<1



Putting the 'Trump tax cuts will pay for themselves' myth to bed

BY TYLER EVILSIZER, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 02/19/19 02:30 PM EST

Recent estimates from the Treasury Department show that revenue dropped by 0.4 percent in calendar year 2018, a rare occurrence in American history — particularly when the economy is this strong. That’s bad news for our budget deficits, which are likely to reach $900 billion this year.

A 0.4-percent reduction might not seem like much, but it’s huge when put into context. Inflation grew by about 2 percent, and the economy grew (nominally) by more than 5 percent.

Revenue should have grown by 7 percent this year. Instead, revenues fell. They fell despite strong economic growth, moderate inflation and unemployment at its lowest level in nearly 50 years.

The reason? At the end of 2017, when deficits were already rising and the baby boomers were continuing to retire, Congress and the president enacted a massive new tax cut.

According to official projections, that tax cut increased future deficits by almost $2 trillion over a decade. And with one full year of the new tax code behind us, we now have good evidence to back up these projections. We can put to bed the myth that the tax cuts are paying for themselves.

The theory, at least, was that the tax cuts would massively accelerate economic growth. In reality, the tax bill's deficits were an irresponsible economic experiment that poured stimulus into an already strong economy.

The cuts did offer a little bit of juice for this year's growth rate and may strengthen the economy modestly for a few years. But ultimately, the additional debt they create will slow future growth rates and leave our debt on an even more unsustainable path.

Even before the tax bill, the country was raising too little revenue to finance the retirement of the baby boom generation. Social Security and federal health-care spending alone will grow by 2.4 percent of GDP over the next decade.

Certainly there are smart ways to slow that growth — for example, by reducing health care costs or slowing Social Security benefit growth for high earners — but any reasonable plan to save those programs would also involve more revenue.

Instead of using tax reform as an opportunity to raise this revenue, however, we used it as an excuse to cut taxes. And then we followed the tax cuts with a large increase in defense and non-defense discretionary spending.

As a result, the need for more revenue is more acute now than ever. Outside the Great Recession or 2003 tax cuts, revenue as a share of GDP is lower than any time since 1965.

The economy is in its ninth year of recovery from the Great Recession; it is time to realize that we are likely closer to the next recession than the last one.

With the unemployment rate low and the economy booming, now is a good time to replenish that rainy day fund. We must make sure the country is well-positioned to handle the next recession, disaster or international crisis.

In the midst of a crisis, we don’t want to find ourselves unable to borrow as cheaply, whether it’s because of the withdrawal of foreign creditors, higher interest rates or wariness about raising the debt to record heights.

The House recently reinstated pay-as-you-go rules that require any new tax cuts (or spending) to be paid for. This is an important first step, as abiding by these rules will help prevent our current course from getting worse.

But even on our current course, debt will exceed its World War II record in the early 2030s; and that assumes no major war or deep recession.

We need more tax revenue. Without it, our debt is likely to continue growing unsustainably.

Encouragingly, new ideas are entering the political discussion. Those in Congress and on the campaign trail are talking about rolling back some of the 2017 tax cuts, raising tax rates, closing loopholes and expanding the Social Security payroll tax.

There is also talk of new taxes on carbon, wealth, financial services and even miles driven. And of course, the country still has more than $1.6 trillion of annual tax expenditures that could be cut or reformed.

We don’t need to raise all those taxes, but they should all be on the table. It won’t be easy to find the right mix of tax and spending policies that can manage to both fix the budget and get enacted into law under our political system.

We cannot allow our deficits to grow indefinitely. The fact that revenue has fallen while spending is rising means we are currently doing just that. It’s time to reverse this trend and make sure the country is raising enough revenue to pay for the government it wants. If we don’t, our grandchildren will.

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/430 ... yth-to-bed

<2



House Democrats investigate White House plan to transfer nuclear technology to Saudis

House Democrats launched an investigation into White House officials who reportedly ignored warnings that a plan to transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia could run afoul of legal and ethical rules.

The news was made public on Tuesday in a report from congressional Democrats.

The investigation is based on the information provided by whistleblowers, Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said in a letter to the White House delivered on Tuesday.

Kevin Breuninger | @KevinWilliamB Published 4 Hours Ago 2.19.19

House Democrats launched an investigation into White House officials who reportedly ignored warnings from whistleblowers that a plan to transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia could run afoul of legal and ethical rules.

The news was made public on Tuesday in a report from congressional Democrats.

That report, announced by House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., singles out former national security advisor Michael Flynn, as well as President Donald Trump's longtime friend and inaugural committee chairman Tom Barrack, as key players in efforts to ram through the transfer of nuclear tech to the kingdom.

Cummings sent a letter to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Tuesday informing him of the investigation.

The White House, Barrack and lawyers for Flynn did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment on the Democrats' report.

Flynn, who briefly served as Trump's first national security advisor, resigned in February 2017 following reports about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, during the presidential transition. He later pleaded guilty in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe to lying to FBI agents about those conversations with Kislyak.

The whistleblowers described to the committee a bevy of potential violations of law and conflicts of interest, such as Flynn working in the White House to push a proposal to build nuclear plants in the middle east made by IP3, a private company he had advised.

The report says that one of Flynn's aids, Derek Harvey, who directed Middle Eastern affairs for the National Security Council, stated during the first week of the Trump administration that Flynn had approved IP3's nuclear plan, ignoring warnings that the plan must comply with the Atomic Energy Act's requirements.

Harvey now works for the House Intelligence Committee under ranking Republican Rep. Devin Nunes. A committee spokesman said, "the attack on Mr. Harvey is a ridiculous conspiracy theory floated by media partisans and now, shamefully, championed by Democrats in Congress."

National Security Council officials flagged Flynn's potential conflict of interest, and the council's legal advisor, John Eisenberg, ordered that all work on the plan come to a halt.

But efforts to enact the plan continued, the report says.

It states that in March 2017, former national security official K.T. McFarland said that Trump had promised control of implementing the plan to his friend Barrack, a strident defender of Saudi Arabia who has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Middle East real estate.

After multiple employees raised their concerns, Trump's second national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, reportedly told National Security Council staff "that they should cease working on the IP3 proposal."

But some of the council's employees "remained concerned because the same individuals continued their work on IP3's proposal," the report says.

Cummings' report also raises concerns that the plan to transfer nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia "appears to be ongoing." It notes that Trump met with nuclear power developers at the White House in February, in which they discussed sharing nuclear technologies with Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia.

The report adds that Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, is set next week to visit a handful of Middle Eastern capitals, including Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, "to discuss the economic portion of the Administration's Middle East peace plan."

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee said they had not received a copy of the Democrats' report until Monday night, The Washington Post reported.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/19/house-d ... audis.html

<3



OUT THERE

If You Don't Value New York Times v. Sullivan, You'd Better Start, Because Clarence Thomas Is Gunning for It

An America without the landmark 1964 First Amendment precedent would be a very different place--especially with a free-press hater in the White House.

Jay Michaelson

02.19.19 2:03 PM ET

New York Times v. Sullivan is a unanimous Supreme Court decision handed down in 1964. It held that for a public figure to win a libel case against a news outlet, she or he would have to prove “actual malice”: that they printed something false either knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth. For over 50 years, it has been at the bedrock of freedom of the press, all the more so in an age when the president of the United States has labeled the press “the enemy of the people.”

And on Tuesday, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that he’d possibly overturn it.

The context, perhaps ironically, was an appeal stemming from the Bill Cosby case. One of Cosby’s accusers, Kathrine McKee, told her story to the Daily News, and Cosby’s lawyer wrote a letter to the News accusing her of lying. McKee sued for defamation.

She lost, and the Supreme Court denied her a hearing, because as soon as McKee told her story to the press, she became a “public figure,” and, under NY Times v. Sullivan, she could only win a defamation suit if she proved “actual malice” on the part of those publishing the letter. Not only did the letter have to be false; the lawyer and the Daily News had to know it was false, or recklessly disregard whether it was false or not.

The question actually before the Court was whether McKee was really a “public figure” or not. But Justice Thomas took the opportunity to expand beyond that question to whether NY Times v. Sullivan, which no one has seriously questioned for years, is valid in the first place.

In a jaw-dropping 14-page opinion, he wrote that it probably is not.

Essentially, Thomas’s argument is originalism on steroids. Because when the First Amendment was adopted in 1791 (and later extended to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment), public figures could sue for libel, so they should be able to now.

The funny thing about “originalism,” though, is how impossible it is to actually prove anything. In Thomas’s opinion, he duly lists about a dozen examples of how libel against public figures was a crime in the 18th century.

But he also acknowledges that there were strict limits on that crime, how the “public conduct of a public man” was indeed exempted from prosecution, and how several statements made by James Madison and other Founders suggest that the First Amendment right to freedom of the press does, indeed, require allowing newspapers to print allegations which turn out to be false.

Interpreting and balancing this conflicting evidence, Thomas concludes that there is “little historical evidence suggesting that the New York Times actual-malice rule flows from the original understanding of the First or Fourteenth Amendment.”

That sounds very textually and historically grounded, but Thomas’s interpretation and balancing are no less selective and subjective than a more principled, rights-based approach that asks what the real-world consequences of such a position would be.

After all, he’s weighting some sources over others amidst an ultimately inconclusive pool of available documentation. How is that more “objective” than inquiring into whether there can be a meaningful freedom of the press if public figures can sue for libel when they don’t like what is said about them?

Thomas dismisses such questions as whether New York Times has been “popular in some circles.” But to ask about the real-world context of the First Amendment in 2019 isn’t about popularity; it’s about principle.

If he were to ask those questions, the answers would be devastating. Were New York Times overturned, news outlets would have to fact-check every assertion made by every writer, columnist, and even advertiser. (New York Times v. Sullivan itself was about a paid advertisement criticizing police brutality against civil rights leaders.) The consequences of one untrue allegation would be imprisonment.

To call this a “chilling effect” on the free press is a massive understatement. No newspaper could report on as-yet-unproven but credibly sourced allegations—regarding Russian kompromat against our president, for example, or regarding sexual harassment allegations against a Supreme Court Justice (or two). For better or for worse, the entire industry of entertainment journalism, which focuses on the private lives of public figures, would simply cease to exist, since anything damaging and false could be prosecuted.

All of this is doubly, triply true in the age of Donald Trump. Trump is a serial liar with contempt for the truth, for the rule of law, and for the free press. Most recently, defending a declaration of national emergency, he made up “stats” about immigrant crime, lied about drug interdiction, and attacked two news networks.

He has a large number of deeply relevant personal entanglements, which may well explain his fealty to Russia. He has threatened news outlets, again and again. And he has assiduously tried to sue his opponents into submission, using defamation law in particular, for over 30 years.

Justice Thomas would hand him a machine gun.

Again, this does not mean that courts should make policy. It means that they should inquire into the real-world consequences of their decisions, in 2019 rather than 1791, and ask whether those consequences uphold or vitiate the constitutional rights at issue. A guarantee of freedom of the press is meaningless if wealthy individuals can stifle legitimate discourse regarding public figures. Just ask Gawker.

And New York Times is hardly the free-for-all Justice Thomas describes. Remember, Hulk Hogan beat Gawker, not on libel grounds but on invasion of privacy. And there are numerous cases in which “actual malice” can, indeed, be proven: it is still illegal to publish statements with reckless disregard for the truth.

Indeed, the conclusion to this very article illustrates the danger of overturning New York Times v. Sullivan.

Suppose I were to speculate that Thomas has a specific interest in protecting the private lives of public figures because of his own very public debacle in 1991, when he was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee, Anita Hill. In the era of #metoo, many people have sought to revisit these claims or even mount efforts to impeach Justice Thomas himself.

I don’t know whether this highly personal motivation is behind Thomas’s opinion. But it’s a valid question to ask, since it is germane to the reasoning of a Supreme Court justice in a high-profile case.

Yet if Times v. Sullivan were overturned, such speculation could be impossible. Which maybe is what Thomas really wants. If I’m still allowed to say that.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/if-you-do ... t?ref=home

<4



CNN hires GOP operative with no journalism experience to coordinate its 2020 coverage

Sarah Isgur once referred to her new employer as the “Clinton News Network.”

This is the person CNN is entrusting with coordinating coverage of the 2020 campaign. What could possibly go wrong?

[ WHAT IS CNN THINKING ???? PERPLEXING TO SAY THE LEAST !!!! ]

By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Updated Feb 19, 2019, 8:15pm EST

CNN announced on Tuesday it has hired longtime Republican operative Sarah Isgur as political editor, charged with shaping its 2020 campaign coverage.

According to a CNN spokesperson, Isgur, who most recently worked as the Department of Justice’s main spokesperson under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, will coordinate the network’s political coverage for the 2020 election cycle on TV and on CNN’s website. Isgur starts work next month, and will not be involved in coverage of DOJ. She will occasionally appear on TV.

Isgur’s LinkedIn page indicates she has no journalism experience. She has, however, worked for a variety of right-wing organizations and campaigns, including the Carly Fiorina and Mitt Romney presidential bids, the Republican National Committee, and a Ted Cruz US Senate campaign.

Coming as it does in the wake of a presidential cycle in which the mainstream media’s fixation on Hillary Clinton’s emails (among other issues) was widely criticized, news of Isgur’s hiring sparked concerns about the direction CNN is taking heading into 2020.

The Washington Post reported that during an early 2017 Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump, Isgur — who was critical of Trump during the 2016 campaign — “kowtowed to Trump” and pledged loyalty to his agenda as a condition of getting the job as Sessions’ spokesperson.

Isgur’s hire was first reported by Politico, which noted that “while it is common for departing administration officials to join cable news networks as analysts or contributors, it is less common for them to oversee news coverage.”

On Tuesday evening, a CNN spokesperson emailed Vox and said they “just wanted to be super clear – Sarah is not leading, overseeing, or running political coverage.”

“She is helping to coordinate coverage across TV and Digital – she is one of several editors,” the spokesperson added, going on to characterize Isgur’s role as making sure that stories are featured on the right shows and articles get posted online at the right time.

Trump’s favorite target for abuse hands the keys to a former administration staffer
Isgur’s new employer is a favorite target of President Trump’s abuse, including as recently as last Friday, when during a press conference he dismissed CNN’s Jim Acosta as “fake news.”

While the network hasn’t commented on its reasons for bringing Isgur aboard, it stands to reason that CNN sees hiring a conservative as a way to push back on the perception that it’s biased against Trump. Unsurprisingly, news of her hire was applauded by at least one prominent right-wing voice.

Hiring a conservative journalist for a political editor role would be one thing. But a dive into Isgur’s social media presence suggests her lack of fitness for her new role goes deeper than mere politics.

Isgur has pushed false claims and conspiracies to demean Democrats
Isgur’s personal Twitter account provides some clues about how she might shape CNN’s coverage. Back in 2013, she took umbrage at the network characterizing a group as “anti-gay” and “anti-abortion.”

The next year, she derisively described her future employer as the “Clinton News Network.”

Isgur was not a fan of Obama, who she compared to Richard Nixon, and blamed him for problems he had nothing to do with.

In 2015 and 2016, Isgur posted tweets comparing abortion to America’s epidemic of gun violence, and pushed Planned Parenthood conspiracy theories that were grounded in misleadingly edited videos.

During the 2016 campaign, Isgur did criticize Trump. In October 2016, she tweeted that Trump’s call to prosecute Hillary Clinton “is a scary and dangerous threat.” But she was even more outspoken in her criticisms of Clinton.

Isgur also claimed “self righteous liberals” who criticize Republicans are “no different than Trump.”

When she was working for Carly Fiorina in October 2015, Isgur made a false claim about job losses during Obama’s first term to attack Clinton.

Isgur also indicated that she thinks concerns about climate change are overblown.

According to her LinkedIn, Isgur started worked as the DOJ’s public affairs director in February 2017. That same month, she posted a tweet attacking “progressives” for being fake feminists.

Around that same time, Isgur pushed a false equivalency to defend Trump’s first iteration of the Muslim ban, criticized journalists for covering Trump’s tweets, attacked reporters for accurately pointing out that Trump spent years pushing a racist conspiracy theory about Obama’s place of birth, and even praised Kellyanne Conway for “showing America what real feminism looks like.”

This is the person CNN is entrusting with coordinating coverage of the 2020 campaign. What could possibly go wrong?

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/19/18231993/ ... n-coverage

<5



POLITICS

Attorney General William Barr’s Son-In-Law Is Now A Trump Legal Adviser

Tyler McGaughey just left his Justice Department job for the White House.

By Amy Russo

02/19/2019 07:41 am ET Updated 12 hours ago

Newly confirmed Attorney General William Barr’s son-in-law just left his job in the Justice Department for a post in the White House counsel’s office, raising questions about a possible conflict of interest.

Tyler McGaughey, who is married to Barr’s youngest daughter, has duties in the new White House job that are unspecified, CNN reported. The counsel’s office “advises the President, the Executive Office of the President, and the White House staff on legal issues pertaining to the President and the White House,” the White House website says.

Walter Shaub, who directed the Office of Government Ethics under former President Barack Obama and left the post under President Donald Trump in 2017, told CNN the situation is “concerning.” It prompts “further questions about Barr’s independence,” he said.

Barr, who oversees special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian election interference, has suggested that the probe is politically biased against Trump.

Barr called Mueller’s actions “grossly irresponsible” and criticized an aspect of the investigation into Trump’s potential obstruction of justice as “fatally misconceived,” The Wall Street Journal reported in December.

Nevertheless, Barr said during his Senate confirmation that he considers Mueller a friend and a “straight shooter.”

Barr was sworn into office Thursday, replacing Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/william- ... cc790012ce

<6



<


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PHARR, Texas, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Members of a Native American group have camped out for a month in a South Texas cemetery to protect graves and a Methodist chapel from construction of a wall along the Mexico border.

"We are letting people know there are sacred sites here," said Juan Mancias, chairman of the Carrizo Comecrudo tribe of South Texas.

About 10 protesters are camped at the Eli Jackson cemetery and the Jackson Ranch Methodist chapel and graveyard, both established in the 19th century.

"There are veterans buried here," Mancias said. "We are trying to help some of our relatives who are ancestrally related to us by linear descent. The oldest one here was born in 1809 and died around the 1890s. You are looking at something that needs to be preserved. We have cleaned it up to show the graves are here."

A sign honors American soldiers killed in the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War. U.S. flags sit on some of the gravestones. Their inscriptions indicate service in other wars, including Vietnam, and some tombstones date as far back as the Civil War.

The Carrizo Comecrudos' ancestral lands extend for more than 600 miles from Brownsville, Texas, in the Gulf of Mexico to Pecos, Texas, and across both sides of the Rio Grande River.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection maps show that Hidalgo County will receive 25 miles of border wall, including the areas with the chapel and cemeteries. The agency did not return a request for comment about whether the border wall construction will affect the chapel and cemeteries.

But the sites are adjacent to the flood levee system. International treaties with Mexico prohibit U.S. Customs and Border Protection from erecting barriers in the floodplain of the Rio Grande. So the U.S. government instead has chosen to use the levees for the barriers, meaning that sections of the border wall will be 1 to 2 miles beyond the river -- the actual international boundary with Mexico.

The cemeteries and chapel sit on the southern side of these levees. Not only would bollards put the chapel and cemeteries behind the wall, but the U.S. government also plans an illuminated 150-yard, clear-cut enforcement zone on each side of the levee. That means construction would destroy native Tamaulipan thornscrub forest and could affect the chapel and cemeteries.

"There's no need for a wall," Mancias said. "Border Patrol comes up here every 30 minutes to check on us. They drive on the levee. In a way, we are helping the agents. We are here to be aware of what is going on.

"The only criminal activity we are concerned with is the criminal activity from the president wanting to tear up a sacred site, especially a cemetery."

Christopher Basaldú, a member of the tribe, has been camping in the Jackson cemetery for the past month.

A native of the Rio Grande Valley, Basaldú grew up in Brownsville and Corpus Christi, Texas, and holds a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Arizona, where he focused on Native American religion. He opposes construction of a wall on the border.

"I want to stand up against this kind of injustice on Carrizo Comecrudo territory, our original homelands," Basaldú said, pointing out that the Spanish who invaded the Americas imposed the name on the group.

"This is like a double genocide. It is one thing to kill native people, but then to dig our ancestors out of the ground and exude them and disrespect their rest and erasing their literal memory in the ground, it's genocide all over again," Basaldú said.

He calls the border wall a racist project.

"There are native and indigenous peoples all along the national boundary, and these predate the invasion by Europeans," Basaldú said. "These peoples need to be heard, and the government is not consulting them."

Even though the government's maps show all of Hidalgo County will be walled, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has not clarified its plans for land near the cemeteries and chapel. Camp protesters have seen government surveyors marking the levees, but the agency has not confirmed if it will build there.

"It is being deliberately vague and deliberately not doing due diligence and we have no commitment from the government that it won't destroy the cemeteries and the chapel," Basaldú said. "And the government's letters of intent are only in English, not in Spanish."

The cemetery's history dates back to slavery. It was founded by descendants of Nathaniel Jackson, who was white, and his wife, Matilda Hicks, a freed slave. They left Alabama in the years before the Civil War. They came to Texas with a group of emancipated slaves, settling just north of the Rio Grande. The Jackson Ranch chapel was on the underground railroad, helping escaped slaves to freedom in Mexico, where slavery was outlawed.

"The chapel and cemeteries are a part of a history that some people don't want to talk about and that is why we are here," Mancias said.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/02 ... 550492941/

<7



U.S. NEWS

Stored soybeans could spoil before China trade conflict ends

By Jessie Higgins

FEB. 19, 2019 / 4:00 AM

VANSVILLE, Ind., Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Agricultural experts worry that millions of bushels of stored soybeans awaiting the end of the U.S. trade war with China could spoil before a settlement is reached.

At highest risk are beans stored in North Dakota. Farmers there and in surrounding states rarely keep large quantities of beans long after harvest. Most are sold directly to China. But China's high tariffs on American soy has left beans in that region with nowhere to go but grain bins.

And if the trade dispute drags into the spring and summer, chances increase that those beans will turn moldy.

"That's not something that happens overnight," said Ken Hellevang, an agricultural engineer at the North Dakota State University's extension office. "But over time, you can have major spoilage issues occurring."

Hellevang is doing what he can to educate farmers about the best ways to store grain in warm weather.

"I'm trying to get the word out," he said. "This is a new experience for them."

Although soy growers across the Midwest are struggling to sell their crops, it's the growers in North Dakota and surrounding states who have been most severely impacted. That region has direct rail access to ports in the Pacific Northwest, from which ships set sail for China. So the vast majority of beans from the Dakotas are earmarked for China -- more so than from any other U.S. region.

China consumes huge quantities of soy and purchases about 30 percent of all the beans grown in the United States, mostly to feed livestock, according to U.S. government statistics.

This trend grew over the last decade. China went from importing few beans in the early 1990s to becoming the world's largest buyer. In 2017, it imported more than twice as much soy as the 10 other top soy-consuming nations combined, U.S. Department of Agriculture figures show.

To meet the explosive demand, U.S. farmers grew more soy. The production value of the crop exceeded $41 billion in 2017, according to the American Soybean Association.

A lot of the growth occurred in the Upper Midwest. In 2000, North Dakota produced 61 million bushels of soybeans, according to the Soy Transportation Coalition. In 2017, the state produced 240 million bushels -- most of it bound for China.

"More than 70 percent of our soybeans are exported to China," said Nancy Johnson, executive director of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association. "We have a fabulous system for getting soybeans on trains to the Pacific Northwest. With [the China] market closed, it's been hard. There are certainly a lot of soybeans on the farm in storage, which is atypical."

The main issue with storing beans over the summer is the moisture content of the beans, Hellevang said.

Ideally, most farmers try and keep their beans at a 13 percent moisture level, which is fine over the winter. But the beans should have a lower moisture content for storage during warm weather, he said.

