Monday, January 8th, 2018
Q Drops 511 - 517
Link to January 8th, 2018 Q Drops https://qalerts.app/?q=Jan+08%2C+2018
Tuesday, January 9th, 2018
District Judge William Alsup ruels that the DACA program must remain in place while litigation continues.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., released the full transcript Tuesday of a Senate Judiciary Committee interview with the founder of a firm behind a 2016 dossier on President Donald Trump’s ties with Russia.
Tuesday, January 9th, 2018
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-ruling/u-s-judge-blocks-trump-move-to-end-daca-program-for-immigrants-idUSKBN1EZ0AR
U.S. judge blocks Trump move to end DACA program for immigrants(Reuters)
SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge in San Francisco temporarily barred President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday from ending a program shielding young people brought to the United States illegally by their parents from deportation.
The Trump administration announced in September it would rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a decision that was challenged in multiple federal courts by a variety of Democratic state attorneys general, organizations and individuals.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled in San Francisco on Tuesday the program must remain in place while the litigation is resolved. The ruling could complicate negotiations between Trump and congressional leaders over immigration reform.
“Today’s order doesn’t change the Department of Justice’s position on the facts,” said the department’s spokesman Devin M. O’Malley. The department “will continue to vigorously defend this position,” he said.
Alsup’s decision follows a number of rulings by other U.S. judges seeking to rein in Trump’s immigration policies, including decisions that limited administration moves against sanctuary cities and narrowed the scope of a ban against travel from some Muslim-majority counties.
Nearly 700,000 young people, known as Dreamers, were protected from deportation and allowed to work legally under the DACA program as of September 2017, Alsup’s ruling said.
Alsup ruled that the federal government did not have to process new applications from people who had never before received protection under the program. However, he ordered the government to continue processing renewal applications from people who had previously been covered.
“DACA gave them a more tolerable set of choices, including joining the mainstream workforce,” Alsup wrote. “Now, absent an injunction, they will slide back to the pre-DACA era and associated hardship.”
The plaintiffs were likely to succeed in arguing that the government’s decision to end DACA was arbitrary, Alsup ruled.
POSSIBLE LEGISLATION
Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney for Public Counsel, which represents six DACA recipients in the case, applauded the ruling. “These young people played by all the rules. They demonstrated they are no threat,” he said.
Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, which backs stricter immigration laws, dismissed the significance of the court’s action, calling it “an aberration that surely will not be allowed to stand as it is appealed.”
The ruling comes as Trump and U.S. congressional leaders are trying to hammer out immigration reforms, including whether and how to extend protections to young people who were covered by DACA.
Trump met lawmakers on Tuesday and said he would back a two-phased approach to overhauling U.S. immigration laws.
The first step would focus on protecting Dreamers from deportation, along with funding for a wall and other restrictions that Democrats have opposed.
Trump said he then favors moving quickly to address even more contentious issues, including a possible pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants that is opposed by many Republicans and many of his supporters.
A representative for the White House could not be reached immediately after the ruling.
Trump ran on a hardline immigration platform during the 2016 presidential election, promising to end DACA and strengthen border protections to increase jobs for U.S. workers.
Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, which advocates for protections for Dreamers, lamented on Twitter the continuing uncertainty for DACA recipients if Alsup’s ruling is appealed.
“This makes it MORE urgent for Congress to act and end this chaos,” he wrote.
Reporting by Dan Levine; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Richard Cowan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Sue Horton and Paul Tait
Tuesday, January 9th, 2018
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/spokesman-senior-hamas-official-shot-in-the-head-533232
Spokesman: Senior Hamas official shot in the head(JPost.com)
Senior Hamas official Imad al-Alami was shot in the head on Tuesday “while examining his personal weapon in his home,” Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.
Alami, also known as Abu Hamam, is regarded as a hard-liner and a supporter of Hamas’s ties with Iran.
Health Ministry spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qidra, said Alami was admitted to intensive care at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital and described his condition as “critical.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Senior Hamas officials, including Hamas Politburo Chairman Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas Chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, visited Alami in the hospital, Gaza-based media reported.
Alami, a civil engineer by training, has been a Hamas member since the late 1980s and was the first Hamas representative in Tehran.
In 2012, he returned to Gaza after spending a number of years outside of the Palestinian territories.
The following year, Alami was elected as deputy Hamas chief in Gaza, a position that he held until early 2017.
During the 2014 Gaza War, one of the senior Hamas official’s feet was injured in an Israeli air raid, according to Hamas’s official website.
Tuesday, January 9th, 2018
Q Drop 518
Link to January 9th, 2018 Q Drops https://qalerts.app/?q=Jan+09%2C+2018
Tuesday, January 9th, 2018
Read the full transcript of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s interview with Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS
Politics Jan 9, 2018 3:59 PM EDT
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., released the full transcript Tuesday of a Senate Judiciary Committee interview with the founder of a firm behind a 2016 dossier on President Donald Trump’s ties with Russia.
Glenn Simpson, one of the founders of Fusion GPS, the firm commissioned by Democrats to look into Trump’s background in the runup to the 2016 elections, was subpoenaed by the committee to testify last year as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. He spoke with the committee in August behind closed doors. Simpson has asked in recent weeks, as the investigations into the document on Capitol Hill have intensified, for the full transcript to be released.
The document was compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who the committee referred to the Department of Justice last week for an investigation into whether he misled the FBI.
Feinstein said in a statement that “the innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice. The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public.”
The move drew criticism from Republicans, including committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who indicated a day earlier he would not release the 312-page transcript. In a statement he said the move “undermines the integrity of the committee’s oversight work and jeopardizes its ability to secure candid voluntary testimony relating to the independent recollections of future witnesses.”
Read the committee’s full transcript of Simpson’s testimony below. Read more about what we learned from the transcripthere. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-transcript-of-the-senate-judiciarys-interview-with-glenn-simpson-co-founder-of-fusion-gps
Wednesday, January 10th, 2018
PDJT blasts Dianne Feinstein as "sneaky" and a "disgrace" for putting out the fake and gay Glen Simpson report paid for by Hillary & DNC which started in 2015
PRJT holds a bilateral meeting and joint press conference w/ Nordic Prime Minister Erna Solberg at the White House
Wednesday, January 10th, 2018
VIDEO: President Trump Holds a Joint Press Conference with Prime Minister Solberg (YouTube)
Wednesday, January 10th, 2018
Jeff Carlson writes a piece on Roger’s role in exposing the spying on Trump Campaign.
Wednesday, January 10th, 2018
–Lawyer Michael Cohen files defamation suit against Fusion GPS & Buzzfeed for publishing fake and gay "Steele Dossier".
Wednesday, January 10th, 2018
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Thursday, January 11th, 2018
Thursday, January 11th, 2018
Trump Administration will let states require people to work for Medicaid
House of Representatives approves goverment's controversial "702" wireless surveillance authority. The Senate follows suit.