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Trump Follows Up Promise to Impose “LAW AND ORDER” With Complaint That His Friends Are Being Prosecuted for “Old” Crimes

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Today in Stupid News, the president went on a rant about the importance of “LAW AND ORDER” (capitalization his), went to sleep, then woke up and began complaining about the (Republican) law-enforcement officials who are prosecuting his friends and advisers for laundering money and lying to federal authorities. In chronological order:

Some notes:

• Activists in Portland have blockaded an ICE office, and one activist posted personal information about seven ICE employees that included at least some phone numbers and home addresses.

Robert Mueller’s alleged “Conflicts of Interest” don’t exist. It is true that some (but not all) of the prosecutors working for him are or have been registered Democrats, but he and all the other people in supervisory roles related to the special counsel investigation are Republicans. (James Comey was also a Republican until recently.)

Meanwhile, all three of the former Trump advisers/cronies (Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and Rick Gates) who have pleaded guilty in Mueller’s investigation pleaded guilty specifically to lying to investigators after the 2016 election˘, and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is charged with crimes committed over a period that ranges from 2006 until this year.

In other words, if the oldest crime being looked at by Mueller were a person, it would be 12 years old. That’s not very old! Stupid millennial-aged crimes, with their entitlement and their Justin Bieber and their falling within the statute of limitations!

[Slate]

Trump’s IRS nominee didn’t disclose properties in Trump-branded hotel

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President Donald Trump’s pick to run the IRS, tax lawyer Chuck Rettig, owns properties at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki and Tower.

He’d previously disclosed his 50 percent stake in a pair of Honolulu rental units, but not their specific location. That detail was discussed later, at a June 21 meeting with congressional staff, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.

Trump typically gets fees on sales for licensing his name.

The document was circulated Wednesday to Senate Finance Committee members ahead of their hearing on Rettig’s nomination, scheduled for Thursday.

“The nominee did disclose these properties, but not their location,” the memo said of Rettig’s original answers to financial disclosure questions that ask nominees to list assets and sources of income that exceed $1,000.

The revelation about the Trump-branded hotel seems certain to come up when Rettig testifies.

“Committee staff raised this at the nominee’s June 21st due diligence meeting,” the memo said. “The nominee plans to provide more detail on his Committee Questionnaire to include the full name of the property.”

[Politico]

Trump calls Rep. Joe Crowley a ‘slovenly man’ who ‘got his ass kicked’

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President Donald Trump mocked the No. 4 House Democrat, Rep. Joe Crowley of New York, for losing in a primary to 28-year-old first-time candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday.

“A slovenly man named Joe Crowley got his ass kicked by a young woman who had a lot of energy,” Trump said. “She had a lot of energy. I guess he didn’t see it. They couldn’t find him.”

Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in Fargo, North Dakota, Wednesday night. He was promoting Rep. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, in his challenge to Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp.

The President also begged Democrats to keep Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California on as House minority leader and he highlighted Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who recently urged activists to publicly confront Trump officials.

“Please keep Maxine Waters on the air as your face and your mouthpiece for the Democrat party,” Trump said.

[CNN]

Trump taunts Crowley moments after losing Democratic primary

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President Trump slammed Joe Crowley just minutes after the Democratic congressman lost a primary to a political novice.

“Wow! Big Trump Hater Congressman Joe Crowley, who many expected was going to take Nancy Pelosi’s place, just LOST his primary election,” Trump tweeted Tuesday night.

“In other words, he’s out! That is a big one that nobody saw happening. Perhaps he should have been nicer, and more respectful, to his President!”

Crowley lost to Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who believes in universal health care, a federal jobs guarantee, and the abolition of ICE.

[New York Post]

Jeff Sessions jokes about separated families to laughing crowd

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions cracked a joke about the administration’s immigration chaos, and was greeted with laughs at the idea of separated families.

Sessions spoke Tuesday to a crowd at the conservative-leaning Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, and accused critics of his “zero tolerance” immigration policy of hypocrisy.