To make matters worse, many of the beans being stored in North Dakota now have a much higher moisture level, Hellevang said, noting that it had been an abnormally wet fall. Some beans have moisture levels between 15 and 20 percent.

"We have soybeans at 15 percent moisture and I'm concerned about them," said Ron Van Bruggen, a North Dakota soy grower who is storing beans on his farm. "We had snow this fall, and it was too wet to wait for Mother Nature to dry them out."

Methods exist for drying beans to prepare for long-term storage, Hellevang said. But even if farmers can do that, the beans should be stored in temperature-controlled, steel grain bins. And because there was so much excess soy last fall, not all the beans could fit in those traditional bins. Some farmers keep their beans in simple grain bags lying on the ground.

"These bags do well storing grain in the cooler months, but there is no way to manage the beans as the temperature warms," Hellevang said.

Ultimately, farmers hope for a swift end to the trade conflict, which would enable them to sell their stored grain before next fall's harvest.

The United States and China are negotiating a trade deal, with a March 1 deadline to reach an agreement before a new round of tariffs goes into effect.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/02 ... 550531187/

<8



POLITICS

Key Figure In North Carolina Election Fraud Probe Says He Had No Idea About Alleged Wrongdoing

Andy Yates said he didn’t ask for documentation about the work of the operative under scrutiny during a congressional campaign.

By Sam Levine

02/19/2019 07:15 pm ET

The consultant who paid out over $130,000 to a North Carolina political operative suspected of coordinated election fraud said Tuesday he had no indication the man was engaged in suspect activity but also conceded he kept little documentation of his work and expenses. The operative was personally hired by Mark Harris, a Republican candidate for Congress, the consultant said.

The testimony from the consultant, Andy Yates, is important because he served as a key link between the operative, McCrae Dowless, and Harris. Yates testified for several hours as part of an ongoing public hearing in front of the North Carolina Board of Elections on Tuesday. The board is probing whether Dowless engaged in election fraud by coordinating an effort to collect absentee ballots from voters. Harris currently leads Democrat Dan McCready in the race by 905 votes, but hasn’t been seated in Congress amid the investigation. If the board finds enough irregularities to “taint” the outcome of the election, it can order a new one.

Yates’ firm, the Red Dome Group, paid Dowless for his campaign work, but in his testimony, Yates made it clear Harris had personally hired Dowless. Yates said that by the time he was hired in mid-2017, Harris had already tapped Dowless for absentee ballot work. (Harris has said he hired Dowless because of his reputation for robust work.) When Yates and Dowless met for the first time, Dowless explained how he had a system and workers to drive up requests for absentee ballots. He said Dowless specifically told him that he instructed his workers not to touch absentee ballots that people filled out.

Assisting voters with requesting absentee ballots is legal in North Carolina. Nothing about the program raised a red flag for him, Yates said. Dowless sounded like someone who was organized and knew the law. When he was asked about earlier testimony from a Dowless employee who said he paid people to collect actual absentee ballots ― a violation of North Carolina law ― Yates said he was stunned to learn Dowless had done that.

“If it had ever been evident to me during the campaign I would have immediately cut off all contact with Mr. Dowless. He would have never been paid by Red Dome again. I would have told Dr. Harris to fire him immediately,” he said. “I care deeply about the integrity of our democracy and I’m not going to put up with that junk, and that frankly crap, excuse my language. I work too hard to build my business to let one person lie to me and do something wrong.”

In total, Harris’ campaign paid Yates’ Red Dome Group over $408,000 during the campaign, according to The Charlotte Observer. Yates testified Tuesday that all campaign staff was paid through Red Dome. Dowless, he said, preferred to pick up his checks in person and was willing to drive hours to Yates’ office to do so.

Throughout the campaign, Yates’ Red Dome Group paid Dowless a monthly fee for his work as well as $4 for each absentee ballot request form he turned in during the primary and $5 for each during the general election. He also reimbursed Dowless for expenses like office space and other services. Red Dome paid Dowless $131,357.57 between July 2017 and election day 2018, according to records compiled by the state board.

But Yates testified that there was never a formal agreement, written or otherwise, with Dowless. Yates said he didn’t know how many employees worked for Dowless and took him at his word when he said how many forms he had collected and how much he had been reimbursed for and didn’t ask for documentation or receipts. The Harris campaign seemed fine with that, he said.

On Monday, Kim Strach, the executive director of the state board, said investigators had developed evidence showing Dowless ran a “coordinated, unlawful and substantially resourced” illegal absentee ballot effort. Lisa Britt, who worked for Dowless and collected absentee ballots, said workers were paid both to get people to request absentee ballots and then to collect the ballots. She said employees filled out downballot races on unsealed ballots they collected that voters had left blank so officials at the board of elections wouldn’t get suspicious as to why so many people were only voting in certain contests. She said Dowless instructed her and other workers to take a number of steps to avoid raising red flags with the board of elections, including only mailing small batches of ballots from post offices near where the voters who filled them out lived.

Yates said while Harris had told him Dowless had some criminal charges from decades ago, he was unaware that those charges included fraud and perjury. Had he known about those charges, the firm wouldn’t have hired him because it would not have looked good for his business or the campaign.

Yates also described Dowless as a “political junkie” who would call him almost daily to talk both about the campaign and his personal life. He said Dowless was “needy” and wanted validation that Harris was happy with his work.

“Politics was his thing, he didn’t have anything else going on,” Yates said.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/andy-yat ... 7a1ed28d01

<9



Yaneisy Duenas and Ferando Sanudo walk through the flooded parking lot to their boat at the Haulover Marine Center in North Miami Beach, in 2016. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Tuesday's Mini-Report, 2.19.19

By Steve Benen 02/19/19 05:30PM

Today's edition of quick hits:

* RBG: "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg returned to the Supreme Court bench on Tuesday, about two months after cancer surgery.... Tuesday's argument was a technical one, considering whether the federal government may challenge patents in a specialized court. Justice Ginsburg asked crisp and clear questions of both sides, and she seemed to express skepticism of one aspect of the government's argument."

* Speaking of SCOTUS: "For the second time in as many weeks, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has sided with liberal Supreme Court justices to disagree with how lower courts have interpreted Supreme Court precedent."

* Quite a story: "Whistleblowers from within President Donald Trump's National Security Council have told a congressional committee that efforts by former national security adviser Michael Flynn to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia may have violated the law, and investigators fear Trump is still considering it, according to a new report obtained by NBC News."

* This op-ed, written by Meredith Watson, serves as a reminder that the crisis in Virginia is not over: "When I came forward to report that Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax raped me when we were both Duke University students in 2000, I did so to support another victim of sexual assault and to remove that man from a position of national prominence."

* Climate crisis: "High-tide flooding, which can wash water over roads and inundate homes and businesses, is an event that happens once in a great while in coastal areas. But its frequency has rapidly increased in recent years because of sea-level rise. Not just during storms but increasingly on sunny days, too."

http://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog

<

<1



NEW POTUS, COUP DIS?

Trump Is Beyond Obsessed With Andrew McCabe

The president despises the man who he believes tried to remove him via a coup.

Asawin Suebsaeng

02.20.19 4:34 AM ET

Early last year, Donald Trump and his advisers gathered for a quiet, afternoon meeting at the White House to discuss immigration. But something else was weighing on the president’s mind as he and his team began to address the policy matters at hand.

During the start of the meeting, “all [Trump] wanted to talk about” was “how much he hated [Andrew] McCabe,” according to a source who was in the room. McCabe, the former deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had recently been sacked by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, citing a “lack of candor.” And around the time of the Trump meeting, he had lawyered up and accused the Trump administration of launching an “ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation.”

It got Trump’s attention. The source in the room noted that the president repeatedly derailed the ostensible purpose of the meeting by calling McCabe a world-historical “loser” on at least two occasions.

A year has passed and that hatred very obviously hasn’t abated.

On Tuesday, the president was back kicking McCabe, though this time trying to knock down a story that first surfaced more than a year ago on NBC News, in which it was reported that he once called McCabe and mocked his wife for blowing an election.

“I never called his wife a loser to him (another McCabe made up lie)!” the president tweeted on Tuesday morning.

[ ANOTHER IN A LONG STRING OF TRUMP LIES ! ]

To those who know Trump, the fixation on McCabe comes as absolutely no surprise. The former acting FBI director, who is currently on an anti-Trump media blitz, has long been a subject of particular, blood-boiling ire for the 45th President of the United States. He is a longtime, career law-enforcement official, a creature of government and public service who represents the very elements of Washington D.C. and so-called “Deep State” that the president rails against.

Matters certainly haven’t been helped by Trump’s conviction that McCabe tried to plot a supposed “coup” against him by pondering the president’s ouster via the 25th Amendment; or that McCabe has gone on TV to say that he authorized the opening of an investigation into Trump following James Comey’s firing.

With McCabe now emerging again on the public stage, Trump has effectively enlisted the entirety of the Republican Party to join along in his manic, prolific cyberbullying.

The Republican National Committee’s chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, took to Twitter on Tuesday to declare that “McCabe can’t be trusted,” among other disses. On top of that, the RNC has blasted out a series of talking points targeting McCabe, and booked its surrogates on radio and TV specifically to boost the party line on the ex-FBI official, according to an RNC official.

On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a confidant of Trump’s, said that though he hadn’t talked to the president recently about the matter, he did intend to call McCabe before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he chairs, for further explanation of the revelations in McCabe’s book and media appearances.

“How can you ignore him?” Graham told The Daily Beast. “I can only imagine the reaction if this had been [25th Amendment] talk about getting rid of President Hillary Clinton.”

The conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, led by Trump ally Tom Fitton, has announced it was suing for government “coup” documents, in light of McCabe’s media tour. Virtually every prominent Trump booster on Capitol Hill, on cable news, or on the campaign took to Twitter or the airwaves to denounce McCabe and other allegedly malicious, corrupt actors.

Tellingly, one senior White House official simply called McCabe “this week’s punching bag.”

The public onslaught is virtually a retread of the textbook used by Trumpworld last April, when it descended on Comey as he embarked on an anti-Trump book tour. As with McCabe, the crusade against Comey was launched because Trump himself had ordained it.

As The Daily Beast reported at the start of Comey’s book tour, President Trump met with his White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders ahead of one of her rare televised press briefings—specifically to make sure his top spokesperson went on TV to bash Comey as a fraud, a leaker, a self-promoter. “The president wanted her to rip him apart,” one White House official described at the time.

The same official told The Daily Beast this week that the “same goes for the other guy.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is- ... e?ref=home

<2



White House braces for shakeup after Trump privately complains about Coats

[ ALARMING ! THE LOYALTY CONCEPT IS BECOMING A HUGE CONCERN...UNPRECEDENTED.... !

Trump Is Bringing In Loyalists And Getting Rid Of Critics by the numbers ]

By Jeremy Diamond, Pamela Brown and Kevin Liptak, CNN

Updated 5:05 PM ET, Wed February 20, 2019

Washington (CNN)White House officials have begun to have preliminary discussions about replacing Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats amid concerns that President Donald Trump may soon dismiss him, two senior administration officials told CNN, despite the President's public denial he's considering the move.

The conversations began this week in the West Wing after Trump spent the holiday weekend at Mar-a-Lago venting to friends and advisers about the director of national intelligence, renewing his gripes about Coats' testimony before Congress last month. In that testimony, Coats publicly contradicted Trump's optimistic forecast about the chances North Korea will agree to give up its nuclear weapons.

Despite the venting, Trump on Wednesday told reporters: "I haven't even thought about it." But the President has also previously denied reports of staff shakeup only to later confirm them with his actions.

Trump's weekend venting was not the first time that the President has voiced frustration with Coats, but aides were struck that Trump was still venting about the testimony that took place three weeks ago. When disagreements between Trump and Coats previously spilled into public view, Trump quickly papered over the discord and moved on.

But Trump's frustrations with Coats have once again boiled to the surface as he has turned his attention to his summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un next week. One senior administration official said Trump worried that Coats' testimony on North Korea will be used against him next week to undercut the outcome of his second summit with Kim.

The officials stressed that the conversations about who could replace Coats are in the early stages and that Trump could ultimately decide not to fire the top intelligence official. Trump has been known to vent about top officials and threaten to fire them without ultimately taking any action. If Trump does decide to replace Coats, the officials said it would likely be a matter of months, not weeks.

Trump and Coats never forged a particularly close relationship and the President has time and again voiced frustrations about Coats, telling advisers that he considered Coats in line with other top officials who have sought to restrain him like former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and former White House chief of staff John Kelly. But there is now a growing sense in the West Wing that Trump's relationship with Coats may finally be beyond repair.

Chris Ruddy, a friend of Trump's and member of his Mar-a-Lago club, renewed the speculation that Coats future is on the rocks when he told CNN's Christiane Amanpour in an interview Monday that there is "general disappointment of the President with Director Coats."

"There's a feeling that maybe there needs to be a change of leadership in that position," said Ruddy, who spoke with Trump over the weekend but said his information was not based on a conversation with Trump.

Separately, a source who spoke with Trump over the weekend said Trump was expressing frustration with Coats and indicated he might soon move to replace him.

The trigger point for Trump's renewed frustrations with Coats was his recent preparations for his summit with Kim, a senior administration official said.

Trump is eager to show progress in his delicate diplomacy with North Korea and his grand assertions of progress have been undercut by North Korea's failure to take any concrete, verifiable steps toward denuclearization.

Administration officials and sources close to the White House were tempering expectations for Trump's latest summit and the President himself has said he is in "no rush" to achieve his ultimate goal, but Coats public assessment about North Korea has stung.

While he noted that North Korea has stopped testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles for more than a year, Coats made clear in his opening statement during a Senate hearing last month that the US intelligence community does not believe North Korea intends to give up his nuclear weapons.

"We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD capabilities," Coats said. "It is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival. Our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization."

Coats was in lock-step with the US intelligence community's assessments -- which Trump himself has seen -- but he fumed in the subsequent days about the press coverage of Coats and his fellow intelligence officials comments, which contradicted Trump's public assertions. And Trump now worries those comments will overshadow his effort to sell his second summit with Kim next week as a success.

Compounding it all is that it was not the first time Trump has felt publicly undermined by Coats.

After Trump emerged from his one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last summer, Coats said he would have advised Trump against the private meeting but had not been consulted. And he also made clear he still did not have a full picture of the conversation that took place between the two leaders.

When the White House announced that Trump was inviting Putin to the White House while Coats was on stage at a public event, the director of national intelligence did little to hide his true feelings.

"Say that again?" Coats said, laughing incredulously when the news was relayed to him on stage.
"That's going to be special," he added.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/20/politics ... index.html

<3



MEET THE PRESS

Ethically challenged: Three scandals rock Trump administration in one day

First Read is your briefing from "Meet the Press" and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.

Feb. 20, 2019, 6:57 AM CST

By Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann

WASHINGTON — It’s hard to keep up with all of the alleged scandals hitting the Trump administration. But here’s what we learned in just one day yesterday:

*** Trump asked his acting attorney general to put a Trump ally, the U.S. attorney in New York, in charge of the Michael Cohen investigation, according to the New York Times. (Trump denied the story on Tuesday, saying: “That’s more fake news.”)

*** Whistleblowers “have told a congressional committee that efforts by former national security adviser Michael Flynn to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia may have violated the law, and investigators fear Trump is still considering it,” NBC’s Ken Dilanian reported.

***“ House and Senate Democrats say they have obtained evidence that a senior official at the Department of Education tried to oust the department’s independent watchdog after she pushed back on an attempt to interfere in an active investigation of Secretary Betsy DeVos,” per NBC’s Heidi Przybyla.

Any one of these stories would have dominated the news — for days and weeks — in any other administration. But in our current era, it was just Tuesday.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-t ... ay-n973461

<4



Justice Department preparing for Mueller report as early as next week

By Evan Perez, Laura Jarrett and Katelyn Polantz, CNN

Updated 7:41 PM ET, Wed February 20, 2019

Washington (CNN)Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit to Congress soon after a summary of Mueller's confidential report, according to people familiar with the plans.

The preparations are the clearest indication yet that Mueller is nearly done with his almost two-year investigation.

The precise timing of the announcement is subject to change.

The scope and contours of what Barr will send to Congress remain unclear. Also unclear is how long it will take Justice officials to prepare what will be submitted to lawmakers.

But with President Donald Trump soon to travel overseas for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Justice officials are mindful of not interfering with the White House's diplomatic efforts, which could impact the timing.

The Justice Department and the special counsel's office declined to comment.

Barr has said that he wants to be as "transparent" as possible with Congress and the public, "consistent with the rules and the law."

Under the special counsel regulations, Mueller must submit a "confidential" report to the attorney general at the conclusion of his work, but the rules don't require it to be shared with Congress, or by extension, the public. And, as Barr has made clear, the Justice Department generally guards against publicizing "derogatory" information about uncharged individuals.

As a result, one of the most pressing questions Barr will face in the coming weeks is the extent to which Mueller's findings should be disclosed to Congress.

The regulations require Mueller to explain in his report all decisions to prosecute or not prosecute matters under scrutiny. Barr would also need to inform Congress if the Justice Department prevented the special counsel team from pursuing any investigative steps.

Trump said Wednesday that it's "totally up to Bill Barr" as to whether Mueller's report comes out while he is overseas in Vietnam next week.

"That'll be totally up to the new attorney general. He's a tremendous man, a tremendous person, who really respects this country and respects the Justice Department, so that'll be totally up to him," Trump told reporters in the White House.

Speculation about the end of the probe has been running rampant in Washington. NBC News reported recently the probe would be done by mid-February.

Life after Mueller

While the Mueller investigation may soon come to a close, there continue to be court cases that will be handled by other federal prosecutors.

In addition, Mueller has referred certain matters that fell outside the scope of the Russia probe to other US Attorneys to pursue. Some of those investigations have already been revealed, including the investigation in New York into former Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen. That probe has spawned subsequent federal investigations in New York into the Trump Organization and the Trump Inaugural Committee. It is possible the special counsel's team has referred other matters that have not yet come to light.

For close watchers of the federal courthouse and the Mueller team, small changes have added up in recent weeks.

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week, special counsel's office employees carried boxes and pushed a cart full of files out of their office -- an unusual move that could foreshadow a hand-off of legal work.

At the same time, the Mueller prosecutors' workload appears to be dwindling. Four of Mueller's 17 prosecutors have ended their tenures with the office, with most returning to other roles in the Justice Department.

And the grand jury that Mueller's prosecutors used to return indictments of longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and several Russians hasn't apparently convened since January 24 the day it approved the criminal charges against Stone.

Even with these signs of a wrap up, the DC US Attorney's office has stepped in to work on cases that may continue longer than Mueller is the special counsel.

That office has joined onto some of the Mueller's team's casework, including the cases against Stone, a Russian social media propaganda conspiracy, and in an ongoing foreign government-owned company's fight against a grand jury subpoena.

Mueller and his prosecutors are still reporting to work as frequently as ever -- with some even coming in on recent snow days and Presidents' Day. But also visiting them more often than ever before are the prosecutors from the DC US Attorney's Office and others in the Justice Department who've worked on the Mueller cases.

In one court case, against Concord Management for its alleged support for the social media conspiracy prosecutors told a judge in January there's still a related "matter occurring before the grand jury."

In other cases, including Manafort's, the Mueller team has made heavy redactions to its recent public court filings, including to protect pending investigations and people who haven't been charged with crimes.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/20/politics ... index.html

<5



Wisconsin governor vetoes tax plan; early showdown with GOP

By SCOTT BAUER

2 hours ago 2.20.19

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a GOP income tax cut bill Wednesday in an early showdown with legislative Republicans who had moved to weaken the Democrat’s powers just weeks before he took office.

Republicans rushed to pass the bill, the first they introduced this year, before Evers could introduce his own income tax plan next week. Democrats quickly labeled the move a stunt.

The GOP Legislature lacks the votes to override the veto.

The veto just six weeks after Evers took office could be a sign of more conflict to come with Republicans in the Legislature. Both sides have vowed to work together but have shown little willingness to compromise on major issues so far.

“I am troubled and disappointed that this major fiscal policy was introduced and passed without bipartisan support and cooperation,” Evers said in his veto message. “The people of the State of Wisconsin expect and deserve for their leaders to work together, and I plan to do my part to ensure that happens.”

Evers, the former state schools chief, stopped Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s bid for a third term in a November election in which Democrats dominated statewide races. But Republicans struck back in an acrimonious lame-duck session, passing legislation signed by Walker that cut into the powers of both Evers and newly elected Attorney General Josh Kaul.

However, they did not curb Evers’ veto power . He used it Wednesday, the first time he was given a bill to sign or reject.

Evers’ veto shows that “the bipartisanship message he preached during his campaign was nothing more than a smoke screen,” said Republican Rep. John Nygren, co-chair of the Legislature’s budget committee.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said the veto was unfortunate and that Republicans would “redouble our efforts” to fight for an income tax cut that doesn’t raise taxes on businesses.

Evers and Republicans both said they wanted to cut income taxes for the middle class but didn’t agree on how to pay for it. Evers wanted to mostly eliminate a manufacturing tax credit program to pay for about half of his cut.

Republicans want to tap a budget surplus instead and rely on future revenue growth to pay for it in later years. They created the manufacturing tax credit and say cutting it amounts to a tax increase on job creators that would hurt Wisconsin’s economy. Democrats cast the tax credit as a giveaway to millionaires and say there’s no evidence that it’s helped the economy as much as Republicans say.

Tax cuts and other major spending proposals are typically considered as part of the two-year state budget. Evers is to release his first budget on Feb. 28. That will give him and lawmakers another chance to reach a compromise on the income tax cut.

The bill Evers vetoed would eventually have cut income taxes by $340 million a year, or about $170 for the average individual. Evers’ proposal would cut income taxes by about $415 million a year, or about $225 per tax filer.

https://www.apnews.com/e6bd2b0466ed460ea4335473ad899d7c

<6



WORLD POLITICS

Putin threatens to target US if it deploys missiles in nearby European countries

Putin, in his annual address to parliament, says his country would not seek confrontation and would not take the first step in deploying missiles after the suspension of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

However, he says Russia would respond to any deployment of new intermediate-range missiles in Europe by targeting the United States itself and not just the countries where they are deployed, according to a Reuters translation.

He says he would field new weapons that would target U.S. decision-making centers.

Matt Clinch | @mattclinch81

Published 13 Hours Ago Updated 5 Hours Ago 2.20.19

President Vladimir Putin warned on Wednesday of a resolute response if the U.S. decides to station missiles in countries neighboring Russia.

Putin, in his annual address to parliament, said his country would not seek confrontation and would not take the first step in deploying missiles after the suspension of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

However, he said Russia would respond to any deployment of new intermediate-range missiles in Europe by targeting the United States itself and not just the countries where they are deployed, according to a Reuters translation. He said he would field new weapons that would target U.S. decision-making centers.

He warned U.S. policymakers, some of whom he said were obsessed with U.S. exceptionalism, about being careful before taking new measures.

"It's their right to think how they want. But can they count? I'm sure they can. Let them count the speed and the range of the weapons systems we are developing," Putin said to applause, according to Reuters.

[ GOT THAT WARM AND FUZZY FEELING THAT TRUMP AND HIS CRONIES IN THE SENATE LIFTED THOSE SANCTIONS ]

"Russia will be forced to create and deploy types of weapons which can be used not only in respect of those territories from which the direct threat to us originates, but also in respect of those territories where the centers of decision-making are located."

In early February, the U.S. confirmed it would suspend its participation in the decades-old INF treaty, which bans ground-launched medium-range missiles with a range of 310 to 3,400 miles. The U.S. administration said it had taken the measure following Russia's refusal to accept that its SSC-8 missile directly contravenes the Cold War-era agreement.

