monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

24,000 fewer dangerous deadbeats flooding in to the U.S.:

Clinton even more unpopular after election loss, poll says

A Bloomberg News national poll released this week shows that just 39 percent of people have a favorable view of Clinton. In June of last year, when Clinton was the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, her favorability was four points higher at 43 percent.

According to the same poll, Clinton is less popular today than her former opponent.

Clinton, the former Secretary of State, has remained in the public eye since the election, giving speeches and speaking out against the president on Twitter.

Acting ICE Director Preparing Sanctuary City Crackdown With 10,000 New Agents

Thomas Homan told the Washington Examiner that he sees sanctuary cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and Chicago as "ludicrous" and plans to direct the extra agents to those areas.

Homan blasted state and local authorities who do not cooperate with ICE's efforts to deport illegal immigrants after they're arrested.

"In the America I grew up in, cities didn't shield people who violated the law," he said. "ICE is open for business. We're going to enforce the laws on the books without apology, we'll continue to prioritize what we do. But it's not OK to violate the laws of this country anymore, you're going to be held accountable," he added.

Homan, who is acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview that since Trump entered office, illegal border crossings have crashed by almost 70 percent, "an historic low," arrests inside the country have jumped 40 percent and that demands for illegal criminals in local jails has skyrocketed 80 percent.

The drop in illegal crossings has given ICE a chance to redirect resources to interior United States and immigrants locked up in jails, illegally working jobs and on the run.

=====In general:

Over the course of 50 minutes, the often-fiery Mr. Trump demonstrated his more amiable side, joking about holding hands with the president of France and musing about having a military parade down a main avenue in Washington. He took satisfaction that unemployment has fallen and stock markets have risen to record highs on his watch.

At one point, his daughter Ivanka arrived at the doorway with her daughter, Arabella, who ran to her grandfather and gave him a kiss. He greeted the 6-year-old girl as “baby,” then urged her to show the reporters her ability to speak Chinese. She obliged.

===== Re Putin meeting:

Mr. Trump said they talked for about 15 minutes, mostly about “pleasantries.” But Mr. Trump did say that they talked “about adoption.” Mr. Putin banned American adoptions of Russian children in 2012 after the United States enacted sanctions on Russians accused of human rights abuses, an issue that remains a sore point in relations with Moscow.

“The meal was going toward dessert,” he said. “I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.”

He noted the adoption issue came up in the June 2016 meeting between his son and Russian visitors. “I actually talked about Russian adoption with him,” he said, meaning Mr. Putin. “Which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don had in that meeting.”

=====Re offer of dirt on Hillary:

The president repeated that he did not know about his son’s meeting at the time and added that he did not need the Russians to provide damaging information about Mrs. Clinton.

“There wasn’t much I could say about Hillary Clinton that was worse than what I was already saying,” he said. “Unless somebody said that she shot somebody in the back, there wasn’t much I could add to my repertoire.”

======= Re Comey blackmail:

Mr. Trump said he believed Mr. Comey told him about the dossier to implicitly make clear he had something to hold over the president. “In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there,” Mr. Trump said. As leverage? “Yeah, I think so,” Mr. Trump said. “In retrospect.”

The president dismissed the assertions in the dossier: “When he brought it to me, I said this is really made-up junk. I didn’t think about any of it. I just thought about, man, this is such a phony deal.”

He expressed no second thoughts about firing Mr. Comey, saying, “I did a great thing for the American people.”

same enthusiasm for states allowing medical or recreational marijuana? Still against federal law.

President Donald Trump said in an interview with The New York Times Wednesday that he would not have appointed Jeff Sessions attorney general had he known the former senator would recuse himself from the Justice Department investigation into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election.

Trump also attacked former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was appointed special counsel overseeing the Russia probe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and former FBI Director James Comey.

Sessions in March recused himself from overseeing the probe into whether Trump’s associates colluded with Russian officials to influence the outcome of the election. He took the step after revelations he had met with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, twice during the election year.

“Sessions should have never recused himself and if he was going to recuse himself he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Trump told the Times.

He added: “Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you.’ It’s extremely unfair — and that’s a mild word — to the president.”

Trump reportedly went “ballistic” when Sessions announced his decision. The attorney general reportedly offered to step down after several “heated” exchanges with the president.

Earlier this week, Axios reported that Trump continued to harbor resentment against Sessions over the decision.

A Justice Department spokesperson didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Trump, who has repeatedly described the Russia investigation as a “witch hunt” fueled by the “fake news” media, also claimed in the interview that Mueller’s probe was rife with conflicts of interest, saying Mueller had interviewed to replace Comey prior to his appointment as special counsel. Trump also warned federal investigators against looking into his family’s financial interests beyond those tied to Russia.

“I think that’s a violation,” he said. “Look, this is about Russia.”

He took several jabs at Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who penned the May memo recommending Trump fire Comey. The president specifically criticized Rosenstein for appointing Mueller as special prosecutor, and took an odd swipe at Rosenstein’s hometown, Baltimore.

“There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any,” Trump said.

Trump repeated his claim that Comey lied during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and said he believes the then-FBI director informed him about a dossier of salacious allegations against Trump as a way to gain leverage.

“In my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there,” Trump said.

The interview comes amid heightened interest in the president and his team’s ties to Russia. The White House in recent days has been roiled by scandal involving the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., setting up a June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-linked attorney who promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

And on Tuesday, it was revealed Trump had a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a dinner at the G-20 summit, hours after he had a formal sit-down with the Russian leader. That conversation was not disclosed by White House officials until Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, broke news of the encounter.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-recusal_us_596fec7be4b0110cb3cb8a9a

Trump also warned federal investigators against looking into his family’s financial interests beyond those tied to Russia.

“I think that’s a violation,” he said. “Look, this is about Russia.” he said.

Asked if Mr. Mueller’s investigation would cross a red line if it expanded to look at his family’s finances beyond any relationship to Russia, Mr. Trump said, “I would say yes.” He would not say what he would do about it. “I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia."