White House looks to contain damage as Laura Bush joins critics of family separations

The Trump administration sought to distance itself Sunday from the controversial policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border amid condemnation from some prominent Republican voices -- including former first lady Laura Bush.
“Nobody likes” breaking up families and “seeing babies ripped from their mothers’ arms,” Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to President Donald Trump, said during her weekend media blitz.
Conway also denied Trump was using the policy as leverage to force Democrats into negotiating immigration reform that also includes one of the president's key campaign promises – the border wall.
Speculation about an elaborate strategy was fueled after Trump tweeted Saturday a call for Congress to work on a new immigration bill.
“Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!” he wrote.

“Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!”

The president previously pointed at Democrats for the existence of the “horrible law” and urged them to support its repeal.
“Put pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.” he tweeted last month.

Former first lady Laura Bush has come out against the Trump administration's policy of "zero-tolerance" to parents entering the U.S. illegally with their children.  (Associated Press)

Over the weekend, Conway echoed the president, saying Democrats should begin working to get “real immigration reform” passed. She didn’t reveal if Trump was willing to stop the family separation policy, saying only that “the president is ready to get meaningful immigration reform across the board.”
The administration continues to face heavy criticism for enforcing the law, which has led to more than 2,000 children being separated from families who tried to enter the U.S. illegally in just the six weeks since U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the “zero-tolerance” approach.
The latest critics include former first lady Laura Bush, wife of former President George W. Bush, who deemed the policy as “cruel” and “immoral.”
“I live in a border state. I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart,” she wrote in an op-ed article for the Washington Post.
“Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso,” she continued. “These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
Anthony Scaramucci, the short-lived White House communications director, also criticized the policy, saying it’s not “the Christian way” or “the American way,” though he hoped that the president would eventually end the policy.
“The President can reverse it and I hope he does,” Scaramucci tweeted.
He reiterated his feelings to Fox 11 in Los Angeles over the weekend, saying that he didn’t think it was a “humane” policy -- but claimed the problem lies on both sides.
"People should sit down and have an honest conversation with the president and say, 'This doesn't reflect well on us,’” he said. "'We have to fix this problem.'”
The policy even sparked a rare public statement from first lady Melania Trump, who generally stays out of her husband’s presidential affairs.
According to her spokeswoman, Melania Trump believes “we need to be a country that follows all laws,” but also one “that governs with heart.”
“Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” the spokeswoman added.
Amid the criticism, Kirstjen Nielsen, head of the Department of Homeland Security, slammed the media on Sunday, tweeting “We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.”
“This misreporting by Members, press & advocacy groups must stop. It is irresponsible and unproductive. As I have said many times before, if you are seeking asylum for your family, there is no reason to break the law and illegally cross between ports of entry,” she added.

NJ governor sees guns, not shooter's early prison release, as the problem

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New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy responded to Sunday's deadly shooting at a Trenton arts festival by calling for new controls on guns. But a suspect’s gang membership -- and early release from prison after Murphy took office -- may have been bigger factors in an incident that left one person dead and 22 wounded.
Meanwhile, Murphy -- a first-term Democrat in his first elected office -- supports shorter sentences for offenders and cuts in prisoner rehabilitation programs.
The suspect, identified as Tahaji Wells, 33, opened fire before 3 a.m. at the Art All Night festival in New Jersey's capital city, in what appears to have been a gang-related dispute. Wells was reportedly killed by police, and 17 of the 22 people injured reportedly suffered gunshot wounds.
A second suspect, identified as Amir Armstrong, 23, remained hospitalized in stable condition and was facing a weapons charge, while a third suspect was in critical condition.
Less than 24 hours after the gunfire, Murphy -- a former Goldman Sachs banker who served as President Barack Obama's ambassador to Germany -- began calling for gun control without addressing the other circumstances involved in the crime.
"It's yet another reminder of the senseless gun violence, even having signed six stringent gun laws last week," Murphy said at a news conference Sunday following a service at Trenton's Galilee Baptist Church.
During the service, he said he "and many others around this state are committed to ending this scourge of gun violence” and urged the Congress to take action on guns "as a national matter.”
On Twitter, the governor also said the immediate aftermath is the time to speak about possible gun control.
“These are not inappropriate times to talk about gun policy," he wrote. "These are the most important times to talk about gun policy.”