The next day, Putin reacted by also halting his country's obligations to the treaty. Speaking to media that day, Putin said Russia would provide a "mirror like response" to the U.S. by engaging in fresh research and development for nuclear missile technology but would not "get involved in a costly arms race."

On Wednesday, Putin rejected the U.S. claim that its withdrawal from the treaty was prompted by Russian violations, according to an Associated Press translation. He claimed that the U.S. had made false accusations to justify its decision to opt out of the pact and said the U.S. had breached the treaty itself.

He concluded by saying Russia would always make sure it is secure. He said the country would be ready for further talks on arms control but would not keep knocking on a locked door.

The White House and the U.S. Department of Defense didn't immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/20/putin-t ... urope.html

<7



WORLD

NATO HITS BACK AT VLADIMIR PUTIN OVER HIS 'UNACCEPTABLE' THREATS TO ATTACK U.S. AND ALLIES

BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 2/20/19 AT 12:41 PM

NATO responded on Wednesday to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat that Russia would target the U.S. if it placed intermediate-range missiles in Europe.

“We have taken note of the message from President Vladimir Putin on February 20. The Russian declarations that threaten to attack allies are unacceptable,” NATO spokesman Pierce Casalet told the Russian news outlet RIA Novosti.

During his State of the Union address on Wednesday, Putin said Moscow would respond to security threats, including the placement of new U.S. missiles in Europe. He stressed, however, that Russia was not seeking a confrontation with the West.

The comments came at a time when tensions had ratcheted up between Russia and NATO over the U.S. decision to abandon the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which was signed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in 1987. The Trump administration has said it would abandon the INF treaty because Russian continued to violate its terms.

The treaty bans all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of about 300 to 3,500 miles. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has argued that there was no point in preserving the treaty if only one party was abiding by it. But some critics of the decision argued that it was unwise to abolish a treaty just because someone breaks it. Others have warned that a new arms race could break out. NATO officials have signaled they are preparing for a world in which Russia could deploy nuclear-capable missiles in Europe.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, presented a new bill Wednesday to prevent the Trump administration from escalating current tensions with Russia by restricting funding for any activity that would violate the INF treaty during the six-month period after the U.S. withdrawal.

“The president’s decision to withdraw from the INF treaty was reckless and deeply short-sighted—and at every turn, it represents a win for Moscow,” Senator Van Hollen said in a statement. “To prevent further harm to our national security interests, this administration must immediately assure our allies and the world that we do not seek to further escalate tensions, and that we have a plan going forward…This legislation requires the administration to take a pause and present its strategy to bring Russia back to the table. I urge my colleagues to take it up immediately,” he continued.

Some experts, however, argued that Russia’s military was glad to be free of the constraints of the agreement. The INF treaty is believed to be deeply unpopular with Russian military insiders

https://www.newsweek.com/nato-hits-back ... es-1337625

<8



Lindsey Graham: Pulling troops from Syria is “the dumbest fucking idea I’ve ever heard”

Graham also told acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan that he would be the Trump administration’s “enemy” on Syria.

By Alex Ward@AlexWardVoxalex.ward@vox.com Feb 20, 2019, 5:00pm EST

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has made no secret of his disdain for President Donald Trump’s decision to remove US troops from Syria.

In December, for example, the senator called Trump’s announcement that he would abruptly bring all 2,000 service members home from the country “a stain on the honor of the United States” and a “huge Obama-like mistake.” US troops are in Syria primarily to fight ISIS, and Graham and others have criticized the move because in part because America would abandon one of its key allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces, who have fought the terrorist group on the ground for years.

Graham reserved his most vitriolic response, however, for a February 16 closed-door meeting in Munich with acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

Here’s the full exchange, as reported by the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin (which Breitbart’s Kristina Wong and NBC’s Courtney Kube and Carol Lee also reported):

---“Are you telling our allies that we are going to go to zero by April 30?” he asked Shanahan, according to Graham.

---“Yes, that’s been our direction [from the president],” Shanahan replied.

---“That’s the dumbest f---ing idea I’ve ever heard,” Graham responded.

Later, he added, “If the policy is going to be that we are leaving by April 30, I am now your adversary, not your friend.”

That’s a sitting senator — and major Trump ally — berating the president’s defense chief with expletives and vowing to be an “enemy” of the administration’s plans. What’s more, Graham made those comments alongside other lawmakers from both parties in the room who, according to reports, were on his side.

Shanahan heard “a chorus of voices that basically said, ‘This is not going to work, there is a bipartisan resolve not to let this happen, and you need to send a message back to the president that there’s a combined, unified view this is not the way to go and he should change course,’” Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Rogin after the private meeting.

One lawmaker described the sentiment toward Shanahan quite simply to NBC: “He lost my confidence.”

Graham has good reason to be upset

Trump has said ISIS in Syria is defeated, but that’s not really true.

The terrorist group has lost the vast majority of its territory in Syria (and Iraq) under Trump, mainly because of the US military’s thousands of airstrikes and the ground fighting by US allies on the ground. However, the Pentagon still says that ISIS has as many as 17,100 fighters in Syria, and about 30,000 total between Syria and Iraq. That’s about how many militants the group had at its peak strength in 2014.

This means that while ISIS is certainly far weaker as an organization than it was at its height, it’s still a long way from being truly “defeated.”

So for Trump to order US troops out — and for Shanahan, who is angling for the permanent Pentagon chief position, to seemingly let it happen without any push back — is certainly going to make Graham and other lawmakers mad.

But the dumbest effing idea ever? Well, that’s up to you.

https://www.vox.com/world/2019/2/20/182 ... trump-idea

<9



Tucker Carlson had a total meltdown when a guest criticized Fox News

Carlson to historian Rutger Bregman: “Go fuck yourself.”

By Dylan Matthews@dylanmattdylan@vox.com Feb 20, 2019, 2:50pm EST

Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host, has lately been trying to rebrand himself as a different kind of conservative — one who’s open to government intervention to help American workers, who cares more about stable families than free markets and low taxes, and who opposes both immigration and laissez-faire economics as forces hurting the American working class.

That, I suppose, explains why he offered to have Rutger Bregman on his show. Bregman is a Dutch leftist writer and historian who shot to stardom after he told attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — to their faces — that their taxes needed to go up, saying, “It feels like I’m at a firefighters conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water, right? Just stop talking about philanthropy and start talking about taxes.”

That fits well with Carlson’s new brand. But Bregman is also a vocal advocate of open borders and views Carlson’s change of heart as a convenient last-minute bait and switch by a right-wing network that’s ultimately out for its own interests. So their interview went … well, just watch:

https://youtu.be/6_nFI2Zb7qE

The interview starts off calmly enough, but ends with Carlson telling Bregman to “go fuck yourself”:

BREGMAN: You’re a millionaire funded by billionaires. That’s what you are. I’m glad you finally now jumped the bandwagon of people like Bernie Sanders and AOC, but you’re not part of the solution, Mr. Carlson. You’re part of the problem, actually.

CARLSON: But AOC — but could I just say, and …

BREGMAN: It’s true, right? That all the anchors on Fox …

CARLSON: You would have to be a moron …

BREGMAN: … they’re all millionaires! How is this possible? Well, it’s very easy, you’re just not talking about certain things.

CARLSON: Fox doesn’t even play where you are!

BREGMAN: “It doesn’t play where you are”? Well, have you heard of the internet? I can watch things, whatever I want, you know.

CARLSON: You haven’t even seen Fox before!

BREGMAN: I have, actually. I can’t say I’m a great fan of your show, but I do my homework when you invite me on your show. So you’re probably not going to air this.

CARLSON: I doubt it.

BREGMAN: But I went to Davos to speak truth to power, and I’m doing exactly the same thing right now. You may not like it but you’re a millionaire funded by billionaires, and that’s the reason why you’re not talking about these issues.

CARLSON: But I am talking about these issues.

BREGMAN: But only now, come on, you jumped the bandwagon. You’re like, “Oh, I’m against the globalist elite, blah blah blah.” It’s not very convincing, to be honest.

CARLSON: I want to say to you — why don’t you go fuck yourself, you tiny brain — and I hope this gets picked up because you’re a moron, I tried to give you a hearing but you were too fucking annoying …

BREGMAN: You can’t handle the criticism, can you?

If Carlson had actually read Bregman’s book Utopia for Realists, or read his interview with Vox where he condemns right-wing anti-immigrant populists like Donald Trump and Geert Wilders (and, by extension, Carlson), none of this would be surprising. Matching him up against Carlson — who has railed against “gypsies,” decried immigrants for making America “dirtier” and California a “third-world country,” and said that America’s changing racial demographics represent “more change than human beings are designed to digest” — was bound to end in a fight, one for which Carlson apparently wasn’t prepared.

For what it’s worth, a landmark paper in the American Economic Review in 2017 found that Fox News meaningfully shifts votes to Republicans in presidential elections, and that the network chooses to be more right-wing than it would be to maximize viewership. That is: The network’s billionaire owners and the management they’ve selected appear to be sacrificing some number of viewers, and potentially some amount of profit, in order to persuade more people to vote Republican and hold conservative beliefs.

I doubt they’re merely doing that to get tax cuts for Rupert Murdoch and the network’s other rich shareholders. But Bregman isn’t raising the possibility out of nowhere.

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/20/18233556/ ... -historian

<10



Tortoise feared extinct found on remote Galapagos island

an hour ago 2.20.19

LIMA, Peru (AP) — A living member of species of tortoise not seen in more than 110 years and feared to be extinct has been found in a remote part of the Galapagos island of Fernandina.

An adult female Chelonoidis phantasticus, also known as the Fernandina Giant Tortoise, was spotted Sunday by a joint expedition of the Galapagos National Park and the U.S.-based Galapagos Conservancy, Ecuador’s Environment Ministry said in a statement.

Investigators think there may be more members of the species on the island because of tracks and scat they found. The team took the tortoise, likely more than 100 years old, to a breeding center for giant tortoises on Santa Cruz Island where it will stay in a specially designed pen.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has the Fernandina Giant Tortoise listed as critically endangered and possibly extinct.

The only other living member of the species was found in 1906, the group said. Since then, expeditions have encountered tortoise scat and bite marks on cacti, and there was a possible unconfirmed sighting in 2009. But Sunday’s discovery was the first confirmed sighting and together with the possibility of finding more members of the species has raised the possibility of breeding.

“They will need more than one, but females may store sperm for a long time,” said Stuart Pimm, a professor of conservation ecology at Duke University. “There may be hope.”

Fernandina is the third largest Galapagos island and features the La Cumbre volcano, one of the most active in the world. The archipelago lies in the Pacific Ocean about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off Ecuador’s mainland.

In listing the Fernandina tortoise as possibly extinct, the conservation group said on its website that the species may have succumbed to “the frequent volcanic lava flows that nearly cover the island.”

The Galapagos archipelago hosts unique species and wildlife whose characteristics helped Charles Darwin develop his theory of evolution. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.

The Environment Ministry said the expedition was financed by Animal Planet for its series “Extinct or Alive.”

https://www.apnews.com/0bbb65b972734017821dcd9b70cd0bbe

<10



Coast Guard lieutenant arrested, accused of planning domestic terrorism

BY OWEN DAUGHERTY AND RACHEL FRAZIN - 02/20/19 05:39 PM EST

A lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Guard was arrested after the man accumulated a stash of guns and a political hit list, according to federal prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Christopher Paul Hasson, a self-proclaimed white nationalist, called for the use of violence to “establish a white homeland” and had a hit list of prominent Democrats, court records showed.

He is due in court on Thursday in Maryland to face gun and drug charges after his arrest last week.

Hasson has allegedly espoused extreme views for years. Court documents say that in June 2017, Hasson described an "interesting idea" in an email draft that included "biological attacks followed by attack on food supply."

Hasson was first arrested on gun and drug charges, but prosecutors later filed a motion for Hasson to be detained before his trial.

“The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country,” they said in court. “He must be detained pending trial.”

At Hasson’s home, law enforcement officials said they found 15 firearms and at least 1,000 rounds of ammunition.

Officials also said they found a list of politicians and journalists Hasson intended to kill.

The list allegedly includes Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) were allegedly listed as “poca warren” and “Sen blumen jew,” respectively, according to court documents.

Officials said Hasson wrote a letter to a prominent American neo-Nazi in which he advocated violence and described himself as a “long time White Nationalist" and a "skinhead."

“I never saw a reason for mass protest or wearing uniforms marching around provoking people with swastikas etc.,” he wrote.

“I was and am a man of action you cannot change minds protesting like that. However you can make change with a little focused violence.”

Hasson frequently read parts of a manifesto written by Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right Norwegian domestic terrorist whose attacks killed 77 people, according to prosecutors.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing ... g-domestic

<11



Wednesday's Mini-Report, 2.20.19

By Steve Benen 02/20/19 05:30PM

Today's edition of quick hits:

* In the criminal-justice world, this ruling is a big deal: "The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that the Constitution's ban on excessive fines applies to punishments imposed by the states as well as by the federal government."

* Trade talks: "President Trump gave his firmest indication yet that the U.S. may not increase tariffs on Chinese goods on March 1, as scheduled, despite statements by his top trade official that the U.S. should stick to a firm deadline."

* If Trump were to nominate Shanahan to lead the Pentagon, this could matter: "Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan clashed with Sen. Lindsey Graham over the administration's Syria policy during a briefing last weekend, prompting Graham to unleash a string of expletives and declare himself Shanahan's 'adversary,' according to two officials in the briefing and three others familiar with the conversation."

* Sulzberger's right: "A few hours after President Donald Trump described The New York Times in a tweet as 'a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,' A.G. Sulzberger, the newspaper's publisher, accused him of a 'reckless' and 'dangerous' attack that could put the lives of journalists at risk."

* In case you missed this last night: "President Donald Trump plans to nominate Jeffrey Rosen as the next deputy U.S. attorney general, the White House said on Tuesday night, the latest shuffle in the Justice Department at a time when it faces close scrutiny over its Russia investigation."

* Coats' precarious future: "President Trump has grown increasingly disenchanted with Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats, who has served as the nation's top intelligence official for nearly two years, leading some administration officials to worry he will soon be dismissed, according to people familiar with the matter."

http://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog

<

Good gracious this winter has been brutal here in Montana. Worst since I've been here. But because I believe in real science from real smart people without political agendas, like this former NASA scientists, I knew last year it was going to be bad for a while.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/11/16/nasa-slowdown-8146529/

You might be a Canadian soon, HB. Some moron wants to sell Montana to Canada.

Really? I had not heard that.

Have to keep it, just for Glacier National Park alone. Most beautiful spot in America, IMO.

I'd sell California coast back to Mexico though.

<1



POLITICS

The Impossible Job of Speaking Truth to Trump

How do you offer intelligence to a president who’s not interested—and keep your job?

KATHY GILSINAN

7:00 AM ET 2.21.19

Dan Coats was nervous. Ahead of his very first threat briefing to Congress nearly two years ago, he was having trouble keeping straight what he could say in the unclassified part and what he had to save for the classified portion. He had retired from the Senate just months before—now he’d been thrust into an entirely different kind of job as the director of national intelligence. In the words of one former colleague, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, he was a “fish out of water,” horrified that he might get something wrong.

What he wasn’t worried about, this person said, was the kind of conflict with the president that erupted after his most recent threat briefing this past January, when he and other intelligence officials gave testimony on issues like North Korea, Iran, and Russia that contradicted statements Trump has made. Trump’s lingering anger about that testimony, ahead of his upcoming North Korea summit, has now revived speculation that Trump might fire Coats. But what Coats wanted to do two years ago, and by many accounts has faithfully tried to do since, was represent the views of the intelligence community to a president not always inclined to hear them. That is at once the key requirement of his job and potentially the one that puts him in the most peril.

Coats thus has one of the most precarious positions in an administration where few jobs are safe. He oversees an intelligence workforce that prides itself on the spin-free presentation of facts, for a president prone to punishing purveyors of unpleasant truth. He is a lifelong politician in what’s supposed to be an apolitical profession, trying to protect his workforce from the political attacks of his own boss. Yet Coats is, for now, one of the last national-security officials remaining from the original Cabinet Trump appointed, despite differences with the president that sometimes spill into public view. That’s partly because he really tries to stay out of public view.

He admitted as much in an interview with Andrea Mitchell at the Aspen Security Forum last summer. This was not long after the American president, standing next to the Russian one in Helsinki, undermined Coats by name, reiterating Putin’s denial of the intelligence assessment that the Russians had meddled in U.S. elections. Trump then drew what many saw as an insulting, even dangerous, equivalence between the two accounts. (“I have confidence in both parties,” Trump said then.) Coats told Mitchell that he’d spent a lifetime as a politician trying to get his name in the paper, and now he just wanted to keep his name out of it. He then promptly made headlines with his astonished reaction when Mitchell informed him that Trump had invited Putin to Washington.

He held on through the “Trump is fuming” palace-intrigue stories that followed. He held on through the Twitter eruption that came after his threat briefing last month, when the president accused the intelligence community of being naive on Iran. Coats, a midwestern grandfather of 10 whose personality inspires an affectionate but narrow range of descriptions, from “affable” to “amiable,” does so in part by minimizing the public appearance of conflict—the threat-briefing dustup, for example, was quickly blamed on the media. But as The Washington Post reported this week, the president has never been close to Coats, and remains angry about his recent testimony and other statements Trump sees as undercutting him.

To the disappointment of some, Coats is not the guy standing athwart Trump yelling “Stop,” whether over Russia or over the president’s attacks on members of his workforce. His efforts to stay out of the news also come at the risk of limiting transparency and undermining public confidence in intelligence, at a time when the president is questioning its credibility. But former intelligence professionals, including people who have worked with Coats, told me that he’s been effective in walking the difficult line between sticking up for his people and maintaining access to the president. His repeated message to the workforce has been: Do your job.

The risk if this approach fails is much bigger than one man losing his difficult position. In early skirmishes with the intelligence community, Trump liked to point out how they got it wrong on weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. This does show that intelligence can be fallible, and dangerously so. But the political pressure on information-gathering that characterized that moment—when policy makers made clear their preference that analysts should try to find evidence that Iraq had such weapons—also holds a different lesson: When intelligence becomes politicized, the results can be deeply harmful to national security.

Coats is fond of joking that he tried to retire—twice. The second time, he’d spent 34 years in public service, including a stint in the Army and one as then-Representative Dan Quayle’s chief of staff. When Quayle moved on to the Senate in 1980, Coats got elected to his seat in the House, where he served for much of the decade; when Quayle moved to the vice presidency in 1989, Coats took his seat in the Senate, and stayed there for much of the 1990s before his first retirement. Then George W. Bush, having considered and passed him over for the secretary-of-defense job, sent him to Germany to serve as ambassador. Coats arrived in the country shortly before the September 11 attacks. He later had to own up to the German government about a big intelligence mistake in the war on terror—the CIA rendition and torture of an innocent German citizen mistaken for a terrorist.

“I’ve had from the beginning great respect for his ability, and he has been a very good and loyal friend,” says Richard Lugar, who served alongside Coats as the senior senator from Indiana. Coats was a family-values Republican who President George H. W. Bush once described as giving voice “to the values of the heartland”; he took standard 1990s-era conservative stands like opposing the participation of gay people in the military. When he returned to the Senate in 2011, he focused on cutting spending, becoming known for his “waste of the week” speeches highlighting what he viewed as misspending. For his last one, in 2017, he singled out Medicaid coverage for hair replacement.

Coats, who declined through a spokesperson to be interviewed for this article, wasn’t a Trump guy at first. He endorsed Marco Rubio in the primary and initially scolded the then-candidate for uncouth behavior on the campaign trail—including his disparagement of the Indiana-born judge Gonzalo Curiel, who Trump suggested couldn’t rule fairly on a Trump University–related lawsuit because of his Mexican heritage. He criticized Trump for his proposed Muslim ban; he joined the outcry over the Access Hollywood tape, calling his comments “totally inappropriate and disgusting.” But though there were a few Republican figures who withdrew their endorsements, Coats was not among them.

By the time he delivered his second farewell speech from the Senate floor—which he sheepishly guaranteed, to his family sitting in the gallery, would be his last—he was speaking of his “bright hopes” for the nation.

After all, it had been a good month. His beloved Chicago Cubs had finally won the World Series for the first time in his lifetime. Republicans had not only taken the presidency but had kept Congress. There was a fellow Hoosier, the former Indiana governor turned vice president Mike Pence, in the White House. Coats hadn’t decided exactly what he was going to do yet, but he was pretty clear it was going to be in Indiana. He and his wife had bought a house in Indianapolis.

It’s not clear that he was eager to take the job. It wasn’t just the prospect of giving up retirement. The position of director of national intelligence was created in the years after the September 11 attacks, when the 9/11 Commission faulted different agencies for failing to share with one another information that could have helped stop the attacks. The role is more coordinator than boss of America’s 16 other intelligence agencies; Coats has likened it to putting puzzle pieces together to get a picture of what the agencies know. Michael Hayden, the former CIA director, once called it “a job with far more responsibility than authority.”

Nor was Coats an obvious choice. He had served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, but he was not a lifelong intelligence professional like his predecessor, James Clapper. He was a retired politician headed to an avowedly apolitical workforce. There was, according to Coats’s former colleague, who served as an intelligence official, some internal skepticism, and perhaps even concern that he’d turn out to be more loyal to his boss than to his workforce.

There was also some relief. Even before his inauguration, Trump had set a hostile tone with the intelligence community, greeting intelligence leaks with tweeted fury: “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” Other appointees, like Rex Tillerson at the State Department, were coming to office with no government experience and no understanding of the agencies they would run. According to Nicholas Rasmussen, who reported to Coats for about a year as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center before leaving government, Coats was seen as someone who knew the intelligence community and respected the work of intelligence professionals. “And of course,” Rasmussen says, “that was not a given on the front end.”

Coats later explained, to Mitchell at Aspen, that he felt compelled to take the job, that giving something back to your country was reward beyond anything you could find in an easier or more lucrative job. But it was not fun. He said that he starts the day asking what went wrong while he was asleep. “I don't get to read about what went right,” he told Mitchell. “That's why I grab the sports page from The Washington Post hoping the Chicago Cubs had won last night. And then the day goes down from there.” He was chuckling as he said this, but it didn’t seem like he was totally kidding.

Coats is, by all accounts, a nice guy. One of the tougher questions at his confirmation hearings, from Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, began this way: “You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” Lankford wasn’t sure that was a good thing for the DNI to be; he wanted reassurance that Coats could be “tough.”

Coats endeavored to give it. But the question lingered. It was hard to picture a self-effacing double retiree going toe-to-toe with the blustering reality-show diva in the White House. He would, anyway, serve at the pleasure of the president. Was he really going to go to the mat for intelligence professionals in the face of a hostile boss? Could he command respect from someone inclined to dismiss—or worse, deride—the efforts of his workforce?

He was inheriting a tense relationship. Not long before he took the job, Clapper, his predecessor, had released a report summarizing the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally ordered the Russian meddling campaign in the 2016 elections, and had done so to benefit Trump. The president has several times cast doubt on these findings. Within days of tapping Coats for the DNI job in January 2017, Trump held a press conference at which he stated, “I think it was Russia” responsible for the election meddling, then reversed himself at the same event, saying, “It could have been others also.”

Trump has, however, always been emphatic that his campaign wasn’t assisted by Russia. But the question has driven his battle with one facet of the intelligence community in particular: the FBI. By Trump’s account, it was “this Russia thing, with Trump and Russia,” which he called a “made-up story,” that pushed him to fire then-FBI Director James Comey—setting in motion the investigation under Robert Mueller that has dogged him and undermined his presidency ever since.

The collusion question is Mueller’s domain, but Coats has never expressed doubt that Russia was behind the 2016 election interference. He has said it in public, and he said it to the president. One of his more forceful defenses of this conclusion came after Trump’s joint press conference with Putin in Helsinki last summer, where Trump said: “My people came to me—Dan Coats came to me and some others—they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

The response came in the form of a rare, succinct statement from Coats. The second of its two sentences read: “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.”

