Chris Hedges's Blog, page 620

Border States to Send Troops to Mexican Border

HOUSTON—Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas pledged on Monday to send about 1,600 National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border, responding to President Donald Trump’s plan to use the military to help fight illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would add about 300 troops a week to the 250 members of the National Guard whose deployment was announced Friday until the total number reaches at least 1,000 troops. Arizona officials announced they were sending 225 National Guard members to the border Monday and would deploy another 113 on Tuesday.

And New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez’s office said that more than 80 troops would deploy later this week. They will be the first of an expected 250 Guard members from New Mexico to serve on the border.

Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico are all led by Republican governors. The other southwestern border state, California, is led by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and has not made a public commitment to sending troops from his state’s National Guard. Under the federal law Trump invoked in his proclamation calling for National Guard troops, governors retain command and control over their state’s Guard members.

Trump said last week he wants to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard members to the southwestern border.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey told a group of soldiers preparing to deploy from a Phoenix military base that their “mission is about providing manpower and resources to support federal, state, county, tribal and local law enforcement agencies in stopping the flow of criminals, narcotics, weapons and ammunition that is being trafficked into our state.”

Ducey initially said Arizona would send more troops on Tuesday but did not specify how many. The state’s National Guard in a statement later that 113 members would follow the initial deployment of 225.

Ducey told reporters later that the deployments are needed to stop a surge of border crossings since March and accused the U.S. government of previously ignoring the border “for nearly a decade.”

Texas agencies posted images over the weekend of Guard members arriving at the border. On Monday, Abbott told San Antonio radio station KTSA that Texas will significantly ramp up its commitment to Trump’s call over the next several weeks.

Some Guard members will be armed if they are placed in potential danger, Abbott said. He added that he wanted to “downplay any notion” that “our National Guard is showing up with military bayonets trying to take on anybody that’s coming across the border, because that is not their role.”

He said that based on his conversations with Trump and other officials, there’s no end date on the deployment.

“We may be in this for the long haul,” he said.

Ducey denied that his decision to send guard members to the border was politically motivated.

“I don’t think this is a partisan issue or an identity issue,” he said. “You show me somebody who is for drug cartels or human trafficking or this ammunition that’s coming over a wide-open and unprotected border here.”

Trump has said he wants to use the military at the border until progress is made on his proposed border wall, which has mostly stalled in Congress.

Defense Secretary James Mattis last Friday approved paying for up to 4,000 National Guard personnel from the Pentagon budget through the end of September.

A Defense Department memo said the National Guard members will not perform law enforcement functions or “interact with migrants or other persons detained” without Mattis’s approval.

It said “arming will be limited to circumstances that might require self-defense” but did not further define that.

The head of the U.S. Border Patrol sector that includes part of West Texas and all of New Mexico said Monday he met with leaders of the New Mexico National Guard to begin discussions about what will be required and their capabilities.

El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Hull says those troops are nowhere near deploying yet.

The New Mexico Guard members could help with air support, surveillance and infrastructure repairs, Hull said.

Hull says the troops could help with air support, surveillance and repairs of infrastructure along the border.

Brown’s spokesman, Evan Westrup, said Monday that California is still reviewing Trump’s request for use of the state’s National Guard members.

California National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Tom Keegan said last week that any request will be “promptly reviewed to determine how best we can assist our federal partners.”

After plunging at the start of Trump’s presidency, the numbers of migrants apprehended at the southwest border have started to rise in line with historical trends.

The Border Patrol said it caught around 50,000 people in March, more than three times the number in March 2017.

That’s erased a decline for which Trump repeatedly took credit.

Border apprehensions still remain well below the numbers when former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama deployed the Guard to the border.

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Christie reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writers Susan Montoya in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, California, contributed to this report.

Shell Knew Science of Global Warming in 1980s, Kept Silent, Report Says

Climate change deniers often make the claim that more research is needed to determine whether fossil fuels are warming the earth. But while the energy industry foments scientific uncertainty, internal research from Royal Dutch Shell confirms that the company knew about the science of global warming decades ago and then hid the knowledge.

Dutch journalist Jelmer Mommers of De Correspondent unearthed a Shell report from 1988 titled “The Greenhouse Effect” that calculated Shell’s contribution to global warming and anticipated the multinational oil and gas company could be sued in the future over environmental damage.