“These are not inappropriate times to talk about gun policy. These are the most important times to talk about gun policy.”

But it turns out that Wells had been released from prison in February, despite receiving an 18-year state prison sentence in 2004 on an aggravated manslaughter conviction in the shooting death of a 22-year-old man, NJ.com reported.

June 13 , 2018: Gov. Phil Murphy, center, signs several gun safety bills at the Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex Atrium in Trenton, N.J.. The half-dozen new gun control laws tighten the state’s already strict statutes.  (Associated Press)

And in 2010, while still in prison, Wells was sentenced to six additional years after pleading guilty to a second-degree racketeering charge. He reportedly helped a gang leader run the group from inside prison.
So despite two lengthy sentences that should have left Wells serving time behind bars into the 2020s, he was back on the streets and able to commit Sunday's crime.
Murphy has decried the sentencing and incarceration of people throughout his campaign and time in office as part of his criminal justice reform agenda, which includes a review of sentencing laws in the state.
The governor’s efforts weren’t just promises, as earlier this year he resurrected the Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission created in 2009, which never actually held any meetings due to former state Gov. Chris Christie’s reluctance to appoint any members.
“We can and must do better,” Murphy said in a statement announcing the restart of the commission. “A Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission can undertake the important review of our sentencing laws and recommend reforms necessary to ensure a stronger, fairer and more just state.”

Phil Murphy, who became New Jersey's governor in January, speaks at a campaign rally in Newark in 2017.  (Reuters)

Another key promise of Murphy was to “expand re-entry services, so that the people coming out of prison have the support they need to return to productive lives” – a measure that should have supposedly prevented Wells’ shooting spree.
Yet, Murphy slashed all the money from a prisoner reentry program that was created by his fellow Democratic Party colleagues, NJ.com reported. The program provided training and helped former prisoners to find jobs and claimed it reduced recidivism rates.

Anthony Scaramucci Cartoons

Scaramucci sees family separations as potential pitfall for Trump

Anthony Scaramucci says the family separation issue has left former colleague Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a "tough position."  (Associated Press)

President Donald Trump may lose support with voters if he doesn't address the family-separation controversy in the nation's immigration policy, Anthony Scaramucci warned.
The former White House communications director discussed the Trump administration’s controversial policy Saturday during an appearance on “The Issue Is” on Fox 11 in Los Angeles.
Since being implemented in May, the controversial policy has resulted in approximately 2,000 children being separated from their parents.
Scaramucci told host Elex Michaelson that Trump may need to rethink the policy.
“My recommendation is, let’s fix this immediately because what we have to stand for in our society is American values,” Scaramucci said.
“I recognize that people should not break the law, but there’s a lot of desperate people that want to enter this country and we have to take a humane approach to those people.”

“I recognize that people should not break the law, but there’s a lot of desperate people that want to enter this country and we have to take a humane approach to those people.”

On Saturday he tweeted, "Separating innocent children from their families is not the Christian way, the American way, nor what @POTUS wants. Congress must act to stop this madness."
Scaramucci also said the policy has placed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in a "tough position" of having to defend it. He spoke about a Bible passage that Sanders recently used in one such defense.
“I think the biblical reference she was trying to say was more to upholding the law, and less so to separating people from their children,” he said.
Scaramucci also addressed the lingering legal troubles of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manfort and Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, claiming both were “getting dunked in the court of public opinion.”

