Thursday, July 18th, 2019
Stephan: It is my view that ICE and the Border Patrol, the agencies which, along with private corporate contractors, maintain the child concentration camps, and the appalling detention centers for adults, should both be disbanded, with all staff from top to bottom fired. These are Gestapo like organizations filled, on the evidence, with bullies, thugs, and sexual predators. It is estimated that as many as 50 percent of personnel were involved in the now infamous Facebook group. And when I say top to bottom I mean just that.
Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost before a Senate subcommittee on May 8.
Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty
Carla Provost, the chief of the United States Border Patrol, was one of a number of Border Patrol personnel to participate in a Facebook group in which members joked about migrant deaths and made other offensive comments about immigrants and asylum-seekers, the Intercept reported Friday. The group’s discovery led to two separate investigations by government watchdog groups into unprofessional behavior.
The group—called “I’m 10-15” after the Border Patrol code for “aliens in custody”—was created in August 2016 for current and former Border Patrol agents. Members posted obscene, misogynistic, and racist content in it, along with cruel comments about migrants. Only one post from Provost has come to light so far, from November 2018, and it doesn’t appear offensive on its own. (A group member commented about Provost’s ascent to the top of the agency, and she chimed in to the resulting conversation to clarify the timeline.) But it indicates she was aware […]
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Wednesday, July 17th, 2019
Chris Edelson, Assistant Professor of Government at American University’s School of Public Affairs - USA TODAY
Stephan: This is one of the clearest statements I have read about the failure of both parties in the United States to defend the Constitution, and I agree with what it says.
Credit: Shutterstock
Americans have lived with the symptoms for so long that, by now, many of us hardly pay more than a moment’s attention when they flare-up. We may observe, in passing, the numbness we feel when President Donald Trump threatens a political opponentwith criminal prosecution. There may be a tingling sensation in our moral compass when Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner engage in diplomatic relations at the highest levels or when foreign governments line the president’s pockets.
We shrug with resignation as we acknowledge that the Republican leadership in Congress will do nothing to respond after Trump has openly invited foreign countries to, once again, try to help him win an election. When yet another woman steps forward to accuse Trump of sexual assault or rape, we understand that there will be no congressional hearings to sort out what happened.
We understand that Trump will face no consequences for […]
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Wednesday, July 17th, 2019
Laura Zhou , - South China Morning Post
Stephan: If Trump doesn't work for Putin, then he is destroying the U.S. for free out of stupidity. I wonder if all those Trump-supporting farmers realize what they have done to themselves and whether they will vote for him again?
Russia’s largest food producer, which began shipping poultry products to China last month, is ready to begin supplying pork and soybeans to the world’s most populous nation. Credit: AFP
Russia’s leading meat producer has said it is ready to fill the supply gap left by the US as the world’s most populous market struggles with the double blow of a devastating swine fever epidemic and a protracted trade war.
Cherkizovo Group, the largest meat producer in Russia, began shipping poultry products to China last month, and is now looking forward to selling pork and soybeans there, according to CEO Sergey Mikhailov, in an interview with the South China Morning Post on Thursday.
Hopes that China would buy more pork, soybean and other protein products from the US were dashed last month after trade negotiations with […]
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Wednesday, July 17th, 2019
Alex Henderson, - Raw Story
Stephan: Republicans cannot govern effectively, if effectively means a government fostering the wellbeing of society and not just a few rich people. Republican Sam Brownback, the disastrously incompetent former governor of Kansas, is example number two, Trump being example number one. Here's the latest on the Brownback "experiment" as he called it.
Former Republican governor of Kansas Sam Brownback
Kansas had one of the worst economies in the Midwest when, in June 2017, its state legislature reversed former Gov. Sam Brownback’s disastrous tax cuts for the wealthy. And according to CNBC America’s Top States for Business study, Kansas is now the state with the most improved economy in the U.S. and is enjoying a budget surplus.
In 2018, Kansas’ economy came in at an embarrassing #45 in the Top States for Business study and at #35 overall — and since then, it has improved by 16 points in general as well as by 16 points in the economy category, according to CNBC.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a centrist Democrat, was delighted with the news, telling CNBC, “We are returning to our roots as a very progressive, thoughtful, forward-looking state.” The Democrat went on to say, “Kansas, for years now, has been at the low end of all economic metrics. That’s changing.”
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Wednesday, July 17th, 2019
Mark Joseph Stern, - Reader Supported News
Stephan: This is why Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are so single-mindedly trying to get judges appointed. They watched the effect of Carter's appointments and want to do the same. They are trying to imprint Trumpism on the American judiciary, and all of us will have to live with that for a generation.
It is up to us to see that the Senate flips; what are you doing to make that happen?
Jimmy Carter with Ruth Bader Ginsburg at a reception for the National Association of Women Judges on Oct. 3, 1980.
Credit: Jimmy Carter Presidential Library
In December 1976, one month before beginning his single term as president, Jimmy Carter hosted some of the most preeminent civil rights figures and black leaders in the country at the stately governor’s mansion in Atlanta. Rep. Andrew Young, the Atlanta congressman and former executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was there to accept a position as ambassador to the United Nations. Judge Frank M. Johnson, a white federal judge whose landmark rulings helped end public segregation throughout the South, met with Carter to discuss a top role in the Department of Justice. Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King Jr., also paid the president-elect a visit.
Then there was Democratic Sen. James Eastland of Mississippi. Eastland, whose name has returned to the news in recent weeks following controversial comments by Joe Biden, had little in common […]
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