According to Climate Files:

The confidential report, “The Greenhouse Effect,” was authored by members of Shell’s Greenhouse Effect Working Group and based on a 1986 study, though the document reveals Shell was commissioning “greenhouse effect” reports as early as 1981. Report highlights include:

A thorough review of climate science literature, including acknowledgement of fossil fuels’ dominant role in driving greenhouse gas emissions. More importantly, Shell quantifies its own products’ contribution to global CO2 emissions.
A detailed analysis of potential climate impacts, including rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and human migration.
A discussion of the potential impacts to the fossil fuel sector itself, including legislation, changing public sentiment, and infrastructure vulnerabilities. Shell concludes that active engagement from the energy sector is desirable.
A cautious response to uncertainty in scientific models, pressing for sincere consideration of solutions even in the face of existing debates.
A warning to take policy action early, even before major changes are observed to the climate.

In short, by 1988 Shell was not only aware of the potential threats posed by climate change, it was open about its own role in creating the conditions for a warming world. Similar documents by [Exxon Mobil], oil trade associations, and utility companies have emerged in recent years, though this Shell document is a rare, early, and concrete accounting of climate responsibility by an oil major.

Mommers partnered with Damian Carrington, The Guardian’s environment editor, to produce a comprehensive investigative report on how Shell has conducted business as usual, investing in fossil fuels for more than 25 years despite knowing about the dangers of climate change.

In fact, in 1991, Shell made a 28-minute film titled “The Climate of Concern” that warned about climate change. De Correspondent made the film public again.

Shell, like Exxon, is on a growing list of oil corporations that have spent millions to mislead the public about climate change while profiting off the destruction of our planet.

On “Rising Up With Sonali,” Truthdig contributor Sonali Kolhatkar spoke about the Shell scandal with Cassady Craighill, media officer for Greenpeace USA.

“This is a big concern for shareholders,” Craighill said. “About a year ago, a different company, Exxon, its shareholders had a big revolt at its annual meeting in Dallas and passed a historic resolution that demanded the company account for climate change and its impact on Exxon’s business model. That was very ill-advised from Exxon’s executives. It was not what they wanted, but the shareholders did it anyways, so these things are very important to these companies. Of course, you and I are thinking about the catastrophe that is climate change and its global impacts, but there is a whole other side of this to audiences like shareholders who know that these products are not sustainable.”

To learn more, visit climateinvestigations.org and read other internal Shell climate documents.

Tax Cuts, Spending to Jack Deficit to $1 Trillion by 2020

WASHINGTON—The combined effect of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and last month’s budget-busting spending bill is sending the government’s budget deficit toward the $1 trillion mark next year, according to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO report says the twin tax and spending bills will push the budget deficit to $804 billion this year and just under $1 trillion for the upcoming budget year.

CBO says economic growth from the tax cuts will add 0.7 percent on average to the nation’s economic output over the coming decade. Those effects will only partially offset the deficit cost of the tax cuts. The administration had promised the cuts would pay for themselves.

Instead, Monday’s report estimates that the GOP tax bill, which is Republican-controlled Washington’s signature accomplishment under Trump, will add $1.8 trillion to the deficit over the coming decade, even after its positive effects on the economy are factored in. Republicans once laced into President Barack Obama for trillion-dollar-plus deficits but mostly fell quiet on Monday’s news.

The economic growth promises to drop the nationwide unemployment rate below 4 percent starting this year, CBO predicts, though interest rates would rise more rapidly than the agency had earlier predicted, countering some of the positive economic impact of the tax cuts.

The report paints an unrelentingly bleak picture of federal deficits, which would permanently breach the $1 trillion mark in 2020 unless Congress stems the burst of red ink. The government would borrow about 19 cents of every dollar it spends this year. Deficits would grow to $1.5 trillion by 2028 — and could exceed $2 trillion if the tax cuts are fully extended and if Washington doesn’t cut spending.

“Such high and rising debt would have serious negative consequences for the budget and the nation,” said CBO Director Keith Hall. “In particular, the likelihood of a fiscal crisis in the United States would increase.”

Republicans controlling Washington have largely lost interest in taking on the deficit, an issue that has fallen in prominence in recent years. Trump has ruled out cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and Capitol Hill Republicans have failed to take steps against the deficit since Trump took office.

