Judge could order Georgia to use paper ballots this fall

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia allowed its election system to grow “way too old and archaic” and now has a deep hole to dig out of to ensure that the constitutional right to vote is protected, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg said Friday.
Now Totenberg is in the difficult position of having to decide whether the state, which plans to implement a new voting system statewide next year, must immediately abandon its outdated voting machines in favor of an interim solution for special and municipal elections to be held this fall.
Election integrity advocates and individual voters sued Georgia in 2017 alleging that the touchscreen voting machines the state has used since 2002 are unsecure and vulnerable to hacking. They’ve asked Totenberg to order the state to immediately switch to hand-marked paper ballots.
But lawyers for Fulton County, the state’s most populous county that includes most of Atlanta, and for state election officials argued that the state is in the process of implementing a new system, and it would be too costly, burdensome and chaotic to use an interim system for elections this fall and then switch to the new permanent system next year.
A law passed this year and signed by Gov. Brian Kemp provides specifications for a new system in which voters make their selections on electronic machines that print out a paper record that is read and tallied by scanners. State officials have said it will be in place for the 2020 presidential election.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued Friday that the current system is so unsecure and vulnerable to manipulation that it cannot be relied upon, jeopardizing voters’ constitutional rights.
“We can’t sacrifice people’s right to vote just because Georgia has left this system in place for 20 years and it’s so far behind,” said lawyer Bruce Brown, who represents the Coalition for Good Governance and a group of voters.
Addressing concerns about an interim system being burdensome to implement, plaintiffs’ lawyers countered that the state put itself in this situation by neglecting the system for so long and ignoring warnings. Lawyer David Cross, who represents another group of voters, urged the judge to force the state to take responsibility.
“You are the last resort,” he said.
Georgia’s voting system drew national scrutiny during the closely watched contest for governor last November in which Kemp, a Republican who was the state’s top election official at the time, narrowly defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams.
The plaintiffs had asked Totenberg in August to force Georgia to use hand-marked paper ballots for that election. While Totenberg expressed grave concerns about vulnerabilities in the voting system and scolded state officials for being slow to respond to evidence of those problems, she said a switch to paper ballots so close to the midterm election would be too chaotic. She warned state officials that further delay would be unacceptable.
But she seemed conflicted Friday at the conclusion of a two-day hearing.
“These are very difficult issues,” she said. “I’m going to wrestle with them the best that I can, but these are not simple issues.”
She recognized that the state had taken concrete steps since her warning last year, with lawmakers providing specifications for a new system, appropriating funds and beginning the procurement process. But she also said she wished the state had not let the situation become so dire and wondered what would happen if the state can’t meet its aggressive schedule for implementing the new system.
The request for proposals specifies that vendors must be able to distribute all voting machine equipment before March 31, which is a week after the state’s presidential primary election is set to be held on March 24. Bryan Tyson, a lawyer representing state election officials, told the judge the state plans to announce the new system it’s selected in “a matter of days.”
Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer science and engineering professor, testified Friday that the state election system’s vulnerabilities and that the safest, most secure system would be hand-marked paper ballots with optical scanners at each precinct.
Four county election officials, three of whom will oversee elections this fall, testified that it would be difficult to switch to hand-marked paper ballots in time for those elections. They cited difficulties getting enough new equipment, as well as challenges training poll workers and educating voters. They also said they’d have trouble paying for the switch unless the state helps.
The two groups of plaintiffs agree that the whole system is flawed and has to go. They also believe the ballot-marking devices the state plans to implement have many of the same problems, and they plan to challenge those once the state announces which vendor has won the contract. But they disagree about what the interim solution should be.
The plaintiffs represented by Brown are asking the state to use hand-marked paper ballots along with its existing election management system and to use the ballot scanners it currently uses for paper absentee and provisional ballots for all ballots.
The plaintiffs represented by Cross want the state to implement its new election management system in time for the fall elections and to use ballot scanners along with paper ballots.
Totenberg did not say when she would rule.