“These same people live in gated communities, many of them, and are featured at events where you have to have an ID to even come in to hear em speak. They like a little security around themselves,” he said.

“If you try to scale the fence they’d be even too happy to have you arrested and separated from your children.”

The last line brought laughs and a few cheers from the audience in Los Angeles, which was greeted with protests by those who see the separation of children from their undocumented parents as inhumane.

After first insisting that Congress deal with the problem, President Trump signed an executive order amid the outrage reversing the policy he put in place in April, allowing children to remain with their parents for 30 days.

The fates of those families that have already been separated have hung in limbo with limited action from the federal government, though on Tuesday a federal judge ordered authorities to reunite the loved ones within 30 days.

That order, in response to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit in California, also ordered an injunction against future family separations.

[New York Daily News]

Media

Reality

Poll after poll found massive disapproval with the Trump administration’s cruel policy of indefinitely separating children from their families as a deterrent to future immigration. So this is not the “lunatic fringe” but the vast majority of Americans.

Even Sessions’ joke is lie and based on a complete misunderstanding of our justice system.

If you take a Criminal Justice 101 class, you will learn the primary intention of incarcerating people for crimes is because they have harmed our society and as a form of punishment they are forced to rectify that harm. Removing that individual from their family is a side-effect. Have you ever heard the term, “he’s paid his debt to society?” That is what we are talking about.

Trump, separating families, is their primary intent.

Trump threatens Harley-Davidson: If it moves operations overseas, ‘they will be taxed like never before!’

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President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday that Harley-Davidsonwill be “taxed like never before” if the motorcycle maker moves production overseas. He claimed that the iconic U.S. company was using increased trade tensions as an excuse to justify planned changes in manufacturing.

“A Harley-Davidson should never be built in another country-never! Their employees and customers are already very angry at them. If they move, watch, it will be the beginning of the end – they surrendered, they quit! The Aura will be gone and they will be taxed like never before!” Trump said in a tweet.

Harley said Monday it was moving some production overseas due to increased costs from the EU’s retaliatory tariffs against the Trump administration’s duties on steel and aluminum. No production will be moving to Europe as a result of the tariffs, according to the company. Harley’s overseas manufacturing plants are in Brazil, India, Australia and Thailand.

[CNBC]

Trump Bashes ‘Lowlife’ Colbert, ‘Lost Soul’ Fallon, and ‘No Talent’ Kimmel in Surreal Rally Speech

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During his rally in South Carolina, Donald Trump went on a surreal tangent in which he hit the late night comedians from each of the big three networks.

For the last few days, Trump has been complaining about Fallon with regard to the infamous 2016 interview in which the NBC funnyman ruffled the then-candidate’s hair. Fallon has expressed regret for how he humanized Trump amid his various political controversies, and Trump responded by complaining about his hair being messed up.

When Trump brought this up on Monday night, he sarcastically remarked that Fallon is “going to lose all of us” for being sorry about the interview. He went on to trash Stephen Colbert as a “lowlife,” and said Jimmy Kimmel is “terrible” has “no talent.”

“Honestly, are these people funny?” Trump asked. “I can laugh at myself. Frankly, if I couldn’t, I’d be in big trouble. But they’re no talent. They’re not talented people.”

After Trump told a really dismissive story about the time he went on Kimmel’s show, he called Fallon a “lost soul” and bragged about how he gave him a ratings boost by appearing on his program. He continued to say that Fallon “really hurt himself” by apologizing, and then he eventually worked in a complaint about how Arnold Schwarzenegger ruined The Apprentice.

[Mediaite]

Sanders: Harassment of Trump supporters ‘unacceptable’

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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday pushed for respectful political discourse in the aftermath of her dismissal from a Virginia restaurant over the weekend.

Sanders addressed the incident at the start of Monday’s press briefing, saying she and her husband “politely left” The Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Va., after she said she was asked to leave “because I work for President Trump.”

