A recent survey shows that more than one-third of Guatemalans want to move to the United States.
The survey was conducted by the Association for Research and Social Studies and Barometro de las Americas which found that 39.2 percent of Guatemalans. 85 percent of those migrants would like to come to the United States.
Daniel Horowitz notes that roughly 5.6 million Guatemalans would like to come to America.
Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre highlighted how 58 percent of respondents claimed they had relatives in the United States. This same article attributes family reunifications and “lack of employment and poverty” as the motives for Guatemalans’ desire to migrate stateside.
The Center for Immigration Studies reports that “the number of immigrants from Central America (legal and illegal) has grown 28-fold since 1970, from 118,000 to nearly 3.3 million in 2018 — six times faster than the overall immigrant population.”
Other costs to immigration include assimilation struggles, which have been on display in immigrant communities throughout Europe.
These factors have American voters worried, with GOP voters viewing immigration as the #1 issue during the 2020 elections.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler has been leading the effort to hold Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress, claiming the move is needed to stem a “constitutional crisis.”
But he felt completely differently back when Republicans held then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for rejecting demands to turn over documents about the Fast and Furiousgun-running scandal.
“Just joined the #walkout of the House chamber to protest the shameful, politically-motivated GOP vote holding AG [Eric] Holder in contempt,” Nadler wrote on Twitter in 2012.
The Judiciary Committee voted 24-16 on Wednesday to recommend Barr in contempt of Congress, saying he has not handed over the full, unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller. President Trump has asserted executive privilege to keep some sensitive parts of the report secret. Said Nadler: “We are now in a constitutional crisis.”
After the vote, Donald Trump Jr. wrote on Twitter: “Ahhh the irony. Political hacks gonna hack.”
Others quickly piled on. “Nadler now says the White House ‘stonewalling’ Congress represents an attack on ‘the essence of our democracy’ – as though stonewalling were some new phenomena,” former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said in an op-ed for Fox News. “Where was Nadler’s righteous indignation when the stonewalling came from a Democratic White House?”
“America should not mistake this charade by the Democrats for a principled stand,” he wrote. “Not when the principles shift with the political fortunes of the Democratic Party.”
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida also weighed in.
“The fight with Barr is a political stunt. Real oversight was when House sought documents about #FastandFuriousan Eric Holder program that allowed guns to reach drug cartels in Mexico. Holder & Obama refused to give Congress information about it,” Rubio wrote.
“Nadler was also accused of hypocrisy last month by GOP critics for his subpoena of the unredacted Mueller report, with critics pointing to video from the Clinton days showing him urging caution regarding the release of details from then-Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s report,” Fox News reported.
“But now a different political landscape compels the chairman to adopt new standards of fairness, ignore existing law and demand the material he once considered ‘unfair to release,’” Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins, R-Ga., said.
Back when the House held Holder in contempt, then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Republicans the move was purely political. “What is happening here is shameful,” she said then.
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has called for the break-up of the social media behemoth and lamented the “staggering” and “unchecked” power of CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a lengthy and searing oped.
Hughes co-founded Facebook with Zuckerberg in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 and watched “in awe” as the company grew over the last 15 years — but said he now feels a“sense of anger and responsibility” about how all-powerful and out-of-control the social media giant has become.
Lashing out at the company, Hughes wrote in a piece published by the New York Times that Zuckerberg’s power and influence goes“far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government.”
“There is no precedent for [Zuckerberg’s] ability to monitor, organize and even censor the conversations of two billion people.”
Hughes berates Facebook over“sloppy privacy practices,” “violent rhetoric and fake news,” and the“unbounded drive to capture ever more of our time and attention.” It’s not that Zuckerberg is a bad person, he writes, but“he’s human” and his focus on growth“led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.”
ALSO ON RT.COMFacebook ban on Alex Jones and others is a form of modern-day book burningHughes also bemoans the fact that the powerful CEO controls three core communications platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) and says that lack of competition, market or government regulation is a major problem. If a competitor crops up, Zuckerberg can simply choose to shut it down“by acquiring, blocking or copying it” in the manner it did with the Instagram and WhatsApp mergers.
