FEATURING ANU JOSHI – President Trump was forced to concede a major defeat on his drive to require citizenship information on the 2020 US Census. In an executive order that he announced on Thursday the President said he would be requiring the information from other federal agencies instead. 

Just days before the announcement the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said it planned to round up thousands of undocumented people and their families living in the US starting on Sunday. The announcement has sown fear in vulnerable communities around the US. 

Meanwhile, as lawmakers are battling over whether conditions in border detention facilities are harsh enough to deserve the name “concentration camps,” hundreds of vigils were organized around the country on Friday called “Lights for Liberty,” to call attention to the inhumane treatment of migrants at the border.  

Anu Joshi, Senior Director of Immigrant Rights Policy at the New York Immigration Coalition.

President Donald Trump on Thursday backed off from his long-standing demand that a question of citizenship be added to the 2020 US Census, surprising his detractors and supporters. In conceding defeat on an issue that would have benefitted the Republican Party, Trump announced at the Rose Garden after his social media summit that he would be gathering citizenship data from other agencies instead. Trump on Thursday announced his executive order to gather citizenship data on US residents by means other than the US Census. 

Trump’s announcement came after his so-called “social media summit,” which was a constellation of right wing extremists who have large online followings and who have complained about censorship of their views. A war of words broke out between former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka and Playboy’s White House reporter Brian Karem in the Rose Garden after the summit calling reporter “a punk” in a confrontation after the White House’s “social media summit.”

In other news Trump’s Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta announced his resignation after coming under fire for ensuring a favorable plea deal for billionaire and accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in Florida over a decade ago. New federal charges against Epstein revived scrutiny on Acosta’s role, and the Labor Secretary spent all week trying to defend his actions. Trump announced the resignation on Twitter saying, “Alex Acosta informed me this morning that he felt the constant drumbeat of press about a prosecution which took place under his watch more than 12 years ago was bad for the Administration, which he so strongly believes in, and he graciously tendered his resignation.” Meanwhile Epstein on Thursday reportedly asked a federal judge if he could put up his $77 million New York City mansion and a private jet as collateral for bail in order to stay out of jail. According to the New York Times, “He also proposed he be allowed to remain under house arrest in the mansion.” The Times explained, “A handful of superrich defendants have sought and occasionally obtained, over sharp objections from the government, similar bail provisions that allow them to finance a kind of personal jail rather than being held in a government lockup.”

Musician and accused sex offender R. Kelly was arrested Thursday night on federal charges of sex trafficking by New York prosecutors. The 18-page federal indictment includes charges of racketeering, transporting for prostitution, and coercing women and girls. A second federal indictment was filed on Friday in his hometown of Chicago that includes charges of obstruction of justice as well as attempts to cover up video evidence of Kelly with underage girls. According to the Guardian newspaper, “Prosecutors say the defendants paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to victims and witnesses to make sure they would not cooperate with law enforcement.” The indictment, “also accuses Kelly of using physical abuse, violence and blackmail to prevent victims from providing evidence to law enforcement.

FEATURING CRISTINA LÓPEZ G. – President Donald Trump on Thursday gathered at the White House a who’s-who of online right-wing extremist agitators in a high-profile “social media summit.” The problem is that none of the people invited actually run social media platforms. Most, if not all, have complained about the censorship of their hate-filled views. 

President Trump explained – on Twitter – that the topic of the summit would be, “the tremendous dishonesty, bias, discrimination and suppression practiced by certain companies.” He added ominously, “We will not let them get away with it much longer.” 

Read Cristina’s article ‘The White House’s social media summit is just another stunt to game the refs,’ HERE.

Cristina López G. is the deputy director of extremism at Media Matters.

FEATURING DANIEL MARTINEZ HOSANG – Although President Donald Trump’s election was based primarily on a white supremacist narrative and a right-wing populism aimed at white Americans, he has taken pains to assure Black and Latino Americans constantly that he has benefitted their communities. 

Trump’s backers are largely white but a small minority of nonwhite pro-Trump figures often garner outsize attention. The landscape of race in Trump’s America has shifted in complicated ways and is the focus of a new book called Producer, Parasites, Patriots. 

Daniel Martinez Hosang, Associate Professor at Yale University in the American Studies and Ethnicity, Race and Migration Programs. His earlier book was Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California. He is the author with Joseph E. Lowndes of the new book Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity.

