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After Trump’s Walkout, What Comes Next in the U.S.-North Korea Nuclear Negotiations?

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There was no grand bargain in Hanoi between President Trump and Kim Jong-un at the second summit between the two leaders. After meeting and taking some questions from reporters in which both were optimistic (Trump was more guarded about what would be accomplished at this summit), they didn’t even go through with a planned lunch. While disappointing for some hoping for concessions from Trump and Kim that would yield at the minimum “confidence building” measures, the news of a no-deal outcome came to me as a relief. Here’s why. . .

President Trump has already been over-the-top generous towards Kim and owes him exactly nothing. The first summit in Singapore was a PR victory for Kim, who is known internationally for what he is: a cruel, ruthless dictator who sits atop a strange (though don’t confuse it for irrational) brand of Communist authoritarianism and deserves global isolation. The state’s official ideology is juche, which infuses racism and dynastic rule and has Communist influence. It’s dangerous and still deserves global isolation.

But Trump, committed to decreasing the hostility of the two countries in the hopes of making progress on the issue peacefully, has taken an unprecedented approach: give Kim the flattery and photo opps not as a reward for disarmament, but instead as an inducement for more. Trump is trying to get the young Kim drunk on praise and fame with the promise that more will follow in greater degrees, if only Kim will accept the deal of all deals with President Trump and choose economic prosperity in exchange for his nuclear missile program.

So far, Kim has rebuffed this offer. According to the president, in Hanoi, Kim demanded total sanctions relief upfront in exchange for only minimal steps towards denuclearization. It is an absurd demand and if those disappointed with the results of the summit want someone to blame, the blame rests with Kim Jong-un and him alone. . .

One, every missile and nuclear weapon that was in North Korea at the time of the Singapore Summit is still there. And just because the regime has stopped testing missiles doesn’t mean it has stopped producing them or producing nuclear (and chemical and biological) weapons. In fact, we have reason to believe the regime is doing just that. Moreover, there are reports that indicate North Korea continues to proliferate weapons outside its borders including chemical weapons technology to Assad in Syria. Recall, North Korea and Iran have a history of cooperation. (Read more from “After Trump’s Walkout, What Comes Next in the U.S.-North Korea Nuclear Negotiations?” HERE)

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Trump Travel Ban Ends Almost All Immigration From Terrorist-Sanctioned Countries

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By Breibart. President Donald Trump’s travel ban executive order is proving to be one of his most effective pro-American immigration policy initiatives, stopping nearly all legal immigration from countries designated as sponsors of terrorism.

Newly released data from the State Department reveals that Trump’s constitutional travel ban on eight foreign countries, designated as either dangerous or sponsors of terrorism, has warranted big results.

The travel ban, State Department data finds, has reduced legal immigration from the eight foreign countries by about 80 percent, compared to 2016 when the ban had not been implemented yet. Six of the eight countries included in Trump’s travel ban have either sponsored Islamic terrorism in the past or have major issues with terrorism.

In total, more than 37,000 visas were denied in 2018 thanks to the travel ban — including about 15,400 foreign nationals seeking to permanently resettle in the U.S. and 21,645 foreign nationals wanting non-immigrant visas.

Between October 2017 and September 2018 — known as Fiscal Year 2018 — only about 14,600 foreign nationals from Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen were allowed entry into the U.S. This represents an 80 percent drop in immigration from these five countries, compared to Fiscal Year 2016 when the Obama administration admitted about 72,000 of these nationals in the country. (Read more from “Trump Travel Ban Ends Almost All Immigration From Terrorist-Sanctioned Countries” HERE)

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U.S. Denied Tens of Thousands More Visas in 2018 Due to Travel Ban: Data

By Reuters. The U.S. State Department refused more than 37,000 visa applications in 2018 due to the Trump administration’s travel ban, up from less than 1,000 the previous year when the ban had not fully taken effect, according to agency data released on Tuesday.

The United States denies nearly 4 million visa applications a year for a variety of reasons, including for practicing polygamy, abducting children or simply not qualifying for the visa in question. The data released Tuesday was the first comprehensive look at the human impact of Republican President Donald Trump’s ban, imposed shortly after he took office and initially blocked by federal courts.

The ban has especially affected people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, countries where the number of visas issued slid 80 percent in 2018 from 2016, the last year without a travel ban.

Trump’s initial January 2017 executive order banning entry to the United States by citizens of several Muslim-majority countries launched a fierce fight in federal courts over whether the policy amounts to an unlawful “Muslim ban” or is a legal exercise of presidential power. (Read more from “U.S. Denied Tens of Thousands More Visas in 2018 Due to Travel Ban: Data” HERE)

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‘EXECUTING BABIES’: Trump Unleashes on Democrats Voting Against Bill Preventing Newborns From Being Killed

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President Donald Trump slammed Democrats on Monday evening for refusing to support legislation that would prevent innocent newborn babies from being killed if they were born alive after surviving an abortion.

“All but three Democrats voted against a procedural motion on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, denying it the necessary 60 votes to proceed,” The Mercury News reported. “The final vote count was 53 in favor and 44 opposed.”

“Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children,” Trump tweeted. “The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth.”

“This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress,” Trump continued. “If there is one thing we should all agree on, it’s protecting the lives of innocent babies.”

The Mercury News added: “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has sought to put Democrats – and 2020 candidates in particular – on the record on the issue after recent comments made by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam of Democrats. McConnell also plans to hold a vote in the coming weeks on the Green New Deal climate-change legislation as he has cast the Democrats as extreme.” (Read more from “‘EXECUTING BABIES’: Trump Unleashes on Democrats Voting Against Bill Preventing Newborns From Being Killed” HERE)

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Another Media Hoax: Anti-Trump Letter’s 58 ‘Bipartisan’ Signers Are Mostly Obama Officials

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A so-called “bipartisan” letter from 58 national security officials condemning the president’s use of an emergency declaration for border security has almost nothing “bipartisan” about it. In fact, it’s a document signed by a who’s who of top Obama administration officials and fiercely anti-Trump figures. But that didn’t stop the media from reporting the story as if there were actual bipartisan consensus.

The letter made the rounds through the legacy media on Monday, castigating the president’s use of an emergency declaration to enhance U.S. border security measures. It claims that there is “no factual basis for the declaration of a national emergency,” adding that there is no justification for “reprogramming billions of dollars in funding to construct a wall at the southern border.”

Teeing up an anti-Trump, open-borders narrative, Politico reported: “President Donald Trump — already facing opposition on his national emergency declaration from House Democrats and a collection of state attorneys general — will on Monday have to contend with a rebuke by a bipartisan group of 58 former national security officials denouncing the White House’s directive.”

Countless media publications, including CNN, Politico, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and many more, claimed that the letter was bipartisan, offering credibility to the argument that these former national security officials are somehow neutral in their outlook.

But just looking at the group of 58 makes it quite clear that this “bipartisan” label is incredibly misleading, and the document has been reported with gross negligence concerning the signatories’ political beliefs and associations. The notion that the letter is bipartisan could not be further from the truth.

Running the numbers on the so-called national security experts shows that the group is hardly bipartisan: 47 of 58 signatories to the letter served in the Obama administration. The roster is a who’s who of several high-profile Obama personnel, including:

Former Secretary of State John Kerry

Former CIA Director John Brennan

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper

Former National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon

Former DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano

Former UN Ambassador Samantha Power

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice

Another six of the signatories to the letter served in the Clinton administration. That leaves just five who served in the Bush 43 administration. All of the self-identified Republicans who served in the Bush administration — John Bellinger, Nicholas Burns, Eliot Cohen, Jendayi Frazer, and John McLaughlin — have publicly denounced President Trump and/or signed letters opposing him. A few of the 47 Obama officials who were carried over to the Trump administration have publicly attacked the sitting president. There is not one pro-Trump voice among the 58 signatories.

It still remains unclear what organization was behind gathering the signatures. For reasons unknown, none of the dozens of well-sourced national security reporters who wrote about the document disclosed where it came from. However, the letter does state that the signatures are on file with Yale Law School Professor Harold Koh, who was a political appointee under President Obama.

Much of the media played a large role in propping up a “bipartisan” letter that is in reality nothing of the sort. Fake news strikes again. (For more from the author of “Another Media Hoax: Anti-Trump Letter’s 58 ‘Bipartisan’ Signers Are Mostly Obama Officials” please click HERE)

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POTUS Announces Major Plans for Fourth of July

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President Trump has some major plans to celebrate American independence this year. He’ll be holding a celebration called “A Saulte To America” at the Lincoln Memorial, 45 revealed on Twitter Sunday morning.

The last time Trump was celebrating at the Lincoln Memorial, he had just been elected president. “The Make America Great Again Welcome Concert” featured performances by the likes of Lee Greenwood, Toby Keith, and 3 Doors Down, not to mention thousands of supporters. . .

PBS always hosts a major concert on July 4 as well on Capitol Hill, and they’re usually able to score some major talent. Will the two venues be clashing/competing?

(Read more from “POTUS Announces Major Plans for Fourth of July” HERE)

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Mueller’s Final Manafort Filings Are Scant on Russia Details, Never Mention ‘Trump’ or ‘Collusion’

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. . .Mueller and his team made their final required filing in Manafort’s case late Friday, submitting a “government sentencing memorandum” to the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., justifying their request for a harsh, 17-year prison sentence against Manafort.

In it, the government argues that Manafort “chose repeatedly and knowingly to violate the law— whether the laws proscribed garden-variety crimes such as tax fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and bank fraud, or more esoteric laws that he nevertheless was intimately familiar with, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA),” both before and after he was under scrutiny by the Special Counsel.

Manafort’s portfolio of crimes include incidents going back more than a decade to 2005, to when Manafort was a lobbying the federal government on issues involving Russia and Ukraine. They run all the way up to last year, when Manafort was discovered to have engaged in witness tampering, even after he was indicted on tax fraud charges.

But what the government sentencing document — and Manafort’s apparent list of transgressions — doesn’t include is evidence of actual collusion with Russia during the course of the Trump for President campaign, the actual focus of Mueller’s investigation. Instead, the filing simply says that Manafort committed some of his crimes while under the “spotlight” of the campaign.

“His criminal actions were bold, some of which were committed while under a spotlight due to his work as the campaign chairman and, later, while he was on bail from this Court,” Mueller’s filing says. “Given the breadth of Manafort’s criminal activity, the government has not located a comparable case with the unique array of crimes and aggravating factor.” (Read more from “Mueller’s Final Manafort Filings Are Scant on Russia Details, Never Mention ‘Trump’ or ‘Collusion'” HERE)

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Trump Will ‘100 Percent’ Overrule Congress If They Try to Block National Emergency Declaration

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President Donald Trump cleared up any uncertainty Friday about whether he would veto a congressional resolution to block his national emergency declaration to fund border wall construction, according to The Hill.

“Will I veto it? 100 percent. 100 percent. And I don’t think it survives a veto. We have too many smart people that want border security, so I can’t imagine if it survives a veto, but i will veto it. Yes,” Trump said.

The resolution originated with House Democrats, and is likely to pass the Democratic-controlled chamber. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is bringing it to the Senate, where it has a chance to pass with some Republicans not favoring the national emergency. But, nothing is certain. . .

As it turns out, though, it likely doesn’t matter whether the resolution passes or not. If it passes, Trump will veto it. Then it would take congressional supermajorities in both chambers in order to override the veto. Controversial as the national emergency declaration is, there is certainly not enough support for the resolution right now in the Senate to override a veto.

It’s not even clear whether the resolution has the necessary Republican support to pass its first Senate vote. All 47 Democrats could vote for the resolution to block the national emergency declaration, and still four Republicans would have to do the same. (Read more from “Trump Will ‘100 Percent’ Overrule Congress If They Try to Block National Emergency Declaration” HERE)

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Here’s How Democrats Plan to End Trump’s National Emergency Declaration

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By The Blaze. Democrats reportedly plan to introduce a privileged resolution in Congress in to terminate the declaration of a national emergency at the border by President Donald Trump.

The plan was reported by NBC News Capitol Hill producer Alex Moe on Wednesday.

The resolution would end the declaration by Friday, if it is passed. Moe reported that the effort is led by Rep. Joaquin Castro (R-Texas) and has more than 90 co-sponsors. . .

If the resolution passes the House of Representatives, it would need to be approved by the Republican-controlled Senate. The president has already indicated that he would veto any resolution that came to his desk. The Congress could then override his veto, but only with an unlikely two-thirds majority in both houses.

