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Dead Guatemalan girl dreamed of sending money home to poor family – Reuters
Dead Guatemalan girl dreamed of sending money home to poor family – Reuters

SAN ANTONIO DE CORTEZ, Guatemala (Reuters) – The 7-year-old Guatemalan migrant girl who died in U.S. custody this month was inseparable from her father and had looked forward to being able to send money home to support her impoverished family, relatives said on Saturday.

Nery Caal, 29, and his daughter Jakelin were in a group of more than 160 migrants who handed themselves in to U.S. border agents in New Mexico on Dec. 6. Jakelin developed a high fever and died hours later while in the care of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

“The girl said when she was grown up she was going to work and send dough back to her mom and grandma,” said her mother Claudia Maquin, who has three remaining children, speaking in the Mayan language Q’eqchi and betraying little outward emotion.

“Because she’d never seen a big country, she was really happy that she was going to go,” she added, explaining how her husband had gone to the United States to find a way out of the “extreme poverty” that dictated their lives.

Corn stood behind her palm-thatched wooden house and a few chickens and pigs scrabbled in the yard as she spoke, dressed in a traditional blouse with a 6-month-old baby in her arms.

A family photograph at the house showed Jakelin smiling and looking up at the camera, wearing a pink T-shirt with characters from the cartoon series “Masha and the Bear.”

Deforestation to make way for palm-oil plantations has made subsistence farming increasingly hard for the 40,000 inhabitants of Raxruha municipality, where the family’s agricultural hamlet of San Antonio de Cortez lies in central Guatemala, local officials said. That has spurred an exodus of migrants.

Setting out on Dec. 1, Caal and his daughter traveled more than 2,000 miles (3,220 km) so Jakelin’s father could look for work in the United States, said her mother, who learned of the girl’s death from consular officials.

Almost 80 percent of Guatemala’s indigenous population are poor, with half of those living in extreme poverty. The mayor of San Antonio de Cortez described the Caal family as among the worst off in the village.

Mayor Cesar Castro said in recent months more and more families were uprooting to try to reach the United States, often selling what little land they owned to pay people traffickers thousands of dollars for the trip.

“It’s not just the Caal family. There are endless people who are leaving,” Castro said. “I see them drive past in pickups, cars and buses.” He said most of them came back in the end, often penniless after being dropped off by traffickers, caught by authorities and deported.

Jakelin’s death has added to criticism of U.S. of President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policies from migrant advocates and Democrats in the U.S. Congress.

The U.S. government defended Jakelin’s treatment, and said there was no indication she had any medical problems until several hours after she and her father were taken into custody.

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Domingo Caal, Jakelin’s grandfather, said she had gone on the journey because she did not want to leave her father.

“The girl really stuck to him. It was very difficult to separate them,” said Domingo, 61, wearing muddy boots and a faded and torn blue shirt.

Jakelin’s uncle, Jose Manuel Caal, said he had heard she was ill before she died, but had expected her to recover. “The girl’s death left us in shock,” he said.

The family hope the girl’s father can remain in the United States.

“What I want now is for Nery to stay and work in the United States. That’s what I want,” said his wife.

A Guatemalan consular official told Reuters on Friday that Caal told him he had crossed the border planning to turn himself in to U.S. authorities, and will try to stay.

Record numbers of parents traveling with children are being apprehended trying to cross the U.S. border with Mexico. In November, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers detained 25,172 members of “family units,” the highest monthly number ever recorded, the agency said.

Parents with children are more likely to be released by U.S. authorities while their cases are processed because of legal restrictions on keeping children in detention.

Slideshow (17 Images)

Caal remains in the El Paso, Texas area, where his daughter died after being flown by helicopter to a hospital there for emergency treatment when she stopped breathing.

A brain scan revealed swelling and Jakelin was diagnosed with liver failure. She died early in the morning on Dec. 8, with her father at the hospital, a CBP official said.

U.S. authorities are investigating the death.

Reporting by Sofia Menchu; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Jonathan Oatis

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-border-guatemala/dead-guatemalan-girl-dreamed-of-sending-money-home-to-poor-family-idUSKBN1OE0PY

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Ruling Striking Down Obamacare Moves Health Debate to Center Stage – The New York Times
Ruling Striking Down Obamacare Moves Health Debate to Center Stage – The New York Times

Encouraging enrollment has never been a priority for Trump administration officials, and confusion caused by the court decision in Texas could further depress enrollment, which was already lagging behind last year’s numbers.

From Nov. 1 to Dec. 8, about 4.1 million people had signed up for Affordable Care Act coverage through the federal marketplace, with new enrollment in the 39 states that use the federal website Healthcare.gov down by 20 percent compared with the same period last year.

In all, 11.8 million people in all 50 states signed up for health insurance through the law’s marketplaces for 2018. This year’s enrollment period is now ending except for in Rhode Island, where it will end Dec. 23, and in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and the District of Columbia, where it will end in January.

“During a year when most people don’t know when the deadline is, if the only news you hear is that the A.C.A. was struck down, that is only going to hurt enrollment,” Josh Peck, a co-founder of the group Get America Covered and the former chief marketing officer for Healthcare.gov during the Obama administration, said in an email.

The administration has slashed marketing efforts and enrollment assistance and encouraged people to buy skimpier, less expensive plans that do not meet the standards of the law. These actions, and the elimination of the law’s tax penalty for not having coverage starting next year, are most likely among the reasons fewer people are signing up.

Even as enrollment in private plans under the Affordable Care Act will most likely be smaller next year, hundreds of thousands more low-income adults are expected to enroll in expanded Medicaid in five states that recently gave them the option through citizens’ initiatives or legislative action. Those states are Idaho, Maine, Nebraska, Utah and Virginia. Last month’s Kaiser tracking poll found that 59 percent of respondents living in the 14 states that have not yet expanded Medicaid want them to do so.

Other broadly popular provisions of the law are one that allows young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance plan until they turn 26, and another that allows people to get certain types of preventive care, like vaccinations, mammograms and other types of screenings for diseases, at no charge.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/us/politics/obamacare-ruling-health-care.html

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Ryan Zinke: The controversies that defined his tenure as Trump’s Interior Secretary – USA TODAY
Ryan Zinke: The controversies that defined his tenure as Trump’s Interior Secretary – USA TODAY
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On Saturday, President Donald Trump said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who’s facing federal investigations, will leave the administration at year’s end.
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is leaving next year, President Donald Trump announced Saturday — the latest high-level departure from the president’s administration. 

Zinke has held his position since the start of Trump’s presidency, making him one of a handful of cabinet members who still have their original post within the administration.

The former Navy SEAL wielded an unflinching demeanor as the head of a sprawling agency. Interior has roughly 70,000 employees, manages the country’s natural resources on land and offshore, and oversees federal lands that collectively make up a fifth of the country.

For much of his tenure, Zinke, 57, a former Montana congressman, was the target of allegations and investigations. Those were sure to be examined in public in the new Democrat-led House of Representatives.