But if warnings of a future fiscal crisis turn out to be true, lawmakers might be forced to take painful steps, Hall warned, that would be more draconian than if they tackled the deficit now.

With conservatives complaining about the $1.3 trillion catchall spending bill — which blew through previous budget limits by $300 billion over this year and next — House GOP leaders have scheduled a vote this week on a proposed amendment to the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. The vote is sure to fall well short of the two-thirds required to pass and is being rushed to a vote without hearings or committee debate. The White House is also likely to propose rolling back some of the domestic spending increases in the government-wide funding bill.

“The CBO’s latest report exposes the scam behind the rosy rhetoric from Republicans that their tax bill would pay for itself,” said top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York. “The American people deserve a Congress that is focused squarely on helping the middle class, not patronizing Kabuki theatre — like sham ‘balanced budget’ votes — from Republicans who blew up the deficit to benefit wealthy special interests.”

Republicans are unlikely to pass even a nonbinding budget blueprint, instead opting to take a pause in the heat of election season.

“Without question, we have challenging work ahead,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Steve Womack, R-Ark., who promised he will be “working with my colleagues in the days ahead to craft a responsible budget plan.”

But any genuine effort to curb spending is a nonstarter this year. House GOP plans to impose cuts on programs like food stamps haven’t gotten started yet — and appear sure to fail — and the idea of cutting popular federal programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which comprise much of the budget, is a political nonstarter.

Many economists believe that if deficits continue to rise and the national debt grows, government borrowing will “crowd out” private lending and force up interest rates. And if interest rates go up, the government will have to pay much more to finance the more than $14 trillion in Treasury debt held by investors.

Last year’s deficit registered $665 billion, which was well below the record $1.4 trillion posted during Obama’s first year in office, when the Great Recession led to plunging revenues and a spike in spending. The deficit settled below $500 million for part of Obama’s second term but has steadily risen since then.

The new report predicts the economy will grow by 3.3 percent this year but that gross domestic product will drop to 1.8 percent by 2020. It warns that interest rates on government borrowing will spike, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury note averaging a 3.0 percent interest rate this year and 3.7 percent next year.

The nation’s $21 trillion debt would spike to more than $33 trillion in after 10 years, with debt held by investors spiking to levels that would come close to equaling the size of the economy, reaching levels that many economists fear could spark a debt crisis.

Federal Agents Raid Office of Trump Attorney Michael Cohen

WASHINGTON—Federal agents carrying court-authorized search warrants have seized documents from President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen.

That’s according to a statement from Cohen’s attorney, Stephen Ryan. He says the search warrants were executed by the office of the U.S. Attorney for Southern District of New York but they are “in part” related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Ryan says agents seized “protected attorney client communications.” He is not elaborating on the contents. Ryan says the use of the search warrants is “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.”

Cohen is Trump’s longtime personal lawyer. He has been under heavy public scrutiny in recent months for his payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had an affair with Trump in the mid-2000s.

Teachers Learn a New Skill: How to Stop the Bleeding

PLEASANT HILL, Iowa—As she learned the basics of applying direct pressure, packing a wound with gauze and tying a tourniquet, sixth-grade math and social studies teacher Kari Stafford shook her head at the thought that this may now be an essential skill for her profession.

Stafford didn’t like it, but with school shootings now a regular occurrence, she and her colleagues have reluctantly accepted that the attacks won’t stop and that teachers must know how to keep the victims from bleeding to death.

“Learning to help and not just stand there is important,” said Stafford, who joined about a dozen other educators at a medical training session at Southeast Polk High School, a sprawling 9-year-old campus surrounded by farmland in Pleasant Hill, just east of Des Moines.

Over the past five years, about 125,000 teachers, counselors and administrators across the country have been trained in stemming blood loss as school officials have become resigned to the grim trend. The effort is rapidly expanding, and more schools are now stocking classrooms with supplies that would be familiar to any military medic: lightweight tourniquets, gauze coated with blood-clotting drugs and compression bandages.

Although schools are adding security and even arming teachers to deter attacks, new emphasis is being given to saving the wounded while counting down the minutes until help arrives.

The teacher triage idea was initially pushed by Dr. Lenworth Jacobs of Hartford, Connecticut, who operated on victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, in which 26 children and adults were killed.

