hurt women and children, they said (an argument that Warren pointedly made in a 2002 Harvard Women’s Law Review essay that focuses heavily on Biden).

A long run-up

This was not new legislation. Similar bills had been proposed in Congress several times — it even reached the Oval Office in the final days of Bill Clinton’s presidency, but he declined to sign it.

Biden and Warren had been on opposite sides during that period, as well — Biden voted for that 2000 bill, and Warren had counseled Hillary Clinton that it would be bad for consumers.

And that was the lay of the land when they met on Capitol Hill.

“This is one of those situations where the current story is not misleading. They were both very key players in this,” said David Skeel, professor at the University of Pennsylvania law school and the author of a history of bankruptcy.

“Elizabeth Warren was the most important critic of the legislation, and she spent years fighting it. That’s what really first got her into the into the public eye,” he said. “And Joe Biden was critically important to passing the legislation because credit card companies are very important to Delaware. And that’s where he was coming from.”

In the end, the bill passed. And as for the effects, they’re complicated.

One outcome: the bill included a provision that made obligations like child support and alimony a top priority for debtors to pay off — which addressed one concern of the bill’s opponents.

And another, overarching result: bankruptcies fell sharply afterward. And that’s linked to one other effect of the bill, according to Skeel.

“The biggest effect is that it is now more expensive to file for bankruptcy than it used to be,” Skeel said, “because of the the so-called means test that was put into the 2005 amendments that requires that debtors fill out forms to determine whether they would be capable of repaying some of what they owe.”

But, crucially, it’s not totally clear that that shows a reduction in bankruptcy abuse, he added.

Research on the bill also doesn’t hand either side a total win. On the one hand, the reform was associated with lower interest rates on credit cards, as Vox’s Matthew Yglesias pointed out in an article on the Warren-Biden debate.

But, Yglesias argued, studies also suggested that the law meant less access to credit and lower credit scores for some borrowers, not to mention a potentially slower bounce back from the Great Recession.

The political fallout

Potential 2020 voters have already had a preview of Warren’s attacks on Biden. In 2016, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., attacked Hillary Clinton’s vote for a similar 2001 bankruptcy bill — a vote she took after Warren convinced her it was a bad bill. Sanders used Warren’s criticisms as part of his attacks.

Warren talked about her disappointment in a 2004 interview with journalist Bill Moyers:

WARREN: She voted in favor of it.

MOYERS: Why?

WARREN: As Sen. Clinton, the pressures are very different. It’s a well-financed industry. You know, a lot of people don’t realize that the industry that gave the most money to Washington over the past few years was not the oil industry. It was not pharmaceuticals. It was consumer credit products. Credit card companies have been giving money, and they have influence.

MOYERS: And Mrs. Clinton was one of them as senator.

WARREN: She has taken money from the groups and more to the point, she worries about them as a constituency.

For her part, Clinton argued that she was able to support the bill because it, at that point, included better protections for women seeking child support and alimony.

That whole dynamic surrounding the law is repeating itself in this election.

“If you talk to many independent voters, they worry that both parties are funded by the same corporate interests,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has endorsed Warren ahead of 2020. “Elizabeth Warren has been part of the solution trying to re-brand the Democratic Party as being of the people. The credit card fight was just one chapter of that ongoing struggle.”

While Warren uses the fight as evidence of her willingness to fight corporations on behalf of everyday Americans, Biden and his supporters frame the bankruptcy bill as evidence of his practicality — and they also emphasize protections in the bill like those prioritizing child support.

“Sen. Biden, knowing essentially that the bill was likely to make it through a Republican-led Congress to a Republican-controlled White House, really worked hard to make sure that bill protected middle-class families,” said Terrell McSweeney, who worked as a Biden staffer just after the bill’s passage.

And that plays into a larger narrative from the Biden campaign.

“Folks, I’m going to say something outrageous,” he has said. “I know how to make government work. Not because I’ve talked or tweeted about it, but because I’ve done it. I’ve worked across the aisle to reach consensus, to help make government work in the past.”

Democratic voters are concerned with far different topics than the bankruptcy bill, like climate change and a health care overhaul.

But then, if both candidates remain key contenders for the nomination — and if they share a debate stage — there’s a good chance the topic will come up again, as a symbol of the differences between the two candidates.

And while bankruptcy expert Skeel acknowledges that he’s not a political strategist, he does have one political prediction based on the Biden-Warren bankruptcy fight.

“It strikes me that one potential implication,” he said, “is it’s highly unlikely you will see a Democratic ticket with both of them on it.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/06/11/731370440/democratic-presidential-debates-could-reignite-warren-biden-bankruptcy-fight

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

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/10/politics/joe-biden-age-fox-news-oldest-2020-democrats/index.html

New footage released by Customs and Border Protection shows a group of more than 130 migrants entering the U.S. by simply walking around a section of border wall in Arizona — in the latest incident prompting calls to curb the historic surge in illegal immigration.

The video, which could also fuel calls from Trump allies to close gaps in the existing U.S.-Mexico barrier, shows a procession of migrants walking around a section of wall in Sasabe, Ariz. A tweet from CBP said they were later arrested.

BORDER ARRESTS SKYROCKET IN MAY, AS OFFICIALS DECLARE ‘FULL-BLOWN EMERGENCY’

“Video of a large group of 134 Central Americans walking around the end of the border wall in Sasabe on Tuesday. The group immediately surrendered to @CBP #USBP agents. Eight people in the group were hospitalized,” CBP in Arizona tweeted.