"We need more civility and less civil war; more discourse and more coarseness."
- Anthony Scaramucci

“I don’t know the facts of the case,” Scaramucci said of Manafort's alleged witness tampering, which landed him behind bars this week, “but if Paul did that … I think it’s pretty aggressive.”
He added, “The stuff that seems to be happening to Paul is not campaign-related, it goes back 10 or 12 years.”
Scaramucci also criticized what he described as Trump’s seeming abandonment of Cohen, who is entangled in a legal battle with porn actress Stormy Daniels over an alleged payoff of $130,000 during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“The isolation strategy is not a good one. People can figure out what they can do to help Michael,” Scaramucci said.
He ended the interview with a plea for less hostility between people of differing political viewpoints.
“We need more civility and less civil war; more discourse and less coarseness,” he said.
Scaramucci's tenure as White House communications director lasted a tumultuous 11 days last July. He was fired after audio from a phone conversation between him and a writer for the New Yorker magazine went public, in which Scaramucci lambasted former White House officials Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon.

Bernie Sanders won't endorse own son's US House candidacy

U.S. House candidate Levi Sanders, left, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., take a walk in Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 7, 2016.  (Associated Press)

If Bernie Sanders doesn’t receive a Father’s Day card on Sunday, the reason might not be hard to figure out.
The U.S. senator from Vermont has declined to endorse his son Levi Sanders, 49, a candidate for a U.S. House seat in New Hampshire, according to reports.
“He’s on his own,” the elder Sanders told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday night, adding that he doesn’t like “dynastic politics.”

"He's on his own."

Some say they are not surprised, because the elder Sanders has a long history of being stingy with political endorsements.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., his wife Jane Sanders, and his son Levi Sanders arrive at a primary night rally in Essex Junction, Vt., March 1, 2016.  (Associated Press)

In the mid-1980s, for example, Sanders declined to do more to aid what has evolved into Vermont's Progressive Party. Then last winter he declined to help his stepdaughter, Carina Driscoll, run for the mayor's office in Burlington, Vt., which Sanders himself once held.
“This is a fancy dance that Bernie has done, but it's not recommended for anyone else," said Garrison Nelson, a University of Vermont political science professor emeritus. “This is a testament to Bernie’s uniqueness as a political actor.”

“This is a testament to Bernie’s uniqueness as a political actor.”
- Garrison Nelson, political science professor emeritus, University of Vermont

For his part, Levi Sanders -- a legal services analyst who is one of 11 seeking the Democratic nomination to fill the seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter -- has joked that rather than being Bernie Sanders' son, he is the son of the fourth cousin of Larry David, the co-creator of “Seinfeld” who has portrayed Bernie Sanders on “Saturday Night Live.”
But since the father-son political relationship has drawn recent attention, Levi Sanders has gone quiet on the matter.
Levi Sanders is portraying himself as a progressive campaigning for tuition-free college, health care for all and sensible gun legislation. The first two issues were central to his father's latest presidential campaign.
His campaign said in a statement Saturday that he also believes in equal pay for women and "a minimum wage allowing people to work 40 hours a week without living in poverty."
But Levi Sanders’ campaign has struggled to gain traction, partly due to a crowded field for the Sept. 11 primary. Levi Sanders has raised only about $11,500 through March, according to the latest campaign finance reports.
Many have said Levi Sanders has done little to build support among the grassroots progressives who supported his father.
Several analysts questioned whether an endorsement from his father would make all that much difference.

Hillary Clinton tells grads of pricey San Francisco school about her troubled youth

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks in New York City, April 6, 2017.  (Associated Press)