It was sober, even dry. But it was a dramatic counterpunch and as clear a public example to date of Coats’s approach to defending intelligence. Where retired intelligence figures like former CIA Director John Brennan had chosen direct attacks on Trump himself, Coats—who, after all, works for the guy, and whose workforce depends for its impact on him being able to share its analysis with the president—was low-key. He opted to reiterate facts.

Former intelligence officials who have worked with Coats told me that this practice is how he sticks up for the community. It lacks flair, but it’s honest. It lets lower-level officials and former officials—such as Peter Strzok and Lisa Page—get attacked without public rebuke. But it’s helped preserve Coats’s position so far.

“It would be pretty uncharitable of people to say he stood up for the [intelligence community] but he didn’t stand up with enough vigor,” says Rasmussen. “I don’t think that’s fair or realistic in the world we live in.”

One could still question the point of providing such facts to a president who is reportedly uninterested, determined to do what his gut tells him no matter what his analysts do or say. One could also argue that Coats, having been undermined publicly again and again, can’t effectively do his job and should resign. But Rasmussen has argued that Coats is not in the same position as, say, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who found that he couldn’t faithfully support the policies he was charged with carrying out. It’s not Coats’s job to execute policy, or even suggest it. Addressing reports that he might resign after Helsinki, he told Mitchell: “As long as I'm able to have the ability to seek the truth and speak the truth, I'm on board.”

He didn’t say what exactly might push him to jump ship.

Even for presidents who haven’t been accused of habitually distorting reality, the “truth to power” ethos can be unpleasant. It’s not fun to hear, for example, that the Taliban controls large portions of Afghanistan when you are determined to pull troops out, as Obama discovered before Trump. Presidents are not obligated to make policy based on intelligence assessments alone—and as examples from the Bay of Pigs to Iraq illustrate, intelligence officials can be wrong. As a matter of national security, though, presidents are obligated to at least consider the facts.

Coats understood this dynamic going in, and he even gave Trump the courtesy of a heads-up. Before one of his early briefings, Coats recounted later, he “took a big gulp of breath” and took Trump aside. “I said, ‘There are many times I'll be walking in here and bringing you information you might not want to hear or information you wish was different. And I'm going to—I just need to tell you my job is to give you the basic intelligence. You don't have to agree with it. You can ask for more information, but we have to have the kind of relationship that we can be open with each other.’”

Coats has also described the experience of briefing the president—how he will frequently interrupt with questions or detours such that the briefers have to keep returning to the central points. Anonymous officials were less charitable in describing the experience to Time magazine recently, saying that Trump displayed “willful ignorance” or reacted with anger to facts he didn’t like. Two of them told Time that they’d been warned not to tell Trump information that contradicted positions he’d taken in public—which would seriously undercut the entire point of intelligence briefings, and offer further evidence of a dangerous disinterest in crafting fact-based policies. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the report for The Atlantic.

Trump reacted angrily to one piece of this month’s intelligence threat briefing to Congress in particular, alleging that officials had underplayed the threat from Iran, when in fact they had not. Coats very clearly singled out Iran for its support of terrorism and its ballistic-missile inventory, which he called the largest in the Middle East. Iran was in fact one of the “big four” threats Coats detailed, also including Russia, China, and North Korea.

Coats and other officials did, however, describe assessments at odds with some of Trump’s statements. For North Korea, it was the fact of even calling the country a threat, when the president has tweeted that “there is no longer a Nuclear threat from North Korea.” For Iran, it was the judgment delivered by the CIA director that the regime was technically in compliance with the nuclear deal Trump condemned and then withdrew from—though this wasn’t a direct contradiction, since Trump’s problem from the beginning was the ”decaying and rotten” pact itself, wholly apart from the question of whether Iran was complying. On ISIS, it was the warning that the group still commands thousands of fighters and is returning to its guerrilla roots, though Trump at one point declared ISIS “defeated” in Syria before shifting his story.

On Russia, it was the contention that Moscow had not only interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections, but had also tried to meddle in the 2018 midterms.

Coats is not the only official to contradict Trump on factual assessments—it can be difficult not to, given that the president so frequently contradicts himself. Administration officials have offered different accounts than the president on a variety of issues, from Syria to China, and Trump has even differed from himself from one speech or tweet to another, or even within the same press conference. Some officials, like National Security Adviser John Bolton, opt to deny the contradictions.

Coats doesn’t typically do that, but he does not play up the conflict, and he can appear visibly uncomfortable revealing it. He doesn’t finesse the assessments either. “Nobody would ever call Dan Coats slick,” says Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who served with Coats and questioned him at the January threats hearing. “I’m not being disparaging. I think he gives his answers, makes his assessments, not in a calculating way.” Coats does not offer what Warner called an “alternative reality” to fit the president’s priorities; in his most recent threat briefing, for example, he made no mention of what Trump has characterized as a threat from migrants coming across the southern border.

“I value our intelligence community,” Trump tweeted following a meeting with intelligence officials concerning the January threat briefing. But if he felt reassured on intelligence officials’ view of the world, that didn’t mean he was inclined to stop criticizing individual personnel. Three tweets later, on the same day, he attacked by name the wife of the Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose security clearance he has threatened to revoke, along with those of several former intelligence officials.

Trump’s threats to security clearances—especially of a still-serving official like Ohr—may actually be more consequential to the intelligence workforce than his expressions of disregard for their product. In a profession that often deals in classified information, livelihoods depend on clearances. Then, of course, there was the five-week government shutdown, which stalled investigations and delayed paychecks at the FBI. The FBI Agents Association released a report during the shutdown in which field agents testified to damaged morale. Otherwise, it’s hard to measure the impact the president’s attitude has had across the 17-agency intelligence community.

Still, it’s never pleasant to work hard and get slammed by your boss in public. Coats has spoken glowingly of the intelligence workforce as a group of dedicated, purpose-driven professionals. He hasn’t scolded Trump in public for his attacks, but has said that he has tried to convey to him what the intelligence community’s role is. He has said that he won’t tolerate political influence on intelligence work. “There's a lot of swirl, political swirl, going around,” he told Mitchell at Aspen about how he speaks to his workforce. “Just do your jobs. Our goal is to make unpoliticized information necessary for our policy makers to make good decisions.” The attitude has won him praise from people who have worked with him, including former intelligence officials I spoke with. But it’s also earned him criticism from others, who feel he should stand up more forcefully to Trump.

“He’s kept his agency’s head down and vanished like a stick insect,” says Benjamin Wittes, a contributor to The Atlantic and the editor in chief of the influential national-security blog Lawfare. “I think it’s great.” But the time may be running out on that strategy. After all, there’s a long line of senior national-security officials in the Trump administration who, whether for reasons of principle or for angering the president, are no longer there.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... st/583198/

<2



JUSTICE

Alexander Acosta, Trump’s Labor Secretary, Broke the Law in Jeffrey Epstein Case: Judge

The ruling comes less than a month after the Department of Justice announced their own investigation into the billionaire’s secret plea deal.

Pilar Melendez

02.21.19 3:38 PM ET

Federal prosecutors in Florida—including President Trump’s current Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta—broke the law when they signed a secret plea agreement with billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a Palm Beach judge ruled Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra ruled that the decision to keep more than 30 of Epstein’s accusers in the dark about the non-prosecution deal that allowed Epstein, a prominent financier with political connections, to avoid federal prosecution was unconstitutional.

By signing the deal, Marra ruled, Acosta and other DOJ lawyers violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA), which guarantees victims the right to speak with prosecutors.

“Petitioners and the other victims should have been notified of the Government’s intention to take that course of action before it bound itself under” a plea agreement, Marra wrote in the 33-page opinion, which mentioned Acosta multiple times.

The evidence, the judge concluded, shows that Epstein, 66, violated federal law in 2008 by running an international sex trafficking operation that recruited underage girls, often times bringing them to the U.S. from overseas.

[ DONALD - A MUST READ ]

“Epstein used paid employees to find and bring minor girls to him,’’ Marra wrote. “Epstein worked in concert with others to obtain minors not only for his own sexual gratification, but also for the sexual gratification of others.’’

A bombshell Miami Herald report revealed how Epstein—who has been accused of molesting more than 100 underage girls—was granted the sweetheart plea deal by Acosta and other DOJ attorneys after mounting pressure by Epstein’s defense lawyers.

“When the Government gives information to victims, it cannot be misleading,” the judge wrote. “While the Government spent untold hours negotiating the terms and implications of the NPA with Epstein’s attorneys, scant information was shared with victims. Instead, the victims were told to be ‘patient’ while the investigation proceeded.”

Those lawyers, including Sexgate prosecutor Ken Starr and celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz, created the secret 2008 plea deal with Acosta, who was then Miami’s top federal prosecutor, and other attorneys unbeknownst to the billionaire’s alleged victims, the Herald investigation found.

“Particularly problematic was the Government’s decision to conceal the existence of the NPA and mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility,” the judge wrote on Thursday about the secret plan that effectively buried dozens of sexual-abuse claims.

Epstein, instead of facing life in prison for sex trafficking, only pleaded guilty to two minor charges of solicitation of prostitution and procurement of minors for prostitution. He ultimately served 13 months of an 18-month prison sentence.

Thursday’s decision concluded an 11-year investigation into Epstein’s plea agreement, which revealed hundreds of emails showing how Acosta and other prosecutors worked with Epstein’s legal team to conceal the deal from victims and the public.

“This is a huge victory but this should not have happened in the first place,” said Brad Edwards, the attorney who brought the case on behalf of Epstein’s victims. “These women have spent 11 years fighting for justice.”

Edwards, who has had his own legal battle with Epstein, said the judge’s ruling did not give a solution to the unconstitutional plea deal, and instead gave the government and victims 15 days to jointly decide a resolution.

The decision comes less than a month after the Department of Justice announced it has opened an investigation into Epstein’s sweetheart plea deal to determine whether department lawyers “committed professional misconduct” during his prosecution.

“For more than a decade, the actions of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida in this case have been defended by the Department of Justice in litigation across three administrations and several attorneys general,” a Department of Justice spokesperson told The Daily Beast Thursday. “The office’s decisions were approved by departmental leadership and followed departmental procedures.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/alexander ... e?ref=home

<3



Rare snow dusts Vegas strip, sticks to LA-area foothills

By KEN RITTER and MICHELLE L. PRICE

46 minutes ago 2.21.19

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Winter storms in the U.S. Southwest brought snow to places it rarely falls, dusting casino marquees on the Las Vegas Strip and sticking at very low elevations on the foothills around Southern California.

“No need to panic Los Angeles — the LAPD is on snow watch,” the city’s police department tweeted, along with video of a light flurry.

Snow fell in the Santa Monica Mountains above the Malibu coast. In the nearby celebrity haven of Calabasas, actor Jerry O’Connell recorded video of himself as snow fell on his car and quickly melted. “It is snowing in Calabasas — crazy,” he said.

The National Weather Service had said the snow level could lower to 1,000 feet (305 meters).

Earlier, the storm coated large areas of desert northeast of Los Angeles, temporarily halting traffic on various state routes.

The rare snowfall at low levels in Nevada prompted revelers to erect a snowman near the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.

The weather service reported the first significant snowfall at McCarran International Airport in a decade with 0.8 inches (2 centimeters) falling by Thursday afternoon.

“We don’t have snowplows,” airport spokeswoman Christine Crews said as she tallied about 100 flight cancellations because of snow and ice. “But we have airfield maintenance vehicles and sweepers ready to go.”

Some suburban foothill areas near Las Vegas were white after getting several inches of snow. On the casino-lined Las Vegas Strip, the snow was fleeting, melting faster than a bad gambler’s luck.

“We expected cold, but not snow,” tourist Lila de Guerrero said after taking a photo at the Las Vegas sign wearing a puffer coat and hat.

De Guerrero, who is visiting from El Salvador, said it was the first time she had ever seen snow.

German tourist Daniela Huber said she was surprised that her vacation to the desert wasn’t much of an escape from winter.

“We thought it was strange because we came from Germany, where it snows all the time,” she said.

Outside the city, authorities closed portions of the main routes from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and Phoenix because of snow, ice and limited visibility.

The California snow arrived with a very cold storm that added even more precipitation in a wet winter that has almost eliminated drought conditions statewide.

The emergency management office in St. Paul, Minnesota, tweeted advice to Los Angeles residents on how to safely walk on ice and snow.

“It’s beautiful,” said Kate Porter, a resident of the desert community of Joshua Tree.

A foot of snow (30 centimeters) was reported in that area at Pioneertown, the National Weather Service said. Similar amounts were reported in the upper elevations of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains.

Rare “thundersnow” was observed at Big Bear in the San Bernardino range, where road closures were being reported.

Snow closed heavily traveled Interstate 5 in Tejon Pass north of Los Angeles until Caltrans crews could clear the roadway, allowing traffic to resume under Highway Patrol escorts. To the east, Interstate 15 over Cajon Pass remained open but with some slowing because of conditions.

Snowstorms also blanketed other parts of the Southwest, forcing the closure of Interstate 40 and an airport in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Barney Helmick, director of the Flagstaff Pulliam Airport, said its only runway closed when the visibility level hit zero. Intense snow also forced the closure of schools and businesses in the region.

https://www.apnews.com/bd78a62ecaf7401bb1a3cc4846b3a432

<4



Los Angeles sees first snow in years

BY RACHEL FRAZIN - 02/21/19 06:43 PM EST

It snowed in the city of Los Angeles on Thursday, a rare event creating excitement and confusion in the metro area, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"At Noon, scattered rain and snow showers becoming more numerous across #SoCal," tweeted the Los Angeles branch of the National Weather Service. "Isolated thunderstorms are possible along with small hail."

The NWS also explained the difference between sleet and snow to Californians on Twitter.

"Lots of confusion today. If precip bounces it contains ice - call it sleet or small hail," the agency tweeted. "If precip in flakes it's snow."

A NWS scientist told the L.A. Times that the snow could drop as far down as 1,000 feet above sea level. Forecasters told the paper that local highways could experience significant delays. If the snow fell in downtown L.A. it would be the first time since 1962, the paper found.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff and others also tweeted pictures of the snow.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... since-1962

<5



North Carolina board calls for new election in contested House race

BY MAX GREENWOOD - 02/21/19 04:06 PM EST

The North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously Thursday to call a new election in the state’s 9th Congressional District after days of hearing evidence of alleged ballot fraud.

The decision came after Republican Mark Harris, one of the candidates in the race, expressed support for a new election, saying that allegations of a ballot-tampering scheme marred the current results.

Harris's request for a new election was a stunning reversal for the Republican House candidate.

Initial results showed Harris leading Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes. But state election officials refused to the certify the Republican hopeful as the winner after they received accounts of a ballot-harvesting operation.

“I believe a new election should be called,” Harris said Thursday. “It’s become clear to me that public confidence in the 9th District has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted.”

The vote capped off four days of witness testimonies detailing an alleged scheme by Leslie McCrae Dowless, a political operative hired by Harris’s campaign, to pay workers to collect absentee ballots from voters in rural Bladen County.

Under North Carolina state law, only a voter or a close relative can turn in or mail an absentee ballot.

The allegations have left the fate of the race for North Carolina’s 9th District in limbo for months.

Since then, Democrats have called for a new election in the district, arguing that the alleged scheme had undermined confidence in the results. Republicans, meanwhile, asserted that not enough ballots were affected by Dowless’s alleged operation to change the race's outcome.

But the Republican Party reversed its position on the matter Thursday, after Harris said the evidence presented during the hearing showed that a new election was warranted.

"Through the testimony I've listened to over the last three days, I believe a new election should be called,” Harris said at the hearing on Thursday. “It has become clear to me that the public's confidence in the 9th District seat general election has been undermined to an extent that a new election is warranted."

The board’s vote to order a new election drew unanimous support from its two Republican and three Democratic members. In order for the panel to call a new election, at least four of its five members were required to vote for it.

The board’s decision to declare a new election sets up a new round of primary elections in North Carolina’s 9th District, meaning that Harris and McCready will have to vie for their parties’ nominations once again.

It was not immediately clear whether Harris will run in the new election. Former Rep. Robert Pittenger (R-N.C.), whom Harris vanquished in a primary last year, said last month that he would not run again if a new election were to be called.

Exactly when a new election will be held remains unclear. Josh Lawson, the general counsel for the elections board, said members will have to meet again to vote on new election dates.

Harris has said repeatedly that he was not aware that Dowless’s absentee ballot operation may have been illegal. He reiterated that point on Thursday in his call for a new election.

"Neither I nor any of the leadership in my campaign were aware of or condone the improper activities that have been testified to in this hearing," he said.

But throughout the hearing, witnesses have described lax oversight by Harris’s campaign over Dowless’s activities.

Andy Yates, a co-founder of consulting firm Red Dome and the top consultant for Harris’s campaign, told the board this week that he reimbursed Dowless for his campaign-related work without requiring invoices or receipts.

Harris’s son, John Harris, also testified in the hearing on Wednesday that he told his father in 2017 he suspected that Dowless’s absentee ballot work may have been unlawful. Despite those warnings, the elder Harris directed Dowless’s hiring.

“I thought what he was doing was illegal, and I was right,” John Harris told the elections board on Wednesday.

In a tweet on Thursday, McCready called the election board’s decision “a great step forward for democracy in North Carolina.”

“From the moment the first vote was stolen in North Carolina, from the moment the first voice was silenced by election fraud, the people have deserved justice,” he wrote. “Today was a great step forward for democracy in North Carolina.”

Less than an hour after the board voted, McCready began fundraising for a new election, suggesting that he is planning to run for the seat once again. His campaign sent an email to supporters on Thursday afternoon directing them to ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s online fundraising platform.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... house-race

<6



Dem candidate: New NC election a ‘great step forward for democracy’

BY TAL AXELROD - 02/21/19 05:15 PM EST

Dan McCready, the Democratic candidate in a contested North Carolina House race, on Thursday praised the North Carolina State Board of Elections’ (NCSBE) decision to call a new election in light of allegations of ballot fraud by members of the Republican candidate’s campaign.

“From the moment the first vote was stolen in North Carolina, from the moment the first voice was silenced by election fraud, the people have deserved justice. Today was a great step forward for democracy in North Carolina,” McCready tweeted.

The NCSBE’s announcement came after Republican candidate Mark Harris called for a new election to be held, suggesting that the ballot fraud allegations threw the November results into question.

Initial tallies showed Harris defeating McCready by 905 votes, but state officials refused to certify the results after accusations of ballot harvesting began to bubble up across North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.

Witnesses testified this week detailing the alleged efforts of Leslie McCrae Dowless, a political operative hired by Harris’s campaign, to pay workers to pick up absentee ballots from voters in rural areas. North Carolina law stipulates that only a voter or a close relative can hand in or mail an absentee ballot.

While Republicans had initially claimed there were not enough affected ballots to alter the outcome, the state party changed its tune this week. Democrats had been clamoring for months for a new election.

“North Carolina Republicans, following Mark Harris’ lead, repeatedly lied to the people of the Ninth district, silenced their voices, and undermined our state’s faith in our democracy. This saga could have only ended in a new election, and we look forward to repairing the harm dealt by Republicans and giving the people of the Ninth district the representative they deserve,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin said in a statement.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... -democracy

<7



WHITE HOUSE

Trump stays silent on media-hating Coast Guard officer

But when it comes to those insulting MAGA-ites, Trump relishes jumping in.

By ANDREW RESTUCCIA 02/21/2019 07:08 PM EST

When Chicago police accused actor Jussie Smollett of fabricating a story about being attacked by MAGA-loving bigots, President Donald Trump was quick to weigh in. “What about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments!?” he wrote on Twitter.

And when Catholic high school student Nick Sandmann filed a lawsuit against The Washington Post this week over its coverage of last month’s confrontation between the teenager and a Native American elder, Trump couldn’t help himself. “Go get them Nick,” he declared. “Fake News!”

But more than 24 hours after news broke that a Coast Guard officer — an avowed white nationalist — was allegedly plotting to kill Democratic politicians and journalists, Trump has, at least so far, not said a word.

Asked for comment, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “The president and the entire administration have condemned violence in all forms as we have stated many times.” Sanders did not respond to questions about whether Trump planned to tone down his rhetoric.

Trump’s silence is notable for a president who never hesitates to spout off about issues large and small, from Venezuelan politics to "Saturday Night Live." It reflects a deep sensitivity by the president and his aides to accusations that his verbal assault on the free press, personalized attacks on political targets and racially charged language could incite violence. But it also illustrates a tactic that those who know Trump say he has used for decades to shape coverage while tearing down his opponents — comment on the issues he wants to amplify and get covered, while ignoring those that don’t fit his preferred narrative.

“Long before he arrived at the White House, President Trump learned to use media coverage to build a brand and shape positive narratives,” said a former White House official, who was granted anonymity to characterize the president’s approach to the media.

News of the alleged domestic terror plot comes the same week that the president has ramped up his criticism of the media, insisting that The New York Times is “a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE,” despite warnings from the newspaper’s publisher that such rhetoric puts journalists in danger. He also went after The Washington Post’s fact checker, a section that tracks Trump’s misstatements.

People close to the president argue that Trump shouldn’t be held responsible for the actions of a small group of disturbed individuals who happen to support him. And Trump’s allies don’t believe he has any intention of curbing his criticism of the press. They also note that some members of the Trump administration have been targeted by the president’s critics, including Sanders, who was asked to leave a restaurant, and senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, who recently disclosed that she was assaulted at a restaurant last year.

The president regularly fumes in public and in private about negative coverage of him, and he also believes there’s a political utility to undercutting the reporters who cover him, according to people who know him. It’s a strategy he’s been turning to most of his adult life, dating to his time in New York, where he would regularly engage with — and spar with — tabloid reporters.

“So, to a large extent he does it naturally, but his use of the media is also a product of a deliberate strategy to advance his own ideas and undercut contrary narratives,” the former White House official said.

Trump has often avoided engaging in a fulsome debate about the impact of his rhetoric, including after Cesar Sayoc’s October 2018 arrest for mailing a series of bombs to some of Trump’s political opponents.

After the incident, Trump called for unity during a rally in Wisconsin, saying, “No nation can succeed that tolerates violence or the threat of violence as a method of political intimidation, coercion, or control. We all know that. Such conduct must be fiercely opposed and firmly prosecuted.”

But the next day, he blamed the media. “A very big part of the Anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the Mainstream Media that I refer to as Fake News,” he tweeted. “It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!”

Watchdog groups continue to have deep concerns about the president’s attacks on the press. They warn his rhetoric is being repeated by dictators around the world.

“It’s irresponsible and dangerous,” said Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists. “When we talk to journalists, they feel less safe than they used to.”

A January CPJ analysis found that Trump sent more than 1,300 tweets critical of the media since becoming a presidential candidate. Though Trump tweets less overall as president than he did as a candidate, CPJ found that Trump tweets critical of the press have nonetheless increased during the first two years of his presidency.

At the same time, the number of journalists imprisoned around the world on false news charges has risen to 28, compared with nine two years ago, according to a December 2018 report from CPJ.

Even U.S. journalists have faced violence and intimidation in recent months. In June 2018, a gunman killed five employees at the Capital Gazette in Maryland when he opened fire in the newsroom. CNN evacuated its New York office due to a bomb threat in December 2018. And earlier this month, a Trump supporter shoved a BBC cameraman at a rally.

Trump has occasionally made light of some of these violent incidents, joking last fall about a Republican congressman convicted of assault for body-slamming a reporter.

Still, most analysts are careful about directly blaming Trump for violence against journalists.

“I think it’s very difficult to draw a bright line between what comes out of the president’s mouth or his Twitter account and action from other individuals,” said Kathleen Bartzen Culver, director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “But that doesn’t mean we should accept a normalization of this rhetoric.”