He feared that Sandy Hook wouldn’t be the last school shooting, and his assumption has been borne out again and again, with the Feb. 14 killing of 17 people at a Florida high school only the latest major incident.

“I’ve been a trauma surgeon for over 40 years and have seen a lot of gunshot wounds,” he said, but an elementary school massacre is “entirely different. These are 6-year-olds with wounds from very high-powered weaponry, and it changes you.”

Jacobs and other like-minded surgeons formed a group that expanded to include law enforcement and other first responders who developed strategies for helping victims survive.

In many school shootings, more victims could be saved if someone had at least slowed their bleeding.

“It takes a long time, longer than it takes to bleed to death, to clear the classroom, secure it and make sure there’s not another shooter,” he said. “The person who is going to save you is the person right beside you.”

The initiative, dubbed Stop the Bleed, has spread quickly and training is now available in all 50 states.

Georgia has been a leader, spending more than $1 million to expand a test program and ship medical supplies to schools. Since last spring, the Georgia Trauma Commission, a state agency that works to improve emergency care, has coordinated the training of more than 18,000 educators.

Many teachers who might once have recoiled at becoming a battlefield medic have come around as school security measures have repeatedly failed to prevent shootings. In many cases, the shooters are students themselves who have ready access to the building. And lockdowns can add to the risk of death.

“If students are shot in a lockdown they can just bleed out. They’ll die,” said Dena Abston, executive director of the commission.

In Bend, Oregon, paramedic Nolan McGinnis leapt at the chance to train school personnel on how to treat victims. He was among the first paramedics to arrive at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, after a 2015 shooting that left 10 people dead.

“Especially with these school shootings, you never know if the shooter is going to give himself up or take his own life before we get there, or if it will be 15 minutes and we’re still waiting to go onto the scene,” McGinnis said.

The Bend trainers are also teaching high school students the techniques, and a group of students is raising money for bleeding control kits.

“A single person can’t stop a shooting but one person can save multiple lives, and to have something like that on my conscience is a great feeling,” said Sierra Sheeks, a Bend Senior High sophomore.

At the Iowa training, about a dozen teachers, aides and others gathered in an English classroom before the school day began for Southeast Polk’s nearly 2,000 students. Although no shootings have occurred at the school, the now-normal drumbeat of reports about threats, rumors and lockdowns in every region keeps the danger in mind.

Trauma care specialist Brian Feist and surgeon Richard Sidwell used a foam limb to demonstrate proper techniques, then gave teachers a chance to practice packing wounds and cinching tourniquets.

Feist explained that direct pressure was more effective on especially young children and tourniquets best for multiple wounds. The ultratight straps on a tourniquet could be very painful, he warned.

“Your patient is going to be freaking out because it’s really, really hurting,” he said.

Teacher Denise Gulling noted that kids now accept that shootings could happen. They regularly have drills on when to lock doors and hide in their classroom. Now, “this gives me one more option for helping,” she said.

Threats, Innuendo in Israeli Questioning of Palestinian Teen

RAMALLAH, West Bank—The family of prominent Palestinian protester Ahed Tamimi on Monday released excerpts from a video in which an Israeli interrogator threatens the then-16-year-old with the arrest of her relatives if she refuses to cooperate.

The interrogator also comments on her body, fair skin and “eyes of an angel.”

The interrogator, identified as an agent of the Israeli military intelligence branch, at times moves within centimeters (inches) of the teenager, who doesn’t respond and repeatedly asserts her right to remain silent.

The Israeli military said a complaint of improper conduct on the part of the investigator, filed by Tamimi’s lawyer, has been handed to the Justice Ministry and is being “thoroughly examined.”

Ahed’s father, Bassem, told reporters that the video is evidence of Israel’s failure to break his daughter. He portrayed Tamimi, who has become an icon to Palestinians, as a symbol of resistance to Israel’s 51-year-old military occupation. Her silence under pressure shows that “we are not victims, we are fighters for the cause of freedom of our people,” he said.

A West Bank-based rights group said a majority of minors have reported being verbally abused, intimidated or humiliated in Israeli custody.

Tamimi is serving an eight-month prison term — the result of a plea deal — for slapping and kicking two Israeli soldiers outside her West Bank home in mid-December.