US, Guatemala sign agreement to restrict asylum cases

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration signed an agreement with Guatemala that will restrict asylum applications to the U.S. from Central America.
The “safe third country” agreement would require migrants, including Salvadorans and Hondurans, who cross into Guatemala on their way to the U.S. to apply for protections in Guatemala instead of at the U.S. border. It could potentially ease the crush of migrants overwhelming the U.S. immigration system, although many questions remain about how the agreement will be executed.
President Donald Trump on Friday heralded the concession as a win as he struggles to live up to his campaign promises on immigration.
“This is a very big day,” he said. “We have long been working with Guatemala and now we can do it the right way.”
He claimed that “this landmark agreement will put the coyotes and smugglers out of business.”
The announcement comes after a court in California blocked Trump’s most restrictive asylum effort to date, one that would effectively end protections at the southern border.
The two countries had been negotiating such an agreement for months, and Trump threatened Wednesday to place tariffs or other consequences on Guatemala if it didn’t reach a deal.
“We’ll either do tariffs or we’ll do something. We’re looking at something very severe with respect to Guatemala,” Trump had said.
But on Friday, Trump praised the Guatemalan government, saying now it has “a friend in the United States, instead of an enemy in the United States.”
Trump added that the agreement would protect “the rights of those with legitimate claims,” end “abuse” of the asylum system and curtail the crisis on the U.S. southern border.
He said that as part of the agreement, the U.S. would increase access to the H-2A visa program for temporary agricultural workers from Guatemala.
It’s not clear how the agreement will take effect. Guatemala’s Constitutional Court has granted three injunctions preventing its government from entering into a deal without approval of the country’s congress.
Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said via social media that the agreement allows the country to avoid “drastic sanctions ... many of them designed to strongly punish our economy, such as taxes on remittances that our brothers send daily, as well as the imposition of tariffs on our export goods and migratory restrictions.”
Earlier Friday, Morales questioned the concept of a “safe third country.”
“Where does that term exist?” he asked reporters. “It does not exist, it is a colloquial term. No agreement exists that is called ‘safe third country.’”
Human rights prosecutor Jordán Rodas said his team was studying the legality of the agreement and whether Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart had the authority to sign the compact.
Guatemala’s government put out a six-paragraph, Spanish-language statement Friday on Twitter. It does not call the agreement “safe third country” but “Cooperation Agreement for the Assessment of Protection Requests.”
The Guatemalan government said that in coming days its Labor Ministry “will start issuing work visas in the agriculture industry, which will allow Guatemalans to travel legally to the United States, to avoid being victims of criminal organizations, to work temporarily and then return to Guatemala, which will strengthen family unity.”
The same conditions driving Salvadorans and Hondurans to flee their country — gang violence, poverty, joblessness, a prolonged drought that has severely hit crop yields — are also present in Guatemala. Guatemala also lacks resources to adequately house, educate or provide opportunity to potential asylum seekers, observers say.
In Guatemala City, social and student organizations spoke out against the agreement in front of the Constitutional Court, on the grounds that the country is mired in poverty and unemployment and has no capacity to serve migrants. They called for a protest rally Saturday.
Advocacy groups condemned the move Friday, with Amnesty International saying “any attempts to force families and individuals fleeing their home countries to seek safety in Guatemala are outrageous.”
“The Trump administration must abandon this cruel and illegal plan to shut doors to families and individuals trying to rebuild their lives in safety,” said Charanya Krishnaswami, the group’s advocacy director for the Americas.
Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said Trump’s decision to sign the agreement was “cruel and immoral.” ″It is also illegal,” he added. “Simply put, Guatemala is not a safe country for refugees and asylum seekers, as the law requires.”
Homeland Security officials said they expected the agreement to be ratified in Guatemala and would begin implementing it sometime in August. Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan said it was part of a long-standing effort with Guatemala to address migration and combat smuggling. He cautioned against calling the country unsafe for refugees.
“It’s risky to label an entire country as unsafe. We often paint Central America with a very broad brush,” he said. “There are obviously places in Guatemala and in the U.S. that are dangerous, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a full and fair process. That’s what the statute is focused on. It doesn’t mean safety from all risks.”
Guatemalans accounted for 34% of Border Patrol arrests on the Mexican border from October to June, more than any other nationality. Hondurans were second at 30%, followed by Mexicans at 18% and Salvadorans at 10%.
Trump was asked if he expected to reach similar agreements with Honduras and El Salvador. He replied, “I do indeed.”
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Luis Alonso and Jill Colvin in Washington, Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Peter Orsi in Mexico City and Sonny Figueroa in Guatemala City, Guatemala, contributed to this report.