Here are some of the key controversies in Zinke’s time as President Donald Trump’s Interior Secretary. 

A land development deal

Zinke came under scrutiny for his role in a Montana land deal that could benefit him personally. The Interior Department’s own inspector general reportedly referred this case to the Department of Justice for potential prosecution.

The investigation examined a meeting Zinke had with David Lesar, chairman of Halliburton, an energy company. At issue: a project near land owned by Zinke’s family foundation. The project, according to CNN, could improve the value of the Zinke land. 

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Zinke said that meeting was innocent, and the pair just talked about the background of the project. 

“We go out to dinner. We talk about the background of the park: what are the neighbors like, what was the vision of the park, where the boundaries are, where the water table is because the water table has changed over time, what the railroad is. So they have the background,” Zinke said in June, during an interview with a Montana radio show.

Shrinking national parks 

Zinke also faced questions and scrutiny over his rationale for shrinking national parks and monuments. 

He was criticized heavily by environmental groups. His cuts to the size of parks engineered “the largest rollback of public land protection in American history,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.

The Interior’s inspector general investigated the shrinking of one specific park, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah. The watchdog group examined whether Zinke redrew the lines of the park to help a former Utah lawmaker, a Republican and supporter of the Trump administration. 

Last year, the president approved Zinke’s recommendation to cut the monument by nearly half. The new boundaries helped free land surrounding 40 acres owned by former state Rep. Mike Noel and, according to the Washington Post, would help bring a proposed water pipeline to the area.

The agency’s watchdog released its findings last month, saying it found “no evidence” that Zinke altered the monument to help Noel or that Zinke and his staff even knew of the former lawmaker’s financial interest in the changes. 

Casino deal

The Interior Department’s watchdog group was also examining why Zinke denied a casino deal in Connecticut with the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes when staffers at Interior recommended approving it, the Washington Post reported.

The new casino would have been a competitor with MGM Resorts. The company and several senators lobbied for Zinke to deny a permit for the project, which he did. 

Travel concerns 

The agency’s inspector general admonished Zinke for his use of military charter planes. One trip, in June 2017, cost $12,375 for a trip to speak at the developmental camp for the Golden Knights, a professional hockey team based in Las Vegas.

He also was criticized by lawmakers for spending more than $53,000 on three helicopter trips in 2017, including one that returned him to Washington in time to take a horseback ride with Vice President Mike Pence, according to The Associated Press.

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The U.S. Department of Interior spent $139,000 to fix doors in Secretary Ryan Zinke’s office. The price is more than double the median U.S. household income in 2017.
USA TODAY

Office remodeling

Zinke drew criticism earlier this year for moving forward with the replacement of three sets of doors at Interior’s historic headquarters, costing nearly $139,000.

A spokeswoman for Zinke said at the time he was unaware of the contract before reporters started asking about it. 

The work is part of a decade-long modernization of the 1936 building that began before Zinke took office in March 2017.

More: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke accused of mixing politics with government business

Offshore drilling exemption for Florida

Zinke made a big deal in January when, after the president unveiled his plan to open up 90 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf off the U.S. coast to oil and gas exploration, he flew to Florida and revealed the Sunshine State would be exempt from offshore drilling.

It was seen as a political gambit and a huge gift to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who weeks later decided to challenge Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

But The Washington Post later reported the move caused some friction within the White House because it was not coordinated with the West Wing’s political shop. 

Contributing: Ledyard King, Associated Press

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/12/15/ryan-zinke-secretary-interior-donald-trump/2322324002/

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As Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional, Democrats Seethe, Republicans Stay Mum – NPR
As Judge Rules Obamacare Unconstitutional, Democrats Seethe, Republicans Stay Mum – NPR

The HealthCare.gov website is seen on a laptop computer in May, 2017. On Friday, a federal district court judge ruled that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

Alex Brandon/AP


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Alex Brandon/AP

The HealthCare.gov website is seen on a laptop computer in May, 2017. On Friday, a federal district court judge ruled that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.

Alex Brandon/AP

President Trump called a Friday ruling striking down the Affordable Care Act “Great news for America!” Democratic lawmakers rushed to decry the decision, calling it “monstrous” and “harmful,” but Republican lawmakers remained mostly quiet Saturday.

U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor explained his decision turned on a 2017 congressional tax bill, which eliminated a penalty for people who don’t acquire health insurance. Without the fine, the ruling says, the ACA is unconstitutional.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – who spearheaded the suit – celebrated the ruling on Twitter with three exclamation points: “BREAKING: Texas Federal judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional!!!” But Texas senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn as well as Gov. Gregg Abbott haven’t mentioned it there. None of their offices responded to NPR requests for comment Saturday morning.

Additionally, none of the Republican governors of the 20 states listed as plaintiffs in the case noted the ruling on their Twitter accounts.

As NPR’s Alison Kodjak reported on Weekend Edition, the ruling puts GOP lawmakers in a tricky position. Republicans made multiple unsuccessful attempts to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act in 2017, but many ran their midterm election campaigns this year promising protections for people with preexisting condition – a central piece of the Affordable Care Act.

Meanwhile, the federal government has had to respond to the awkward timing of the judge’s decision, which came on the eve of the final day of open enrollment for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. “Court’s decision does not affect this season’s open enrollment,” reads a red banner on HealthCare.gov. Seema Verma, who oversees Medicare and Medicaid, took to Twitter to spread that same message.

The Affordable Care Act itself remains popular. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted last month found that 53 percent of adults have a favorable opinion of Obamacare. And various aspects of the law have been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Democrats vowed to appeal Friday’s decision, which could set the law on a path back toward the justices in Washington, D.C.

In a statement, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called O’Connor’s ruling “absurd,” adding that it “defies the law as written and Supreme Court precedent. Unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act in Congress, Republicans have turned to conservative judges to try and do the job.”

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, took his own attorney general, Jeff Landry, to task on Twitter. Landry is one of the Republican state attorneys general who helped bring this case against the ACA.

One of Landry’s colleagues in the effort, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, applauded the court’s decision in a statement released Friday, saying it “reaffirms the important principle that our Constitution protects liberty by limiting the power of the federal government.”

Perhaps anticipating the anger some have directed at his opinion, Judge O’Connor opened it with an acknowledgment of the shock waves it would send throughout the country.

“The United States healthcare system touches millions of lives in a daily and deeply personal way. Health-insurance policy is therefore a politically charged affair — inflaming emotions and testing civility.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2018/12/15/677036593/as-judge-rules-obamacare-unconstitutional-democrats-seethe-republicans-stay-mum

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Fate of Obama’s health law set to be decided by supreme court – again – The Guardian
Fate of Obama’s health law set to be decided by supreme court – again – The Guardian

The future of the Affordable Care Act is once again set to be decided by the US supreme court, amid warnings from experts that healthcare access for millions of Americans hangs in the balance.

A coalition of Democratic state attorneys has vowed to appeal a late-Friday decision by a federal judge in Texas to strike down the entire ACA, also known as Obamacare, as unconstitutional.

