It's a 'Cat 5' immigration crisis: Nielsen

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Tuesday that the Trump administration is treating the immigration crisis as a “Cat 5 hurricane disaster.”
“We are bringing all of the agencies together; we're asking everybody to chip in,” Nielsen said on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
“Why wouldn't we put the U.S. military along our border if it's really a crisis of that magnitude?” Carlson asked Secretary Nielsen.
“I think we're looking into that. We've made the request. I'm in constant contact with the acting secretary of defense. I talked to some of the combatant commanders today. We are in fact pushing more and more military resources to the border,” Nielsen said.
President Trump threatened to close the border this week, prompting outrage from Democrats, and he called on Mexico to help prevent illegal immigration by using its own “strong” immigration laws.
The president also shut down aid to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

"We are in fact pushing more and more military resources to the border."
— Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of homeland security

“We’re going to have a strong border, or we’re going to have a closed border,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
Carlson also pressed Nielsen on whether Trump would consider expanding the E-Verify system to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, or sign an order eliminating “birthright” citizenship.
Nielsen made it clear everything was being considered.
“We have to stop the drugs. We have to stop the smuggling and trafficking gangs. He's very serious about it, so yes, I think everything is on the table,” Nielsen said.

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Supreme Court will take up case of citizenship question on 2020 Census

FILE – This March 23, 2018 file photo shows an envelope containing a 2018 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident as part of the nation’s only test run of the 2020 Census. (AP Photo/Michelle R. Smith, File)

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UPDATED 1:53 PM PT — Monday, April 1, 2019

The legal battle over adding a citizenship question the 2020 Census continues, with the nation’s highest court now taking up the case. The decision comes after the Justice Department asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the question could be included in the decennial survey.
The Trump Administration is looking to appeal a ruling by the Southern District of New York, which struck down their request. The ruling then headed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals; however, this latest move means Justices will resolve the case before the lower court has the chance to review it.
The Department of Justice said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who announced he would pursue updating the questionnaire in 2018, has the legal authority to include the citizenship question on next year’s census.
However, the district judge cast doubt on the reasoning behind Ross’ decision to include the question in the survey. The judge argued its inclusion would be unlawful and would violate the Administrative Procedure Act, but Ross cited the need to enforce the Voting Rights Act by asking census-takers if they are citizens of the United States.
The agency argued the question was included in previous years, with it last being seen in 1950.
Last year, acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights John Gore maintained the Department of Justice relies on the survey to conduct elections in compliance with federal laws.
“The department’s letter explained that accurate citizenship data is crucial to the department’s enforcement of Section Two of the Voting Rights Act, and it’s important protections against racial discrimination and voting,” Gore explained. “To fully enforce those requirements the department needs reliable citizen voting ago population data in localities and census blocks, where voting rights violations are alleged or suspected.”
The questions being presented in the case look to determine whether the district court misrepresented precedent in its ruling. The Supreme Court must reach a decision by June, before census forms begin printing.

Conference featuring 2020 Dems begins with fiery chant quoting fugitive cop-killer Assata Shakur

A conference featuring eight prominent 2020 Democrat presidential hopefuls kicked off in Washington, D.C,. with the fiery rallying cry of a fugitive cop-killer on Monday, as the labor and political groups in attendance shouted in unison, "We have nothing to lose but our chains."
Jamal Watkins, the Vice President of Civic Engagement at the NAACP, began by telling the audience at the We the People conference that he would invoke the words of Assata Shakur, also known as Joanne Chesimard.
Shakur was convicted of the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper when she was in the Black Liberation Army. After escaping from prison in 1979, Shakur fled to Cuba, which granted her asylum even as she remains on the FBI's list of most-wanted fugitive terrorists.
"Now I came here not to talk at you -- it's gonna be a long and powerful day," Watkins said. "But I want you to do something with me. I'm gonna actually have you participate with me in repeating some words from a leader by the name of Assata Shakur. So if you could stand up -- if you can't stand, it's okay -- but I want you to repeat after me."
Watkins then quoted Shakur, pausing to let attendees repeat after him: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Shakur's words, in turn, were appropriated from the final sentences of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels' Communist Manifesto: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!"
Among the groups in attendance were the Sierra Club, MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, SEIU and Communications Workers of America.
They were drawn to the conference to hear from a series of speakers that included 2020 Democratic White House contenders Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Beto O'Rourke, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Jay Inslee  and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Although there was no indication the candidates embraced Shakur's comments, Democrats and progressives have long embraced the convicted murderer. California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters, for example, wrote in 1998 to then-Cuban President Fidel Castro to apologize for voting for a resolution that called for Cuba to stop harboring Shakur.
"I, and some of the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, mistakenly voted for House Concurrent Resolution 254 which called on the Government of Cuba to extradite to the United States Joanne Chesimard and all other individuals who have fled the United States from political persecution and received political asylum in Cuba," Waters wrote to Castro. "Joanne Chesimard was the birth name of a political activist known to most Members of the Congressional Black Caucus as Assata Shakur. For the record, I am opposed to the resolution. I unequivocally stated that a mistake was made and I would have voted against the legislation."
Notably absent from the conference on Monday was former Vice President Joe Biden, who is grappling with accusations of unwanted touching from two women.