Bernie Sanders: US policy in Mideast can't be 'pro-Israel, pro-Israel, pro-Israel'

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Friday that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East cannot be “pro-Israel.”

The Democratic 2020 presidential candidate, who is Jewish and has lived in Israel in the past, made the remark Friday on the "Pod Save America" podcast.

“Our policy cannot just be pro-Israel, pro-Israel, pro-Israel,” Sanders said. “It has got to be pro-region, working with all of the people, all of the countries in that area.”

“Our policy cannot just be pro-Israel, pro-Israel, pro-Israel. It has got to be pro-region, working with all of the people, all of the countries in that area.”

— U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders

BERNIE BOOSTS OMAR AS DEMS’ ISRAEL RIFT DEEPENS
The independent from Vermont said he fervently believes that “the people of Israel have absolutely the right to live in peace, independence, and security. End of discussion,” but added he has an issue with the way Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has run the country in recent years, the Washington Examiner reported.
“I think what has happened is in recent years under Netanyahu, you have an extreme right-wing government with many racist tendencies,” Sanders said, blaming the prime minister for worsening tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. Sanders also criticized President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the holy city of Jerusalem, something he believes put peace negotiations with Palestinians at risk.
In May, the Trump administration officially opened the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, in a historic move cheered by Israelis but met with mass protests from Palestinians that turned deadly in the lead-up to the ceremony. Clashes at the border had left dozens of Palestinians dead and hundreds wounded by the time the ceremony ended. But Israel's prime minister praised the Israeli security forces for protecting the Gaza-Israel border, as U.S. officials held out hope that the prospect of peace remained in reach.
If he becomes president, Sanders said, he’d consider using the billions in aid the U.S. sends to Israel each year as leverage to force Netanyahu to change his actions, adding that Palestinians deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, the Examiner reported.
Netanyahu became the longest-serving Israeli prime minister this month, having held office for more than 13 years, according to The Guardian. He needs to win an election in September and survive three corruption cases against him in order to remain in office.
Fox News' Brooke Singman and Judson Berger contributed to this report.

Roger Stone's trial may feature clip from 'The Godfather: Part II': report

Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Donald Trump, accompanied by his wife, Nydia Stone, leaves federal court in Washington, Tuesday, July 16, 2019. (Associated Press)

Prosecutors are reportedly requesting to show a four-minute clip from the 1974 film “The Godfather: Part II” during former Trump adviser Roger Stone’s trial on obstruction and perjury charges, according to new court filings.
"Start practicing your Pantagele [sic]," Stone texted radio host Randy Credico, regarding his potential Capitol Hill testimony about his alleged communications with Stone and WikiLeaks, according to Politico.
In the movie, character Frank Pentangeli (played by Michael V. Gazzo) lies to Congress, claiming he doesn’t know anything about the Corleone crime family when Michael Corleone shows up in the courtroom.
“The relevant scene is important context for understanding Stone’s references — including what Stone intended to communicate to the witness and how Stone would have understood the witness’s likely understanding of those messages,” prosecutors reportedly wrote.
In an April 2018 text, Stone threatened to take Credico's pet dog away from him, the indictment says, according to Politico.
Stone in January told CNN his texts to Credico were “light-hearted.”
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trial is set to start in Washington, D.C., in November.

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AOC and Pelosi to meet, address House Dem infighting between far left, moderates

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will meet Friday with far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in an effort to stop the recent infighting between the Democratic Party's progressive and moderate blocs in the lower chamber of Congress.
The progressives have leveled almost constant criticism at the moderates, accusing them of helping the Trump administration, whether directly or indirectly. The moderates, in turn, have accused the far left of pushing for abrupt change that could place the party's current House majority at risk.
Pelosi, 79, a Californian who has served in the House for more than 30 years, told USA Today on Thursday that she’s “looking forward to” meeting with Ocasio-Cortez to air out the differences.
The 29-year-old freshman congresswoman from New York, meanwhile, tried to downplay their meeting.
“It’s nothing too climactic,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Just trying to make sure we have an open line of communication and get on the same page.”
The schism began with Ocasio-Cortez’s vote against a $4.6 billion border funding – aimed at improving the conditions of migrants – that the majority of her party approved.
Other freshman Democrats joined her in voting against, including Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rashida Tlaib D-Mich., and Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.
The vote clearly irked Pelosi, who then told the New York Times that “these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” adding “They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”