About 11.8 million Americans used Obamacare to enroll in health coverage this year.

Xavier Becerra, attorney general of California, said the ruling was “an assault on 133 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the ACA for healthcare, and on America’s faithful progress toward affordable healthcare for all Americans”.

Becerra added Democrats would “continue to fight in court for the health and wellbeing of Americans”.

Given the looming appeal, the White House has said it expects the issue to again be decided by the supreme court, which has already upheld Obamacare twice since it was enacted in 2010.

The Trump administration welcomed the ruling by the Texas judge Reed O’Connor but added that Congress should act to preserve protections for people with pre-existing conditions, which would be swept away if Obamacare was dissolved.

The issue is politically fraught for the administration. Democrats managed to gain control of the House of Representatives in the November midterms after focusing on concerns over healthcare coverage.

The ACA bars insurers from refusing to cover someone due to a past medical condition and sets up exchanges on which people can purchase plans. The American Medical Association has warned any repeal of the system would “destabilize health insurance coverage”.

“No one wants to go back to the days of 20% of the population uninsured and fewer patient protections, but this decision will move us in that direction,” said Barbara McAneny, president of the AMA.

In 2010, there were more than 48 million Americans without healthcare coverage, a number that fell by more than 20 million by 2016. There was a slight uptick in the uninsured population last year, however, according an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Repealing the ACA became a defining issue for Republicans, although they were unable to do so when they held both branches of Congress following a sustained outcry over the expected harmful consequences of doing so. Donald Trump has called the ACA a “disaster” and said last year Republicans should “let Obamacare fail”.

As part of the 2017 tax bill, Republicans did manage to dismantle the individual mandate, which requires people get health coverage or face a penalty. Judge O’Connor’s 55-page ruling argues this action “sawed off the last leg” that Obamacare stood on, making it unconstitutional.

Several legal experts have been baffled by the decision. “This is insanity in print, and it will not stand up on appeal,” tweeted Nicholas Bagley, an expert in health law at the University of Michigan Law School.

Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/dec/15/obamacare-healthcare-aca-appeal-supreme-court

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Ryan Zinke, Face of Trump Environmental Rollbacks, Is Leaving Interior Department – The New York Times
Ryan Zinke, Face of Trump Environmental Rollbacks, Is Leaving Interior Department – The New York Times

In June, Politico reported that Mr. Lesar, the Halliburton chairman, was lending financial backing to a major development in Mr. Zinke’s hometown, Whitefish, that would significantly raise the value of property owned by Mr. Zinke. The development would include a hotel, shops and a brewery, and Mr. Zinke’s wife had pledged in writing to allow the developer to build a parking lot that would help make the project possible. The land for the potential lot is owned by a foundation created by Mr. Zinke.

Because Halliburton is the nation’s largest oil services company, and because Mr. Zinke regulates the oil industry on public land, the deal raised questions as to whether it constituted a conflict of interest. Mr. Zinke’s schedule also showed that he had hosted Mr. Lesar and a developer involved with the hotel-brewery project in his secretarial office in 2017.

In response, three Democrats sent a letter to the Interior Department’s top watchdog, Mary L. Kendall, requesting an investigation into whether Mr. Zinke had used his position as secretary for personal financial gain. In July, Ms. Kendall complied, opening an investigation. In October, her department forwarded at least one inquiry to the Justice Department.

Heather Swift, a spokeswoman for Mr. Zinke, has said that the secretary did nothing wrong and that he resigned from his charitable foundation’s board of directors before the deal was made.

Before Mr. Zinke joined the Trump administration, he often called himself a conservative conservationist. But as secretary, he quickly became one of the chief proponents of Mr. Trump’s energy-first agenda, promoting policies that seek to open the East Coast to offshore drilling, weaken the standards of the Endangered Species Act and shrink two national monuments, constituting the largest rollback of federal land protection in the nation’s history.

Last year under Mr. Zinke, the United States offered up 12.8 million acres of federally controlled oil and gas parcels for lease, triple the average offered during President Barack Obama’s second term, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

These policies won Mr. Zinke favor with Mr. Trump, who had made promotion of the fossil fuel industry a key part of his campaign platform, as well as from the oil and gas companies that had increasingly made up Mr. Zinke’s donor base as a Montana politician.

His policies have angered environmentalists, who have filed lawsuits trying to block these plans. Many have argued that Mr. Zinke has turned his back on the nation’s environmental heritage just as dire news about climate change has made land, water and air protection increasingly urgent.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/us/ryan-zinke-interior-secretary.html

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Here’s how Trump hobbled Obamacare and drove enrollment down this year – CNBC
Here’s how Trump hobbled Obamacare and drove enrollment down this year – CNBC

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Health and Science

The open enrollment period for people to sign up for health insurance next year through the Affordable Care Act ends Saturday in most states, and signups are significantly down from last year.

While President Donald Trump didn’t repeal and replace former President Barack Obama‘s signature health-care law, more commonly known as Obamacare, he was able to dismantle key parts of it that health policy researchers are blaming for much of the drop.

Sign-ups on the federal health insurance marketplace have fallen 11.7 percent from the same time last year, according to the latest figures from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The number of new people buying the coverage has dropped even more: 19.7 percent.

The lagging numbers also come as the future of the Affordable Care Act is uncertain. A federal judge in Texas ruled late Friday the law unconstitutional, potentially threatening health-care coverage for millions of Americans and setting up a new legal showdown over Obama’s policy initiative. Trump cheered the judge’s decision in a tweet.

To be sure, the tight labor market is playing at least some role in lower Obamacare enrollment figures this season, health policy experts say.

Historically low unemployment, which was at 3.7 percent in November and October, is helping reduce dependence on the federal health program as more Americans are getting their health insurance from employers. And while Obamacare doesn’t require small businesses to offer health coverage, more may now be doing so to attract and retain workers.

The ACA’s final enrollment numbers won’t be tallied until next week, but health policy experts say several key changes the Trump administration made to the ACA law are helping drive enrollment down this year.

‘Skimpy’ health insurance plans

One factor that health policy analysts say could be depressing enrollment for 2019 is the move by the Trump administration allowing people to remain longer in less-expensive short-term health plans, also sometimes referred to as “skimpy” plans.

The Obama administration had restricted the use of short-term plans — which as a rule offer less comprehensive coverage of benefits — to three months. But the Trump administration is allowing people to stay in short-term plans for up to 12 months. And it is allowing consumers to renew their coverage in such plans twice.

Some policy analysts predict those less-expensive plans could attract healthier customers than people who opt for the more expensive, and more comprehensive, Obamacare plans.

Repeal of the individual mandate

This enrollment season was also the first since Congress repealed the so-called individual mandate as part of Trump’s tax plan. The mandate, which is still in effect for 2018, imposes a tax penalty on people without coverage. It was designed to persuade people to buy insurance instead of paying the extra tax, which came to the greater of $695 per adult or up to 2.5 percent of household income, depending on how many months an individual went without coverage.

