DELEITURAS

Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris refuted two of her potential 2020 presidential primary challengers on Wednesday when she stated that she does not agree with their acceptance of open borders.

“No, I believe that we need border security,” Harris told “The Daily Show’s” Trevor Noah when asked how she felt about former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s call to remove the already standing wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We need smart border security. We can’t have open borders, we need to have border security, all nations do,” she continued. “All nations define their borders, but we should not have a policy and perspective that is grounded in keeping people out for the sake of this nationalistic kind of thing this president is trying to push.”

O’Rourke has long argued against a border wall, despite still claiming to be against open borders. Following President Donald Trump’s executive order in September to erect an 18-foot steel bollard wall to replace the existing pedestrian fencing in El Paso, Texas, the Democrat called the existing chain-link fence “bad enough.”

The failed senatorial candidate later revealed to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that if he could snap his fingers and make his home town of El Paso’s border wall disappear, he “absolutely” would. O’Rourke insisted in the past that the way to improve border safety and security is to “ensure that we are maximizing the potential from everyone … [and] treating each other with respect and dignity” and referred to Trump’s wall as an “expression of our smallness, our meanness, our fear to the rest of the world.”

Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who launched a presidential exploratory committee in January, signaled her support for tearing down the existing barrier on the border when she was confronted with O’Rourke’s position.

“Well, I’d have to ask folks in that part of the of the country to see whether the fencing that exists today is helpful or unhelpful,” Gillibrand replied in February when asked about O’Rourke’s comments. “But, you know, Democrats are not afraid of national security or border security.”

“And [the wall] is a hateful message. I mean [Trump’s] trying to create a picture of division and hate and derision. And that’s what I’m so offended by — the fact that he’s fused this kind of racism in, ‎in his words and actions is just troubling,” she continued. “So, I could look at it and see which part he means and why and if it makes sense I could support it.”

Neither Gillibrand nor O’Rourke have officially entered the 2020 presidential race.

• Snopes refused to correct an inaccurate fact-check calling it “unproven” that American Indian activist Nathan Phillips falsely claimed to be a Vietnam veteran.
• It’s a proven fact that Phillips falsely claimed to be a Vietnam veteran.
• Both Facebook and Google give Snopes preferential treatment on their platforms.

Snopes, a left-leaning fact-checking website given preferential treatment by both Facebook and Google, flubbed its fact-check of American Indian activist Nathan Phillips’ false claim of being a Vietnam veteran.

Phillips shot to national attention after a viral confrontation between him and a group of high school boys from Covington Catholic high school. Phillips, with the help of credulous national media outlets, said the boys mobbed and racially harassed him as he tried to leave the Indigenous People’s March. Video evidence debunked Phillips’s account.

In addition to botching the details of the confrontation, media outlets also inaccurately reported that Phillips is a Vietnam veteran.

Phillips described himself in interviews as a “Vietnam-times veteran” and groups affiliated with him told The New York Times that he fought in Vietnam. Phillips explicitly claimed in a 2018 Facebook video that he was a Vietnam veteran who served “in theater.”

Military records show that Phillips never deployed to Vietnam, though his military service did include a long stint as a refrigerator technician.

Snopes’s fact-check incorrectly labeled it “unproven” that Phillips had falsely claimed to be a Vietnam veteran. Snopes declined to change its misleading ruling despite definitive video evidence of Phillips doing exactly that.

Both Facebook and Google give Snopes preferential treatment on their platforms, though Snopes has struggledwithaccuracy in the past

Google placed Snopes’s misleading fact-check at the top of their search results about Phillips’s Vietnam claims.

Google promotes misleading Snopes fact check

Facebook also placed Snopes’ inaccurate fact-check at the top of search results about Phillips’s non-existent Vietnam deployment. A blue “Fact-Checker” badge accompanies the post, lending Facebook’s credibility to the inaccurate fact-check.

Facebook elevates misleading Snopes fact-check Screenshot/Facebook.com

An emailed statement from Snopes emphasized that Phillips didn’t explicitly say in recent interviews that he was a Vietnam veteran and used more nuanced language like “Vietnam-times veteran.”

