Message to Trump: Paul Manafort sent to jail for witness tampering

Permanent musical accompaniment: I Fought The Law (And The Law Won), by the Bobby Fuller Four (1966).

The Special Counsel and U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson sent President Trump a clear message today: tamper with witnesses, and you will be going to jail; you can share a cell with your former campaign manager. Paul Manafort ordered to jail after witness-tampering charges:

A federal judge ordered Paul Manafort to jail Friday over charges he tampered with witnesses while out on bail — a major blow for President Trump’s former campaign chairman as he awaits trial on federal conspiracy and money-laundering charges next month.

“You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Manafort. “The government motion will be granted, and the defendant will be detained.”

The judge said sending Manafort to a cell was “an extraordinarily difficult decision” but said his conduct — allegedly contacting witnesses in the case in an effort to get them to lie to investigators — left her little choice.

“This is not middle school. I can’t take away his cellphone,” she said. “If I tell him not to call 56 witnesses, will he call the 57th?” She said she should not have to draft a court order spelling out the entire criminal code for him to avoid violations.

“This hearing is not about politics. It is not about the conduct of the office of special counsel. It is about the defendant’s conduct,” Jackson said. “I’m concerned you seem to treat these proceedings as another marketing exercise.”

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Governor Ducey calls on Rep. David Stringer to resign after racial statements

First term Rep. David Stringer, R-Prescott, is under fire after he was filmed saying immigration is an “existential threat” that will change the face of the United States because “there aren’t enough white kids to go around.” He made the comments Monday at the Yavapai County Republican Men’s Forum. The Arizona Capitol Times reports, GOP lawmaker: Not ‘enough white kids to go around’ in Arizona schools:

Rep. David Stringer, R-Prescott, said his comment that “there aren’t enough white kids to go around” in Arizona’s minority-laden public schools was an attempt at an honest discussion on race.

Stringer said today he wants people to hear his full speech rather than the 51-second snippet making the rounds on social media, so he plans to re-post the entire 17-minute video in which he also says immigration is “politically destabilizing” and “presents an existential threat.”

He means an “existential threat” to white majority white privilege, and white supremacy.

He said while his comments were well received by people at the June 11 meeting of the Yavapai Republican Men’s Forum’s, the video recording of his speech was later taken down after he received heat from teachers who felt that his remarks were racist.

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History, Role Reversal, and Hypocrisy this week in Quebec, Singapore, and Washington DC: Our Country May be at a Cross Roads in our Foreign Policy.

Throughout the history of our country since World World War Two, our Presidents have uniformly engaged in building and solidifying multinational alliances, over time, with like-minded nations that promoted democratic capitalism institutions and social justice ideals. They have also been fairly uniformly firm towards major potential adversaries, holding to the motto of “peace through strength” and engaging, again over time, with these nations in mutual economic and military understandings. Despite grievances from the occasional fringe element on both the right and left, this is how Presidents have largely conducted foreign policy since 1941. This is in danger of being turned upside down by President Donald Trump as he chastises our allies, threatens our multinational alliances, embraces our adversaries, and runs summits like an episode of a reality television show.

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(Update) Gov. Ducey challenges Ken Bennett’s petitions

I posted the other day, Candidate petition challenge season is upon us. It appears one more challenge made the filing deadline.

Governor Doug Ducey, the ice cream man hired by Koch Industries to run their Southwest subsidiary formerly known as Arizona, has challenged the petitions of his only primary challenger, Ken “Birther” Bennett. Lawsuit filed to knock Ken Bennett off Republican ballot for Arizona governor:

A lawsuit seeks to knock Ken Bennett off the ballot for Arizona governor over accusations that he did not submit enough valid voter signatures to qualify.

Now, one would reasonably assume that he knew what the rules are because:

Bennett, a former Arizona secretary of state, is challenging Gov. Doug Ducey for the Republican nomination in the Aug. 28 primary election.

On Wednesday, political supporters of Ducey filed a lawsuit arguing Bennett’s signatures are invalid for a host of reasons, including that they don’t match signatures on voter records or were signed by Democrats or unregistered voters.

Primary candidates in Arizona must collect signatures from registered voters who are members of their party or independents to appear on the ballot.

In the lawsuit, attorneys Kory Langhofer and Thomas Basile contend at least 1,316 of Bennett’s signatures aren’t valid. Bennett jumped into the gubernatorial primary in late April, with little time to collect signatures before the filing deadline.

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GOP train wreck on immigration coming next week

The other day I told you that the House schedules vote on two DACA bills destined to fail:

So now we have the hardline Goodlatte-MsSally bill from the GOP House Freedom Caucus, which does not have the votes to pass Congress, and a so-called GOP moderate bill still being drafted that will fall far short of the Dream Act and the bipartisan measure that couples a path to citizenship for Dreamers with beefed-up border security.

House Republicans have released a first draft of their new “compromise” immigration bill, the “Border Security and Immigration Reform Act.”

The nearly 300-page bill is one of two that the entire House will vote on next week. It is considered a GOP “moderate” alternative to the GOP conservative bill proposed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).

Riiight.

The New York Times reports, House Immigration Bill, Pitched as Compromise, Tilts to a Harder Line:

The draft bill, circulating among lawmakers on Thursday afternoon and up for a vote next week, closely adheres to President Trump’s vision for an immigration overhaul. In addition to protecting the young immigrants, it provides billions of dollars for a wall on the southwest border while imposing new limits on legal immigration.

The bill would also toughen rules for asylum seekers. And it would address the separation of children from parents under the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal border crossings by mandating that families be kept together while in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, according to a summary of the measure.

In effect, the measure would offer Democrats and immigration moderates in the Republican Party a difficult choice: accept hard-line changes to much of the immigration system in exchange for protections for young undocumented immigrants and what appears to be a modification of the wrenching policy of splitting up families at the border.

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