At the time, Trump claimed the tax plan “essentially” repealed the health-care law, which was false.

But without the mandate, Obamacare exchanges were expected to see fewer sign-ups, especially from younger, healthier people who feel they may not need coverage, said Judy Solomon, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington think tank.

Cuts to the ACA budget

The Obama administration spent $100 million for its advertising and promotional budget in its last year. The Trump administration then scaled back that budget by 90 percent to $10 million for this year’s enrollment. The administration also steadily cut funding for so-called navigators, customer service representatives who walk people through the enrollment process.

Some researchers say it’s affecting public awareness of the program and deadline to buy coverage. According to the most recent poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 24 percent of Americans ages 18 to 64 are aware of the current open enrollment deadline.

Fewer days to sign-up

Open enrollment ran for seven weeks this year in most states, much shorter than under the Obama administration. The Trump administration shortened that time period back last year. However, the Obama administration had planned something similar.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/15/heres-how-trump-hobbled-obamacare-and-drove-enrollment-down.html

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His worst nightmare: Trump’s life under a legal microscope – CNN
His worst nightmare: Trump’s life under a legal microscope – CNN

Washington (CNN)Weeks of devastating legal revelations have left Donald Trump’s political career clouded by criminality and his life, presidency and business empire under assault by relentless prosecutors on multiple fronts.

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    Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/15/politics/donald-trump-robert-mueller-investigations-russia/index.html

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    Trump Inaugural Committee Paid Trump Hotel After Ivanka Trump Brokered Deal: Report – Newsweek
    Trump Inaugural Committee Paid Trump Hotel After Ivanka Trump Brokered Deal: Report – Newsweek

    The non-profit that organized President Donald Trump’s inauguration paid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space, according to an investigation by ProPublica and WNYC. 

    According to the report, the president’s daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump was involved in negotiating how much Trump’s Washington D.C. hotel charged for venue rentals in the run-up-to the January 2017 inauguration.

    Read more: Who has Robert Mueller indicted? Full list of everyone charged as result of Russia collusion investigation

    Ivanka Trump connected Rick Gates, who acted as the deputy to the chairman of President Trump’s inaugural committee, to the manager of the hotel, who suggested a price of $175,000 per day for hiring the hotel’s presidential ballroom.

    U.S. President Donald Trump (R), stands with his wife first lady Melania Trump, daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, inside of the inaugural parade reviewing stand in front of the White House on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. Getty Images

    One member of the inauguration committee—Stephanie Winston Wolkoff—emailed Ivanka and fellow members to express her concern that the hotel was overcharging, stating that she believed the maximum rate should be $85,000 a day. 

    “Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge,” she wrote in an email obtained by the publications. 

    In another email obtained by the publications, Gates thanks Ivanka for helping to negotiate the rates. 

    It is not clear how much the committee ultimately paid the hotel. 

    Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka Trump’s ethics lawyer, told WNYC that she delegated the negotiations with the inaugural committee to “a hotel official” and directed they be conducted at a “fair market rate.”

    An inaugural committee spokeswoman told the publications that the group “is not aware of any pending investigations and has not been contacted by any prosecutors. We simply have no evidence the investigation exists.”

    On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump inaugural committee was under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan for possible financial abuses in relation to the nearly $100 million raised for the inauguration. 

    As part of the probe, investigators are looking into whether the committee accepted donations from individuals seeking influence in the Trump administration, in violation of federal law, and also looking into whether money was misspent.

    p:last-of-type::after, .node-type-slideshow .article-body > p:last-of-type::after{content:none}]]>

    Source Article from https://www.newsweek.com/trump-inaugural-committee-paid-trump-hotel-after-ivanka-trump-brokered-deal-1260292

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    Despite federal judge’s ruling, Obamacare exchanges are open for business, CMS official says – Fox News
    Despite federal judge’s ruling, Obamacare exchanges are open for business, CMS official says – Fox News
    Video

    Federal judge strikes down Obamacare

    A spokesperson from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told Fox News early Saturday that open enrollment for Affordable Care Act’s health insurance will continue despite the federal judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional and must be “invalidated in whole.”

    U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a federal judge in Texas appointed by President George W. Bush, ruled that last year’s tax cut bill knocked the constitutional foundation from under Obamacare by eliminating a penalty for not having coverage. The rest of the law cannot be separated from that provision and is therefore invalid, he wrote.

    The decision came on the evening before the Dec. 15 deadline for Americans.

    The spokesperson from CMS told Fox that the judge’s decision, which was applauded by President Trump, is still working its way through the courts and is not the final word on the matter.

    “There is no impact to current coverage or coverage in a 2019 plan,” the spokesperson said.

    Congress is unlikely to act while the case remains in the courts. Numerous high-ranking Republican lawmakers have said they did not intend to also strike down popular provisions such as protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions when they repealed the ACA’s fines for people who can afford coverage but remain uninsured.

    Xavier Becerra, the California attorney general, vowed to appeal the decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.

    “Today’s ruling is an assault on 133 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the A.C.A.’s consumer protections for health care, on America’s faithful progress toward affordable health care for all Americans,” Becerra said in a statement, obtained by The New York Times.

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is expected to become House speaker in January, vowed to fight what she called an “absurd ruling.”

    Trump tweeted his support for the ruling, saying, “Obamacare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster!” He continued, “Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions.”

    About 20 million people have gained health insurance coverage since the ACA passed in 2010 without a single Republican vote. Currently, about 10 million have subsidized private insurance through the health law’s insurance markets, while an estimated 12 million low-income people are covered through its Medicaid expansion.

    The White House said late Friday that it expects the ruling to be appealed to the Supreme Court. The five justices who upheld the health law in 2012 in the first major case — Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberals — are all still serving.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report

    Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/despite-federal-judges-ruling-obamacare-exchanges-are-open-for-business-cms-official-says

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    Migrant caravan: US to investigate after child dies in custody at border – BBC News
    Migrant caravan: US to investigate after child dies in custody at border – BBC News

    Image copyright
    Getty Images

    Image caption

    Migrants have tried to climb border fences to gain entry into the US

    An investigation has been launched after a seven-year-old girl died while in the custody of the US Border Patrol.

    The Guatemalan child, named as Jakelin Caal Maquin, was detained last week after crossing the US-Mexico border with her father, officials say.

    It was earlier reported that she died of dehydration, but border officials insist the pair had access to food and water while they were in detention.

    A government watchdog will investigate before releasing a final report.

    The death of the girl has bought renewed focus on President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration policy, and onto the migrants who are travelling from Central America to the US border.

    The migrants say they are fleeing persecution, poverty and violence in their home countries. Many say they are aiming to settle in the US despite warnings that anyone found entering the country illegally will face deportation.

    What do the US authorities say happened?

    According to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the girl was apprehended with her father for illegally entering the country on the evening of 6 December.

    She was then screened and found to have no health issues.