In an update, Snopes questioned whether Phillips “deliberately” portrayed himself as a Vietnam veteran.

“It’s difficult to determine at this point whether Phillips has deliberately misrepresented the nature of his service, whether he has been so vague and ambiguous in many of his descriptions (unintentionally or otherwise) that misinterpretations have entered his narrative, or whether he has tried to be accurate but may have just occasionally slipped up in his many, many hours of conversation and sometimes neglected to include the qualifiers about his service that he has used in many other videos and press interviews,” Snopes wrote in an update to the fact-check.

But Snopes wasn’t fact-checking whether Phillips “deliberately misrepresented” his record. Snopes was fact-checking the question: “Did Nathan Phillips Falsely Claim He Was A Vietnam Veteran?” It’s a fact that Phillips falsely claimed he was a Vietnam veteran.

This isn’t the first time that Facebook and Google’s partnerships with Snopes have resulted in the tech giants amplifying misinformation.

In December, Snopes botched its fact-check of a viral meme that was mocked within political circles for spreading false information. Snopes claimed the meme was accurate.

Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand signaled her openness to expanding the Supreme Court beyond nine seats if her party retakes the Senate and the White House in next year’s elections.

Gillibrand, a second-term senator from New York, appeared on left-wing podcast PodSaveAmerica on Tuesday, where she was asked about either placing term limits on Supreme Court justices or adding additional seats, in order to push the court in a liberal direction.

Gillibrand declined to rule out the drastic measures, which she described as “interesting ideas.”

“Well they’re interesting ideas that I would need to think more about,” she said. “But I do think what President Trump has done with the judiciary is, is shocking and is so destructive.”

Gillibrand added that both Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were “disqualified in my mind because of their records because of their previous statements because their belief that money is speech and that corporations have same free speech rights as you, and I think that’s outrageous.”

The Democratic Party’s left-wing base has increasingly pushed for extreme measures, including court-packing, in order to shift the ideological tilt of the nation’s highest court.

Multiple House Democrats have also floated the possibility of trying to impeach Justice Kavanaugh.

In a public rebuke to President Donald Trump, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the withdrawal of most of the National Guard troops currently deployed at the state’s southern border.

“We are not interested in participating in this political theatre. I think it is political theatre,” Gavin said Monday in Sacramento as he formally announced his decision, while blasting Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border. The governor went on to claim that border crossings are at record lows and argued that immigrants commit less crimes than native born citizens. “The whole thing is ludicrous,” he added of the president’s border security efforts.

A majority of the nearly 400 National Guard troops currently stationed at the California-Mexico border will be leaving, per the order from Newsom. Troops will be reassigned to other tasks, such as combating wildfires, gaining more intelligence on drug cartels, and growing California’s Drug Task Force. The California governor will only leave around 100 troops to remain at the border.

“The border ’emergency’ is a manufactured crisis,” Newsom is expected to say during his State of the State address on Tuesday, according to an excerpt from his prepared remarks. “And California will not be part of this political theater. Which is why I have given the National Guard a new mission.”

The move rescinds an April 2018 order by then-Gov. Jerry Brown — also a Democrat — with the Trump administration to add 400 troops to the border. The White House at the time had requested governors of border states to aid in security efforts by deploying their National Guard troops.

Newsom’s decision to rollback Brown’s troop deployment at the border does not come as a surprise. While on the campaign trail last year, Newsom had been very critical of the move. Upon his first full day in office, the new governor told the California National Guard Adjutant General David Baldwin to get ready for a “menu of options.”

Newsom is following in the footsteps of New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who earlier in February also ordered most of her state’s National Guard troops away from the southern border.

However, questions remain over how much of Newsom’s rhetoric will match with reality. The troop reassignment still needs approval from the U.S. Department of Defense. Additionally, while Newsom’s order requires National Guard troops to immediately begin withdrawing from the border, it still allows the option for them  to remain until the end of March — the original deadline set by Brown.