The lack of competition means that“every time Facebook messes up, we repeat an exhausting pattern: first outrage, then disappointment and, finally, resignation.”
“Mark alone can decide how to configure Facebook’s algorithms to determine what people see in their News Feeds, what privacy settings they can use and even which messages get delivered.”
Hughes also worries that Zuckerberg has “surrounded himself with a team that reinforces his beliefs instead of challenging them.” He believes that neither Facebook’s offer to appoint a “privacy czar”or the expected Federal Trade Commission (FTC) fine of $5 billion will be enough to rein in the company.
The answer and solution lies in more government regulation and subsequent market competition, Hughes says. But Facebook isn’t afraid of just “a few more rules,” so the action needs to be more dramatic, he suggests.
“The American government needs to do two things: break up Facebook’s monopoly and regulate the company to make it more accountable to the American people.”
That will involve separating Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram into three individual companies and banning future acquisitions“for several years.”
The FTC should never have permitted these mergers, but it’s “not too late to act.” There is “precedent for correcting bad decisions,” he says, pointing to 2009 when Whole Foods settled antitrust complaints by selling off the Wild Oats brand and stores it had acquired years earlier.
“Mark’s power is unprecedented and un-American. It is time to break up Facebook.”
Hughes also suggests the creation of a new government agency specifically to empower Congress to regulate tech companies and protect user privacy.
He says the agency should“create guidelines for acceptable speech on social media” while noting that the idea might seem“un-American” at first. The standards therefore should be “subject to the review of the courts” and would be similar to already accepted rules on speech like not shouting “fire” in a theater, provoking violence or making false statements to manipulate stock prices.
Ultimately, he says, an aggressive case taken now against Facebook would persuade other behemoths like Google and Amazon to“think twice”about stifling competition out of fear that “they could be next.”
Hawaii’s finest, Senator Mazie Hirono was confused on Tuesday about what the term “illegal” meant. Talking to ICE officials on Capitol Hill, Hirono repeatedly asked ICE officials what constitutes someone being here illegally. When a ICE official responded with a clear and simple answer, Hirono only got more confused. To be fair, Democrats have always had a hard time understanding crime.
Not one GOP senator on the Senate Intelligence Committee was willing to publicly align himself or herself on Wednesday evening with the panel’s chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), after Burr made the determination, against indications from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, to issue a subpoena to Donald Trump Jr. to testify again on the Russia probe.
News broke late Wednesday afternoon that Burr had issued Trump, Jr. a subpoena to try to compel the president’s eldest son to testify again. The subpoena is in contravention of a previous promise Burr made to Trump, Jr. that he would only need to testify once and would not be subpoenaed, and it contradicts McConnell’s edict on Tuesday that the Russia hoax is “case closed” after two years of investigating with no evidence of collusion or obstruction.
Condemnation rained down upon Burr quickly and swiftly from across the Republican Party, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy both ripped him for the subpoena, as didReps. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and Devin Nunes (R-CA), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who served as chair for the first two years of Trump’s presidency, as well as many others in the Trump universe.
Former Trump adviser Dr. Sebastian Gorka, the host of a nationally syndicated radio program now, had this to say about Burr:
Others in the Trump universe blasted away at Burr via Twitter and other avenues on Wednesday evening, catching the GOP senator completely flat-footed:
The brutal condemnations from Trump-world aside, the stunning intra-GOP rebukes of Burr have caught Senate Republicans completely off guard. In fact, on Wednesday evening after the news broke that Burr had issued the Trump, Jr., subpoena, not one Senate Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee would publicly defend Burr from calls for his resignation.
Breitbart News reached out to every single Republican member of the committee to ask them if they think Burr should chairman the panel or be removed by McConnell for his rogue subpoena of Trump, Jr., as many in the Trump universe are pushing for now, and not one would publicly side with Burr.