The incident in Arizona came as border officials reported the highest number of migrants apprehended in over a decade, with nearly 133,000 arrests in May.

“We are in full-blown emergency,” Acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders said last week. In April, authorities recorded 99,304 arrests.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been negotiating with Mexican government officials, resulting in an agreement on Friday that would halt threatened tariffs in exchange for Mexico taking further action to stop the flow of migrants from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border.

This all comes as Trump has sought to extend and shore up the border wall, declaring a national emergency in a bid to divert billions toward construction — an effort being challenged in the courts.

The latest video prompted the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) to stress the importance of a stronger border barrier.

“Border Patrol Agents support the construction of border barriers because it makes their jobs less dangerous and reduces illegal immigration,” FAIR spokesman Matthew Tragesser told Fox News on Monday. “In the CBP Arizona video, more than 100 migrants crossed into the United States with ease due to there not being a fortified barrier. A barrier there might not have stopped all of them, but it would have certainly deterred their attempt to enter the U.S. illegally.”

Tragesser urged congressional lawmakers to “provide more border wall funding,” and reform asylum laws.

TRUMP SLAMS NYT STORY ON MEXICO PACT AS ‘FRAUD’ AND ‘HIT JOB’

“The nation has already reached a breaking point as hundreds of thousands of migrants are crossing illegally into the country monthly, and unprecedented flows of drugs from the southern border continue to contribute to one of the nation’s worst opioid epidemics in history,” Tragesser said. “Border barriers remain an essential component in border security, even if they are not the sole contributor in apprehension reduction.”

Democratic lawmakers, though, have scoffed at Trump’s immigration efforts and were particularly critical of his threat to impose tariffs on Mexico over the issue. Even some Republicans were uncomfortable with tariffs being used as a weapon in that debate.

“President Trump undermined America’s preeminent leadership role in the world by recklessly threatening to impose tariffs on our close friend and neighbor to the south,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Saturday. “Threats and temper tantrums are no way to negotiate foreign policy.”

According to the joint U.S.-Mexico declaration issued by the State Department in connection with their negotiations, Mexico will take “unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb irregular migration, to include the deployment of its National Guard throughout Mexico, giving priority to its southern border.” Through the agreement, the U.S. is slated to extend its policy of returning asylum applicants to Mexico while their claims are processed.

But even as the president called the agreement “successful,” he suggested Monday he may again seek to impose tariffs on Mexico if the plan falls through.

“We have fully signed and documented another very important part of the Immigration and Security deal with Mexico, one that the U.S. has been asking about getting for many years. It will be revealed in the not too distant future and will need a vote by Mexico’s Legislative body!” Trump tweeted.

“We do not anticipate a problem with the vote but, if for any reason the approval is not forthcoming, Tariffs will be reinstated!” he added.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cbp-video-migrants-border-wall-arizona

A helicopter crash landed on the roof of 787 7th Avenue in the early afternoon June 10, necessitating the shutting down of a portion of 7th Avenue below 51st Street, a few blocks north of the theatre district. The sole passenger in the helicopter was allegedly killed in the crash, and people in neighboring buildings have been sent home as a precautionary measure.

No further details are known at this time.


Source Article from http://www.playbill.com/article/helicopter-crash-in-midtown-manhattan-closes-down-portion-of-7th-avenue

Fox News’ Sean Hannity slammed House Democrats and Watergate figure John Dean Monday night calling a House Judiciary hearing a “circus” and Dean a “liar.”

“John Dean is a convicted felon, he was disbarred many decades ago for ‘being guilty of unethical, unprofessional, and unwarranted conduct.’ Oh, disbarred too, perfect guy for fake news CNN. Liar. Fake news. Now the felon rakes in a lot of cash trashing Donald Trump daily for the mainstream lying media mob,” Hannity said on his television show, not holding back.

NADLER PUTS BARR CONTEMPT PUSH ON HOLD AFTER STRIKING MUELLER REPORT DEAL

Dean, the former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, testified Monday that he sees “remarkable parallels” between Watergate and the Russia investigation.

The Fox News host called Dean a “prop” and the hearing “propaganda.”

“John Dean has been used as a prop by the mainstream media mob in the Democratic Party for years. Today’s hearing was a sham, a circus. A Democratic propaganda, paid for by you, the American people,” Hannity said.

Hannity praised President Trump for using executive privilege to prevent Democrats from ‘dragging’ America through yet another investigation.

“Now it is all over, there was no collusion, and the president will not allow Democrats to literally drag Americans through this process, yet again, for what would be a fifth investigation. And that’s why the president is now rightly saying ‘enough’s enough’ asserting executive privilege,” Hannity said.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Hannity criticized Democrats for costing White House workers, who serve their country, thousands in legal fees.

“House Democrats, they are not going to have the ability to re-litigate the Russia probe for a fifth time. It’s now abuse of power and outright harassment of a duly elected president.  More importantly, all the people that work for the president trying to serve their country should not have to shell out tens and tens of thousands of dollars in new legal fees answering the same questions over and over and over again,” Hannity said.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hannity-calls-john-dean-hearing-a-sham-a-circus

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Source Article from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/06/hong-kong-protests-extradition-law-china.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Story Continued Below

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Mark Humphrey/AP


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Mark Humphrey/AP

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

Mark Humphrey/AP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Among those is politics.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FDNY via Twitter


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NYC mayor: No indication of terrorism in helicopter crash

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

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

BRENDAN MCDERMID / REUTERS


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pompeo sharply rejected that report.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contributing: correspondent David Agren

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

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

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