The teen’s arrest and full-throttle prosecution by Israel has garnered international attention. It has also touched on broader issues, such as Israel’s detention of Palestinian minors — currently 356, according to Israeli figures — and the debate on what constitutes legitimate resistance to Israel’s rule over millions of Palestinians.

Her supporters see a brave girl who struck the soldiers in anger after having just learned that Israeli troops seriously wounded a 15-year-old cousin. In Israel, she is seen either as a naive youth manipulated by her elders or a threat to Israel’s military deterrence.

The interrogation video was part of the case file handed to the defense after Tamimi was indicted, said Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak, who helps coordinate her legal strategy.

Tamimi’s lawyer filed a complaint with the military’s judge advocate general over the interrogation tactics, including apparent threats, coercion and sexual innuendo, said Pollak.

The interrogation took place Dec. 26, a week after Tamimi’s arrest, at an Israeli police station in the West Bank, said Pollak. In the video, one of the interrogators is identified as a police officer and the second as a member of Israel’s military intelligence.

At the beginning, Tamimi is asked whether she had spoken to a lawyer, and she nods her head. From then on, she refuses to answer questions.

The military intelligence agent, who sits in a chair close to her, attempts to get her to speak, at times threatening her, then telling her that with her blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin she reminds him of his younger sister.

“When I think of my little sister, her eyes look like your eyes,” he tells here. “She is white like you. In the sun, she looks like the hamburger. And what about you? What do you look like in the sun? Red, red, red? When I see your eyes, I say, it’s a shame (haram), you are here (in detention),” he says.

At another time, he tells her she has the “eyes of an angel.”

He also threatens her, mentioning names of family members, and telling her that “we will take everyone if you don’t cooperate.”

Rights groups say Tamimi’s experience is typical of what Palestinian minors experience in Israeli custody.

“The majority of Palestinian minors experience a wide range of serious rights violations from the moment of arrest through the conclusion of their trial proceedings,” said Ivan Karakashian of Defense for Children International Palestine, a group based in the West Bank.

He said the assessment is based on affidavits collected in 2017 from 137 minors who had been in detention. Karakashian said between 500 and 700 minors are prosecuted and convicted in military courts each year.

Under Israeli military law applied in the West Bank, minors can consult with a lawyer before an interrogation, but don’t have the right to legal representation during questioning, defense lawyers said.

Even the right to prior consultation is often not honored, said Yael Stein of the Israeli rights group B’Tselem and Farah Bayadsi of Defense for Children International Palestine.

If the minors don’t have the phone number of attorneys, or the attorneys can’t get to the location in time, interrogators can start questioning without them.

The Israeli military did not respond to the renewed allegations made by rights groups. In the past, it has said it places great importance on safeguarding the rights of minors.

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Associated Press writer Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

Could Trump Really Militarize the Border?

Frustrated in his efforts to secure funding for his “beautiful border wall” by both Mexico (which has refused to pay for the undertaking) and Congress, President Trump has vowed to militarize the nation’s southern frontier.

“We are preparing for the military to secure our border between Mexico and the United States,” Trump blustered at a White House press conference Tuesday. On Friday, Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis followed up on Trump’s proclamation, ordering the deployment of up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the border. Under the terms of Mattis’ order, the troops will act under the control of the respective governors of the states from which they will be drawn—primarily Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and, if Gov. Jerry Brown agrees (so far, he hasn’t), California.

Bluster and bombast are part of the diurnal cycle in Trumpland, but is the threat to militarize the border really something new and especially dangerous?

In 1989, for example, Gen. Colin Powell established the Joint Task Force North (formerly the Joint Task Force Six), a multi-service operation run by the Department of Defense (DOD), consisting of, among other entities, the National Guard, the Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and regular Army troops, to aid in President H.W. Bush’s war on drugs. The task force, which still exists, is credited with conducting more than 6,400 missions and helping to seize $15.2 billion in illegal drugs.

In 2006, President George W. Bush went one step further than his father, initiating “Operation Jump Start,” under which 6,000 National Guard troops were called up in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to support the Border Patrol. The undertaking lasted two years, during which time the Guard assisted in 176,000 arrests and the seizure of 316 pounds of marijuana and over 5,000 pounds of cocaine.