“... these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world ... They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

The comments further infuriated Ocasio-Cortez, who suggested that Pelosi is purposely targeting the progressive freshman group – dubbed “the Squad” – that is made up of women of color. The New York Democrat later had to do damage control and say Pelosi is “absolutely not” racist.
The official House Democratic Caucus Twitter account, meanwhile, slammed Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, who criticized Rep. Sharice Davids, D-Kansas, for her votes on issues to do with the migrant crisis at the border.
“Who is this guy and why is he explicitly singling out a Native American woman of color?” the now-deleted tweet read. “Her name is Congresswoman Davids, not Sharice.”
“She is a phenomenal new member who flipped a red seat blue,” it added. “Keep Her Name Out Of Your Mouth.”
The meeting between Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez also comes as the House will have to vote on a resolution to raise the debt limit until July 31, 2021.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pressured the House to approve the resolution -- otherwise, the government may go over its borrowing limit since lawmakers will be leaving for the August recess.
According to the Wall Street Journal, while progressives didn’t come out against the resolution, Ocasio-Cortez went to Twitter to raise concerns about the deal.
“Notice how whenever we pursue large spending increases + tax cuts for corporations, contractors & the connected, it’s treated as business as usual,” she said.
“But the moment we consider investing similar in working class people (ex tuition-free college) they cry out it’s ‘unrealistic.’”

AOC supports the 'decolonization process' of Puerto Rico following governor's resignation

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., expressed support for the  "decolonization process" of Puerto Rico following the announced resignation of its embattled governor, Ricardo Rosselló.
In an Instagram livestream on Thursday night, Ocasio-Cortez took questions from her followers. The first asked how she felt about what's happening in Puerto Rico.
"First of all, I am so incredibly proud of everyone in Puerto Rico right now demanding accountability from their government," Ocasio-Cortez began.  "They were so relentlessly creative in their protest that they were able to get the governor to finally resign as well as some of his cabinet members."
Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, then suggested the island's independence from the United States.
"I'm really proud of everyone that's out there, but of course there's a lot of work to be done," Ocasio-Cortez continued. "This is just the beginning of a decolonization process, a process of self-determination where the people of Puerto Rico begin to start taking their own self-governance into their own hands."
She added, "So I'm really excited about the protest, I'm excited, I'm encouraged to hear about Ricardo Rosselló's resignation, but it's also just a first step. We have a long way to go."
Thousands of Puerto Ricans took to the streets after online chats from Rosselló and other top officials that mocked women, gays, political opponents, and victims of Hurricane Maria were leaked. Rosselló's administration is also being investigated for alleged corruption by Puerto Rico's Department of Justice.

Trump says Dems 'created this phony crime' with obstruction claims, in 'Hannity' interview

President Trump lashed out at Democrats following former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's testimony on Capitol Hill, telling Fox News' Sean Hannity on Thursday night the Democrats "created this phony crime" by accusing him of obstruction of justice.
"I didn't do it. They create a phony crime," Trump said during a live interview on "Hannity." "And then, they say, 'he obstructed.' They said there was no collusion but 'he obstructed,' and there has never been anything like this ever in this country."
When asked by lawmakers whether or not the findings of the nearly two-year-long Russia investigation truly exonerated the president, Mueller testified before two House committees on Wednesday afternoon, answering, "No."
Trump reiterated his desire to "investigate the investigators" over the origins of the Russia probe and said Attorney General William Barr would be "looking into it."
For his part, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said after the hearings: "Today was a watershed day in telling the facts to the American people. With those facts, we can proceed, and we face a time of great danger."
"This should never happen to another president of the United States again," Trump said. "This is an absolute catastrophe for our country. This was a fake witch hunt."
During his testimony, Mueller denied Trump's assertions that the investigation was a "witch hunt" and insinuated that the Trump campaign welcomed Russian aid to help them win the 2016 election.
Still, the former special prosecutor reiterated what was laid out in his report, saying, "we did not reach a determination as to whether the President committed a crime.”
"This was treason. This was high crimes. This was everything as bad a definition you want to come up with," Trump said of the investigation.