News from the note…
A round up of the day’s news that might be of interest to you.
Consider this an OPEN THREAD, folks. Chat about any of the stories listed, share links to stories that caught your eye today, and generally have a good time discussing whatever you want.
Trump suggests separation of families at border is a negotiating tool
From CNN
President Donald Trump suggested Saturday that he is using his administration’s separation of families at the US border as a negotiating tool to get Democrats to cave on his immigration demands, which include funding for a border wall, curbing legal immigration into the US, and tightening the rules for border enforcement.
Trump again falsely blamed Democrats for his administration’s actions, and said they could put a stop to the family separations by working with Republicans in Congress. Nearly 2,000 immigrant children were separated from parents over a period of about six weeks in April and May, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
“Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation, for a change!” Trump wrote in a tweet.
U.S. expected to retreat from main U.N. rights forum: activists, diplomats
From Reuters
Talks with the United States over how to reform the main U.N. rights body have failed to meet Washington’s demands, activists and diplomats say, suggesting that the Trump administration will quit the Geneva forum whose session opens on Monday.
A U.S. source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the withdrawal appeared to be “imminent” but had no details.
Diplomatic sources said it was not a question of if but of when the United States retreats from the Human Rights Council, which is holding a three-week session through July 6.
Ex-CIA director blasts Trump for focus on supporters rather than ‘all Americans’
From The Hill
Former CIA Director John Brennan torched President Trump over a tweet where he praised his supporters.
Brennan hit back at Trump for focusing on his own supporters, not “all Americans,” as the country faces numerous challenges.
“All Americans—not just your supporters—deserve a President who is honest, ethical, selfless, & substantive,” Brennan wrote in a tweet. “Our country faces daunting domestic & international challenges.”
“If there is a scintilla of decency left in you, you would focus on your responsibilities, not on yourself,” he added.
Feds reassemble shredded docs, access encrypted messages from Michael Cohen raids
From Politico
Federal prosecutors in New York revealed on Friday that they had pieced back together shredded documents found during search-warrant raids in April targeting Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney.
Lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan also said they’d managed to download the contents of one old BlackBerry found in the raids, as well as messages from encrypted apps, including WhatsApp and Signal, found on newer phones.
“Approximately 731 pages of messages, including call logs,” were found on those apps and were turned over to Cohen’s lawyers on Friday to be reviewed for potentially privileged materials like attorney-client communications, as well as “highly personal” information, prosecutors said.
American businesses brace for pain from trade fight with China
From CNN Money
President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods are intended to help American companies that have been hurt by Beijing’s industrial policies.
But in the short term, at least, many American businesses may be the ones feeling pain.
Deals are in limbo. Companies say critical supplies they need to make products could jump in price. And multinational corporations worry about their future ability to do business in China — a massive market.
On Friday, the Trump administration said it will impose a 25% tariff on $50 billion of Chinese exports. China retaliated almost immediately and said the United States had “launched a trade war.”
A Saturday Bonus Note from the “What A Mess” File
The Only Way for the GOP to be Saved from the Trump Cult is for Democrats to Win Big in November
From Mediaite
Ever since I was nine years old and I watched Ronald Reagan’s concession speech at the 1976 GOP convention cause tears to run down the cheeks of my now-late mother’s eyes, I have been a staunch conservative Republican. In 2008, I was even a delegate to the Republican National Convention.
While I once gave a campaign donation to my very good friend Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth, I have never voted for a Democrat for a federal or state office in my life. This year, much to my amazement and disappointment, not only will I be likely be voting for Democrats at that level, I will actually be rooting for Democrats to win back at least the House of Representatives.
A Bonus BONUS Note from the “What’s in a Name?” File
Why the ‘Classical Liberal’ is Making a Comeback
From Politico
“I really call myself a classical liberal more than a conservative.”
Protests like the above have become common as of late from certain quadrants of the self-proclaimed, free-thinking “Intellectual Dark Web,” a loose confederacy of free speech absolutists that includes figures like the atheist writer Sam Harris and Peter Thiel sidekick Eric Weinstein. The “classical liberal” label has until now mostly been the domain of libertarian types and conservatives on the never-Trump end of the spectrum, such as Bill Kristol and much of the National Review staff, who are eager to root themselves in a tradition that connects the Founding Fathers to conservative philosophical icon Edmund Burke. Its recent surge in popularity, however, has come from twin phenomena—those conservatives’ intensifying desire to distance themselves from a Trump-ified Republican Party, and the term’s discovery by that new clique of anti-PC voices placing themselves in opposition to the supposedly illiberal campus left.