In 2010, the Obama administration launched “Operation Phalanx,” under which 1,200 National Guard personnel were dispatched to the border for two years. According to the Pentagon, the troops assisted in the apprehension of nearly 18,000 undocumented people and the seizure of 56,000 pounds of marijuana.

The combined cost of the Jump Start and Phalanx programs exceeded $1.3 billion.

The great fear is that Trump’s deployment of 4,000 National Guard troops represents only a beginning rather than a ceiling. Given Trump’s incendiary anti-immigrant rhetoric, his Muslim travel bans and the “zero tolerance” policies of Attorney General Jeff Sessions on illegal border crossings, the fear is well founded.

Still, the fears are tempered by long-standing federal statutes that limit the use of the military to enforce domestic civil law, including immigration law. Such statutes constrained both the Jump Start and the Phalanx operations and those conducted by the Joint Task Force and limited the work of the National Guard to a largely supplemental role in relation to ICE and the Border Patrol.

Foremost among the limiting statutes is the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) of 1878. Codified today at Title 18, Section 1385 of the United States Code, the act provides:

“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Although the law does not expressly apply to the Navy or the Marines, DOD regulations and other legislation and federal court decisions have clarified that it applies to those branches of the service as well.

The act has its legislative roots in the Reconstruction era, when federal troops were used extensively throughout the former Confederacy to safeguard voting rights and enforce civil order. Signed into law by President Rutherford B. Hayes as part of a sweeping political compromise between the two major parties to resolve the disputed election of 1876, the legislation was designed to prevent the use of the military as a national police force and to return law enforcement to local authorities and non-military federal agencies.

Since then, the PCA has stood in principle as a bulwark against the use of the military on American soil. The problem, however, as summarized by the Rand Corp., is that there are several key exceptions to the restrictions of the PCA, which the Trump administration could exploit.

For starters, the administration could ramp up the workload of the Coast Guard. Unlike the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, the Coast Guard is exempt from the PCA and may pursue, search and seize vessels and persons in territorial waters on suspicion of drug trafficking or illegal entry. Further, all branches of the military may, without violating the PCA, engage in aerial photography and visual search and surveillance of the border.

In addition, another vintage law—the Insurrection Act (IA) of 1807—provides the president with other opportunities to deploy the military (both active and reserve) inside the country. Among other provisions, the IA empowers the president to call up the “militia of any states” or the armed forces to suppress rebellions and insurrections that hinder the execution of the laws of any state or the United States.

The Insurrection Act was invoked by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 to enforce court-ordered school integration in Little Rock, Ark.; in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson in response to riots in Detroit; and by President George H. W. Bush in 1992 to help quell the Rodney King disturbances in Los Angeles.

Most importantly for Trump’s purposes—and Secretary Mattis knows this, even if the reading-averse president doesn’t—the National Guard isn’t covered by the PCA, as long as it operates under state, rather than federal, authority.

The National Guard is the successor of the colonial state militia that are referred to in Article 1, Section 8, clauses 15 and 16 of the Constitution. Under those provisions, as well as other federal laws, the Guard is a hybrid entity that can operate either as a federalized or state military force.

If federalized (that is, directly called into service by the president or Congress), the Guard is subject to the PCA. In the immigration context, this means the Guard, like the Army, would be precluded from directly arresting undocumented people. On the other hand, if formal command and control of Guard units remain in the hands of state governors, as under Mattis’ order, there appear to be no such legal constraints, even if the DOD reimburses the states for deployments. All that is needed is the consent of the governors involved.

Thus far, the administration has not only opted to keep the National Guard under state control, it has also announced it will not deputize the National Guard and make Guard members de facto agents of ICE and the Border Patrol. In keeping with past tradition, Mattis’ current order indicates that National Guard troops will not perform law enforcement functions at the border.

But all that could change at the drop of a presidential tweet.

Think it couldn’t happen? Well, think again.

A secret 2017 draft memo prepared by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), then headed by Gen. John Kelly, now Trump’s chief of staff, called for the deployment of 100,000 National Guard troops to enforce the administration’s planned crackdown on undocumented immigrants in 11 states.

According to the memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press and later published by Vox.com, Guard members would remain under state command and thus would be able “to perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension, and detention of aliens in the United States.”

Was this the much-vaunted “deportation force” Trump had promised during the campaign?