Staff in many of these Senate GOP offices asked to speak anonymously about their bosses’ displeasure with Burr’s actions. But not a single one would go on the record to defend Burr. Several also said their bosses had sought out McConnell to intervene and stop Burr immediately.
These Senate offices include Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), who is up for re-election in Texas in 2020; Tom Cotton (R-AR), Susan Collins (R-ME), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Jim Risch (R-ID).
Not one of those senators would publicly stand by Burr on Wednesday evening, when asked where they stand both on the subpoena and on whether Burr should remain chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Not only has the entire Senate Intelligence Committee GOP membership basically abandoned defending Burr publicly, it appears no Republicans anywhere have his back on this.
What’s more, while Burr himself and his committee have not replied to requests for comment from Breitbart News about his decision to go rogue on McConnell’s claim the investigation is “case closed” by issuing the subpoena to the president’s son, sources familiar with the matter tell Breitbart News that the senator and his staff have been completely shell-shocked by the reaction to the news of their move to issue the subpoena. They had been expecting friendly press coverage, and few Trump flunkies to criticize them, but not the fierce opposition of the Trump universe swiftly raining down upon them like what’s happened on Wednesday evening.
In fact, one Burr staffer has taken to calling people, asking if they know a certain Trump White House ally who is particularly vocal on Twitter, perturbed at the level of backlash against Burr–and the complete lack of any defense for the now quickly embattled GOP chairman.
But Burr’s office has not replied to requests for comment. What’s more, McConnell’s office has also not replied to requests for comment. And while these other senators have not weighed in publicly, Trump and his allies clearly expect swift action from each of them against Burr–in public, with public statements condemning the North Carolina senator–or there will be swift consequences against each of them as well.
“It’s outrageous that Senator Burr appears to be taking his marching orders from liberal Democrats intent on trying to take down the President and his family to harass a private citizen who has already spent nine hours testifying in front of the Senate Intel Committee,” a source close to Trump, Jr., told Breitbart News for the first story on this matter. “When Don agreed to testify to the Senate Intel Committee in 2017, there was an agreement between Don and the Committee that it would be a ‘one and done testimony’ and in return Don agreed to answer any questions for as long a time as they’d like. Don fulfilled his end of the agreement; clearly Senator Burr is not fulfilling his side of it. It’s bad enough that he has to deal with constant harassment from Democrats in the House, but it’s shocking to see Senate Republicans join them in this harassment campaign. Unfortunately for them, Don Jr. has a long memory and come the 2020 campaign season, when Senate Republicans are begging him to raise money and campaign for them, he will remember where every Senate Republican stood on this.”
Trump, Jr., and presumably his father, are already taking notice of the silence from certain Senate Republicans, as some have been calling out specific GOP senators already:
This could be the beginning of a much bigger battle inside the GOP, one former Trump White House adviser told Breitbart News.
“By doing this, Senator Burr just started a civil war in the Republican Party with someone who has undoubtedly become one of the biggest superstars in the eyes of the base,” a former high-ranking Trump White House official told Breitbart News. “If I were a Republican Senator up for reelection 2020, I would be furious with Senator Burr because he assuredly just made their reelection campaigns that much more difficult.”
Former vice president and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden said that several heads of state, including the deceased Margaret Thatcher, have reached out to him to express their concern about President Donald J. Trump.
“Biden also told donors that he’s heard from 14 heads of state from around the world who’ve voiced concerns to him about Trump,”according toBloomberg.“That list included Margaret Thatcher, he said, before correcting what he called a ‘Freudian slip,’ that he was actually referring to current British Prime Minister Theresa May.”
“Margaret Thatcher, um, excuse me, Margaret Thatcher – Freudian slip – but I knew her too… The Prime Minister of Great Britain Theresa May,”he reportedly said while listing off names of those who are concerned with Trump’s presidency.
Thatcher left political office in 1990.