    Image copyright
    Getty Images

    Image caption

    Border Patrol agents stand guard as they look for illegal immigrants

    It says she was held in a location that had food, water and toilets before she was loaded onto a bus with her father ahead of a 94-mile (151km) journey to the nearest Border Patrol Station.

    But the girl began vomiting while on the bus, officials say, and later stopped breathing.

    When the bus arrived at the Border Patrol Station she received emergency medical attention and was revived twice before being flown to hospital in El Paso, according to the CBP.

    It says she died there after suffering a cardiac arrest and was diagnosed with brain swelling and liver failure.

    “Border Patrol Agents… did everything in their power to provide emergency medical assistance,” CBP Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan said in a statement.

    “We welcome the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation and will review the incident operationally to learn from this tragedy,” he added.

    Some Democrats have called for resignations over the incident, while others, including former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, have said it is part of a “humanitarian crisis” on the border.

    Why is there tension on the border?

    It’s been running high since the arrival of almost 7,500 migrants in recent weeks.

    Last month, US border agents used tear gas on a crowd of migrants, including children, trying to cross the border.

    The agents said that personnel had been assaulted and hit by stones.

    However, critics accused the Trump administration of a draconian response, while Mexico demanded an investigation into the incident.

    Media captionUS closes border crossing after migrant rush

    The migrants have travelled in large groups, dubbed “caravans”, for more than 4,000km from Central America.

    Among them are many families with young children.

    Donald Trump has vowed to keep each migrant on the Mexican side of the border until courts have decided their cases, meaning some face a long wait.

    They have been spending time in temporary shelters in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and in Mexicali, 180km to the east.

    Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46573274

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    Despite federal judge’s ruling, Obamacare exchanges are open for business, CMS official says – Fox News
    Despite federal judge’s ruling, Obamacare exchanges are open for business, CMS official says – Fox News
    Video

    Federal judge strikes down Obamacare

    A spokesperson from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told Fox News early Saturday that open enrollment for Affordable Care Act’s health insurance will continue despite the federal judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional and must be “invalidated in whole.”

    U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a federal judge in Texas appointed by President George W. Bush, ruled that last year’s tax cut bill knocked the constitutional foundation from under Obamacare by eliminating a penalty for not having coverage. The rest of the law cannot be separated from that provision and is therefore invalid, he wrote.

    The decision came on the evening before the Dec. 15 deadline for Americans.

    The spokesperson from CMS told Fox that the judge’s decision, which was applauded by President Trump, is still working its way through the courts and is not the final word on the matter.

    “There is no impact to current coverage or coverage in a 2019 plan,” the spokesperson said.

    Congress is unlikely to act while the case remains in the courts. Numerous high-ranking Republican lawmakers have said they did not intend to also strike down popular provisions such as protection for people with pre-existing medical conditions when they repealed the ACA’s fines for people who can afford coverage but remain uninsured.

    Xavier Becerra, the California attorney general, vowed to appeal the decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.

    “Today’s ruling is an assault on 133 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, on the 20 million Americans who rely on the A.C.A.’s consumer protections for health care, on America’s faithful progress toward affordable health care for all Americans,” Becerra said in a statement, obtained by The New York Times.

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is expected to become House speaker in January, vowed to fight what she called an “absurd ruling.”

    Trump tweeted his support for the ruling, saying, “Obamacare has been struck down as an UNCONSTITUTIONAL disaster!” He continued, “Now Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT healthcare and protects pre-existing conditions.”

    About 20 million people have gained health insurance coverage since the ACA passed in 2010 without a single Republican vote. Currently, about 10 million have subsidized private insurance through the health law’s insurance markets, while an estimated 12 million low-income people are covered through its Medicaid expansion.

    The White House said late Friday that it expects the ruling to be appealed to the Supreme Court. The five justices who upheld the health law in 2012 in the first major case — Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberals — are all still serving.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report

    Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/despite-federal-judges-ruling-obamacare-exchanges-are-open-for-business-cms-official-says

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    Obamacare Thrown Out by Judge, Raising Insurance Uncertainty – Bloomberg
    Obamacare Thrown Out by Judge, Raising Insurance Uncertainty – Bloomberg

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    To continue, please click the box below to let us know you’re not a robot.

    Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-15/obamacare-core-provisions-ruled-unconstitutional-by-judge

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    Mick Mulvaney will have the toughest job in the White House, and Trump better not ruin it – Washington Examiner
    Mick Mulvaney will have the toughest job in the White House, and Trump better not ruin it – Washington Examiner

    Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and until three days ago also the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is adding acting White House chief of staff to his plate.

    Mulvaney, one of the few establishment fiscal wonks of the Trump administration, has been in high demand in a White House bleeding mainstream political operatives. The selection of Mulvaney for a job that no one really wants is wise, insofar as the former congressman has demonstrated political skill.

    In practice, it’ll probably be a disaster.

    For one thing, when the relationship between Trump and Mulvaney blows up (which it inevitably will, as it would with any chief of staff pick), the White House will lose one of its few truly competent fiscal conservatives. Second, placing Mulvaney front and center will render his entire strategy to manage his relationship with Trump impossible.

    At the OMB, Mulvaney’s been responsible, perhaps more than anyone else in the administration, for conservative rollbacks of Obama’s regulatory state. Consider this exchange from a Politico magazine piece last year:

    “Look, this is my idea on how to reform Social Security,” the former South Carolina congressman began.

    “No!” the president replied. “I told people we wouldn’t do that. What’s next?”

    “Well, here are some Medicare reforms,” Mulvaney said.

    “No!” Trump repeated. “I’m not doing that.”

    “OK, disability insurance.”

    “Tell me about that,” Trump replied.

    “It’s welfare,” Mulvaney said.

    “OK, we can fix welfare,” Trump declared.

    Sure enough, the Trump budget plan that Mulvaney unveiled a few weeks later would cut about $70 billion in disability benefits over a decade, mostly through unspecified efforts to get recipients back to work.

    Mulvaney is an economic wonk, an attorney with a focus in anti-trust law. The self-described “right-wing nutjob” has excelled in both of his posts during this presidency, mainly because of his ability to circumvent Trump on policy minutiae while maintaining an excellent rapport with him. Trump thinks himself a warrior, and Mulvaney is certainly a happy one.

    But managing Trump as a person and as his personnel is a different story. If it ends badly with Mulvaney leaving the administration altogether, Trump will have lost a true and increasingly rare talent.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/mick-mulvaney-will-have-the-toughest-job-in-the-white-house-and-trump-better-not-ruin-it

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    Federal judge in Texas rules entire Obama health-care law is unconstitutional – The Washington Post
    Federal judge in Texas rules entire Obama health-care law is unconstitutional – The Washington Post

    Amy Goldstein

    December 14 at 9:11 PM

    A federal judge in Texas threw a dagger into the Affordable Care Act on Friday night, ruling that the entire health-care law is unconstitutional because of a recent change in federal tax law.

    The opinion by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor overturns all of the sprawling law nationwide.

    The ruling came on the eve of the deadline for Americans to sign up for coverage in the federal insurance exchange created under the law.