“We are allowed to disagree but we should be able to do so freely and without fear of harm,” she said. “And this goes for all people regardless of politics.”

“Healthy debate on ideas and political philosophy is important, but the calls for harassment and push for any Trump supporter to avoid the public is unacceptable,” she said.

“America is a great country and our ability to find solutions despite those disagreements is what makes us unique,” she added before launching into a list of President Trump’s accomplishments.

 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/394021-sanders-on-fallout-of-restaurant-incident-harassment-of-trump

 

Sarah Sanders: ‘Just Because You Aren’t Seeing a Judge Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t Getting Due Process’

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered an intriguing defense of Donald Trump on Monday when asked about his apparent call for the country to disregard due process when dealing with illegal immigrants.

It’s been over a week since the last White House press briefing, so Sanders was buried under an avalanche of questions regarding the president’s rescinded policy of taking migrant children away from their parents at the U.S. southern border. As Trump railed against immigration laws and people “[invading] the country” over the weekend, he tweeted at one point that immigrants need to be sent back where they came from “with no Judges or Court Cases” involved.

When CNN’s Jeff Zelany asked Sanders if Trump was saying illegal immigrants have no right to due process, she defended the president by saying that current laws allow for the deportation of illegal aliens without having to go through court.

“Thousands of illegal aliens are removed every month without seeing an immigration judge as a result of procedures in current law including voluntary removal and expedited removal. Just because you don’t see a judge doesn’t mean you aren’t receiving due process. The president is focused on securing our borders and reforming our immigration system to prevent the crisis at the border from betting worse.”

Zeleny continued to press Sanders by asking her if immigrants who are deported this way don’t get a chance to appeal for asylum or make their case before a judge.

[Mediaite]

Reality

On one hand we have the Constitution, which makes it very clear due process applies to anyone on American soil.

This was reaffirmed in the 2001 Supreme Court decision Zadvydas v. David (533 US 678): “the Due Process Clause applies to all persons within the United States, including aliens, whether their presence here is lawful or unlawful.”

But on the other hand we have expedited removal where a person does not see the inside of a courtroom and a low-level immigration officer simply deports a person without any due process. Expedited removal is only allowed to be applied to undocumented immigrants without any documentation, not on asylum seekers which we are mostly seeing today, and has historically been used only on individuals who are repeat offenders.

But the law has been used more and more over the past several years, for example 44 percent of all removals from the United States were conducted through expedited removal in 2013.

Media

Trump Warns Maxine Waters Over Call to Harass Administration Officials

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President Donald Trump on Monday warned Rep. Maxine Waters to “be careful what you wish for,” two days after the California congresswoman urged supporters to harass members of the Trump administration in public places.

Referring to Ms. Waters as an “extraordinarily low IQ person,” Mr. Trump tweeted Monday: “She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement.” He added: “Be careful what you wish for Max!”

At an event in Los Angeles Saturday, Ms. Waters sought to rally the crowd against Trump administration officials. “If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” she said. “And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

On Friday night, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked by the owner of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Va., to leave. Tweeting about the incident Saturday, Ms. Sanders said she was asked to leave “because I work for @POTUS” and that she “politely left.”

“Her actions say far more about her than about me,” she added. “I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.” She also addressed the matter at Monday’s press briefing, saying: “We are allowed to disagree, but we should be able to do so freely and without fear of harm.”

Mr. Trump defended his press secretary on Monday, calling her a “fine person.”

Last week, protesters chanted “Shame!” at Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen while she was dining at a Mexican restaurant, hours after she defended the White House’s zero-tolerance policy that resulted in the separation of thousands of immigrant children from their families at a briefing with reporters.

[Wall Street Journal]

Reality

The same day his press secretary called for civility from his opponents, Donald Trump insulted, then threatened Congresswoman Maxine Waters with physical harm.
Trump also completely misrepresented Ms. Waters’ comments, who never called to harm Trumpers.

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