MSNBC's Ocasio-Cortez Town Hall falls flat, loses to Tucker Carlson in ratings

MSNBC’s Town Hall featuring Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., fell flat in the ratings Friday evening, trailing far behind Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight."
According to Nielsen’s early ratings, the Town Hall hosted by MSNBC’s “All In” host Chris Hayes garnered 1,568,000 total viewers while Carlson’s program had 2,656,000. CNN’s Anderson Cooper came in last with 733,000 total viewers.
Fox News drew 420,000 viewers aged 25-54, while the MSNBC town hall had 232,000 viewers and CNN had just 155,000 in the demo, the ratings showed.
MSNBC’s 8 p.m. primetime slot featured the freshman congresswoman and other guests discussing the Green New Deal in front of an audience in the Bronx, N.Y.
“So, this issue is not just about our climate. First and foremost we need to save ourselves. Period. There will be no future for the Bronx. There will be no livable future for generations coming,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She defended the resolution she'd co-sponsored and blasted her critics.
Ocasio-Cortez also disputed estimated costs of the resolution and dismissed the claim the Green New Deal was socialism saying that climate change “is a problem of market failure externalities in our economics.”
Carlson’s 8 p.m. hour, by contrast, featured a look into accusations that an NBC News political editor tried to “intimidate” a reporter on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, among other topics.

Jared Kushner: Trump's threat to close border is move 'to pressure everybody'

Jared Kushner, President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, told Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" on Monday that the president's threats to close the U.S.-Mexico border are a way "to pressure everybody" into taking action to limit illegal immigration.
"This is something that needs a solution, and one of the things I love about the president is, he doesn't let people hide from problems," Kushner told host Laura Ingraham. "When there's a problem, he makes people confront the problem and he's very creative about ways that he'll look to find a solution."
Trump has threatened to close the southern frontier as soon as this week if Mexico does not "immediately stop" a surge of migrants flooding into the U.S. illegally. In a tweet Sunday, Trump accused Democrats of "allowing a ridiculous asylum system and major loopholes to remain as a mainstay of our immigration system."
"Mexico is likewise doing NOTHING, a very bad combination for our Country," Trump added.
Kushner also discussed the mainstream media's coverage of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, comparing it to their reporting on the 2016 presidential election.
"Well, look, the media got the election wrong. They thought for sure Hillary Clinton was going to win," Kushner said. "They didn't see what we were seeing out in the country and the field. Their data was wrong, their analysis was wrong and then it happened. Not a single person got fired, not a single person apologized ... I think people sometimes let their hatred for Trump overtake their rational ability to kind of look at things objectively."
"On the other hand," Kushner added, "you could look at it and say that because the media's been so distracted with Russia, Russia, Russia and all of these crazy conspiracy theories, we've been able to operate underneath that level and just be really effective."
Kushner specifically took issue with reporting by CNN, where political analyst Paul Begala recently referred to him and his wife Ivanka Trump as "cockroaches."
"The number of times that CNN wrote things about me that I would then call and say, 'That's not true,' [and] they would say, 'Well, we have a source,'" Kushner said. "It is what it is ... I just hope that going forward, everyone will look at it and maybe have a little bit of cooler heads and focus that we're all on the same team. We're all here for America."
Kushner also said he would be willing to testify on Capitol Hill on matters related to the Russia investigation, calling the claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia "a very serious accusation that goes to the very core of our democracy ... that was one [investigation] that we thought it was important to go [along] with, so we were fully compliant."
He also addressed the insistence of some congressional Democrats that evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials exists.
"I wish them luck," Kushner said, "[but] talking about this nonsense further, especially after two years and being wrong so many times is just really not productive and quite frankly, it’s kind of an embarrassment for our democracy."

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Home | Politics Tags: Donald Trump | Russia Probe | mueller | trump | probe | russia | barr Trump: Investigate How 'Fraudulent' Mueller Probe Started

President Donald Trump on Sunday called for an investigation into how Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “fraudulent” probe started.
“Everybody is asking how the phony and fraudulent investigation of the No Collusion, No Obstruction Trump Campaign began,” Trump tweeted. “We need to know for future generations to understand. This Hoax should never be allowed to happen to another President or Administration again!”

Trump has criticized Mueller’s probe since it ended last week.

Mueller's report, as summarized last Sunday by Attorney General William Barr, "did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
There was also insufficient evidence to pursue obstruction of justice claims against the president.

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney earlier Sunday questioned how the media bungled stories on the Russia probe.
“We need to figure out what went wrong with the Mueller report, why — in all fairness to your network, why the media got it so wrong for so long,” he told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union.” 

“How did the media get it so wrong? I think the president is just venting the same frustration a lot of people had when the Mueller report came out, and it turned out exactly like he said that it would,” he added.