Nevertheless, the liberal governor’s order is a symbolic rebuke against the White House’s immigration agenda. Newsom — who has quickly positioned himself as the progressive adversary to Trump — argues that there is no “crisis” at the southern border, and wants to use National Guard troops for other missions.

• Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen will tell Congress on Wednesday that he saw no ‘direct evidence’ of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but that he did overhear a conversation in which Roger Stone told Donald Trump he spoke to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
• Cohen will testify that Stone told Trump that WikiLeaks planned to release emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee.
• Cohen will also say that Trump implicitly instructed him to lie to Congress about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen acknowledges that Trump did not ‘directly’ ask him to lie. 

Michael Cohen will make several bombshell allegations about President Trump during his testimony on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, including that he overheard political operative Roger Stone tell Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign that he had spoken to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange about the release of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee.

While Cohen will offer scathing testimony against his former boss, he also claims he has no “direct evidence” that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. Cohen will also testify that, contrary to recent BuzzFeed News report, Trump did not directly instruct him to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Cohen, who will begin a three-year prison sentence on May 6, will also provide numerous anecdotes from his decade of working for Trump which he says shows the former real estate mogul to be “a racist…a conman…a cheat.”

Cohen’s 20-page opening statement was released Tuesday night ahead of his testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. Cohen testified earlier on Tuesday in a closed hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Cohen’s claims about Roger Stone are perhaps the biggest bombshell contained in the opening statement.

“A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time. The answer is yes,” Cohen plans to testify.

“He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails.”

Cohen claims that in July 2016, just before the Democratic convention, he was in Trump’s office when Stone was patched through to Trump via speakerphone.

“Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Cohen’s testimony reads.

“Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of ‘wouldn’t that be great,’” he added.

Stone, a longtime Trump confidant, has long denied speaking with Assange or having advance knowledge of the release of DNC emails. He has also claimed he never spoke with Trump about WikiLeaks.

Stone was indicted on Jan. 24 in the special counsel’s investigation on seven charges related to his House Intelligence Committee testimony regarding his discussions about WikiLeaks. Those charges center largely on his communications after WikiLeaks released DNC emails. The special counsel has mostly focused on what Stone knew about WikiLeaks’ plans to release emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

Stone was slapped with a gag order on Friday, meaning that he cannot speak publicly about his case.

No ‘direct evidence’ of collusion, but suspicions about Trump Tower meeting

Cohen says in his testimony that he has no firsthand knowledge that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russians to influence the election.

“Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not. I want to be clear. But, I have my suspicions,” Cohen will say.

The statement, if accurate, would undercut allegations made about Cohen in the infamous Steele dossier. The 35-page report, which was funded by the DNC and Clinton campaign, claimed that Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 in order to pay off Russian hackers who had stolen DNC and Clinton campaign emails.

Cohen has denied the dossier’s allegations, most recently on Dec. 27, after McClatchy reported that Cohen’s cell phone pinged off of a tower near Prague around the time the dossier claims he was there.

The possible collusion that Cohen claims to have witnessed involves an infamous meeting held at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr. and a group of Russians in June 2016.

Trump Jr. hosted the meeting after an associate emailed him to say that a Russian attorney wanted to provide the campaign with derogatory information on Hillary Clinton.

“If it is what you say I love it,” Trump Jr. responded to the offer.

The meeting’s attendees, which included Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and the Russian delegation, have all claimed that the meeting was a waste of time. They’ve said that the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, used the introduction to the campaign to discuss one of her pet issues: the Magnitsky Act. The attendees have claimed that no information about Clinton was exchanged and that there was no follow up to the meeting.

Cohen says that he believes, but does not know for certain, that Trump Jr. told his father about the meeting before it occurred, a claim which Trump Jr. denies.

Cohen says that he was in the room with Trump in early June 2016 when Trump Jr. walked behind his father’s desk, and said: “The meeting is all set.”

“Ok good…let me know,” Trump replied.

Cohen says that he concluded a year later that the Russian meeting must have been the topic because Trump Jr. “would never set up any meeting of any significance alone – and certainly not without checking with his father.”

BuzzFeed bomb or bombshell? 