Donald Trump’s administration says the President plans to announce executive action on including the question of citizenship to the 2020 US Census. Trump, who hosted a so-called “social media summit” at the White House on Thursday said he planned to make his announcement on the Census in the Rose Garden after the summit. Attorney General William Barr will join the President. Meanwhile House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a vote in the House next week on holding Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in Contempt of Congress for refusing to testify. When asked whether she thought Trump could simply place the question on the census through an Executive Order Pelosi replied, “I don’t know.” The President is moving into uncharted territory by taking unilateral action after being turned down in his quest for citizenship information by the Supreme Court. On Thursday in a series of tweets he joked about remaining in office (here and here) for “six years, or maybe 10 or 14 (just kidding).”

A Guatemalan woman testified before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Wednesday and recounted in detail the loss of her 19-month old daughter who contracted a fatal lung infection while in government detention. Yazmin Juárez explained the harsh conditions under which she and her daughter were held and the pain of losing her. She had filed a $60 million lawsuit against the government last year. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts spoke to Juárez during the hearing addressing an immigrant mother who lost her child at a hearing on Wednesday. In other immigration news, U.S. Customs and Border Protection official announced that the number of children in detention has dropped to 200, down from about 2,500 in May. However news emerged on Thursday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was planning on starting mass arrests of undocumented immigrants and their families living in the US this Sunday. President Trump had already issued the threat of mass arrests some weeks ago but then postponed the action. ICE is planning to round up, detain, and deport whole families and have a list of at least 2,000 people. 

The White House is pushing Congress to pass a budget deal and raise the debt ceiling within a few weeks. The announcement came days after a report showing that the Treasury would be running out of money far sooner than expected due to a drop in tax revenues. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as Republican lawmakers to urge them to pass a bill but Pelosi has said that raising the debt limit should be part of a 2-year budget bill. Members of Congress leave for a summer break in just a few weeks and it appears unlikely a bill will be agreed upon and passed by then.

Meanwhile Pelosi is doubling down on...

FEATURING BETSY SWEET – The 2020 Elections are not just about a race for President. A large number of incumbents in Congress are also up for reelection, among them Maine’s Republican Senator Susan Collins. Often touted as one of the more reasonable and even liberal-leaning Republicans, Collins has sometimes voted with Democrats on some social issues. But her vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh last year despite his certain views against women’s right to reproductive healthcare, incensed many in her home state of Maine. 

Now, at least two Democratic women are running to challenge Collins. One has been endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The other has been endorsed by the Justice Democrats, and is our guest today.

For more information about Betsy Sweet’s candidacy, visit www.BetsySweet.com.

Betsy Sweet, former director of the Maine Women’s Lobby and the Maine Commission for Women. She announced her candidacy against Senator Susan Collins and has been endorsed by the Justice Democrats and other progressive groups.

FEATURING LINDSAY MEIMAN – Environmental organizations ridiculed President Trump’s Monday afternoon speech lauding “America’s Environmental Leadership.” The 45th president has been more hostile to environmental regulations than perhaps any other president in recent history but pollsters working on the President’s 2020 reelection campaign apparently realized that voters like a President who protects their air, water, and climate. So Trump attempted to play along, touting his record, making up facts, without a hint of irony. 

Meanwhile two actual political leaders on the environment – Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Tuesday introduced a bill calling on Congress to declare a climate emergency. More than two dozen lawmakers including most of the Democratic Presidential candidates, signed on to the bill. 

Lindsay Meiman, Senior US Communications Specialist at 350.org.

A federal appeals court has dismissed a major lawsuit brought by the Attorneys General of Maryland and the District of Columbia over President Donald Trump’s violations of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the plaintiffs lacked the legal standing to bring the suit over the Trump International Hotel in DC renting out rooms to foreign heads of state. The two Attorneys General plan to appeal the ruling. Trump hailed the decision on Twitter calling the lawsuit, “a big part of the Deep State and Democrat induced Witch Hunt.”

A day earlier Trump suffered a legal loss after a federal judge in New York denied the administration’s request to change its lawyers in the bid to add a citizenship question to the US Census. U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman wrote, “Defendants provide no reasons, let alone ‘satisfactory reasons,’ for the substitution of counsel.” Trump slammed the decision saying, “So now the Obama appointed judge on the Census case … won’t let the Justice Department use the lawyers that it wants to use. Could this be a first?”

Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve testified to the House Financial Services Committee at a hearing on Wednesday during which he warned against the US’s trade wars and “weak manufacturing” thwarting the economy. He also warned that he could cut interest rates soon – a first in about a decade. Congresswoman Maxine Waters who chairs the committee asked Powell a pointed question during the hearing.

A week after President Trump’s massive Fourth of July military display and speech, DC Mayor Muriel E. Bowser announced that the city’s security fund has been depleted and is projected to be in debt to the tune of $6 million. Bowser has asked the White House to reimburse that fund. One estimate found that this year’s Independence Day celebrations were six times higher than past years and that as the costs were added up, that may increase. The Pentagon found that the cost of displaying tanks and conducting military flyovers as per Trump’s demand ran into $1.2 million. The Pentagon Comptroller’s report said, “Funding for the demonstrations came from the military services’ training budgets that facilitate flying hours, which are imperative to military readiness. Additional funding was used for the transportation of static displays and equipment.” Trump wants a repeat of the spectacle next year. 

The family of a slain black teenager in Arizona wants justice and a hate crimes charge in the killing of

FEATURING REESE ERLICH – Iranian officials recently announced that they had pushed past a 3.7% limit on enriched nuclear material set forth in the 2015 nuclear deal with the US and Europe. The United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that violation of the deal. The nation that has been pointedly targeted by President Donald Trump has indicated that it may move toward 20% enrichment soon. Iran also said that it had increased its nuclear stockpile beyond the nuclear deal’s limits. 

Meanwhile the Trump administration met with the Emir of Qatar on Tuesday at the White House to discuss that nation’s potential role as mediator between the US and Iran. There are indications that Trump is not keen on a war with Iran although he led the campaign to unravel President Obama’s nuclear deal. Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton has made it his life’s mission to foment a war with Iran. Will Bolton’s desires win out?

Reese Erlich, veteran foreign correspondent and author of a number of books about the Middle East and war on terror, including Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect. His latest book is called The Iran Agenda Today. His twice-monthly column called Foreign Correspondent appears in The Progressive.

The Affordable Care Act is once more facing an existential crisis with an Appeals Court hearing arguments on Tuesday in a case against it. The appeal is against a ruling made by a federal judge in Texas who struck down the entire law potentially jeopardizing private insurance health coverage for millions of Americans. President Obama’s signature health reform law has been the subject of continuous Republican Party attacks for more than a decade now. The original case, filed by a number of GOP state Governors and Attorneys General could end up at the US Supreme Court ahead of the 2020 elections. The New York Times explained that, “A question at the heart of the case is whether the Affordable Care Act’s mandate requiring most Americans to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty remained constitutional after Congress eliminated the penalty as part of the tax overhaul that Mr. Trump signed in 2017.” In other health care related news, a federal judge ruled on Monday that the Department of Health and Human Services cannot require pharmaceutical companies to disclose the list prices of their drugs in television ads. The ruling was a blow to the Trump Administration which has attempted to demonstrate sympathy for the high cost of healthcare that Americans are burdened by.

The Bipartisan Policy Center released a report on Monday projecting that the Treasury Department will hit the federal debt limit in about two months. This means that Congress will run out of money to pay federal bills unless it raises the debt ceiling. The same think tank in May had projected hitting the debt ceiling by October or November, but because of a dramatic drop in tax revenues, the government does not have enough income. President Donald Trump and his Republican Party’s signature tax reform law passed in late 2017 slashed tax rates for corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Meanwhile a new poll by Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research has found that while Americans are contented with their personal finances, their retirement outlook is precarious. According to AP, the economic insecurity is particularly hard on, “young adults, racial minorities and the poor.” Earlier this week the Congressional Budget Office released a report finding that an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would raise wages for 27 million Americans and lift 1.3 million out of poverty. The report also claims that it would mean 1.3 million jobs lost. 

In the latest on the Trump Administration’s battle over the 2020 Census continues with Attorney General William Barr says that a legal pathway exists to include a question of citizenship. Barr did not give any details about exactly what legal path exists to get the citizenship question. Critics have slammed Republicans for attempting to scare immigrants and undercount them in the Census. Meanwhile, Jewish activists with the group Never Again have ...