Trump’s allies have pounced on journalists and others who were quick to connect Trump to the Smollett and Covington Catholic incidents, arguing that the president’s critics are so eager to cast the president and his supporters in a negative light that they don’t wait for all the facts to emerge.

But others haven’t exhibited the same caution when it comes to finger-pointing. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, who has publicly sparred with the president, didn’t hold back on Thursday morning.

“This is pretty simple,” Scarborough said. “It’s all on the president’s shoulders, it’s all the president’s fault, and he sits there with his mouth shut for once in his life, doesn’t say anything, doesn’t tweet anything — which of course makes it even more on him.”

Scarborough was among the members of the media on the hit list of U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson, who was arrested earlier this month, according to authorities. Others included MSNBC hosts Chris Hayes and Ari Melber, and CNN's Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo and Van Jones.

Scarborough and others have noted that news of the alleged plot to kill Democratic politicians and journalists broke just hours after New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger chastised Trump for calling the Times the “enemy of the American people” after it published an account of the president’s efforts to undercut the investigations encircling him.

“The phrase ‘enemy of the people’ is not just false, it’s dangerous. It has an ugly history of being wielded by dictators and tyrants who sought to control public information. And it is particularly reckless coming from someone whose office gives him broad powers to fight or imprison the nation’s enemies,” Sulzberger wrote. “As I have repeatedly told President Trump face to face, there are mounting signs that this incendiary rhetoric is encouraging threats and violence against journalists at home and abroad.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/ ... er-1179749

<8




Thursday's Mini-Report, 2.21.19

By Steve Benen 02/21/19 05:30PM

Today's edition of quick hits:

* A terrifying story: "A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant working in the nation's capital lived a secret life as a 'domestic terrorist' who aspired to mass murder and compiled a target list of prominent politicians and journalists, federal prosecutors allege in court papers."

* This controversy is just getting started: "In the weeks before his inauguration, top officials on President Trump's inaugural committee repeatedly sounded alarms about the budgets submitted by several vendors, according to correspondence, committee records and draft budgets reviewed by The Wall Street Journal."

* It sounds like the White House never really tried: "The Trump administration has broken off talks with the California Air Resources Board over vehicle fuel-efficiency standards and is on track to roll back standards set by President Barack Obama, the White House said Thursday."

* Another successful strike: "West Virginia teachers said they would return to their schools Thursday after two days out on strike. Their announcement came late Wednesday when a bill pushing charter schools and education savings accounts died in the state legislature."

* Israeli politics, Part I: "After two weeks of efforts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded in forming a united ultra right-wing party that will run in the April 9 elections, paving the way for Jewish supremacists from the 'Jewish Power' party to make it into the next Knesset."

* Israeli politics, Part II: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's two main rivals are joining forces for April's elections, a move that poses a serious challenge to the right-wing leader's bid for a record fifth term."

* Mark your calendars: "Michael D. Cohen has agreed to testify in public next Wednesday before Congress about his work as President Trump's personal lawyer and longtime fixer, but lawmakers said they would limit the scope of their questioning in deference to the special counsel."

http://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog

<

<1



U.S.

DONALD TRUMP'S TAX CUTS HAND BANKS $28.8 BILLION: ‘HARDWORKING AMERICANS...ARE STILL GETTING NEXT TO NOTHING’

BY SHANE CROUCHER ON 2/22/19 AT 6:30 AM

America’s big banks took $28.8 billion more in profit during 2018 thanks to President Donald Trump’s tax cuts, according to new data.

At the same time, ordinary Americans who expected to be better off are receiving smaller tax refunds from the IRS in the wake of Trump’s reforms.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) said on Thursday that net income for the banking industry hit $236.7 billion during the year, a 44.1 percent rise.

Without Trump’s massive pack of tax cuts, which passed Congress at the end of 2017, the FDIC said net income would have been $207.9 billion.

FDIC Chairman Jelena McWilliams said that stronger banking revenues, the “current economic expansion [which] is the second-longest on record,” and lower taxes drove profits up.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 2017, worth $1.5 trillion, slashed taxes across the board. It reduced corporation tax to a flat rate of 21 percent, down from higher rates of 35 percent, 34 percent and 25 percent, depending on the size of a company’s taxable income.

Pitched as a stimulus package that would be self-funding by spurring economic activity, the tax cuts have so far reduced Treasury revenues, widened America’s deficit and added more to the now $22 trillion national debt.

When Trump was elected in 2016, the size of the deficit measured as a portion of GDP was 3.2 percent, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data.

By the end of 2018, it had increased to 3.9 percent, despite a period of strong economic growth.

And it is forecast to hit 4.2 percent in 2019 as the Treasury borrows more to cover the income lost through Trump's tax cuts.

Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, a campaign group for financial reform and tighter regulation, called on banks to lift savers in the form of better interest rates.

He told Politico that a slice of bank profits “were from the Trump tax cuts, which they didn’t pass along to tens of millions of hardworking Americans, who are still getting next to nothing on their savings accounts.”

IRS figures also showed that Trump’s tax cuts were not necessarily filtering down to the average American, with some facing higher-than-expected tax bills.

Data released on February 14 revealed that the average tax refund was down 8.7 percent from the previous year: from $2,135 to $1,949.

Moreover, while 13.5 million tax refunds had been issued at this stage last year, the number has dropped to 11.4 million this year—a 16 percent decline.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-tax-cuts ... er-1340447

<2



MONEY

These Are Your Tax Payment Options If You Owe The IRS This Year

An estimated 3 million more Americans will owe taxes on April 15.

By Casey Bond

02/22/2019 05:51pm ET

There are nearly two months left before tax day, and it looks as if fewer filers will receive a refund this year.

About 30 million Americans will owe the IRS money for 2018 — 3 million more than before the Republicans’ Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect. Many of those who already filed their taxes and were hit with a bill were shocked. Maybe that includes you.

So why do you suddenly owe taxes? And what can you do if you can’t afford the bill? Here’s what you need to know.

Why Do I Owe Taxes?

Finding out you owe taxes when you thought you were going to get a refund is definitely disappointing. And if you were counting on that refund to pay off debt or catch up on bills, owing can create an even bigger financial headache. But it’s important to understand that just because you owe more this April doesn’t necessarily mean you paid more taxes in 2018.

The new tax law made major changes to tax brackets, reducing tax rates for almost every income level and filing status, said Logan Allec, a certified public accountant and creator of the savings website Money Done Right.

“After this new tax law was passed, the IRS and Treasury Department promptly adjusted the payroll withholding tables, which employers use to calculate how much taxes should be withheld from employees’ paychecks,” he explained. Since the tax rates were reduced, “changes to the withholding tables generally resulted in a smaller amount of federal income taxes being withheld from employees’ paychecks every pay period.”

If you usually have more withheld from your pay, unless you updated your W-4 for 2018, you might have ended up underpaying.

There is also a chance your tax liability increased last year. “Despite its name, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act certainly didn’t provide a tax cut for all Americans,” Allec said.

For example, there is now a $10,000 deduction cap on state and local taxes. So if you live in an area with high state and local taxes, such as property taxes, you probably lost the ability to write off a portion of them. The same goes if you own a home where property values are high, since the mortgage interest deduction cap was lowered.

“Another group adversely affected by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are those who have significant unreimbursed business expenses,” Allec said. Before 2018, a taxpayer who itemized deductions could deduct work-related expenses such as mileage on personal vehicles and out-of-pocket travel costs if those expenses exceeded 2 percent of the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income. “This is no longer the case for tax year 2018.”

Though the standard deduction was increased significantly to offset the loss of many tax deductions, if you previously relied on valuable tax write-offs that are now gone, you could end up in the red. Combine that with improper tax withholding, and you could end up owing a hefty bill this April.

Ideally, Pay In Full

If you can afford to pay your tax bill on time and in full, that’s the best course of action. It’s important to note that even if you are approved for a filing extension, at least 90 percent of your tax payment is still due by April 15.

There are a number of ways to make your payment to the IRS, some of which are free. Others, however, require a fee.

* IRS Direct Pay: One of the most straightforward ways to pay your taxes is through the IRS’ Direct Pay platform, which deducts your payment directly from your bank account. “Keep in mind that to use this option, you will need to have your 2017 tax return on hand. The IRS will use this information to verify that you really are you,” Allec said.

* IRS2Go app: Even Uncle Sam has an app, which is available from the Apple App Store, Google Play Store and Amazon. With the app, you can pay via IRS Direct Pay or by credit or debit card, which is subject to fees. (More on that below.)

* Digital wallet: You can also pay your tax bill through your digital wallet, such as Visa Checkout or Android Pay. One processor, payUSAtax, lets you pay your taxes from a PayPal account. To do so, go to the credit card payment page on your mobile phone and pick which payment process you’d like to use (subject to fees).

* Electronic Federal Tax Payment System: The EFTPS is the Treasury Department’s secure system for making tax payments. If you want to pay your taxes via the EFTPS, you’ll have to enroll in the program first. (It’s free.) “Keep in mind that the enrollment process involves a bit of snail mail and can take a week or two from start to finish,” Allec said. You can’t make same-day payments with this method.

*Electronic funds withdrawal: If you used tax preparation software or hired a tax professional, you can simply supply your bank account information and the IRS will withdraw what you owe. “The IRS does not charge a fee for paying taxes in this way, but check with your bank about any fees they may charge you,” Allec said.

* Personal check, money order or cashier’s check: Include your current address and phone number somewhere on the check or money order. In the memo section, write “2018 Form 1040” and your Social Security number. Complete Form 1040-V and send it with your payment to the address listed on Page 2 of the Form 1040-V instructions. “Keep in mind that while there is no fee for paying this way, your bank may charge you a fee for preparing the money order or cashier’s check,” Allec said. He recommends sending your payment via certified mail with return receipt, which can cost a few dollars.

* Wire transfer: If you need to make a same-day payment to the IRS, you can do so with a wire transfer, which will likely require you to visit your bank. “Be sure to complete the IRS same-day taxpayer worksheet and bring it with you,” Allec said. “There is no fee charged by the IRS on incoming wire transfers, but your bank may charge you a fee on the outgoing transfer.”

* Cash: “There is actually a somewhat involved process to paying your tax bill in cash,” Allec said. The first step is to sign up at the Official Payments website. After the IRS verifies your information, which can take two to three days, you will receive an email with your unique payment code and location of the retail store where you will complete the transaction. Paying your tax bill in cash is fairly expensive, at $3.99 per payment, and you are limited to $1,000 in payments per day.

IRS Payment Options If You Can’t Afford Your Taxes

If you can’t afford to pay your entire tax bill right away, don’t panic. You’re definitely not the only one, and you have options.

Keep in mind that if you owe taxes to the IRS and can’t pay in full, it’s imperative that you still file your tax return on time, said Kathy Pickering, the executive director of the Tax Institute at H&R Block. That’s because filing late will result in penalties that are even higher than paying late.

Here’s what you can do if you can’t afford to pay your taxes in full:

1. Request a short-term extension to pay the full balance

If you need only a few months to come up with your full payment, your best course of action is likely to request a payment extension. In this case, the IRS will provide up to 120 days to pay the amount.

Although there’s no fee to request the extension, the IRS will charge a penalty of 0.5 percent per month on the unpaid balance, plus interest, said Pickering. “This option is convenient for taxpayers who need a short time to pay their full tax bill. ... With short-term extensions, you avoid the installment payment application fee but not late-payment penalties and interest.”

2. Set up an installment agreement with the IRS

If you need more than 120 days to pay off your tax bill, you can set up an installment plan with the IRS. According to Pickering, the type of agreement you can qualify for depends on your situation, including how much you owe and how soon you can pay the balance.

For example, if you opt for a long-term payment plan (lasting more than 120 days) and agree to automatic payment withdrawals, it costs $107 to set up by phone, mail or in person. If you apply online, the fee is just $31. Low-income taxpayers are charged $31, regardless of how the plan is set up, though that fee may be waived if certain conditions are met.

If you choose the long-term plan without automatic payments, those fees rise to $225 by phone, mail or in person; $149 online; and $43 for low-income taxpayers, with some low-income taxpayers eligible to have the $43 waived.

Under an installment plan, the penalty on your unpaid balance falls to 0.25 percent per month. Interest is charged at the short-term federal rate plus 3 percentage points, according to Pickering. Interest may change each quarter.

3. Apply for an offer in compromise

If paying your full tax bill would result in financial hardship, you might be able to settle for less than you owe. This is known as an offer in compromise, which the IRS evaluates case by case.

In general, the IRS considers a person’s ability to pay, income, expenses and asset equity when determining eligibility to settle. To be considered, you have to be up to date on all tax filing and payment requirements, and you can’t have an open bankruptcy proceeding. The IRS says on its website, “We generally approve an offer in compromise when the amount offered represents the most we can expect to collect within a reasonable period of time.”

4. Pay with a credit card

If you want more flexibility in how you pay off your tax bill, you might consider charging it to a credit card.

This can be an expensive option. As mentioned above, all the IRS-approved credit card processors charge a fee, from 1.87 to 2.35 percent of the balance due. That convenience fee could be even higher if you file through a tax preparation service such as TurboTax or H&R Block.

Your credit card likely charges double-digit annual interest on the amount owed. Plus, “higher credit card balances could negatively impact your credit score, and paying with credit may not be appropriate for people with unmanageable credit card debt,” Pickering said.

One way to make this payment option more affordable is to use a card temporarily charging 0 percent. You can apply for an account offering 0 percent to new customers or ask your current card issuer to reduce your rate. Usually, these deals last 12 to 18 months, during which you can pay down the balance interest-free.

If you’re able to do that, paying the credit card processing fee and getting a year or more to pay off your tax bill (and potentially earning some reward points) could be a better deal than setting up a plan through the IRS.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/owe-taxe ... 7a1ed6386d

<3



POLITICS

Russian-backed US energy company hires lobbying firm with connections to Trump to help with China deal

Brian Schwartz

PUBLISHED THU, FEB 21 2019 • 3:04 PM EST | UPDATED THU, FEB 21 2019 • 6:29 PM EST

KEY POINTS

A lobbying firm run by former advisors to President Donald Trump is representing American Ethane Company, an energy producer funded by Russian billionaires that is involved with a Chinese aluminum company.

Turnberry Solutions, a lobbying group run by former Trump campaign advisor Jason Osborne, has signed American Ethane as a client, according to a new lobbying disclosure form.

American Ethane touts a contract it signed with the Nanshan Group, an aluminum production company based in China. The deal was signed at a ceremony in November 2017 in front of Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping.

Turnberry touts former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and onetime Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke as senior advisors.

A lobbying firm run by former advisors to President Donald Trump is representing American Ethane Company, an energy producer funded by Russian billionaires that is involved with a Chinese aluminum company.

Turnberry Solutions, a lobbying group run by former Trump campaign advisor Jason Osborne, has signed American Ethane as a client, according to a new lobbying disclosure form. The filing was posted on the Senate lobbying disclosure website on Tuesday.

The document shows that Osborne and Ryan O’Dwyer, who previously was a special assistant to the secretary of Agriculture and a senior public liaison to Trump’s inaugural committee, will be the lobbyists representing American Ethane on trade and energy issues.

American Ethane touts a contract it signed with the Nanshan Group, an aluminum production company based in China. The development also comes as the Trump administration is engaged in high-stakes trade talks with the Chinese government.

“Ryan O’Dwyer and I were hired to help a U.S. company get permits issued to them to fulfill a contract signed during a signing ceremony between President Trump and President Xi,” Osborne told CNBC. The deal was signed at a ceremony in November 2017 in front of Trump and China’s president, Xi Jinping.

Osborne also said their work entails getting members of Congress in Louisiana and Texas to submit official inquiries through the U.S. government and the Chinese government in the hopes their contract would be honored.

Turnberry also touts former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and onetime Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke as senior advisors. Zinke resigned from the administration last year amid numerous ethics investigations and complaints, while Lewandowski has reportedly continued to advise Trump from an outside position.

The filing lays out the top two foreign investors backing the ethane producer. Konstantin Nikolaev, a Russian billionaire with an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion, is listed as an investor with a 30 percent stake in the company.

According to Forbes, Nikolaev and his business partners own a 34 percent stake in Globaltrans, Russia’s biggest private rail transport operator. Another financier is Andrey Kunatbaev, a Russian billionaire who helped start TV-3, a Russian entertainment channel, according to American Ethane’s website. Kunatbaev is also a member of the company’s board, the website says.

It’s unclear how much American Ethane is paying Turnberry for their lobbying services.

American Ethane CEO John Houghtaling did not return requests for comment.

Turnberry signed with the Russian-backed energy firm as the White House continues to be haunted by suspicions about the president and his associates’ potential connections to the Kremlin. Trump has repeatedly denied colluding with the Russian government as part of efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.

Turnberry also lobbies for wireless company T-Mobile and energy management company Redhorse Corporation, among others.

[url]https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/ru ... trump.html[/url]

<4



DEFENSE

Pentagon is scrambling as China ‘sells the hell out of’ armed drones to US allies

Natasha Turak

PUBLISHED THU, FEB 21 2019 • 1:52 AM EST | UPDATED THU, FEB 21 2019 • 7:20 AM EST

KEY POINTS

The U.S. is under pressure to expand weapons sales to the Middle East amid record high regional defense spending and encroaching foreign competition.

Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, this week emphasized changes underway to U.S. policy that has thus far prevented armed drone sales to Washington’s Arab allies.

Systems that Gulf countries have wanted include the deadly MQ-9 Reaper, produced by General Atomics, a hunter-killer drone that can carry up to four hellfire missiles as well as laser-guided bombs and joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs).

ABU DHABI — As one U.S. official at Abu Dhabi’s international defense expo, IDEX, put it this week, “China has been selling the hell out of its drones” to Gulf militaries like those of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S., while a top security partner to these states, currently does not supply them with its armed drone technology due to strict export regulations. But in the face of record Middle East defense spending and encroaching foreign competition, it’s under renewed pressure to do just that.

Lt. Gen. Charles Hooper, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), emphasized changes underway to the Conventional Arms Transfer (CAT) policy, which has thus far prevented the sale of armed drones to Washington’s Arab allies.

“As an element of the changes to the CAT policy, we’ve reviewed and are in the process of implementing changes to our policy with respect to unmanned aerial systems,” Hooper told media at the conference Sunday.

“We want to make many of our unmanned aerial systems available to our partners. Many of them have been asking for some time, we’re going to move forward as quickly as possible.”

Those systems that Gulf allies have wanted include the lethal MQ-9 Reaper, produced by General Atomics, a hunter-killer drone that can carry up to four hellfire missiles as well as laser-guided bombs and joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs). What’s been stopping the sales include concerns over proliferation, or risks that it could end up in the wrong hands.

“We will still continue to vet those cases, look at each of those on a case-by-case basis,” Hooper said. “But we do understand that it’s a very competitive world out there and we want to ensure that we are doing everything in our power to provide U.S. systems, the best in the world, to our partners.”

Why the Gulf is buying Chinese drones in the first place

Simply put, China’s weaponized drones are on the market when others aren’t.

The UAE has had Chinese Wing Loong I drones since 2016, and started receiving its purchases of the upgraded and deadlier Wing Loong II in early 2018. The UAVs, intended for surveillance and reconnaissance, can carry a range of weapons including missiles and laser-guided bombs to blow up targets on land or in the air. The Saudis have bought China’s CH-4 and the Wing Loong II, and both countries have deployed their drones in Yemen.


Last summer, Riyadh confirmed that the Chinese were building a CH-4 production facility — the first drone factory in the region — in Saudi Arabia. The CH-4, an ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and attack drone with similarities to the Reaper, is also used by the UAE, Iraq and Egypt.

In addition to being able to sell to any willing buyer, the Chinese also offer the lowest prices on the market.

According to Jack Watling, a land warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, the UAE’s Chinese drone purchases began after the the U.S. refused to sell them American armed UAVs.

Now, he says, “the (President Donald) Trump administration has reduced its threshold for sale, which partly happened after the UAE started its Chinese drone purchases.”

Gulf militaries do have American drones, but not ones capable of destroying targets. These include the U.S.-made Predator XP, which can carry ISR camera packages, but it’s downgraded so that it can’t carry weapons systems.

Still, Watling says, U.S platforms are better than their Chinese counterparts — and if given the opportunity, buyers would likely choose those.

“Chinese UAS (unmanned aerial systems) are not as stable as American systems,” he explained. “They therefore have to fly lower, though they are improving. This has resulted in several Chinese platforms being shot down.”

‘Definitely a threat’

“The Chinese are definitely a threat,” Gerard Robottom, international market area director at California-based UAV manufacturer AeroVironment, told CNBC at the conference. But he stressed that reliability is key, adding, “you can find a lot of our customers out here, and they’ll tell you the importance of a good ISR from a reputable company.”

Robottom’s colleagues attested to the lengthy U.S. government process for approving even non-lethal drone exports, which they described as a hindrance to international business.

“This is something the administration takes very seriously,” Michael Bedke, senior regional policy advisor at the Pentagon’s Defense Technology Security Administration, told CNBC at the event. “As part of the CAT implementation policy ... there were lines of effort that looked at how we could provide more systems and more advanced systems to the region, and how we can speed up the process to allow us to transfer those systems as well.”

In November, as part of the Trump administration’s push to sell more weapons abroad, the State Department released updates to the CAT policy featuring measures to speed up arms transfers and reduce previous restrictions.

The first task listed in the State Department’s policy update read: “Effectively compete with strategic competitors by providing allies and partners with alternatives to foreign defense articles in order to maintain U.S. influence in key regions.”

... But it could backfire

But supplying the technology to the Gulf could backfire on the U.S., Watling says. The U.S. provides its allies ISR in exchange for access and leverage; “if they sell the platforms, and the UAE and Saudis get good at using them, then they will be less dependent on the U.S.”

And in the current political climate, where international criticism of Saudi Arabia and its role, along with the UAE’s, in Yemen’s bloody conflict is at a high, the optics may not be particularly welcomed.

“If the U.S. provides Predators or Reapers, and the UAE and Saudis start striking more targets — some of which may not match with U.S. priorities — then there could be backlash against the U.S.,” Watling said.

Because of concerns like this, the Pentagon’s Bedke stressed that the transfer process would remain on a case-by-case basis. “But the new policies in place will give us more flexibility,” he said, “and I would continue to watch this space in the next couple of months to see what happens.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/pentago ... llies.html

<5



WOW

North Korea Continues to Sell Weapons Around the World: Report

4 HOURS AGO 2.22.19

A United Nations panel concluded that Syria is one of North Korea’s biggest “conduits” for the sale of military equipment and chemical weapons materials throughout the Middle East and Africa, Foreign Policy reports. The panel, which wrote an up upcoming 350-page report, reportedly concluded that North Korea has supplied weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen, along with certain buyers in Libya and Sudan. Bruce Bechtol, a former U.S. military intelligence officer, reportedly saw an earlier version of the panel’s report and told the magazine the country’s missile sales and chemical weapons sales have continued “unabated.” “As far as weapons proliferation goes, I know nothing that has stopped,” Bechtol said. President Trump is currently preparing for a second meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un in Hanoi next week. The U.N. report also reportedly found that North Korea continues to engage in cyberwarfare and continues to illegally import and export commodities like oil, weapons, and coal. The State Department reportedly did not respond to Foreign Policy’s request for comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/north-kor ... t?ref=home

<6



Trump administration ups to 400 number of troops staying behind in Syria

BY ELLEN MITCHELL - 02/22/19 03:36 PM EST

The Trump administration is now planning to leave roughly 400 U.S. troops in Syria indefinitely after withdrawing from the country, double the amount the White House announced a day prior.

A senior administration official told reporters on Friday that the 400 troops would be split between a “peacekeeping group” of about 200 in a safe zone currently being negotiated for northeast Syria, and 200 at the U.S. military base at al-Tanf, according to several news outlets.