Cohen also addresses allegations reported by BuzzFeed that Trump instructed him to lie to Congress about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Cohen pleaded guilty on Nov. 29 to lying to Congress by claiming that negotiations to build the skyscraper ended in January 2016. Cohen admitted that he worked through June 2016 to try to make the deal happen and that he spoke frequently with Trump about the project.

BuzzFeed News reported in January that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, and that he has told the special counsel as much during his dozens of hours of meetings with prosecutors. BuzzFeed also reported that emails, text messages, and witnesses at the Trump Organization would corroborate Cohen’s testimony.

The report proved controversial after the special counsel’s office issued a statement saying that the story was inaccurate. BuzzFeed has stood by the story but not followed up with additional details to back up the original article.

Cohen will testify that Trump did not “directly” instruct him to lie to Congress.

“Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates,” the opening statement reads.

“In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing,” Cohen will say.

“In his way, he was telling me to lie.”

He also said that “[y]ou need to know that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.”

The FBI released its list of those prohibited from gun purchases in 2018, with illegal aliens topping the list by a landslide.

A new report from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System breaks down the number of people blocked from buying guns in 2018. At 7,836,600, the “illegal/unlawful alien” category ranked at the top, beating the second category by nearly 2 million. The “adjudicated mental health” category came in second place with 7,836,600, and convicted criminals rounded the top three with 3,833,213.

The active records of those barred from gun purchases have increased over the years.

The numbers also highlight the escalating fight over illegal immigration. The federal government is currently under a “shutdown” because President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats are at odds over funding for a proposed wall on the country’s southern border with Mexico.

“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with,” Trump tweeted Friday. “Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!”

The murder of a California police officer on Wednesday by an undocumented immigrant also highlights the personal tragedy associated with illegal alien-related crime. Officer Ronil Singh, 33, was shot and killed at a traffic stop by an illegal alien. Singh leaves behind a wife and baby boy.

“He’ll never see his son walk. He doesn’t get to hold that little boy, hug his wife, say ‘good night’ anymore because a coward took his life,” Newman, California, Police Chief Randy Richardson, choking back tears, said to reporters Thursday.

TUCSON, Ariz. – A group of 306 Central Americans surrendered to Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents near the international border Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

Large group apprehended in Arizona.

On Wednesday, agents from the Ajo Border Patrol Station patrolling on the border 15 miles west of Lukeville found 242 migrants. On Thursday morning, agents from the Casa Grande Station patrolling the border on the Tohono O’odham Nation encountered a group of 64 migrants who gave themselves up.

Both groups were comprised of family units, to include juveniles and pregnant women, largely from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Border Patrol agents conducted an initial screening on site, which consisted of an interview and observation of the detainees to identify any health or safety issues requiring emergency evacuation. The initial screening identified one pregnant woman and four children requiring immediate care.

The five subjects were transported to a hospital in Goodyear, treated and released to Ajo Border Patrol Station agents for further processing. Subjects not requiring emergency medical attention were transported to Tucson for further processing and medical evaluation by Border Patrol paramedics.

In Tucson, an additional nine children, ages 1 to 13, were identified as having flu-like symptoms and were taken to a local hospital for further treatment.

Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, provided polling data to a close associate during the 2016 campaign with instructions to share the information with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, according to a new report.

Manafort’s legal team accidentally revealed in a court filing on Tuesday in the special counsel’s probe that the longtime GOP consultant provided the data to his associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, during the 2016 campaign.

The New York Times followed up with more details of the hand-off, reporting that Manafort instructed Kilimnik to provide the information to Deripaska, a billionaire aluminum magnate with close ties to Vladimir Putin.

According to The Times, Manafort and Rick Gates, his former business partner and campaign deputy, provided the information in Spring 2016, around the time that Trump clinched the GOP nomination. Most of the information was public, though some included internal polling data, a source told The Times.

What remains unknown is whether Trump or others on the campaign were aware that Manafort provided Kilimnik and Deripaska with polling data.

While many Democrats on Tuesday asserted that the new revelation was strong evidence of collusion, one possibility is that Manafort was attempting to settle a multi-million dollar business dispute with Deripaska. Manafort owed Deripaska nearly $20 million at the time from a failed business venture in Ukraine.