Biden was speaking a $2,800 per head fundraiser in Columbia, S.C. on Saturday night. The 76-year-old candidate has faced mounting questions about his age as he kicks off his presidential bid. Last week, he slurred and rambled through a speech to union members in Pennsylvania last week.
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden slurred his way through a rambling speech Monday at a Teamster local hall in Pittsburgh. Biden is clearly focusing on the Midwest and on union voters, and though he has a good chance of cutting into President Trump’s lead there Trump still has the support of many rank-and-file union members if not the leadership.
Biden also landed in hot water over comments about visiting inner-city communities, which he called “the hood” at a campaign stop in Iowa.
“Through a program, we had through community colleges, we said look, put together a program for us where we could teach people how to code,” he said. “We went out, literally into the hood, and they found, turns out, 54 [people], they happened to be all women, the vast majority were women of color, no more than a high school degree, aged 25-54, and a third of them only had GEDs.”
Dieringer School District in Seattle, Washington, is calling on its teachers to follow CAIR-issued guidelines regarding adherence to Islam. The school district is urging its teachers to bless Muslim students by reciting Arabic to them during Ramadan.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued an “Informative Letter on Upcoming Islamic Holidays and Religious Accommodations,” pressing school district officials to have their teachers recite “Ramadan Mubarak!” or “Ramadan Kareem” when welcoming Muslim students during Ramadan, according to the religious liberty advocacy group Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF).
The letter also instructs teachers to monitor Muslim students’ Ramadan fasting, as well as to refrain from scheduling tests during the Islamic holidays Eid Al-Fitr and Eid, adds FCDF.
One school district has reportedly reacted to the letter by urging its teachers to follow the CAIR-issued guidelines. FCDF says that Dieringer School District superintendent Judy Martinson enacted the CAIR letter as official District policy by distributing the guidelines to principals, who then distributed it to all teachers and staff.
“By urging teachers to bless Muslim students in Arabic, the District is running roughshod over the First Amendment’s mandate of government neutrality toward religion,”said FCDF executive director Daniel Piedra.
“A school district would never order teachers to ‘welcome’ Catholic students during Easter with ‘He is risen, alleluia!’” added Piedra, “Singling out Muslim students for special treatment is blatantly unconstitutional.”
FCDF sent a legal memo to Martinson on Monday, warning the superintendent that the school district is likely violating the United States Constitution by favoring Muslim students, and that the advocacy group may take legal action if the district does not “rescind the Ramadan Policy within a reasonable time.”
“To be clear, nothing in the Constitution prohibits public schools from accommodating students’ religious exercise to the extent it would not interfere with educational interests,” states the memo, “‘But the religious liberty protected by the Constitution is abridged when the State affirmatively sponsors’ religious practice.”
“Here, by issuing the CAIR Letter to District employees, you acted under color of state law to create an official policy that has a primary effect of advancing religion,” adds the advocacy group, “The Ramadan Policy, in both adoption and implementation, plainly imposes liability on the District under the United States and Washington Constitutions.”
The letter also warns Martinson about CAIR’s anti-Semitic advocacy, as well as its ties to Islamist supremacists.
DIVaffirms the legal memo.
“These facts are not anti-Muslim conspiracy theories,” adds the letter, “Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that Muslim Brotherhood leaders founded CAIR and that it has conspired with Muslim Brotherhood affiliates to support terrorists.”
“CAIR is also noted for its anti-Semitic activism,” continued FCDF, citing a the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which had published a “Profile” two years ago regarding CAIR and its chapters partnering “with various anti-Israel groups that seek to isolate and demonize the Jewish State.”
FCDF says that the CAIR-issued Ramadan guidelines are “yet another attempt by CAIR to infiltrate uninformed school districts so it can advance its subversive agenda.”
“CAIR must not be allowed to indoctrinate impressionable schoolchildren under the guise of ‘diversity’ and ‘cultural awareness,’” states the advocacy group, “FCDF is committed to keeping CAIR out of our America’s public schools.”
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