    Since the suit was filed in January, many health-law specialists have viewed its logic as weak but nevertheless have regarded the case as the greatest looming legal threat to the 2010 law, which has been a GOP whipping post ever since and assailed repeatedly in the courts.

    A spokeswoman for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D), who leads a group of states opposing the lawsuit, said that the Democratic defenders of the law are ready to challenge the ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

    The Supreme Court upheld the law as constitutional in 2012 and 2015, though the first of those opinions struck down the ACA’s provision that was to expand Medicaid nationwide, letting each state choose instead. No matter how O’Connor ruled, legal experts have been forecasting that the Texas case would be appealed and could well place the law again before the high court, giving its conservative newest member, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, a first opportunity to take part.

    O’Connor is a conservative judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He was appointed by President George W. Bush. O’Connor ruled once before on an issue arising from the ACA, issuing a nationwide injunction two years ago on an Obama administration rule that forbade health-care providers from discriminating based on gender identity.

    And in June, the administration took the unusual step of telling the court that it will not defend the ACA against this latest challenge. Typically, the executive branches argues to uphold existing statutes in court cases.

    The lawsuit was initiated by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who describes himself as a tea party conservative, with support from 18 GOP counterparts and a governor. The plaintiffs argue that the entire ACA is invalid. They trace their argument to the Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in which Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority that the penalty the law created for Americans who do not carry health insurance is constitutional because Congress “does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance.”

    As part of a tax overhaul a year ago, congressional Republicans pushed through a change in which that ACA penalty will be eliminated, starting in January. The lawsuit argues that, with the enforcement of the insurance requirement gone, there is no longer a tax so the law no longer is constitutional.

    “Once the heart of the ACA — the individual mandate — is declared unconstitutional, the remainder of the ACA must also fall,” the lawsuit said.

    In his 55-page opinion, O’Connor writes that the individual mandate is unconstitutional, saying that it “can no longer be fairly read as an exercise of Congress’ tax power.”

    The judge also concludes that this insurance requirement “is essential to and inseverable from the remainder of the ACA.”

    In a court brief and an accompanying letter to congressional leaders, the Justice Department did not go that far. Justice officials contended that, once the insurance mandate’s penalty is gone next month, that move will invalidate the ACA’s consumer protections, such as its ban on charging more or refusing to cover people with preexisting medical conditions. But the administration argued that many other parts of the law could be considered legally distinct and thus can continue.

    Just before the brief’s deadline, three Justice attorneys involved with the case withdrew from it.

    In the letter to Congress, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that Justice was taking this position “with the approval of the president of the United States.” President Trump has vowed since his campaign to dismantle the law, a main domestic achievement of his predecessor, and the administration has been taking steps on its own to foster alternative insurance that tends to be less expensive because it skirts ACA requirements.

    The lawsuit has been opposed by a coalition of 17 Democratic attorneys general, led by California’s Becerra, a former congressman. The Democrats contend that while the Republican tax law will eliminate the federal penalty for being uninsured, it does not negate the ACA’s constitutionality.

    “Today’s misguided ruling will not deter us. Our coalition will continue to fight in court for the health and well being for all Americans,” Becerra said in a statement after the ruling Friday.

    During oral arguments in September, O’Connor asked more pointed questions of the Democratic attorneys general than of the Republicans.

    The midterm elections last month have altered the political map in the case. In Wisconsin, an incoming Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, campaigned on a promise to withdraw the state from the lawsuit, but Wisconsin’s Republican legislature and outgoing Gov. Scott Walker (R) have tried in a lame-duck session to block his ability to do that. In Maine, outgoing Gov. Paul LePage (R) joined the lawsuit, but the state attorney general’s office told the court last month that the governor did not have power to do so on his own.

    Read more

    New insurance guidelines would undermine rules of the Affordable Care Act

    Trump administration issues rules letting some employers deny contraceptive coverage

    States act on their own to fill holes Washington is knocking in Affordable Care Act

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/federal-judge-in-texas-rules-obama-health-care-law-unconstitutional/2018/12/14/9e8bb5a2-fd63-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html

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    FBI’s entrapment of Gen. Flynn was despicable – Washington Examiner
    FBI’s entrapment of Gen. Flynn was despicable – Washington Examiner

    Investigators into Russian attempts to subvert American democracy grievously mistreated Gen. Michael Flynn, now convicted of perjury related to the investigation. Some of the prosecutors should themselves face professional punishment for their misbehavior.

    As this site’s resident defender of special counsel Robert Mueller, I am obligated to insist that the investigators themselves uphold the same standards they would apply to others. Without excusing Flynn’s lies to investigators, a fair-minded observer can call foul on an obviously unfair, and perhaps unlawful, perjury trap.

    Federal district judge Emmet Sullivan likewise seems quite perturbed by the latest information about the Flynn case. With Flynn’s sentencing imminent, Sullivan suddenly ordered prosecutors to produce any existent memoranda regarding their conduct of the interview in which Flynn lied.

    And for good reason. The investigators’ treatment of Flynn, as described in a memo filed with the court by Flynn’s lawyers, looks like a textbook case of unethical entrapment.

    The interview was set up directly via a phone call to Flynn from Andrew McCabe, who then was deputy director of the FBI. McCabe, by his own account, made it sound like an ordinary national-security-related briefing of the sort Flynn was accustomed to giving the FBI. Even though McCabe clearly knew that Flynn was a potential subject of investigation, he deliberately dissuaded Flynn from having attorneys present.

    Moreover, when the agents arrived, they and Flynn both treated the meeting as rather informal, even “jocular,” and “the agents did not provide General Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement … before, during, or after the interview.” The agents’ decision not to so inform Flynn was made at the direct behest of McCabe because “they wanted Flynn to be relaxed.”

    This is an absolute outrage.

    Granted, it’s not certain that the ordinary requirement for a “ Miranda warning” were applicable in this situation because Flynn had not been detained by, nor was in the custody of, law enforcement. Yet in commonsense terms, what McCabe and his agents did was obviously entrapment. It may even have crossed the official legal line of entrapment to the effect that Flynn’s conviction might be thrown out. At first perusal, it appears to have done so.

    Let’s be clear what this FBI perfidy does and doesn’t mean. First, it does not have any bearing on Mueller’s conduct of the investigation: The interview with Flynn occurred months before Mueller was appointed. And Mueller, pleased with Flynn’s cooperation, has recommended no jail time for the general. Flynn’s case is only a small part of Mueller’s overall investigation, which has been conducted “by the book” (as the expression goes). Second, it does nothing to invalidate, or make legally unusable, any other information Flynn provided Mueller’s team while cooperating. If Flynn provided evidence implicating others in misdeeds, that evidence is still good.

    Third, though, this entrapment provides even more reason for McCabe himself to be investigated for wrongdoing. Again and again, it has been shown that McCabe acted not as the impartial enforcer of justice that a top FBI official should be, but rather as a partisan or ideological hack against conservatives in general or against Trump’s team in particular.