The Washington Post reported that the 200 troops based at al-Tanf, near the Syrian border with Iraq and Jordan, will stay “for the foreseeable future,” according to the official.

The official also said the 200 U.S. troops in the safe zone will be part of an expected 800 to 1,500 troops committed by European allies in order to set up and maintain the safe zone.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters Friday that he would not discuss troop numbers or movements.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said earlier Friday that the administration planned to keep 200 service members in Syria, but that it was a “rough estimate” and “not a specific number.”

“At the end of the day, the president wants to bring our troops home and he’s working towards that and he wants to do that in a safe and peaceful way, in the best way possible, to make sure that we have complete safety for our troops that are abroad,” she said.

The new plan backtracks from President Trump’s promise in December to immediately pull all 2,000 U.S. service members from Syria, after he declared the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) defeated in the country.

The decision drew intense criticism from both sides of the aisle and prompted the resignation of former Defense Secretary James Mattis.

Questions remain as to what would happen to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish fighters who helped the United States in the fight against ISIS. Turkey has threatened to attack the SDF, which it views as a terrorist group.

The administration later said it would withdraw the troops by the end of April, before committing this week to leaving hundreds behind.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford told reporters Friday that he is confident allies will step up to provide troops and help man the safe zone and that “we can maintain the campaign as we plan to.”

“We had a campaign that we resigned to clear ISIS from the ground that they held. And we always had planned to transition into a stabilization phase where we train local forces to provide security and prevent the regeneration of ISIS,” Dunford said ahead of a meeting with Shanahan and their Turkish counterparts at the Pentagon.

“So there is no change in the basic campaign. The resourcing is being adjusted because the threat has been changed,” he said.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4311 ... d-in-syria

<7



WORLD

WHY IS SAUDI ARABIA GIVING U.S. WEAPONS TO AL-QAEDA? ELIZABETH WARREN ASKS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

BY TOM O'CONNOR ON 2/22/19 AT 5:18 PM

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has issued a letter demanding that President Donald Trump's administration explain a recent report suggesting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates transferred U.S. weapons to Al-Qaeda.

Warren's letter came in response to an investigation by CNN, which uncovered reports earlier this month that Saudi Arabia and its ally, the UAE, have taken weapons provided by the U.S. and given them to fighters linked to the Sunni Muslim militant group Al-Qaeda and other organizations as part of a secret, shared initiative to defeat Zaidi Shiite Muslim rebels known as Ansar Allah or the Houthis in Yemen. The document was addressed to Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

"If this report is true, it raises serious concerns that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other governments have violated their end user agreements with the United States by diverting American weapons to terrorists and other extremists without prior authorization from the United States," Warren said, as reported Friday by CNN.

The report came amid lasting outrage over Saudi Arabia's involvement in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent journalist who fled the kingdom only to be slain by Riyadh's agents at its consulate in Istanbul in October, as well as suspicions surrounding alleged war crimes in Yemen and ties to insurgent groups that have called the U.S.-Saudi relationship into question.


Yemeni fighters loyal to the Saudi-backed government stand by a U.S.-built Oshkosh armored vehicle at a position which was taken from Houthi rebels in a mountainous region northwest of the central city of Taiz, April 20, 2017. A CNN report listed the Oshkosh M-ATV has among the equipment allegedly transferred by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to Yemeni forces linked to Al-Qaeda in the city of Taiz.

While Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi's death, many U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle have suspected otherwise, prompting Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey and Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee to invoke a mandatory explanation from Trump as laid out in the Magnitsky Act. As the 120-day deadline passed last week without any official answer, bipartisan outrage brewed.

At the same time, the House of Representatives voted to advance a bill condemning U.S. support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen. It was the latest action since Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders pushed a similar resolution to a successful vote in December, only for the measure to be barred from being heard in the House by an otherwise unrelated bill overseen by former Speaker Paul Ryan.

Sanders and Warren, both 2020 presidential hopefuls, have mounted a vocal opposition to Trump's intimate embrace of Saudi Arabia, the top importer of U.S. weapons, a close ally against revolutionary Shiite Muslim Iran and an energy giant. On Friday, Warren followed up her letter with a tweet further calling for action on Riyadh.

"Saudi Arabia brutally murdered a journalist in its own consulate and bombed Yemeni civilians with US-armed warplanes. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it also may have transferred US weapons to violent extremists," Warren wrote. "It's time to start holding Saudi Arabia accountable."

Among the weapons allegedly in the hands of Saudi and UAE-backed hardline Salafist groups (such as the Abbas Brigade and Giants Brigade) were Oshkosh M-ATV and Navistar International MaxxPro mine resistance armored vehicles. Airdropped BGM-71 TOW anti-tank guided missiles may also have been sold to militias with Al-Qaeda links, while other U.S. equipment has also fallen into the hands of the Houthis, who are suspected of receiving Iranian support in their four-year takeover, though both parties deny this.

Previous reporting has demonstrated questionable ties between the U.S. and Al-Qaeda in Yemen. In 2017, Newsweek featured an analysis by Just Security, arguing how the Trump administration was inadverdently arming the group behind 9/11's interests in Yemen. An Associated Press report in August 2018 alleged secret deals between the U.S. and Al-Qaeda to spite the Houthis and their allies.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have also been implicated in other accusations of violating end user agreements involving weapons transfers to non-state actors in Syria. A 2017 report by the U.K.-based Conflict Armament Research demonstrated illicit transfers of U.S. and Saudi weapons bought from Europe to Syrian insurgents fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Some of this weaponry—including TOWs—ultimately ended up in the hands of Al-Qaeda-linked organizations and the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).

These suspicions led the European Parliament to call on European Union members to "refuse similar transfer in the future, notably to the US and Saudi Arabia" in November.

https://www.newsweek.com/elizabeth-warr ... on-1341323

<8



HEALTH CARE

Utah officials moved fast to shrink voter-approved Medicaid expansion, documents show

By RACHANA PRADHAN 02/22/2019 05:05 AM EST

Utah officials pressed the Trump administration to approve a limited expansion of Medicaid just days after voters in the state last November supported a ballot measure calling for a broader expansion under Obamacare, according to correspondence obtained by POLITICO.

Emails and text messages obtained through a Utah public records request indicate that state and federal officials, in the immediate aftermath of the successful ballot measure, were privately discussing a slimmed-down Medicaid plan. They talked about covering fewer people than the Obamacare expansion, while implementing unprecedented curbs on the safety-net health care program.

Instead of adopting full Medicaid expansion insuring about 150,000 low-income adults, Utah Republicans earlier this month passed legislation covering about 90,000 people while asking the Trump administration to approve billions of dollars in enhanced funding under Obamacare. Utah is also asking the administration’s permission for significant new restraints on the program — including enrollment caps in case of cost overruns and per-person limits on spending — that the federal government has never before approved.

Obamacare required states to expand Medicaid to adults earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line — about $17,200 for an individual — to receive more generous funding from the federal government. The Obama and Trump administrations have not allowed states to do more limited Medicaid expansions while still receiving full Obamacare funding, but Republican lawmakers in Utah have insisted for weeks that Trump officials provided assurances they would back the plan.

State officials first formally asked the Trump administration to approve a so-called partial expansion last summer — months before 53 percent of Utah voters approved the Medicaid expansion ballot initiative — but the state never received an answer. Utah Medicaid Director Nathan Checketts told POLITICO that officials at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services suggested they would revisit the state's request after last November's election.

The documents obtained by POLITICO show that the state, shortly after the election, ramped up pressure on the Trump administration to decide whether to allow partial expansions. These discussions occurred weeks before Utah Republicans introduced their legislation shrinking the voter-approved expansion, angering supporters of the ballot initiative.

Checketts and top Trump health officials, including then-Medicaid head Mary Mayhew and CMS senior counselor Calder Lynch, were in frequent contact during the following weeks.

“We know the state's request would be something new for CMS and represents a significant policy decision. Therefore, we understand why CMS has taken time to review and consider the state's request,” Checketts wrote to senior agency officials on Nov. 20, shortly after they had discussed the proposal during a conference in Washington, D.C.

“Even if CMS is not able to approve this request, our policy makers will benefit from knowing which options are (or are not) likely to be approved,” Checketts continued.

Ten days later on Nov. 30, Checketts wrote to Mayhew and Lynch that the governor’s office was "reemphasizing our state's interest in getting a response” on its partial expansion request. About two weeks later, in mid-December, CMS Administrator Seema Verma spoke with Utah Gov. Gary Herbert about the plan, according to the emails.

The emails from federal Medicaid officials never said whether they would approve the Utah plan.

“We haven’t had any promises," Checketts said Thursday. “We’re optimistic about the chances."

On Dec. 26, Checketts wrote to Lynch that he would be meeting with “key legislators” the following day to discuss expansion options. A text message between the two on Dec. 27 also mentions “new flexibilities being offered" to design the state's Medicaid program.

“When they sort of open the door and say we’re going to be more flexible, as a state we’re trying to figure out, well, what exactly does that mean?” Checketts said.

States have long pushed the federal government for greater leeway to tailor their Medicaid programs, which they jointly run with the federal government. The Trump administration, however, is encouraging new flexibility that would let red states reshape the entitlement in ways that Democrats say undermine the coverage program and may be illegal.

The administration has approved Medicaid work requirements in several states, though they’re being challenged in court. The administration is also readying a plan that would allow states to seek Medicaid block grants to rein in spending, a long-standing conservative goal.

A spokesperson for CMS declined to comment on Utah's pending request but said its conversations with the state weren't unusual.

"Medicaid is based on a collaborative federal/state partnership, given that, it should come as no surprise that CMS speaks with states all the time, including Utah, about a variety of issues regarding their programs," the agency spokesperson said.

Obamacare supporters said that Utah officials are ignoring voters by pursuing a partial Medicaid expansion. Further, they say state officials are making a risky bet that the Trump administration will approve such a plan for the first time — and could be inviting litigation if it does.

Nate Crippes, an attorney at the Disability Law Center, said the state's proposal to cap funding is especially troubling.

"I would be very, very surprised if that wasn't challenged," he said.

The Trump administration will review the Utah plan in the coming months. Key state lawmakers said Trump health officials have signaled their support.

“They are telling us ... this is going to happen,” said state Rep. Jim Dunnigan, who sponsored the scaled-back Medicaid plan in the Utah House, earlier this month.

While the Utah plan undergoes federal review, the state will expand coverage on April 1 to people below the poverty line, initially without the enhanced Obamacare funding. That move will cost the state tens of millions of dollars more than the full Obamacare expansion would have. Poor adults earning above the poverty line, who would otherwise be enrolled in Medicaid expansion, will remain eligible to receive generous Obamacare subsidies to purchase private coverage.

If the Trump administration refuses the state's plan, the Utah law includes a trigger that would automatically adopt the full Obamacare expansion. At the same time, the state would ask the Trump administration for permission to add requirements for some people to work to maintain coverage.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/ ... on-1202200

<9



POLITICS

The GOP Keeps Changing The Rules After It Loses Elections

Republicans in Utah, Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere didn’t like what voters chose last year, so they’re simply undoing it.

By Jeffrey Young

02/22/2019 12:58 pm ET

Last Election Day, 555,651 Utahns ― 53 percent of voters ― backed a measure to expand Medicaid to low-income adults in the state. Last Monday, 79 Republicans made it clear they don’t care what those voters wanted.

All but four GOP members of the Utah legislature voted to repeal the voter-approved initiative and replace it with a more limited plan. Their plan will cover an estimated 90,000 people instead of the approximately 150,000 who would have received health benefits under the ballot initiative. This action came soon after the Utah legislature also weakened a voter-backed policy allowing the use of medical marijuana in the state.

Republican state legislators voted to pass the final version of the Medicaid bill last Monday, and Gov. Gary Herbert (R) signed it hours later. Though Utah Republicans backed away from an earlier version of the legislation that could have resulted in no expansion at all, they nevertheless decided to overturn the will of their constituents almost immediately after convening for the 2019 legislative session.

Citizen activists who spent countless hours knocking on doors and gathering signatures to get Medicaid expansion on the ballot in Utah are, unsurprisingly, upset, said Chase Thomas, the executive director of Alliance for a Better Utah, a Salt Lake City-based government watchdog group. The organization was among the many in the state that endorsed the Medicaid expansion and participated in the campaign to get it before the voters.

“It’s been all over our Facebook page, our Twitter: People saying, ‘How does my vote even matter if they’re allowed to do this?’ saying, ‘What’s the point?’” Thomas said. “That’s completely understandable. I even feel that way, like, why even have an initiative process if the legislature’s allowed to gut it right afterwards?”

This sort of thing is becoming a habit for Republicans when elections don’t go their way.

As events in Utah demonstrate, elected Republicans don’t always let voters have the last word. And what’s happening in the Beehive State is part of a pattern for Republican elected officials across the country, a pattern that also includes changing the rules when members of their party lose elections, which has included erecting barriers to voting and other anti-democratic measures.

It all amounts to a sustained campaign by one of the nation’s two major political parties to shield itself from citizens, entrench its own power and use every tool at its disposal to disenfranchise the rival party and its voters.

The action in Utah came after the state legislature hemmed and hawed about Medicaid expansion for years without resolving the question. In Utah and four other states in 2017 and 2018, hundreds of volunteer and paid canvassers, supported by state and national political and business organizations, took matters into their own hands in response to inaction by state policymakers and organized campaigns to make change via the ballot.

Voters did the rest, approving Medicaid expansion initiatives in Idaho, Nebraska and Utah last year, following a successful campaign in Maine in 2017. A similar Medicaid expansion initiative failed in Montana last year.

Some Idaho GOP legislators are trying to walk back what voters approved, but their efforts have failed so far. And in Maine, then-Gov. Paul LePage (R) simply refused to carry out the expansion for more than a year, leaving it to his successor, Gov. Janet Mills (D) to begin the process last month.

The GOP-led Michigan legislature last year responded to successful ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage and provide sick leave to workers by gutting them during a lame-duck session.

There are more examples from just the past few months.

Legislators in states including Michigan, Florida and Missouri now are considering new obstacles to citizen-led ballot initiatives in order to prevent such policies from getting approved in the first place, rather than be forced to undo them in public.

This disdain for the will of the voters isn’t limited to health care policy.

After the results of the 2018 elections were in, Republicans in Wisconsin moved swiftly to weaken the offices of governor and attorney general after Democrats won those seats. Michigan Republicans did the same to the offices of the attorney general and secretary of state after Democrats won those seats.

Those power grabs in Wisconsin and Michigan follow the playbook North Carolina Republicans wrote in 2016, stripping the governor of various powers after a Democratic win.

Weakening democracy takes other forms: instituting strict voter identification laws, closing polling places in heavily Democratic and majority-minority areas, and gerrymandering state and federal legislative districts.

Americans often complain that it feels like their votes don’t matter. Taken together, this pattern of conduct by Republicans sends an overt message to these voters that they’re right.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-gop- ... 0774cd7232

<10



ELECTIONS

Damaged GOP faces tough path in North Carolina election do-over

It's unclear who will run in the Republican primary in North Carolina's 9th District after state officials ordered a new election Thursday.

By LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ 02/22/2019 06:40 PM EST

Republicans are gearing up for an uncertain and potentially crowded primary in the new election for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, while Democrat Dan McCready is already coalescing support from his party for the re-vote.

As McCready held an event relaunching his campaign Friday and landed a valuable endorsement from the Daily Kos, a small-dollar fundraising powerhouse on the left, a pack of Republicans were considering their own runs, with no clear favorite among them. It’s unclear if Mark Harris — the 2018 candidate whose campaign was the subject of fraud allegations that tainted the midterm election and forced a new race — will run again, after recently suffering from health problems.

What’s more, Republicans on the ground think that Harris would now be a weak general election contender in the GOP-leaning district, after North Carolina’s board of elections voted unanimously to call a new campaign. Harris’ son delivered stunning testimony before the board this week, saying he warned his father against hiring the political operative who allegedly collected and marked voters’ absentee ballots in 2018. And Harris, a former preacher, could have trouble raising new money into his broke campaign as a result.

“What we’re going to get is a primary with a lot of candidates,” said Carter Wrenn, a North Carolina Republican strategist. “I wouldn’t presume to tell Harris what to do, but he took a hard hit at the end of the hearings, he’s got some bruises.”

“His whole campaign becomes more problematic,” Wrenn added.

But if Harris does decide to run again, his name recognition — and the belief of some Republican voters that he “got a raw deal” — could make him difficult to beat in a GOP primary, said Patrick Sebastian, a Republican strategist and nephew of former Gov. Pat McCrory. That could be a problem for Republicans in the general election, in a district President Donald Trump carried in 2016, but McCready — a veteran making his first run for office — made competitive in 2018.

It would take someone with “a heck of a lot of money to defeat [Harris] in the primary,” Sebastian said.

North Carolina's board of elections will vote soon to set dates for the new election. Other potential GOP candidates include Matthew Ridenhour, former Mecklenburg County commissioner, and Kenny Smith, a former Charlotte city council member who ran for the mayor of Charlotte and lost. Additionally, former state Rep. Andy Dulin told WSOCTV he would not rule out a run. The state GOP won’t weigh in on the primary but said it will continue to work with legislators and investigators to improve the electoral system.

Though McCrory previously said he’s not interested in running for the congressional seat, local Republicans are pushing him to jump into the primary, according to a person familiar with those discussions. McCrory has also received a few calls from Republicans in Washington, D.C.

McCrory wouldn’t comment on the new election, instead expressing frustration that the election board didn’t continue hearing testimony on Thursday. “Why are they stopping the investigation — both Republicans and Democrats,” McCrory said.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman told a local CBS affiliate that “a criminal prosecution should be anticipated” on the allegations of election fraud against Dowless. Freeman added that her office is not only trying to get to the bottom of any illegal activity that took place but “who might have been funding that and what did they know?”

As Republicans wait to figure out who might run in the 9th District, McCready rallied supporters Friday.

“I am running in the special election for North Carolina’s 9th district,” McCready said at an event. “We are in this fight and we are going to win this fight. ... This is about what does it mean to live in a democracy.”

McCready starts the new election with a major financial head start. The Democrat raised about $500,000 in December and ended 2018 with approximately $337,000 in his campaign account. Harris finished 2018 with just $19,131 on hand. Meanwhile, McCready sent campaign emails and launched a barrage of digital fundraising ads Thursday and Friday after the new election was called.

He also has support from Democratic heavy-hitters from the Daily Kos to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is ready to back up McCready in the new race.

“Dan McCready is a United States Marine Corps veteran who led a platoon in Iraq, as well as a business leader who has created jobs in his community in North Carolina,” said Cole Leiter, DCCC spokesperson. “While Washington Republicans have spent over $2 million propping up a candidate who stole North Carolinians’ votes and threatened the integrity of our election process, we’re proud to stand with Dan and look forward to him bringing his leadership to Congress.”

The DCCC plans to hammer the North Carolina GOP and national Republicans over the election fraud allegations — particularly what Harris knew and when. After taking a break in the middle of Thursday’s election board hearing to huddle with his lawyers, Harris returned to the stand to admit that he’d been mistaken in early testimony about whether he expected email exchanges with one of his sons to be made public.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which does not get involved in open GOP primaries, has not said what it will do in the new election. NRCC chair Tom Emmer issued a statement against ballot harvesting — the process of collecting others’ absentee ballots to turn them in, which is illegal in North Carolina but legal in other states.

"Voter fraud is never acceptable and neither is ballot harvesting. We call on Democrats to join Republicans in rejecting the practice of ballot harvesting in every congressional district in the country,” Emmer said in the statement.

After remaining quiet about the scandal, Trump weighed in Friday.

“Any form of election fraud, I condemn," Trump told reporters, repeating unverified claims of improper voting in Texas and California.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/ ... on-1206842

<11



Dems call on Trump to fire Acosta

BY JULIEGRACE BRUFKE - 02/22/19 04:01 PM EST

Three House Democrats are collecting signatures for a letter calling on President Trump to demand the resignation of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta.

The push comes a day after a federal judge ruled that Acosta and other federal prosecutors acted illegally in making a plea deal with accused child sexual abuser and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein before speaking with his victims.

“Despite abundant evidence and multiple witnesses still willing to come forward, then-U.S. Attorney Acosta failed to charge Epstein under federal trafficking laws, which could have put Epstein away for life,” the letter states. “Instead, he pleaded guilty to far lesser prostitution-related charges and served only 13 months in a private wing of a county jail but was able to leave 6 days a week for 12 hours at a time.”

The letter is being organized by Democratic Reps. Jackie Speier (Calif.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) and Lois Frankel (Fla.).

“This despicable unjust plea deal that was arranged by Acosta showed no respect for the suffering of the victims and credible accounts of human trafficking and was a clear abuse of power for political gain,” the lawmakers write.

The letter says Acosta’s mishandling of the situation shows he's unfit to serve in the administration, arguing he “succumbed to the pressure” from Epstein’s legal team while disregarding the law.

“As Members of Congress we are committed to ensuring that those who occupy top positions in the federal government are held to the highest standards of the law,” they said. “We strongly believe that Secretary Acosta was negligent in his duty to represent the best interests of the victims and the U.S. Government. As such, we request that you immediately demand his letter of resignation.”

Lawmakers had until 2 p.m. Friday to add their signatures to the letter.

Epstein has been accused of setting up a network of underage girls for sex that included as many as 80 young women. Victims were allegedly asked to recruit more women for the scheme.

The Democrats cited reporting by the Miami Herald in November that said multiple women “were intimidated by Epstein and his staff and told not to talk to the police,” even after his arrest.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4312 ... ire-acosta

<12



POLITICS

Trump Limply Defends Acosta’s Handling Of Sex Abuse Case: ‘Seems Like A Long Time Ago’

The president claims he didn’t know his labor secretary once made a secret plea deal with billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein and kept it secret from the victims.

By David Moye

02/22/2019 05:33 pm ET

Donald Trump gave a limp defense on Friday to accusations that Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta broke federal law when he was a prosecutor by signing a plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein.

The former hedge fund manager recruited underage girls in Florida and from overseas to work in an international sex ring.

Although Epstein was convicted of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution, he only served about a year because of a lenient deal that Acosta, the federal prosecutor overseeing the case at the time, made privately with Epstein’s attorney in 2007.

As part of the deal, the future Trump appointee agreed to keep the arrangement from Epstein’s victims.

Now, Acosta is coming under fire for the deal, but not, apparently, from the president himself, based on comments he made to reporters on Friday, according to CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“I really don’t know too much about it. I know he’s done a great job as labor secretary and that seems like a long time ago,” Trump said.

The collective reaction of many Twitter users seemed to be, “Same B.S., different day.”

Others figured Trump had a reason for keeping mum about the scandal.

Many people had a big problem with Trump’s use of the phrase “seems like a long time ago,” especially since he has claimed one of his reasons for wanting to build a border wall is to stop human sex trafficking, which he claimed last April was “worse than it’s ever been in the history of the world.”

Some Twitter users pointed out Trump’s close relationship with Epstein .


<

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-ac ... fdaa551760

<13



WORLD

CHINA PRAISES VENEZUELA'S RESPONSE TO CRISIS, BACKS RUSSIA AGAINST U.S. 'MILITARY INTERVENTION' THERE

BY TOM O'CONNOR ON 2/22/19 AT 3:10 PM

China praised the Venezuelan government's response to a mounting political crisis that threatened to erupt into widespread violence, and joined Russia in warning the United States not to step in.

Beijing and Moscow are among the world governments that have continued to recognize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro after National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó declared himself leader last month in a political challenge recognized by Washington and its allies. As Guaidó's Saturday deadline for Venezuelan security forces to accept U.S. aid was dismissed by Maduro as a foreign plot, clashes at the border prompted international anxieties.

China blamed foreign meddling. "We have noticed that in recent times, the Venezuelan government has maintained calmness and restraint and has spared no effort to maintain domestic peace and stability and to effectively avoid large-scale bloody conflicts," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang told reporters.