Blame it on the bullies?
In a surprise appearance Friday, Hillary Clinton delivered a commencement address to graduates of San Francisco's exclusive Hamlin School.
Media reports said Secret Service personnel whisked the former Democratic presidential nominee and U.S. secretary of state into the all-girls private school -- where tuition is $34,500 per year.
"Tuition includes lunch and snack," the school's website says.
Once inside, Clinton spoke about her own experiences being bullied while growing up in suburban Chicago, as well as the need to be “courageous in a world dominated mainly by men,” graduate Alexa Tabibian told San Francisco's KGO-TV. The event was closed to the media.
“I never thought I’d ever get to see her in person and it was just so great,” Tabibian said.
As Clinton recalled of her youth, in a YouTube video posted by the school: "As I would go out looking to play, the kids who were already there would circle around me, bully me, knock me to the ground, and I would get up and run crying into the house. This went on for weeks. It was a pattern of our lives."
She then described being forced to fight another girl.
"Accidentally, one of my arms touched the girl and she fell over, and so I was now part of the neighborhood -- and she became my best friend growing up."

"Accidentally, one of my arms touched the girl and she fell over, and so I was now part of the neighborhood -- and she became my best friend growing up."

Ryan Froeb, another eighth-grader, told the station that Clinton’s anti-bullying message resonated with her own experiences.
“It was striking,” the eighth-grader said. “I didn’t know she had those hardships of bullying. I have gone through some bullying as well and that connection just really touched my heart.”
Some said Clinton’s message also touched on her 2016 presidential election loss to Donald Trump, KGO reported.
Details about how Clinton’s appearance was arranged or how much she was paid – if at all – were unknown.
Clinton said her close friend, Susie Tompkins Buell, has a granddaughter who was among the graduates.
The previous night, Clinton appeared at the Hyatt Regency in san Francisco to address the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the Chronicle reported.
Other attendees included former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and survivors of February's massacre in Parkland, Fla., who discussed the need for gun control, the report said.

Happy birthday, Mr. President! Media give Trump the gift of bad journalism that makes him look good