When news of the memo leaked in February 2017, the White House disavowed it. “There is no effort at all to round up, to utilize the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants,” then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer told a group of pool reporters at the time. The DHS also backed off the memo, calling it “a pre-decisional draft.”

But that was then. As anyone who has followed Trump knows, the president never seems to give up on a bad idea, and when faced with failure, he often doubles down. Even though illegal entries into the U.S. have plunged to their lowest levels since 1971, Trump can be expected to ramp up the nativist vitriol with more sweeping threats of military action.

Facebook Starts to Send Out Millions of Privacy-Related Notices

NEW YORK—Get ready to find out if your Facebook data has been swept up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Starting Monday, the 87 million users who might have had their data shared with Cambridge Analytica will get a detailed message on their news feeds. Facebook says most of the affected users (more than 70 million) are in the U.S., though there are over a million each in the Philippines, Indonesia and the U.K.

In addition, all 2.2 billion Facebook users will receive a notice titled “Protecting Your Information” with a link to see what apps they use and what information they have shared with those apps. If they want, they can shut off apps individually or turn off third-party access to their apps completely.

Reeling from its worst privacy crisis in history — allegations that this Trump-affiliated data mining firm may have used ill-gotten user data to try to influence elections — Facebook is in full damage-control mode. CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that he made a “huge mistake” in failing to take a broad enough view of what Facebook’s responsibility is in the world. He’s set to testify before Congress this week.

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie previously estimated that more than 50 million people were compromised by a personality quiz that collected data from users and their friends. In an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Wylie said the true number could be even larger than 87 million.

That Facebook app, called “This is Your Digital Life,” was a personality quiz created in 2014 by an academic researcher named Aleksander Kogan, who paid about 270,000 people to take it. The app vacuumed up not just the data of the people who took it, but also — thanks to Facebook’s loose restrictions — data from their friends, too, including details that they hadn’t intended to share publicly.

Facebook later limited the data apps can access, but it was too late in this case.

Zuckerberg said Facebook came up with the 87 million figure by calculating the maximum number of friends that users could have had while Kogan’s app was collecting data. The company doesn’t have logs going back that far, he said, so it can’t know exactly how many people may have been affected.

Cambridge Analytica said in a statement Wednesday that it had data for only 30 million Facebook users.

North Korea: Kim Jong Un Ready to Discuss Nukes

WASHINGTON — North Korea’s government has communicated with the United States to say that leader Kim Jong Un is ready to discuss his nuclear weapons program with President Trump, officials said Sunday, increasing the likelihood that the unprecedented summit will actually occur.

The confirmation from Pyongyang directly, rather than from third countries like South Korea, has created more confidence within Trump’s administration about the wisdom of holding such a meeting, as U.S. officials make secretive preparations. The Trump administration has long said that if the North Koreans weren’t ready to discuss giving up their nuclear program, there was no reason for the two countries to hold negotiations.

Trump took his own administration and other countries by surprise last month when he accepted an unusual offer from Kim to hold a meeting. The North had conveyed the invitation to a visiting delegation from South Korea, which in turn traveled to Washington and relayed the message to Trump.

The president said yes to the meeting on the spot, even though the U.S. had not yet heard directly from North Korea about Kim’s intentions. The U.S. later heard from other countries including China, where Kim paid a rare visit, that the North was serious about the offer.

Still, North Korea’s government has not said anything publicly at all about a meeting with Trump, and the lack of known contact between Pyongyang and Washington about the meeting has fueled further speculation about the seriousness of Kim’s offer.

A Trump administration official on Sunday said that the U.S. had “confirmed that Kim Jong Un is willing to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula?.” A second official said that confirmation had come through direct contact between American and North Korean officials.

Neither of the officials would say when or how the contact took place, nor in what location. The officials weren’t authorized to comment by name and demanded anonymity.

Previously, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had said there were at least two or three channels through which U.S. and North Korean officials communicate from time to time.

The Trump administration has not said where the meeting will place or whether a location has been determined, nor has an exact date been set. Initially, the White House said it expected the meeting to take place by the end of May. It’s unclear whether a date that early could be achieved or whether it might be delayed.