"If the so-called 'humanitarian aid' supplies are forcibly delivered to Venezuela and then a violent conflict is triggered, it will have serious consequences, which no parties want to see," he continued. "China opposes military intervention in Venezuela and opposes any behavior that has led to tensions in Venezuela or even caused unrest."

President Donald Trump has left military action "on the table" in forcing Maduro to step down amid allegations his government mishandled the country's failing economy, perpetrated human rights abuses and rigged elections. Trump, who has already expanded sanctions against Maduro's government, said last week that sending troops to Colombia, an entry point for U.S.-sent supplies, was a possibility.

The Venezuelan president accused Trump of attempting to stage what his government considered to be the latest of several U.S.-backed coup attempts against the oil-rich, socialist-led nation in Latin America, which has also been the venue for decades of U.S. intervention against leftist forces. That viewpoint was backed by Russia, which in December 2018 sent nuclear-capable bombers to Venezuela for training in a show of support, and has repeatedly warned the U.S. to stay out of Venezuela.

Moscow has remained ambiguous on whether it would offer military support should Caracas ask for it—as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad did in 2015—but confirmed as recently as last week that such a request had not been made. Still, in a development reminiscent of the crisis in Syria, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova claimed Friday that "the U.S. and its NATO allies are considering the possibility of buying a large batch of weapons in one of the Eastern European countries in order to provide them to the Venezuelan opposition."

"This is what they mean when they talk about delivering humanitarian aid," said Zakharova, who also suggested that Ukraine may be involved and that the weapons would be slipped in via a neighboring country.

Maduro's fears of such an operation have prompted him to begin sealing Venezuela's borders, including the one it shares with Brazil, a far-right-led American ally that publicly floated the idea of bringing in a U.S. military base in response to Venezuela's relationship with Russia. As Venezuelan opposition figures approached the border Friday, national guard figures intercepted them, allegedly opening fire with rubber bullets that led to the death of one woman and at least a dozen more injured.

Elsewhere along the western border with Colombia, two concerts were arranged, both for and against the Venezuelan government. In the Colombian border city of Cucuta, U.K. billionaire Richard Branson organized a "Venezuela Aid Live" festival for supporters of Guaidó. A rival, pro-government "Hands Off Venezuela" show, reportedly featuring up to 150 artists, will take place less than two miles away, in San Antonio, Venezuela.

Maduro still has the support of fellow regional socialist allies Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador and Nicaragua, as well as others abroad, including Belarus, Cambodia, China, Iran, North Korea, the Palestinian National Authority, Turkey, South Africa and Syria. Guaidó has been endorsed by the U.S. and most of Latin America, along with the European Union, Albania, Australia, Georgia, Israel and Japan.

https://www.newsweek.com/china-praise-v ... on-1341181

<14



POLITICS

Trump Trade War Triggering $1.9 Billion Plunge In Farm Exports: USDA

Soybean exports to China have fallen more than 90 percent.

By Mary Papenfuss

02/22/2019 05:13 am ET

American farm exports are expected to plunge $1.9 billion in fiscal 2019, compared to the previous year, largely due to President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Soybean exports have been hit particularly hard, the agency’s chief economist, Robert Johansson, told the USDA Outlook Forum in Washington on Thursday, Reuters reported. Because of the trade dispute, soybean exports to China will have “plummeted by 22 million [metric] tons, or over 90 percent” through this month, Johansson said.

China has dropped to the fifth largest market for American farm exports, Johansson noted. It was the top foreign purchaser in 2017. China is buying only about 6 percent of total U.S. exports, compared with nearly 18 percent in 2014.

The USDA estimates a net farm income of $66 billion for 2018, compared with $134 billion in 2013.

Early last year Trump admitted farmers would take a hit in the trade war, but he insisted that they would “understand.” These are “great patriots,” he added, referring to the farmers. “They understand that they’re doing this for the country.” The Farm Bureau, which represents the nation’s farmers, has spoken out against tariffs and the trade war. The administration has set aside $12 billion to bail out farmers hurt by the president’s trade war.

Russian farmers are one of the beneficiaries of the trade war. Their soybean exports to China more than doubled last year, according to The Wall Street Journal. Russia’s overall trade with China rose more than 27 percent to over $100 billion last year, according to the Journal. The increase in trade between the nations has been reportedly nurtured by an increasingly powerful relationship between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who are taking advantage of an America that is on the trade sidelines.

The trade war has also been linked to the highest number of Midwestern farm bankruptcies in a decade, according to an analysis of court records by the Journal.

Farmers’ fortunes could change if the United States and China work out their trade differences in talks that are underway. But even in the event of a trade deal, China’s recently developed commercial relationships with farmers in other countries could continue for years. Johansson also warned that unsold American soybeans now stored could take years to “unwind.”

As for the near future, the South American soy harvest “would make exports more competitive in the rest of the marketing year, dimming the prospects for an export recovery,” Johansson warned, according to Reuters.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/farm-exp ... ed0832809f

<15



ECONOMY

USDA has paid out $7.7 billion to help farmers hit by Trump's tariffs

“Under the trade dispute, soybean exports to China alone have plummeted by 22 million tonnes, or over 90 percent,” said the USDA.

By Lucy Bayly

Feb. 22, 2019, 9:40 AM CST

The Department of Agriculture has paid out $7.7 billion so far to help farmers impacted by the ongoing tariff war with China, according to William Northey, Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation.

The funds represent a portion of the $12 billion relief package that President Donald Trump pledged in July to offset the losses from retaliatory tariffs imposed by Beijing in response to Washington's tariffs on Chinese goods.

Northey's comments come as Trump prepares to meet Friday with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He to continue the next stage of trade talks ahead of a March 1 deadline.

If the two countries fail to strike a deal, the current tariff rate of 10 percent will be raised to 25 percent, resulting in billions of dollars of additional tariffs. However, Trump hinted earlier this week that the March 1 deadline was flexible, saying it was not a "magical date" by which any compromise was assured.

His comments contradicted those of his top trade negotiator, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who said in late January, “The deadline is March 1. That is the deadline.”

Increased competition and low commodity prices have hampered the U.S. agricultural industry for years, but while many farmers and farm advocacy groups acknowledge that there is a need for China to be held accountable for its trade deals, others have expressed anxiety.

Instead of making America great again, the president’s policies are “going to make it 1929 again," said Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska when the relief package was announced.

“If we lose the export markets, it will hurt us from an economic standpoint. It will hurt the ability to provide for our family,” Bob Hemesath, a fourth-generation pork producer and corn farmer in northern Iowa, told NBC News last year. “Agriculture is one of the biggest industries in Iowa. It supports a lot of jobs. If agriculture suffers, small-town main street suffers.”

"I think farmers want a quick resolution with China but understand it is important to get China to be good and fair trading partner," John Newton, chief economist at the Farm Bureau, an advocacy organization for farmers, told NBC News last year. "Folks are standing by the administration at this difficult time in hopes that things will be better."

Officials said at the time that the temporary stopgap would be delivered in three ways: Direct assistance, for producers of soybeans, cotton, dairy, corn and hogs; a food purchase program under which the government will buy surpluses of beef, legumes and other products; and a trade promotion program.

The trade war has already had a major impact on the economy, as the USDA detailed this week in its annual meeting.

“Under the trade dispute, [soybean] exports to China alone have plummeted by 22 million tonnes, or over 90 percent,” said Robert Johansson, chief economist of the USDA, speaking in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

“The share of total U.S. agricultural exports to China in value terms is projected to be 6 percent, down sharply, with China falling from the top market in 2017 to fifth place," he said.

U.S. farm exports to China are expected to fall by $1.9 billion in 2019, according to the USDA.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/econom ... it-n974516

<16



U.S. NEWS

Farmers plan to plant 7 million fewer acres of soybeans this year

By Jessie Higgins

FEB. 22, 2019 / 5:01 PM

EVANSVILLE, Ind., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- American farmers plan to plant fewer soybeans this year, after the trade war with China crashed soy prices in 2018 and left millions of bushels unsold, according to a new federal report.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's annual outlook for soy and other commodities, released Friday, predicts soy production will fall by about 8 percent. That's more than 7 million acres, or 11,000 square miles.

"This year's outlook represents a dramatic change from prior years because of China's imposition of tariffs on U.S. soybeans," the USDA's report said.

The areas most affected are states like North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska. Their geographical location means those states supply the lion's share of U.S. soybeans to China. Trains from that region travel directly to the Pacific Northwest, from which barges move commodities to Asia.

"More than 70 percent of [North Dakota's] soybeans are exported to China," said Nancy Johnson, the executive director of the North Dakota Soybean Growers Association. "We have a fabulous system for getting soybeans on trains to the Pacific Northwest. With [the China] market closed, it's been hard."

The production value of soy exceeded $41 billion in 2017, according to the American Soybean Association -- in large part due to China's demand for beans. China is the world's single largest soy importer, and the country purchased about 30 percent of all the beans grown in the United States, mostly to feed livestock, before the trade war began, according to U.S. government statistics.

After China placed retaliatory tariffs on soybeans over the summer, in response to tariffs levied by the Trump administration on Chinese goods, the nation all but stopped importing from the U.S.

While farmers in states like Iowa and Indiana have been able to sell their beans domestically or to countries other than China, farmers in the Great Plains have had to store large portions of their 2018 crop, and wait for the trade war to end.

Soy production is expected to drop more severely in those states, the report said.

"Because of our crop rotation, we can't just quit altogether," said Ron Van Bruggen, a farmer in Litchville, N.D. "But our plan is to grow less. We're going to cut back by about 25 percent."

Like other farmers in the region, Van Bruggen plans to replace that crop by planting corn and wheat, instead.

Overall, corn and wheat production is expected to increase this year, according to the report.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/02 ... 599/?ts_=6

<17A



DOJ investigation into former Interior chief goes to grand jury

BY MIRANDA GREEN - 02/22/19 04:48 PM EST

A court proceeding looking into whether former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to federal investigators about a decision he made while heading the agency is fully underway, according to The Washington Post.

Prosecutors have already begun presenting evidence to a grand jury on whether Zinke made false claims to investigators about his decision to deny a petition by two Indian tribes to operate a casino for profit in Connecticut, two sources told the Post.

The Inspector General office of the Interior Department referred the matter to the Department of Justice after its investigators became concerned that Zinke had lied to them about how he came to his decision on the casino.

The investigation follows a decision in September 2017 by the Interior Department to decline to approve an application by two tribes — the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan — to run a casino in Connecticut.

Interior had tentatively signed off on the proposal in the summer of 2017, before mega-casino MGM began lobbying against it. MGM argued that granting the tribes’ application would give them an unfair advantage over a casino 12 miles away from the proposed site of the tribes' venture.

The two tribes argued that Interior’s reversal came because of political pressure, and the Mashantucket Pequot and the state of Connecticut sued.

Zinke resigned in December as he dealt with multiple ethics controversies, including the reports of the DOJ investigation.

He has said he was unaware of any investigations into him and had not been contacted by investigators. Zinke did not return a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the Interior Department said the agency cannot comment on matters in litigation or under investigation.

While grand jury proceedings are not made public, the Post reported that Zinke had not been called to appear before the grand jury as of Friday.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... grand-jury

<17B


A timeline of scandals and ethical shortfalls at Ryan Zinke’s Interior Department

Journalists have uncovered a long list of the interior secretary’s questionable actions and controversies

Blog ››› May 7, 2018 12:33 PM EDT ››› EVLONDO COOPER & TED MACDONALD

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s ethically questionable behavior has triggered at least 17 government investigations into his conduct. Journalists took the lead in documenting many of Zinke's ethical lapses. The following is an overview of original reporting on scandals and controversies at the Department of Interior (DOI) under Zinke:

July 26, 2017, Anchorage Daily News: Zinke threatened to pull support for projects in Alaska after Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted “no” on Obamacare repeal. On July 26, Zinke called Alaska’s two senators, Lisa Murkowski (R) and Dan Sullivan (R), to inform them that Murkowski’s vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act jeopardized administration support for projects in Alaska, including expanding oil drilling. Sullivan called Zinke’s message “troubling,” and Murkowski told E&E News, “It was a difficult call.” The DOI’s inspector general opened an investigation into the incident, then dropped it in late August after the senators refused to discuss it with investigators. The Government Accountability Office also opened an investigation, but then dropped it in June 2018 because DOI did not cooperate, Politico reported. "Interior did not provide us with any information on the substance of the telephone calls. In light of this, we lack the requisite facts on which to base a legal opinion," Thomas Armstrong, GAO's general counsel, wrote to two House Democrats who requested the investiation last year.

September 28, 2017, Politico/Wash. Post: Zinke gave a speech to a hockey team owned by a campaign donor, then chartered a $12,000 flight home. Zinke traveled to Las Vegas on June 26 to give a motivational speech to a hockey team at the behest of team owner Bill Foley. After the speech, Zinke flew on a charter flight that cost taxpayers over $12,000 to an airport near his Montana home, aboard a plane owned by oil and gas executives. An inspector general report released on April 16, 2018, found that Zinke and his aides failed to relay important details about the trip to ethics officers, including Foley’s role as one of Zinke’s largest campaign contributors and the fact that the speech was unrelated to Zinke’s work as interior secretary. According to Politico, Foley donated $7,800 to Zinke’s 2014 congressional campaign, while employees and political action committees associated with his financial services company donated another $166,860. The inspector general also found that the $12,000 charter flight “could have been avoided.”

October 5, 2017, Politico: Zinke’s participation in a Republican fundraiser in the Virgin Islands raised ethics concerns. During what DOI labeled an official trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Zinke attended a fundraiser for the Virgin Islands Republican Party in March 2017. Donors paid up to $5,000 per couple for a picture with him. After concerns were raised, the Virgin Islands Republican Party reimbursed taxpayers for the trip.

November 20, 2017, Politico: Zinke’s wife used Interior staff and resources to coordinate her travel with her husband’s. Lola Zinke relied on DOI staff to ensure her travel arrangements allowed her to accompany the interior secretary during some of his official events and trips, including ones to California, Alaska, Norway, and Greenland. “While the department says Lola Zinke paid her own way, the records show Interior used staff time to coordinate some of her activities while traveling with her husband,” Politico reported. One ethics expert called that “an ethically gray area.” Some ethics watchdogs are also concerned that Lola Zinke is using her access to high-level events to further her own political career; until recently, she served as campaign chair for a Republican Senate candidate, and she worked on the Trump campaign and transition teams. The DOI’s inspector general tried to investigate whether these actions and other travel arrangements by Ryan Zinke constituted an abuse or misuse of government resources, but the investigation was stymied “by absent or incomplete documentation for several pertinent trips and a review process that failed to include proper documentation and accountability,” according to a memo released on November 15.

December 7, 2017, Politico: Zinke spent $14,000 on helicopter rides so he could attend a swearing-in and ride horses with Vice President Mike Pence. Zinke put taxpayers on the hook for a pair of helicopter trips that blurred the line between his professional and personal obligations. On June 21, he attended the swearing-in of his congressional replacement, Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-MT), then took an $8,000 helicopter ride to an emergency management exercise in West Virginia. On July 7, Zinke took a $6,250 round-trip helicopter flight from Washington, D.C., to Yorktown, VA, to guarantee he was back in time to go horseback riding with Pence and Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO). The inspector general’s office declined to confirm an investigation into these specific helicopter rides, but spokesperson Nancy DiPaolo told CNN on December 8, “We are taking a comprehensive look at the secretary’s travel since he took office.”

December 29, 2017, Newsweek: Zinke spent almost $40,000 in wildfire preparedness funds for a helicopter tour of Nevada. On July 30, days after firefighters managed to largely contain the Whittier Fire in California, Zinke used nearly $40,000 from wildfire preparedness funds to pay for a helicopter tour of Nevada that did not include any visits to fire zones. DOI initially told Newsweek the tour was “in full compliance of all federal regulations.” But after Newsweek provided Interior officials with documentation showing the tour was paid for with funds “earmarked for such uses as worker pay and to purchase equipment,” DOI admitted the helicopter tour “was charged to the account in error” and said it would pay for the ride from “a more appropriate account.”

January 22, 2018, HuffPost: Zinke failed to disclose his shares in a firearms company and signed orders that could have benefitted the firearms industry. As nominee for interior secretary, Zinke neglected to inform the Office of Government Ethics that he retained 1,000 shares in PROOF Research, a rifle and weapons-parts manufacturer founded in Zinke’s hometown. Cabinet appointees are required to disclose all assets worth $1,000 or more. Although there is some dispute about the value of Zinke’s shares, HuffPost notes that Zinke’s long relationship with the company may have resulted in the company getting special access at Interior. Zinke provided consulting services to PROOF from 2011 to 2012. As interior secretary, he met with PROOF CEO Larry Murphy and a company lobbyist about a month after he was confirmed. Zinke also enacted policy changes -- such as rescinding the ban on lead ammunition and expanding hunting access at wildlife refuges -- that could benefit the firearms industry.

February 1, 2018, Politico: Interior appeared to cave to pressure from MGM to stonewall a casino proposal backed by two Native American tribes. The Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes received indications from Interior officials in May 2017 that the department would clear the way for the tribes to build a casino in Connecticut, about 12 miles from MGM Resorts International’s nearly $1 billion casino complex in Massachusetts. But MGM launched an aggressive lobbying campaign to convince Interior’s political appointees to change course, including outreach to Zinke via multiple meetings and phone calls with two Nevada Republican lawmakers closely allied with MGM. MGM lobbyists were invited by Zinke for a social visit two weeks before the agency was to decide on the tribes’ request. MGM lobbyists also met with Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, whose former firm also lobbies for MGM. Bernhardt signed an ethics agreement barring him from “participating in matters involving his former employer,” according to ThinkProgress. On September 15, DOI informed the tribes that it would delay its decision, even though federal law requires it to decide yes or no within 45 days. Records obtained by Politico show that “career staffers were circulating what they labeled ‘approval’ letters just 48 hours before their political bosses reversed course and refused to either OK or reject the tribes’ application.” The DOI’s inspector general has opened an investigation into the incident.

February 21, 2018, Mother Jones: Scientists resigned in protest after their agency violated ethical guidelines to give Zinke sensitive oil and gas research ahead of its public release. The head of the U.S. Geological Survey’s energy and minerals program, Murray Hitzman, resigned in protest on Dec. 17, 2017, after his agency bowed to pressure to provide Zinke with sensitive data about oil and gas deposits in Alaska before it was released publicly. The deputy associate director of the energy and minerals program also left the agency in part over pressure to violate ethical guidelines. Although DOI asserted its authority to see any scientific research the department produces, “numerous current and former Interior officials, however, say the department’s position raises serious ethical issues—particularly when it comes to energy and mineral assessments, which contain valuable economic data that have the potential to move markets,” Mother Jones reported. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), the ranking member of the House Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, asked DOI’s inspector general to investigate whether department officials committed any ethical violations in requesting the data.

March 9, 2018, AP: Interior planned to spend nearly $139,000 to upgrade Zinke’s office doors. Interior officials approved a contract to renovate “three sets of double doors in the secretary’s office, including two doors that open onto a corner balcony with a spectacular view of the Washington Monument and the National Mall,” The Associated Press reported. Though Zinke scoffed at questions about the excessive price of the renovations during a Senate hearing on March 13, two days later he told the House Committee on Natural Resources that he negotiated the price down to $75,000. Despite this, House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) sent Zinke a letter on March 22 asking for a briefing “on the need to replace the doors” and asking for “details on the acquisition process, bidding and receipts,” according to Reuters.

March 11, 2018, USA Today: Zinke’s trip to Pennsylvania to announce $56 million in grants during a close campaign may have violated the Hatch Act. Toward the end of a tight campaign for Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district between Democrat Conor Lamb and Republican Rick Saccone, Zinke went to nearby East Bethlehem to announce $56 million in grants to clean up abandoned mining sites in the area. The entire event “had the feel of a hastily arranged news conference/town hall meeting/political opportunity,” according to the local Observer-Reporter. Saccone was among the politicians present, while his challenger did not attend. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is weighing a request to investigate whether Zinke’s trip was designed to benefit Saccone politically.

March 15, 2018, AP: Zinke stacks wildlife-trade advisory board with trophy hunters. Zinke appointed trophy hunters, including some with direct ties to the Trump family, to the International Wildlife Conservation Council, an advisory board tasked with rewriting federal rules to allow the importation of body parts from slain African elephants, lions, and rhinos. The Associated Press reported, “A coalition of more than 20 environmental and animal welfare groups objected that the one-sided makeup of the council could violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires government boards to be balanced in terms of points of view and not improperly influenced by special interests.” Most board members belong to hunting clubs or the National Rifle Association (NRA), and one member co-owns a private hunting reserve with Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. The Trump administration officially lifted a ban on importing elephant parts from Zimbabwe and Zambia on March 1.

March 21, 2018, Politico: Zinke had a security detail during his two-week vacation in Greece and Turkey. Ryan and Lola Zinke’s two-week vacation in Greece and Turkey to celebrate their 25-year wedding anniversary also included a security detail, according to records obtained by Politico. Besides these bare facts, the public still does not know important details about this arrangement including “exactly how many security personnel accompanied the couple, who paid for them, how much they cost or whether they traveled with Zinke and his wife, Lola, for the entire trip,” Politico reported.

March 26, 2018, Wash. Post: Zinke filled a new outdoor recreation advisory panel with members who could benefit from DOI decisions. At the urging of industry representatives, Zinke established the “Made in America” Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee last November and appointed “officials representing companies with National Park Service contracts, such as those in the hospitality sector, as well as those from the manufacturing, fishing, boating and all-terrain-vehicle industries,” according to The Washington Post, which obtained records about the committee via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Two of Zinke’s nominees to the panel were flagged by Interior staffers as having potential conflicts of interest because their companies hold some of the National Park Service’s largest concessions contracts, but they were appointed anyway.

March 27, 2018, Politico: Florida’s offshore drilling exemption may have been intended to benefit Gov. Rick Scott’s Senate campaign. On January 4, 2018, Zinke announced a controversial proposal to allow offshore drilling in many new coastal areas, including off the coast of Florida. Five days later, Zinke exempted Florida from the expanded drilling plan after a supposedly spur-of-the-moment encounter in the Tallahassee airport with Florida Gov. Rick Scott. But records reviewed by Politico in March “showed that top officials from the offices of both Scott and the Interior secretary were in regular contact for several days leading up to the sudden announcement, contradicting the supposed spontaneous event that portrayed Scott as protecting Florida’s environment.” According to The Washington Post, “The whole episode seems to have been designed to demonstrate Mr. Scott’s power and influence, by having him appear to summon the interior secretary to his state and bring him to heel in an afternoon.” Scott announced his Senate candidacy on April 9, 2018. The next day, CNN reported the U.S. Office of Special Counsel is investigating whether Zinke’s Florida announcement violated the Hatch Act.

March 28, 2018, Talking Points Memo: Zinke’s mass reassignment of career Interior employees may have violated federal anti-discrimination laws. Last July, Zinke initiated the reassignment of 35 Senior Executive Service members at DOI, of which 27 were ultimately transferred. Many were told to “either accept a new placement on the other side of the country or in a role unrelated to their background, or leave the agency,” according to Talking Points Memo. The DOI’s inspector general concluded the reassignments occurred “without a written plan or clear criteria, and without consulting with the departmental leadership,” which created the perception that staff were reassigned for “political or punitive reasons.” Because a third of those reassigned are Native American, DOI may have violated federal anti-discrimination laws, as well as its own Indian Preference rules, as TPM later reported. Zinke has reportedly told senior staff that diversity is not important. After a congressional hearing in March, he was also accused of racial insensitivity for responding “Oh, konnichiwa” to Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) after she shared the experience of two of her grandfathers who were held in internment camps during World War II.