Manafort sent Kilimnik, a former Russian military intelligence official, an email in April 2016, shortly after joining the campaign, suggesting that he sought to use his new position as leverage with Deripaska.

“How do we use to get whole?” Manafort asked Kilimnik.

In a July 7, 2016 Manafort told Kilimnik that he was willing to brief Deripaska on the Trump campaign.

“If he needs private briefings we can accommodate,” Manafort wrote.

Deripaska has been something of a puzzle in the Russia probe.

He reportedly has ties to Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier alleging a vast conspiracy of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Deripaska hired Steele’s London-based firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, in 2012 as part of a private business investigation.

Steele also sought to help Deripaska with problems he was having with the U.S. government related to his visa. The former MI6 officer lobbied Justice Department official Bruce Ohr to help alleviate Deripaska’s visa issues.

Deripaska has denied through intermediaries being a source for Steele, though he was spotted in June 2016 at an economic forum in St. Petersburg with Sergei Millian, an alleged source for the dossier.

Kamala Harris is running for president on a platform of raising taxes on the wealthy, implementing a Socialist healthcare system and reforming state cash bail systems in favor of poor inmates, The Washington Post reports.

The U.S. senator from California will compete with other Democrats for the chance to challenge President Donald Trump in 2020. Harris announced the start of her campaign Monday.

Harris intends to make taxes a focal point of her campaign, contrasting her tax package with the legislation Trump and Congressional Republicans passed in December 2017.

Harris’s tax plan, proposed Oct. 18, is a Robin Hood-type plan that would hike tax rates on wealthier Americans to cover the cost of tax credits, up to $3,000 for individuals and $6,000 for families, offered to people making under $100,000 a year. The tax credits would not be available for Americans who do not earn a paycheck.

Harris’s tax plan would overwhelmingly benefit poor and lower middle-class individuals and families, while increasing the tax burden of those over the $100,000 cutoff. It would reduce federal revenues by roughly $2.7 trillion over a decade.

Harris publicly backed the Medicare-for-all plan of self-proclaimed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders in August 2017, arguing that “It’s not just about what is morally and ethically right, it also makes sense just from a fiscal standpoint.”

The Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, estimated that a Medicare-for-all plan could cost as much as $42 trillion over a decade and more than five-times that amount over the course of 30 years.

Proponents of the plan say the immense cost would be offset by freeing Americans from paying for health plans and premiums, but skeptics and critics say that argument is not backed by any sort of data. Massive tax hikes and spending cuts in other programs would have to come with the single-payer system to make it financially feasible, according to the Manhattan Institute.

Harris also plans to push reforms to cash bail systems to favor poor Americans. Harris, along with Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, introduced a bill in July 2017 that would offer a three-year, $10 million grant to states that reform or abolish their cash bail systems.

The push may stave off criticism coming from fellow Democrats over Harris’s career as a federal prosecutor for actions such as criminalizing truancy, which disproportionately affected poor families.

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’s signature is all that remains to include Colorado among the ranks of states prepared to abandon the Electoral College system in favor of nationwide popular voting for the next presidential election.

Colorado would bring the number of states who have joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) to 12, plus the District of Columbia. The NPVIC represents a coalition of states who have agreed to pool their Presidential electoral votes for the majority candidate, regardless of individual state outcomes.

Under the Constitution, states have the power to determine how they award their electoral votes in national elections, with many states currently being winner-take-all. If states with at least 270 electoral votes (or the number needed to elect a president) agree to award their votes to the majority-vote holder, it would effectively convert the presidential election to popular vote.

Colorado brings the total electoral votes represented by NPVIC states to 181. To reach the required 270, they need a dozen or so more states to pass legislation. So far, no red states have embraced the movement.

Eric Holder weighed in on the issue Tuesday by Twitter, supporting the reform measure and linking to a story from The Hill about Colorado’s pending inclusion.

New Mexico is poised to join next, with legislation having passed State House and currently pending with the Democrat-controlled Senate.