No Safe Place

http://www.msnbc.com/specials/migrant-crisis/sanctuary-cities

The ruling had a large-scale ripple effect across the country. All told, there are now 364 counties and 39 cities that refuse to cooperate with ICE, according to data collected by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Police chiefs and sheriffs decided that it was no longer worth opening up their departments to lawsuits in order to simply do ICE a favor.

“This is not a bunch of left-wing radicals. These are sheriffs and police chiefs,” Fife said.

The shift was seldom sold as offering immigrants “sanctuary,” but rather, as a bid for improving public safety. Local cops couldn’t effectively do their jobs if immigrant communities refused, out of fear, to talk to them.

The result is a patchwork of sanctuary-type policies that look nothing like the original religious movement, but have evolved as a way for individual regions to cope with a sprawling and deeply broken federal immigration system. The laws are far from uniform.

 

Trump blames Obama for coronavirus response, then says he has a “hunch” death rate is “false number”

https://www.salon.com/2020/03/05/trump-blames-obama-for-coronavirus-response-then-says-he-has-a-hunch-death-rate-is-false-number/

 An aide to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate committee that oversees health issues, told CNN that was untrue. Though the Obama administration proposed giving the FDA more oversight to approve diagnostic tests, Congress never approved it.

 

Trump's false claim blames Obama admin as coronavirus spreads

https://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/03/05/trump-false-claim-obama-administration-coronavirus-diagnostic-testing-ebof-vpx.cnn

President Donald Trump sought to lay blame on the Obama administration for slowing down new diagnostic testing, but a lab association said this is not correct

Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Trump's claim: Here's the real information

Why It's Not A Time For Trump's Hunches On Coronavirus | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Chief Justice John Roberts rebukes Chuck Schumer for comments about Kavanaugh and Gorsuch

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/schumer-roberts-threats-supreme-court/index.html

Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement rebuking Chuck Schumer for comments the Senate minority leader made about Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Schumer, speaking at a rally of abortion rights supporters, appeared to threaten Kavanaugh and Gorsuch, President Donald Trump's two Supreme Court nominees who were confirmed after bruising nomination fights.

"I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions," Schumer said, turning to look at the Supreme Court building.

Schumer went on to say, "The bottom line is very simple: we will stand with the American people. We will stand with American women. We will tell President Trump and Senate Republicans who have stacked the court with right-wing ideologues, that you're gonna be gone in November and you will never be able to do what you're trying to do now, ever, ever again. You hear that over there on the far-right? You're gone in November."

 

Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman said criticism of the New York Democrat's comments are a "deliberate misinterpretation."

Up to 100,000 Israelis in isolation as Israel expands traveler quarantine

https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Three-new-cases-of-coronavirus-announced-in-Israel-619680

 “We have to understand, we are in the midst of a global epidemic,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a press conference, “the most dangerous of these epidemics in the last 100 years."

Woman diagnosed with coronavirus in US after a week in Israel

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/276873

Tourist from NY who visited J'lem from February 23-27 diagnosed with the virus. Anyone who was in her proximity asked to enter quarantine.

 

Stock Market Sinks 2.9 Percent After Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rate

https://time.com/5795105/stock-market-coronavirus-updates/

 — Fear and uncertainty continue to control Wall Street, and stocks fell sharply Tuesday after an emergency interest-rate cut by the Federal Reserve failed to reassure markets wracked by worries that a fast-spreading virus will cause a recession.

The Dow Jones Industrial average sank 785 points, or 2.9%. It had surged 5% a day earlier on hopes for a broader set of stimulus measures.

 

Why the U.S. Agreement With the Taliban to End the Afghanistan War Is a Bad Deal | Opinion

https://www.newsweek.com/why-us-agreement-taliban-end-afghanistan-war-bad-deal-opinion-1489926

 As currently designed, this deal will completely demoralize the current Afghan government and military by conveying undue legitimacy on the wrong factions within the Taliban that are seeking to set the U.S. up for failure; and it will ultimately be used by the same press that gave platform to the killer Sirajuddin a weapon to attack this administration when the peace plan ultimately falls apart.

Michael Bloomberg Drops Out of 2020 Race — And Backs Joe Biden

https://time.com/5795561/bloomberg-suspends-campaign/

Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City Mayor who belatedly upended the 2020 Democratic primary by infusing his campaign with half a billion dollars of his personal fortune, announced Wednesday morning that he was exiting the race and throwing his support behind former Vice President Joe Biden.

 

Michael Bloomberg Drops Out of 2020 Race — And Backs Joe Biden

https://time.com/5795561/bloomberg-suspends-campaign/

Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City Mayor who belatedly upended the 2020 Democratic primary by infusing his campaign with half a billion dollars of his personal fortune, announced Wednesday morning that he was exiting the race and throwing his support behind former Vice President Joe Biden.

 

“The coronavirus is the common cold, folks."

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/27/rush-limbaugh/fact-checking-rush-limbaughs-misleading-claim-new-/

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh accused the media of overhyping the 2019 coronavirus that’s infected nearly 80,000 people worldwide, calling it "the common cold" and claiming, without evidence, that it’s "being weaponized" as an attack on President Donald Trump.

Rav gestetner against maryland Get law

Lou Dobbs grills Azar in heated debate over coronavirus transparency

WAPO: Trump Aide Calls Coronavirus Response 'Complete Chaos' | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

Trump made coronavirus claim, but a scientist had to stop him

President Trump's Disgraceful Peace Deal with the Taliban

https://time.com/5794643/trumps-disgraceful-peace-deal-taliban/

The combination of the planned American retreat and the planned prisoner release would represent a substantial change in the balance of forces in Afghanistan. This would come without any agreement by the Taliban to cease hostilities against our allies.

 

The President Is Winning His War on American Institutions

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/04/how-to-destroy-a-government/606793/

James Baker, the former general counsel of the FBI, and a target of Trump’s rage against the state, acknowledges that many government officials, not excluding himself, went into the administration convinced “that they are either smarter than the president, or that they can hold their own against the president, or that they can protect the institution against the president because they understand the rules and regulations and how it’s supposed to work, and that they will be able to defend the institution that they love or served in previously against what they perceive to be, I will say neutrally, the inappropriate actions of the president. And I think they are fooling themselves. They’re fooling themselves. He’s light-years ahead of them.”

 The adults were too sophisticated to see Trump’s special political talents—his instinct for every adversary’s weakness, his fanatical devotion to himself, his knack for imposing his will, his sheer staying power. They also failed to appreciate the advanced decay of the Republican Party, which by 2016 was far gone in a nihilistic pursuit of power at all costs. They didn’t grasp the readiness of large numbers of Americans to accept, even relish, Trump’s contempt for democratic norms and basic decency. It took the arrival of such a leader to reveal how many things that had always seemed engraved in monumental stone turned out to depend on those flimsy norms, and how much the norms depended on public opinion. Their vanishing exposed the real power of the presidency. Legal precedent could be deleted with a keystroke; law enforcement’s independence from the White House was optional; the separation of powers turned out to be a gentleman’s agreement; transparent lies were more potent than solid facts. None of this was clear to the political class until Trump became president.

Sanders and Trump skip AIPAC, but take center stage anyway

https://www.timesofisrael.com/sanders-and-trump-skip-aipac-but-take-center-stage-anyway/

 But Trump also found himself on the wrong side of an applause line from Bloomberg, another Democratic presidential hopeful. Anti-Semitism “can be found both on the right and the left,” the former New York mayor said, “but there is one fact that we cannot ignore: Presidential leadership matters. It sets a tone. It is either inclusive or exclusive, divisive or uniting, incendiary or calming.”