    Fourth and finally, this might remove the status of “felon” from Flynn’s permanent record. A man with a distinguished military career, whose lie did not involve conduct that in itself was criminal and was less self-protective than it was a matter of political ham-handedness, perhaps merits some slack anyway. His reputation already has suffered; must his legal status also be permanently scarred?

    Either way, McCabe’s behavior here appears shameful, well deserving of fierce condemnation.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/fbis-entrapment-of-general-flynn-was-despicable

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    The 7-year-old migrant girl who died in Border Patrol custody received medical care 90 minutes after first showing symptoms – INSIDER
    The 7-year-old migrant girl who died in Border Patrol custody received medical care 90 minutes after first showing symptoms – INSIDER

    • The 7-year-old migrant girl who died in Border Patrol custody last week has been identified as Jakelin Caal Maquin, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
    • A CBP timeline showed she couldn’t access emergency medical care until roughly 90 minutes after she began showing symptoms.
    • According to CBP, agents first became aware of the girl’s symptoms during a bus ride to a Border Patrol station.
    • Emergency medical workers began providing care once the bus arrived, 90 minutes later, CBP said.

    The 7-year-old migrant girl who died in Border Patrol custody last week has been identified as Jakelin Caal Maquin. She couldn’t access emergency medical care until roughly 90 minutes after she began showing symptoms, according to a Customs and Border Protection timeline.

    Jakelin died December 8, shortly after she and her father were apprehended while illegally crossing into a remote area of the desert in New Mexico as part of a group of 163 migrants.

    According to CBP, Border Patrol agents first became aware of the girl’s symptoms during a bus ride to the Lordsburg Border Patrol station around 5 a.m. on December 7, when her father said she was sick and vomiting.

    “At this time, the Agents notified the Lordsburg Border Patrol Station to prepare to receive the child and provide emergency medical care,” CBP’s timeline said. “Due to the remoteness of the area, meeting emergency medical personnel in Lordsburg was the best means to provide the child with emergency care.”

    Read more: After a 7-year-old migrant girl died in Border Patrol custody, Kirstjen Nielsen said ‘this family chose to cross illegally’, and critics are outraged she’s blaming the death on the family

    CBP said the bus arrived at the station just before 6:30 a.m., when Jakelin’s father said she wasn’t breathing.

    “A Border Patrol Emergency Medical Technician began to provide medical care and revived the child twice. It was determined at this time that she had a temperature of 105.7 degrees,” CBP’s timeline said.

    According to CBP, Jakelin was airlifted to a children’s hospital in El Paso, Texas, where she died less than 24 hours later.

    The Department of Homeland Security and its secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, drew backlash on Friday after appearing to blame Jakelin’s death on the family members who brought her across the US-Mexico border.

    In an interview with “Fox & Friends” early Friday morning, Nielsen told the hosts that the girl’s death “is just a very sad example of the dangers of this journey” migrants take.

    “This family chose to cross illegally,” she said. “What happened here was that they were about 90 miles away from where we could process them. They came in such a large crowd that it took our Border Patrol folks a couple of times to get them all.”

    Source Article from https://www.thisisinsider.com/7-year-old-migrant-girl-died-in-border-patrol-custody-identified-jakelin-caal-maquin-2018-12

    42 views no comments
    Mueller probe has cost taxpayers more than $25 million, spending report reveals – Fox News
    Mueller probe has cost taxpayers more than $25 million, spending report reveals – Fox News
    Video

    No mention of Russian collusion in Mueller filings

    Special Counsel Robert Mueller releases court filings on Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen; panel reaction on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’

    Taxpayers have spent more than $25 million on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, according to the latest spending report released Friday.

    Between April 1 and Sept. 30 of this year, the special counsel has spent $4.56 million on the investigation.

    “The Department will continue to dedicate and leverage resources to maintain strong program and financial management controls,” the report stated. “Management takes its program and financial accountability seriously and is dedicated to ensuring that funds are used in a responsible and transparent manner.”

    Of the $4.56 million, $2.9 million went to “Personnel Compensation and Benefits” – $1 million of that went to special counsel employees’ salaries and benefits, and $1.9 million was “reimbursable” for Justice Department employees on detail with the special counsel’s office.

    The special counsel’s office spent $942,787 on “Rent, Communications, and Utilities,” nearly $60,000 on printing, supplies, and materials; and Mueller’s team spent $580,098 on transportation and travel, with the majority of those funds going to “temporary duty relocation of DOJ employees detailed” to the special counsel’s office.

    The special counsel’s office spent $310,732 for “contractual services,” which the report notes was primarily for “IT services.”

    The report also tracked Justice Department spending in separate investigations, which totaled $3.9 million for this period. The report notes that cost “would have incurred for the investigations irrespective of the existence of the [Special Counsel’s Office].”

    Mueller is investigating Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates during the 2016 presidential election.

    Between April 1 and Sept. 30, Mueller has sent former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and former Manafort associate Alex van der Zwaan to federal prison to serve short sentences; received a guilty plea from former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who faces up to 80 years in prison and a guilty plea from former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen for making false statements to Congress; and received President Trump’s answers to critical questions in the investigation, among other things.

    The total spent during this period mirrors that of the previous period—Oct.1 2017 through March 31, 2018, when the special counsel spent $4.5 million.

    Neither reporting period includes the $5.5 million spent by the Justice Department on other expenses related to the Russia investigation.

    Mueller was appointed special counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Previously, the Justice Department said that during the May-September 2017 period, the investigation cost nearly $7 million.

    That sum included $3.2 million in direct special counsel expenses and $3.5 million for other Justice Department expenses, covering costs like agents working on raids or interviews and other government contractors.

    Fox News’ Alex Pappas contributed to this report.

    Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mueller-probe-costs-taxpayers-nearly-21-million-according-to-latest-special-counsel-spending-report

    25 views no comments
    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Just Signed a Raft of Bills Aimed at Limiting the Power of his Democratic Successor – Slate
    Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Just Signed a Raft of Bills Aimed at Limiting the Power of his Democratic Successor – Slate

