Potemkin Village:A delegation of Democratic lawmakers said that the Texas immigrant holding facilities they visited were cleaned up in advance to make them look more acceptable. They said the people in custody described how women had been held in rooms without running water, people were given sleeping bags on concrete floors, and children left apart from their families.

  “It feels like a jail,” said Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy III of Massachusetts, “and they’re treating them like they’re in jail.”

  The visit occurred on the same day that ProPublicareported the existence of a secret Facebook page for current and former Border Patrol agents that included jokes about migrant deaths, obscene GIFs, and doctored images of Hispanic lawmakers. Some of the most offensive posts were directed at Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was part of the visiting delegation.

 Ocasio-Cortez later tweeted, “While mgmt was telling us it was a ‘secure facility’ where *members of Congress* had to check their phones, we caught officers trying to sneak photos, laughing.”

Hot Stuff: Iran yesterday officially surpassed the amount of nuclear fuel it was allowed to possess under the 2015 international nuclear agreement. Although Iran had been in compliance with the agreement, and even stuck to it for 14 months after President Trump pulled US approval. 

  Iran may have embarked on a new quest for nuclear weapons, but it may also be trying to increase its bargaining power in any future nuclear agreement.

Head Count:The Trump administration appears to have missed its own deadline to start printing the 2020 census forms. They are waiting to see whether the courts will allow them to include a question about whether the respondent is a US citizen.

  They need to print 1.5 billion forms and mail them for the count to begin next January in Alaska and sweep through the country. Asked why it’s so important to add a citizenship question, Trump said Monday from the Oval Office, “I think it’s very important to find out if somebody is a citizen as opposed to an illegal.”

  The census was originally intended to just count the number of people in the country to determine congressional representation.

Net Ball: In a major changing of the guard in women’s professional tennis, 15-year-old  Cori ‘Coco’ Gauff  defeated 39-year-old veteran Venus Williams in her first appearance at Wimbledon. Gauff won 6-4, 6-4. “I don’t really know how to feel, this is the first time I’ve cried after a match, after winning,” Gauff told the BBC. Going into the match she was ranked 313th in the world.

The News Roundup:Los Angeles Angels 27-year-old pitcher Tyler Skaggs was found dead in a Texas hotel room at age 27. The team was there to play the Rangers and details have not been released. Skaggs was drafted right out of high school in 2009. — Hundreds of police officers firing tear gas cleared Hong Kong’s parliament of protesters who had ransacked and occupied the legislative chambers. Activists smashed into the Legislative Council after splitting off from a protest on the anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China from Britain. — Japanese fisherman, who continued to hunt whales under the guise of “research” despite an international anti-whaling agreement, have returned to outright commercial whaling. Japan quit the International Whaling Commission saying the organization had not struck a balance between preservation and sustainable whaling.

There Goes the Neighborhood:Living in a neighborhood of single-family homes is supposedly the American Dream, but the Oregon legislature is re-thinking that.

 The state’s House and Senate have now both passed a law that requires cities with more than 10,000 people to allow duplexes in areas zoned for single-family homes. For the Portland area it goes further, requiring cities and counties to allow quadplexes and “cottage clusters” of homes around a common yard. 

  Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, is expected to sign it. 

Say What?: In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson that aired last night, President Trump said that homelessness in American cities is began only recently.

  “It’s a phenomenon that started two years ago,” Trump declared. “It’s disgraceful. I’m going to maybe—I am looking at it very seriously.”

  That means he never even thought about it. Homelessness has been a big problem for 30 years, minimum.

   When he’s not thinking about real problems, Trump has been making plans to take over the 4^thof July parade in Washington. After failing to stage a giant military parade as the French do on Bastille Day, Trump now plans to feature tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles in Washington’s parade. 

  Trump said, “We have the brand-new Sherman tanks and we have the brand-new Abrams tanks.”

  Sherman tanks were used in World War II.

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