The contacts between Pyongyang and Washington come as Trump’s new national security adviser, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, prepares to start work at the White House formally on Monday. Prior to being named to the post, Bolton had long expressed hawkish views about North Korea, even advocating a pre-emptive military strike.

Hungarian Leader’s Re-Election Heightens Migrants’ Fears

BUDAPEST, Hungary—Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his “decisive” re-election victory and the super majority in parliament his right-wing populist party appeared to have won Sunday were “an opportunity to defend Hungary.”

Critics said they feared Orban will use his third consecutive term and the Fidesz party’s two-thirds control of Hungary’s national legislature to intensify his attacks on migration and to strengthen his command of the country’s centralized power structure.

Hungary’s remaining independent media, the courts that have made numerous rulings the government did not like and a university founded by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, also are among Orban’s likely targets.

“We created the opportunity for ourselves to defend Hungary,” Orban told a rapturous crowd after his landslide win became undisputable. “A great battle is behind us. We have achieved a decisive victory.”

With 98.5 percent of the votes counted, Fidesz and its small ally, the Christian Democrat party, together had secured 133 of the 199 seats in parliament, the minimum needed for a two-thirds majority.

The right-wing nationalist Jobbik party placed second with 26 seats, while a Socialist-led, left-wing coalition came in third with 20 seats.

“As the results stand, Fidesz performed much better than expected,” Tamas Boros, co-director of the Policy Solutions think tank, said. “There were no small victories for the opposition.”

Orban won his fourth term overall on a platform that openly demonizes migrants to Europe. He first governed in 1998-2002 before returning to power in 2010 after two terms of scandal-filled Socialist rule.

Fidesz won a two-thirds majority in 2010 and 2014, but lost it in by-elections in 2015.

Orban campaigned heavily on his unyielding anti-migration policies. He repeated his theory of a conspiracy between the opposition and the United Nations, the European Union and wealthy philanthropist Soros to turn Hungary into an “immigrant country,” threatening its security and Christian identity.

The government has already submitted a “Stop Soros” package of legislation that it would easily be able to pass if Fidesz’s obtains a two-thirds majority in parliament. Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the bills are designed to close “legal loopholes” allegedly exploited by civic groups that advocate for asylum-seekers.

“So-called NGOs … are helping illegal immigration happen,” Kovacs said.

Government influence on the media was palpable in Sunday’s broadcast by state television M1 news channel, where reports highlighting the negative effects of migration dominated the programming.

On Origo.hu, a formerly independent website now owned by government allies, stories promoted Orban while also focusing on migration. The headlines included “Migrant gangs fought in England,” ”They can’t stand it anymore in Sweden: They’ve had enough of migrants,” and “A migrant in underpants beat a German retiree half to death.”

Hungarian election officials said voter turnout was high and had exceeded participation in the 2014 balloting 90 minutes before polls closed. Numerous polling places remained open past closing time to accommodate long lines of people waiting to cast ballots.

While Orban’s win was undeniable, the exact size of his margin of victory was not clear early Monday due in part to Hungary’s complex electoral system, in which voters cast ballots for both an individual candidate in their region and another for a party list.

Final election results are expected by April 27.

Besides Jobbik and the Socialist-led coalition, only two other factions — former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany’s Democratic Coalition and the green Politics Can Be Different party — surpassed the 5 percent threshold needed to form a parliamentary bloc. The legislature also will have one deputy each from three small parties.

Jobbik leader Gabor Vona, the president of the Socialist Party and several other politicians from the losing parties said they were resigning in view of the election results, though it was likely that many of them would continue their political careers, possibly in other positions.

Opposition parties had urged Hungarians to vote tactically for the candidate with the best chance to defeat the Fidesz candidate in the 106 individual districts — and they appeared to have won 15 individual seats compared to 10 in 2014.

Still, Fidesz improved its results in terms of the 93 seats distributed based on votes for entire party lists, getting 48.5 percent compared to 44.9 percent four years ago.

Boros noted that, politically, Hungary had been split in two. While the left-wing parties dominated in the capital city of Budapest by winning 12 of 18 individual constituencies, Fidesz candidates won 85 of 88 districts in the rest of the country.

“Orban will interpret the victory as an unequivocal authorization to continue as until now, but even more forcefully,” Boros said. “He will feel even less constrained by any limits … as politically there is no genuine resistance to him.”

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Andras Nagy contributed to this report.