(Read more from “Here’s How Democrats Plan to End Trump’s National Emergency Declaration” HERE)

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Texas GOP Rep Opposes Trump’s Use of National Emergency to Get Border Wall

By The Hill. Republican Rep. Roger Williams (Texas) said this week that he opposes the national emergency declared by President Trump to build a border wall.

Williams, asked about Trump’s national emergency declaration by a constituent at a town hall event Tuesday, gave a clear “no” to supporting it, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

“The reason that I have not been supportive of the declaration is because Congress has done a really poor job, we … Congress, both sides of the aisle, put the president in this situation, OK, but I don’t support it from a selfish standpoint,” Williams said at the event, according to the Statesman.

He then reportedly went on to explain that the emergency declared by Trump could take border wall funding that currently goes towards military bases, specifically noting Fort Hood, and saying he’d “hate to see a lot of those dollars diverted from that.”

Williams’s district, which he is in his fourth term representing, includes a majority of Fort Hood and is not on or near the border. (Read more from “Texas GOP Rep Opposes Trump’s Use of National Emergency to Get Border Wall” HERE)

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Trump Admin Announces Global Push to Decriminalize Homosexuality

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The Trump administration revealed Tuesday that it will be spearheading a global effort to get countries to end their criminalization of homosexuality, according to a report by NBC News. While the move is likely to distress many of Trump’s Christian-base supporters, it has interestingly been met with a cold shoulder by U.S. pro-LGBT voices.

The effort is being led by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, a homosexual conservative rumored to be in consideration as President Donald Trump’s next ambassador to the United Nations.

“It is concerning that, in the 21st century, some 70 countries continue to have laws that criminalize LGBTI status or conduct,” a US official told NBC News of the effort, which begins this week with an American-hosted strategy meeting in Berlin of LGBT advocates from across Europe.

The report notes that the effort is “narrowly focused on criminalization” instead of pressuring countries to adopt policies such as same-sex “marriage,” and is motivated in part by Iran hanging a man last month for violating the Islamic nation’s ban on sodomy, a capital offense (the man was also accused of kidnapping two teenagers, though it’s unclear how both offenses factored into his sentence. Grenell believes the kidnapping charges are false).

“This is not the first time the Iranian regime has put a gay man to death with the usual outrageous claims of prostitution, kidnapping, or even pedophilia. And it sadly won’t be the last time,” Grenell said. “Barbaric public executions are all too common in a country where consensual homosexual relationships are criminalized and punishable by flogging and death […] politicians, the U.N., democratic governments, diplomats and good people everywhere should speak up — and loudly.”

(Read more from “Trump Admin Announces Global Push to Decriminalize Homosexuality” HERE)

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Trump Campaign Sizes up Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Run in One Sentence

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By Nate Madden. In response to the news that 77-year-old socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has entered the presidential arena, the Trump 2020 campaign issued a statement that took aim at Sanders and the entire Democratic field at the same time.

“Bernie Sanders has already won the debate in the Democrat primary, because every candidate is embracing his brand of socialism,” it reads. “But the American people will reject an agenda of sky-high tax rates, government-run health care and coddling dictators like those in Venezuela.”

The 2020 Democratic field is already shaping up to be a contest of who can be the best messenger for the far-Left ideas that Sanders and his followers brought to the party’s mainstream in 2016. Even if the Democrats pass him over for the nomination again, he’s already done more to shape the outcome than anybody else in the field of declared candidates right now. (For more from the author of “Trump Campaign Sizes up Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Run in One Sentence” please click HERE)

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Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy will further fracture Democratic Party

By Fox News. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont who labels himself a democratic socialist, announced Tuesday that he is running for the Democratic presidential nomination again.

Sanders hopes there are some embers left to fan from his 2016 losing campaign so America can once again “feel the Bern.” But this time, the climate is very different. . .

But the 2020 race for the Democratic presidential nomination is already shaping up to be very different from 2016.

Unlike 2016, when Hillary Clinton was the frontrunner for the nomination even before she announced her candidacy, the 2020 Democratic primary field is a crowded one without a clear leader at this very early stage.

And many of the self-styled progressives are championing issues like “Medicare-for-all” and a Green New Deal. Sanders wants to remind voters he was there first. (Read more from “Bernie Sanders’ presidential candidacy will further fracture Democratic Party” HERE)

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