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function(t,d,f){var l=arguments.length>3&&void 0!==arguments[3]?arguments[3]:{};try{var p=void 0,g=l.method||(f?”POST”:”GET”),h=document.createElement(“a”);h.href=t;var v=”object”===(void 0===d?”undefined”:o(d))&&null!==d?d:{success:function(){s.logMessage(“xhr success”)},error:function(e){s.logError(“xhr error”,null,e)}};if(“function”==typeof d&&(v.success=d),(p=new window.XMLHttpRequest).onreadystatechange=function(){if(p.readyState===c){
    “function”==typeof r&&r(h.origin);var e=p.status;e>=200&&e0})})}var x,j,O=(x=e,(j=m.deepClone(x)).forEach(function(e){e.bids=e.bids.filter(function(e){return!a()||e.finalSource!==w.SERVER})}),j=j.filter(function(e){return 0!==e.bids.length}));return g.forEach(function(e){var t=m.getUniqueIdentifierStr(),a={bidderCode:e,auctionId:r,bidderRequestId:t,bids:o({bidderCode:e,auctionId:r,bidderRequestId:t,adUnits:O,labels:u}),auctionStart:n,timeout:i},c=E[e];c||m.logError(“Trying to make a request for bidder that does not exist: “+e),c&&a.bids&&0!==a.bids.length&&s.push(a)}),t.gdprDataHandler.getConsentData()&&s.forEach(function(e){e.gdprConsent=t.gdprDataHandler.getConsentData()}),s},t.checkBidRequestSizes=function(e){function t(e){return Array.isArray(e)&&2===e.length&&m.isInteger(e[0])&&m.isInteger(e[1])}return e.forEach(function(e){var n=e.mediaTypes,r=m.getAdUnitSizes(e);if(n&&n.banner){var i=n.banner;i.sizes?(i.sizes=r,e.sizes=r):(m.logError(“Detected a mediaTypes.banner object did not include sizes. This is a required field for the mediaTypes.banner object. Removing invalid mediaTypes.banner object from request.”),delete e.mediaTypes.banner)}else e.sizes&&(m.logWarn(“Usage of adUnits.sizes will eventually be deprecated. Please define size dimensions within the corresponding area of the mediaTypes.

    Source Article from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/walker-wisconsin-republican-bills-targeting-evers.html

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    FBI’s entrapment of General Flynn was despicable – Washington Examiner
    FBI’s entrapment of General Flynn was despicable – Washington Examiner

    Investigators into Russian attempts to subvert American democracy grievously mistreated Gen. Michael Flynn, now convicted of perjury related to the investigation. Some of the prosecutors should themselves face professional punishment for their misbehavior.

    As this site’s resident defender of special counsel Robert Mueller, I am obligated to insist that the investigators themselves uphold the same standards they would apply to others. Without excusing Flynn’s lies to investigators, a fair-minded observer can call foul on an obviously unfair, and perhaps unlawful, perjury trap.

    Federal district judge Emmet Sullivan likewise seems quite perturbed by the latest information about the Flynn case. With Flynn’s sentencing imminent, Sullivan suddenly ordered prosecutors to produce any existent memoranda regarding their conduct of the interview in which Flynn lied.

    And for good reason. The investigators’ treatment of Flynn, as described in a memo filed with the court by Flynn’s lawyers, looks like a textbook case of unethical entrapment.

    The interview was set up directly via a phone call to Flynn from Andrew McCabe, who then was deputy director of the FBI. McCabe, by his own account, made it sound like an ordinary national-security-related briefing of the sort Flynn was accustomed to giving the FBI. Even though McCabe clearly knew that Flynn was a potential subject of investigation, he deliberately dissuaded Flynn from having attorneys present.

    Moreover, when the agents arrived, they and Flynn both treated the meeting as rather informal, even “jocular,” and “the agents did not provide General Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement … before, during, or after the interview.” The agents’ decision not to so inform Flynn was made at the direct behest of McCabe because “they wanted Flynn to be relaxed.”

    This is an absolute outrage.

    Granted, it’s not certain that the ordinary requirement for a “ Miranda warning” were applicable in this situation because Flynn had not been detained by, nor was in the custody of, law enforcement. Yet in commonsense terms, what McCabe and his agents did was obviously entrapment. It may even have crossed the official legal line of entrapment to the effect that Flynn’s conviction might be thrown out. At first perusal, it appears to have done so.

    Let’s be clear what this FBI perfidy does and doesn’t mean. First, it does not have any bearing on Mueller’s conduct of the investigation: The interview with Flynn occurred months before Mueller was appointed. And Mueller, pleased with Flynn’s cooperation, has recommended no jail time for the general. Flynn’s case is only a small part of Mueller’s overall investigation, which has been conducted “by the book” (as the expression goes). Second, it does nothing to invalidate, or make legally unusable, any other information Flynn provided Mueller’s team while cooperating. If Flynn provided evidence implicating others in misdeeds, that evidence is still good.

    Third, though, this entrapment provides even more reason for McCabe himself to be investigated for wrongdoing. Again and again, it has been shown that McCabe acted not as the impartial enforcer of justice that a top FBI official should be, but rather as a partisan or ideological hack against conservatives in general or against Trump’s team in particular.

    Fourth and finally, this might remove the status of “felon” from Flynn’s permanent record. A man with a distinguished military career, whose lie did not involve conduct that in itself was criminal and was less self-protective than it was a matter of political ham-handedness, perhaps merits some slack anyway. His reputation already has suffered; must his legal status also be permanently scarred?

    Either way, McCabe’s behavior here appears shameful, well deserving of fierce condemnation.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/fbis-entrapment-of-general-flynn-was-despicable

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    Michael Cohen didn’t tell the whole truth about the hush payments in ‘GMA’ interview – Washington Examiner
    Michael Cohen didn’t tell the whole truth about the hush payments in ‘GMA’ interview – Washington Examiner

    It should come as a surprise to precisely no one that what Michael Cohen said Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” about Trump and the now-famous 2016 hush-money payments was so inaccurate that you have to wonder if he’s still lying.

    Cohen, newly convicted felon and former lawyer to President Trump, asserted that Trump directed the payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal specifically to influence the election.

    “You have to remember at what point in time that this matter came about — two weeks or so before the election, post- the Billy Bush [“Access Hollywood”] comments, so, yes, he was very concerned about how this would affect the election,” said Cohen.

    But this only relates to one of the payments, the one to Daniels, and excludes information that indicates such payments may have been routine for Trump going as far back as 2014, more than a year before Trump launched his campaign.

    The payment to McDougal took place well before the “Access Hollywood” tape was released on Oct. 8, 2016. That agreement, made as part of a deal with the National Enquirer, was sealed on Aug. 5, more than two months before anyone would know about the “Access Hollywood” tape.

    The U.S. government’s sentencing memorandum from two weeks ago said that this alliance between Trump and the Enquirer was forged more than a year before Trump began his long shot bid for the White House.

    “In August 2014, [Enquirer Chairman David Pecker] had met with Cohen and [Trump] and had offered to help deal with negative stories about [Trump’s] relationships with women by identifying such stories so that they could be purchased and ‘killed,'” reads the memo.

    So, the “catch and kill” plan was the Enquirer’s idea all the way back in 2014. One of the payments was made in August of 2016, three months before the election; and then there was a second payment, which there’s no evidence wouldn’t have taken place regardless of its timing.

    Cohen was sentenced this week to three years in prison after he pleaded guilty to massive tax evasion, bank fraud, lying to Congress, lying to the FBI, and two campaign finance violations. He blames Trump for his predicament.

    “It’s sad that I should take responsibility for his dirty deeds,” Cohen said in the interview, though it’s unclear how Trump is responsible for Cohen’s taxi medallion scheme or his neglect to claim millions of dollars in revenue to avoid paying taxes.

    Cohen is bitter. And he might still be lying.

    Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/michael-cohen-didnt-tell-the-whole-truth-about-the-hush-payments-in-gma-interview

    28 views no comments