Nearly two-thirds of all Americans “feel exhausted by the news,” according to a new Pew Research Center study. After this past week, who could blame them?
The fallout from the G-7 summit in Canada, the summit between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Singapore, battles on immigration, and the report by the Justice Department inspector general of FBI conduct in the Hillary Clinton email investigation were just a few of the big stories of the week.
Toss in a temper tantrum by CNN staffers in the White House press room. Add in an F-bomb-tossing celebrity and it was an ideal birthday week for a president who wars with the media. President Trump turned 72 on Thursday.
The week was capped off by the Justice Department IG report about possible political bias at the FBI. It’s doubtful anyone in official Washington thought the IG would say there was bias. That would have set off more fireworks than D.C. sees on the nation’s birthday. It still came close, despite the protestations of many in the media.
Even The Washington Post wrote that the report “castigated former FBI director James B. Comey” “and found that other senior bureau officials showed a ‘willingness to take official action’ to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.” The paper added this would all help Trump’s narrative and that “the report provides chapter upon chapter of fresh ammunition for his attacks on the FBI.”
The Post’s editorial board declared: “It is not the report President Trump wanted. But there is enough in it for him and his allies to twist and cherry-pick that its actual findings are likely to be lost in partisan noise.”
The New York Times editorial board called the report “something of a dud.”
Then there were the hot tweets, like this one from NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd, complete with similar wording as the Post: “The cherry picking of this report is likely to only compound the credibility damage for the FBI and DOJ, even as the report itself, taken in full, is a good faith attempt to restore credibility. But political agendas are going to prevent some from providing FULL context. #sad.” Note, also, the mocking use of the Trump signature term, “sad” at the end.
Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce was already opining before he even finished reading the report, admitting: “I’ve only read a chunk of it at this point,” but declaring it an “honest report.” Then he claimed “the executive branch is lying its a-- off about the report.”
Or there’s this tweet by CNBC Editor at Large John Harwood, commenting on a Trump tweet: “Justice IG report found no evidence that Strzok’s disdain for Trump or any other improper consideration affected conduct of Clinton email investigation,” Harwood wrote.
Only Harwood was trumped by CNN Justice Reporter Laura Jarrett, who tweeted that he was wrong. “Here's the problem - it's messy. While the IG found no evidence that bias affected the *specific* investigative actions reviewed pre-July 2016, he *does not* have confidence that the delay in reviewing the Weiner laptop emails was ‘free from bias.’”
Thank Wall Street Journal Columnist Kimberley Strassel for added clarity in a tweet thread that began: “1) Don't believe anyone who claims Horowitz didn't find bias. He very carefully says that he found no "documentary" evidence that bias produced ‘specific investigatory decisions.’ That's different #IGReport.”
2. Friends with Benefits: One item from the IG report deserves special note because it directly involves journalists. “The IG expressed ‘profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered our review,’” wrote The Daily Caller’s Joe Simonson.
He said the report “identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters.”
So how did journalists work the FBI? The perked FBI staffers ended up “improperly receiving benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events.”
Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway posted a graphic showing the connections between one reporter and so many FBI sources that it looked like a Ferris wheel.
3. Give Peace a Chance:  President Trump’s on-off-on meeting with Kim Jong Un finally happened. Journalists, who thought President Obama’s deal with Iran and rapprochement with Cuba were cool, suddenly disliked peace talks.
Some in the media went all out. Forget peace, they wanted a religious war. Over on MSNBC, the theme was that the GOP had turned into a cult.
“Hardball” host Chris Matthews teased: “Anyway, the Republican Party becoming more like a cult than a political party? Boy, that’s hard news for the Republicans. You’re in a cult. This is Jonestown?”
Matthews compared the GOP to a cult that killed more than 900 people in "revolutionary suicide" and also murdered Rep. Leo J. Ryan.
Perhaps Matthews was watching his own network. “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough was only slightly less insane with his “cult” comment. “Primary voters in the Republican Party have devolved into a Trumpist cult,” he whined.
Leading up to the summit, CBS Correspondent Bianna Golodryga criticized Trump, saying “the self-proclaimed dealmaker-in-chief has so far proven to be more of a deal-breaker.”
Afterward, Time magazine Contributing Editor Jon Meacham engaged in Clintonian newspeak. “Just because something hasn't happened before, doesn't mean it's historic,” he told MSNBC.
Speaking of history, that’s a big part of what’s wrong with all this reporting and commentary. It’s inconsistent with past presidential outreach to dictators.
Take CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto. Sciutto tweeted a blast at Trump for meeting with North Korea. “.@realDonaldTrump is smiling next to a man who runs a gulag jailing some 200,000 North Koreans and who oversaw the sinking of a South Korean Navy ship killing 46 & the hacking of Sony North America,” he wrote.
Only The Washington Examiner’s Becket Adams noticed a wee bit of inconsistency in Sciutto’s approach to bad guys. When Sciutto worked for Obama’s State Department, he took a more positive note of friendship. “Recall that in 2014, as Obama restored the U.S.' formal relations with Cuba, Sciutto’s tone was decidedly different. Reverential, even,” wrote Adams. Here’s that tweet from 2014. “The call that changed half a century of division: POTUS speaking with #Cuba Pres. Raul Castro yesterday.”
You might say, Sciutto is only technically a former Obama staffer.
4. Get Him a Bar of Soap: Star actor and liberal loon Robert De Niro kicked off the week with four letters the left loves. DeNiro was a presenter at the “72nd Annual Tony Awards” on CBS and he F-bombed. “I’m gonna say one thing, f--- Trump!" and “It’s no longer ‘Down With Trump,’ it’s ‘F--- Trump.'”
No, it’s not a surprise that those in the entertainment industry hate Trump. That much was obvious from the standing ovation and the support from celebs like Mark Hamill, Kathy Griffin and Rosie O’Donnell that he received.
What is surprising is how even MSNBCer Scarborough gets it and the Hollywood left doesn’t. Here’s Joe warning them: “People that applauded De Niro's statement last night don't understand that they are helping Donald Trump's re-election every time they do something like that, they don't understand.”
Blow out the candles, Mr. President. Thanks to the left, this birthday was lit.

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