April 6, 2018, Reveal: National Park Service deletes climate change from months-delayed report on sea-level rise. “National Park Service officials have deleted every mention of humans’ role in causing climate change in drafts of a long-awaited report on sea level rise and storm surge,” according to an investigation conducted by The Center for Investigative Reporting and published on its Reveal website. DOI oversees the National Park Service. Cat Hawkins, the head of the National Park Service’s climate change response program, made the deletions, in possible violation of Interior rules prohibiting political appointees from influencing scientific and scholarly activities. The report was also delayed for 10 months, which hindered park managers’ ability to access the latest research about how to mitigate the effects of extreme weather and sea-level rise on their parks. Zinke told the House Committee on Natural Resources in March, “I didn’t change a paragraph — a comma — in any document and I never would.” DOI’s inspector general is investigating the matter.

April 16, 2018, HuffPost: Oil industry rep uses perch on DOI advisory group to push “wish list” of regulatory rollbacks. Under Zinke, advisory groups at DOI have been packed with industry representatives who want looser regulations. Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance (WEA), a lobbying group that represents 300 oil and gas companies, chairs one such group, which is tasked with recommending how Zinke should manage federal lands for fossil fuel development. The group’s recommendations, which included regulatory rollbacks that had been on WEA’s wish list for years, was initially drafted by Tripp Parks, WEA’s head of government affairs. According to HuffPost, “A document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveals that Parks created the draft recommendations one day before Sgamma circulated them to committee members overseeing the working group.” The Sierra Club’s legal director told HuffPost, “It’s a very clear instance of regulatory capture.”

June 13, 2018, Wash. Post: DOI canceled a study of the health effects of mountaintop-removal coal mining with little justification, the department’s inspector general found. After DOI last August halted a major public health study being conducted by the National Academies of Science on the impacts of surface coal mining on nearby residents, Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) sent two letters to Zinke requesting information about the stoppage. Grijalva received no answer, so he requested an investigation by the DOI’s inspector general, which then found that “Departmental officials were unable to provide specific criteria used for their determination whether to allow or cease certain grants and cooperative agreements.” Records obtained by Pacific Standard show that before DOI stopped the study, Deputy Assistant Secretary Katharine MacGregor “had no fewer than six meetings with the most powerful mining players in the country. In both April and May of 2017, she met with the National Mining Association. In March and June, meanwhile, she met with Arch Coal, a long-time practitioner of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.”

June 19, 2018, Politico: Zinke and the chairman of Halliburton could both benefit from a proposed real-estate deal in Montana. A foundation created by Zinke is helping to pave the way for a large commercial development that is backed by David Lesar, the chairman of energy-services giant Halliburton. According to Politico, the Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation -- established by Zinke and currently run by his wife Lola -- agreed to allow 95 Karrow LLC, the Lesar-backed entity, to build a parking lot on land that had been donated to the foundation for creation of a park. The Zinkes also personally own land that's adjacent to the proposed development, potentially making that land much more valuable if the proposed development deal were to go through. The deal raises ethical concerns because Halliburton’s business could be substantially affected by decisions made by DOI. Zinke met with Lesar and the project’s other developers at Interior headquarters last year, Politico reported on June 21. Lesar and Zinke have had a relationship for years -- Lesar and his wife donated $10,400 to Zinke’s first House campaign in 2014. On June 18, DOI's deputy inspector general confirmed that her office had opened an investigation into whether Zinke violated conflict-of-interest laws.

June 26, 2018, Reuters: Zinke’s promotion of Trump's campaign slogan may have violated the Hatch Act. During a meeting of the Western Governors Association on June 26, Zinke tweeted a photo of one of his socks, which was emblazoned with Trump’s face and his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.” Zinke deleted that tweet and then posted a follow-up tweet that crossed out “Make America Great Again” yet still showed Trump’s face -- and then he deleted that one too. Those tweets may have violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits some forms of political activity by federal employees, Reuters reported. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel announced in March that because Trump has confirmed his candidacy for reelection, federal employees are prohibited while on duty from wearing or displaying items with the phrase “Make America Great Again” or non-official pictures of Trump. On July 9, CNN reported that the Office of Special Counsel opened a case file on whether Zinke’s tweet violated the Hatch Act.

July 6, 2018, HuffPost: Former NRA lobbyist working for Zinke may have committed multiple ethics violations. Benjamin Cassidy, a former NRA lobbyist who joined the Interior Department in October 2017, may have violated ethics rules by attending at least two meetings with Zinke that involved issues Cassidy had recently lobbied on. Cassidy attended a February 2018 meeting on “international conservation,” a discussion that most likely focused on issues such as hunting and animal trophy imports. While still employed with the NRA in 2017, Cassidy lobbied Congress on legislation dealing with animal trophy imports. Cassidy, whose official title is senior deputy director for intergovernmental and external affairs, should have signed Trump’s ethics pledge that bars former lobbyists in the executive branch from participating for two years in any matters on which they lobbied in the two years before starting an administration job. Another potential ethics violation occurred in March, when Cassidy attended a pair of private receptions Interior held for members of the International Wildlife Conservation Council, which includes an NRA employee and a former NRA board member, HuffPost reported on July 16. Cassidy served as the council members’ primary contact during their visit to Washington, D.C., for the receptions. Although it is not clear if Cassidy played a role in selecting members of the council, member Cameron Hanes thanked Cassidy as well as Zinke for including him. Cassidy “appears to be in violation of the prohibition on working on matters on which you’ve lobbied,” an ethics expert told HuffPost.

July 20, 2018, CNN: Zinke kept meetings off of public calendar. Zinke's publicly released schedule omitted or obscured the details of about a dozen meetings. CNN compared email conversations between Zinke and his scheduler (made available through FOIA requests) to the calendars that the Interior Department released and found numerous discrepancies between the two. Zinke had previously undisclosed meetings with lobbyists, lawmakers, and interest groups. For example, CNN found that in May 2017, a meeting listed on his schedule with Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) also included three executives from Delaware North, a contractor who does business with national parks. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, called for an investigation. In September, CNN followed up on this reporting and found that nearly 50 meetings in May and June 2018 were vaguely described, making it difficult for the public to determine what he was doing and who he was meeting with. And in October, CNN reported that his calendar omissions actually dated to his very first day in office, and that some of the newly discovered omissions included meetings with representatives from energy companies whose activities DOI regulates.

July 23, 2018, Wash. Post: Zinke and aides rejected evidence that supported creation of national monuments and sought out evidence that didn't -- and then tried to conceal strategy from the public. Zinke’s team selectively tailored a review of national monuments last year to dismiss the benefits of monuments and emphasize the value of activities such as logging and energy development on public lands, according to thousands of pages of email correspondence inadvertently released by the Interior Department’s FOIA office. The DOI retracted the documents the next day and released redacted versions. In the first version, for instance, draft economic reports on monuments under scrutiny included information on the Interior Department’s “ability to estimate the value of energy and/or minerals forgone as a result of the designations,” but that information was redacted from the second batch of emails. In another instance, officials marked this statement about an Oregon national monument as eligible for redaction: “Previous timber sale planning and development in the [expansion area] can be immediately resumed.” The review came in response to an executive order from Trump last year that instructed Zinke to scrutinize 27 national monuments established over a period of 21 years. It led Trump to dramatically shrink two national monuments in Utah.

October 16, 2018, The Hill: Zinke replaces DOI deputy inspector general with Republican political operative. The Hill reported that DOI Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall was being replaced by Suzanne Israel Tufts, a political appointee at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) who had previously worked as a lawyer and liaison for the Trump campaign. Tufts will now be acting deputy inspector general. Kendall, who oversaw DOI’s watchdog investigations and audits team for 10 years, only learned that she was being replaced when a colleague showed her an email sent by HUD Secretary Ben Carson to his agency’s staffers. The move is seen as highly unusual, particularly as Zinke has been the subject of 14 government investigations into his conduct as secretary, including half a dozen that are ongoing. Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general for the DOJ, tweeted, “Politicizing the oversight function is dangerous, especially in the absence of any Congressional oversight. Changing IGs in the midst of multiple serious investigations of the agency's head should raise alarm bells everywhere.” And Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, stated, “This stinks to high heaven. Secretary Zinke and the Interior Department are awash in wave after wave of scandal and corruption, and they decide now is the perfect time to get rid of the current IG."

October 16, 2018, The Hill: DOI was reportedly poised to replace deputy inspector general with Republican political operative, then reversed course after outcry. The Hill reported on October 16 that DOI Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall was being replaced by Suzanne Israel Tufts, a political appointee at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) who had previously worked as a lawyer and liaison for the Trump campaign. Tufts would become acting deputy inspector general, according to The Hill. Kendall has overseen DOI’s watchdog investigations and audits team for 10 years, and has been running investigations into a number of Zinke's questionable activities. She first learned that she was to be replaced when a colleague showed her an email sent by HUD Secretary Ben Carson to his agency’s staffers. The reported personnel shift prompted a public outcry. Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, said, “This stinks to high heaven. Secretary Zinke and the Interior Department are awash in wave after wave of scandal and corruption, and they decide now is the perfect time to get rid of the current IG." Two days later, on October 18, DOI told CBS that the shift was not happening and reports about it were "false." On October 19, CBS reported that Tufts resigned from her position at HUD.

October 18, 2018, Wash. Post: Zinke’s travel arrangements raised red flags among DOI ethics officials. A report by DOI’s Office of Inspector General detailed how Zinke’s travel practices violated department policy. The DOI's solicitor office approved Zinke’s wife Lola to travel with him in government vehicles for free. Although DOI policy prohibited this practice, Zinke changed the policy this summer. And in order to further legitimize her taxpayer-funded travel, Zinke asked DOI staffers to research how his wife could get a volunteer job with the department. The report also found that a DOI security detail accompanied Zinke and his wife on a vacation to Turkey and Greece last year, at a cost of $25,000. Although this was determined not to be in violation of policy, the report did note the significant cost to taxpayers. An Interior spokesperson denied any wrongdoing on Zinke's part, stating that he “follows all relevant laws and regulations and that all of his travel was reviewed and approved by career ethics officials and solicitors prior to travel.”

October 30, 2018, Wash. Post: Interior watchdog refers Zinke investigation to Justice Department. DOI's acting inspector general has referred one of its probes into Zinke’s behavior to the Justice Department, and prosecutors will now determine if it warrants a criminal investigation. According to The Washington Post, individuals close to the matter did not specify which investigation was referred. The Office of Inspector General is currently conducting at least three probes into Zinke’s conduct as interior secretary, including his role in a Montana real estate deal with the Halliburton chairman and his department’s decision to block a casino proposal backed by Native American tribes. Walter Shaub, Trump's former director of the Office of Government Ethics, told Politico that this is a major development: “What I can say is, Inspectors general don’t tend to refer matters to the Department of Justice unless they think that it’s likely there’s been a criminal violation.”

October 31, 2018, HuffPost: Zinke compared Robert E. Lee to Martin Luther King Jr. Speaking in Kentucky at a ceremony designating Camp Nelson as a new national monument to black Civil War soldiers, Zinke likened Confederate General Robert E. Lee to Martin Luther King Jr. Zinke referred to the placement of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C., which is near both the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery, the site of Lee’s former plantation. Zinke said, “I like to think that Lincoln doesn’t have his back to General Lee. He’s in front of him. There’s a difference. Similar to Martin Luther King doesn’t have his back to Lincoln. He’s in front of Lincoln as we march together to form a more perfect union. That’s a great story, and so is Camp Nelson.” Local Kentucky newspaper The Jessamine Journal posted the speech on Facebook. A year previously, in an interview with Breitbart, Zinke defended Confederate monuments and said none of them would be removed from federal land.

November 5, 2018, Wash. Post: Zinke violated an ethics pledge by working on issues related to his family foundation's land holdings. In January 2017, after he was nominated to be interior secretary, Zinke pledged to step down as president of a foundation he created, the Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation, and refrain from matters pertaining to it for one year. But according to The Washington Post, in August 2017 Zinke exchanged emails with a city planner in Whitefish, MT, and told him he could construct a disc-golf course on the foundation’s land. In earlier messages in the same email exchange, Zinke criticized a Politico article that linked his foundation to a property deal with the chairman of Halliburton. Additionally, his foundation’s 2018 annual report still showed that Zinke continued to serve as a foundation officer, though he later said that was in error.

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/ ... ent/220123

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By Steve Benen 02/22/19 05:30PM

Today's edition of quick hits:

* This is especially important in the event of a possible presidential pardon: "The Manhattan district attorney's office is moving forward in preparing a case against Paul Manafort in connection with state tax and bank fraud-related charges, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News."

* I'm very glad I didn't write a single word this week about the recent rumors about the imminent delivery of a Mueller report: "Attorney General William Barr will not receive the final report of special counsel Robert Mueller by the end of next week, says a senior Justice Department official."

* The latest Trump cabinet mess: "Prosecutors have begun presenting evidence to a grand jury in Washington in their probe of whether former interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to federal investigators, according to two individuals briefed on the matter."

* Venezuela: "Venezuelan soldiers opened fire on a group of civilians attempting to keep open a segment of the southern border with Brazil for deliveries of humanitarian aid, causing multiple injuries and the first fatalities of a massive opposition operation meant to deliver international relief to this devastated South American country, according to eyewitnesses and community leaders."

* Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) "wore a Confederate uniform in a photo published in his 1980 college yearbook, the Tennessean newspaper reported Thursday, in the latest instance of a state leader coming under scrutiny for past actions that critics have decried as racially insensitive."

http://www.msnbc.com/maddowblog

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<1



Venezuela's Maduro cuts ties with Colombia amid border conflict

"I’ve decided to sever all ties with the fascist government of Colombia," Venezuela's Maduro said.

By Dennis Romero, Reuters and Associated Press

Updated Feb. 24, 2019, 3:58 AM CST

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela cut off diplomatic ties with neighbor Colombia on Saturday after that nation was used as a staging ground for a U.S.-backed aid effort that he has vowed to block.

Opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who is recognized by President Trump as Venezuela's legitimate leader, was in Colombia for a concert organized by billionaire Richard Branson.

"We can't keep putting up with Colombian territory being used for attacks against Venezuela," Maduro said at a rally. "For that reason I’ve decided to sever all ties with the fascist government of Colombia. All consul employees should leave within 24 hours. Out! Get out. Enough is enough."

Colombia's Foreign Ministry responded in a statement that the nation "does not recognize the legitimacy of the usurper Maduro" and instead backs Guaidó.

"Colombia has always acted in a humanitarian and peaceful way and will continue to do so in order to help create the conditions that will give rise to democracy and freedom in Venezuela once again," the statement reads.

Maduro is refusing food and medical supplies based on his belief that it will be used by the United States as a means to curry favor with troops and overthrow him.

Late Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that the United States would respond to Maduro's recalcitrance. "The U.S. will take action against those who oppose the peaceful restoration of democracy in #Venezuela," he said.

Guaidó said Saturday that he planned to meet U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Bogotá on Monday during an emergency meeting of Latin American foreign ministers.

Guaido also tweeted that the day's events had obliged him to "propose in a formal manner to the international community that we keep all options open to liberate this country which struggles and will keep on struggling."

The opposition leader did back off his earlier requests for supporters to breach the border with aid, but he continued an appeal to Venezuelan troops to defect.

"How many of you national guardsmen have a sick mother?" he said. "How many have kids in school without food?"

In a subsequent statement Pompeo also urged troops still loyal to Maduro to switch sides.

"Now is the time to act in support of democracy, and respond to the needs of the desperate Venezuelan people," he said. "The United States will take action against and hold accountable those who oppose the peaceful restoration of democracy in Venezuela."

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, warned Maduro on Saturday that violence at the border opened the possibility of intervention.

"After discussions tonight with several regional leaders it is now clear that the grave crimes committed today by the Maduro regime have opened the door to various potential multilateral actions not on the table just 24 hours ago," he tweeted.

Rubio is a member of the Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations and has advised the Trump administration on Venezuela.

Last month Trump declared that he backs Guaidó, sparking increased tension with the Maduro regime and inspiring the Venezuelan leader to cut diplomatic ties with the United States.

Trucks loaded with supplies intended for Venezuela, where food is so scarce some citizens are calling their weight loss part of a "Maduro diet," were set ablaze Saturday as they reached the Francisco De Paula Santander International Bridge at the Venezuela-Colombia border Saturday, according to drone footage.

Two trucks were repelled at the border by troops loyal to Maduro. They returned to warehouses in Colombia.

The Venezuelan military used tear gas and rubber pellets against volunteers and opposition supporters attempting to help transport aid across the border. Injuries were reported, according to Telemundo.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vene ... ct-n974991

<2



WORLD NEWS

More than 60 Venezuelan troops defect amid blockade of aid

By Sommer Brokaw and Allen Cone

UPDATED FEB. 24, 2019 AT 1:35 AM

More than 60 Venezuelan National Guard troops defected Saturday from President Nicolas Maduro's regime to Colombia amid an armed government blockade of humanitarian aid.

Some troops abandoned their posts at the Simon Bolivar International Bridge on the Colombia-Venezuela border, CNN reported. Two members of the Bolivarian National Guard of Venezuela fled with their families, Colombian immigration authorities said.

The Venezuelan guardsmen held rifles and handguns over their heads as they were received by Colombian migration authorities.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido, the National Assembly president, whom the United States and nearly 60 other countries have recognized as interim president instead of Maduro, hopes for more defections.

The Venezuelan National Guard fired tear gas and rubber bullets at 500 protesters, attempting to rush into Colombia, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Injured were 285 people, including 37 hospitalized, Colombia's foreign minister said Saturday.

Despite an armed government blockade, Guaido has said that international aid for the country, reeling from a long political and economic crisis, would enter.

Maduro had ordered the blockade of the international bridge connecting the country to the Colombian city of Cucuta earlier this month ahead of U.S. humanitarian aid arriving in Colombia a week ago. Maduro also closed the Venezuela-Brazil border Thursday, citing the planned delivery of foreign aid against his wishes.

While the country's poverty has soared to record levels with a lack of medicine and food, Maduro denies the humanitarian crisis exists and says the U.S. aid efforts are part of a plot to bring down his government.

Maduro, speaking at a rally in the capital of Caracas, severed diplomatic relations with Colombia, and threatened the United States with "the strength of the Venezuelan armed forces."

U.S. Vice President Pence will meet with Guaido on Monday in Bogota, during Pence's visit to Colombia, a White House official said Saturday, according CNN.

"We denounce Maduro's refusal to let humanitarian assistance reach #Venezuela," U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo posted on Twitter. "What kind of a sick tyrant stops food from getting to hungry people? The images of burning trucks filled with aid are sickening."

On Friday, at least two people died when troops loyal to Maduro opened fire on citizens attempting to keep Venezuela's southern border with Brazil open to humanitarian aid this weekend.

Guaido took to Twitter to encourage Venezuelans to protest Maduro's blockade of humanitarian aid.

"We call on everyone to go out into the streets on a massive scale throughout the country, to demonstrate peacefully in the barracks to demand # FANB [Venezuelan armed forces] to let humanitarian aid go through," Guaido tweeted Saturday. "Let's make today the cry of an entire people that wants life, future and freedom."

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News ... 6485/?lh=5

<3



The last 48 hours in Venezuela news, explained

Violent clashes have erupted at the country’s borders with Colombia and Brazil.

By Amanda Sakuma Feb 24, 2019, 2:03pm EST

The ongoing crisis in Venezuela devolved over the weekend, as embattled president Nicolás Maduro’s military blocked help and humanitarian aid from entering the country — occasionally with deadly force.

Starting Friday, violent clashes erupted at several points along Venezuela’s border with Colombia as armed government forces tried to block shipments of aid from entering the country. By the end of Saturday, at least four people had reportedly been killed along that line and along the Latin American country’s border with Brazil; hundreds more were injured. Maduro has insisted that the humanitarian supplies are unnecessary and spent the weekend continuing to celebrate his ongoing rule with his supporters — even as the United States and other international leaders amped up calls for him to step down.

The conditions inside Venezuela, however, paint a dramatically different picture than Maduro’s salsa-dancing rally Saturday does. The country has been consumed by political turmoil and an economic free-fall that has pushed Venezuela beyond the brink of a humanitarian crisis. Vox’s Alex Ward has a run-down of just how dire the situation has become:

Inflation in the country now hovers above a million percent, and could reach 10 million percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. Food and medicine are too expensive for many to purchase. And since 2015, more than 3 million Venezuelans have left the country in search of better opportunities elsewhere, primarily in Colombia. (It’s expected that another 2 million will become refugees in 2019 alone.)

Despite the declining conditions, Maduro has vowed to block any humanitarian aid from crossing the border into Venezuela. He denies that a humanitarian crisis even exists in his country and he’s called the international shipments a potential “trojan horse” that would lead to military intervention.

The situation remained fraught and fast-moving throughout the weekend. If you had a hard time keeping up with what was happening, we’ve got you covered.

Opposition groups were tear-gassed at the border

The Venezuelan government shuttered key border crossings to block deliveries of humanitarian aid supplied by the US and neighboring countries. Juan Guaidó, the opposition leader and self-declared interim president, crossed into Colombia to help shepherd the aid convoy back across the border — despite being under a travel ban.

That was just one friction point in the tense standoffs between armed Maduro loyalists and opposition protesters, which at times gave way to violence, with tear gas and rubber bullets being used to disperse the crowds. Here’s what else we know:

Colombia’s foreign minister says 285 people were injured and 37 hospitalized on their side of the border.
According to the Guardian, at least four people had been killed along Venezuela’s borders by Saturday evening.
A Venezuelan Navy vessel threatened to open fire on a ship carrying humanitarian aid, Puerto Rican Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said in a statement Saturday.

Guaidó is asking that the international community keep “all options open” in efforts to oust Maduro. His tweets from late Saturday suggest he may want to take a more aggressive approach toward forcibly removing the dictator, though he was reportedly still in Colombia that night.

Some of Venezuela’s military and security forces started abandoning their posts on Saturday after being tasked with denying aid to their fellow citizens. By some estimates, as many as 60 soldiers defected to the opposition amid the skirmishes at the border.

So far, only two trucks delivering humanitarian aid were able to successfully cross the border between Brazil and Venezuela, The New York Times reports. Several more came close, but were ultimately blocked by government forces.

Colombian President Ivan Duque on Sunday toured the damage along the two main border crossings where the skirmishes took place a day earlier. He is tightening security and has closed two international bridges for a 48-hour clean-up period.

“Yesterday the dictatorship sealed its moral and diplomatic defeat before the eyes of the world,” Duque said, according to the AP.

Maduro was literally dancing during the standoff

Maduro, who initially came into power riding on the popularity of his mentor and predecessor Hugo Chávez, has been clinging to it even as his popularity has tanked. He won a widely disputed re-election last spring and has resisted growing calls from the international community to either step down or hold new presidential elections — instead, he’s made an empty gesture of promising to hold parliamentary elections early.

Throughout the weekend, Maduro remained defiant in his refusal to give up power. Surrounded by a crowd of thousands of loyal supporters in Caracas, he took the stage and began salsa dancing with his wife. The event was televised nationally.

Maduro also said he was severing all diplomatic ties with Colombia, which has been aligned with US and played an active role in helping opposition leaders try to bring humanitarian aid into Venezuela. He ordered all diplomats to leave the country within 24 hours.

But Maduro’s position wasn’t completely assured, even in the capital. Top military brass, one of his key bastions of support, are defecting. On Saturday, Maj. Hugo Parra Martinez became the fifth military leader to abandon Maduro and throw their support behind the opposition.

Mike Pence will be meeting with the opposition leader

The US, along with 50 some other countries, formally recognize Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president. (The 35-year-old former engineer declared himself such under an obscure constitutional provision that would allow the head of the national assembly to take over leadership if the country’s without a legitimate head-of-state.)

The Trump administration has already issued harsh sanctions on Venezuela and publicly advocated for a peaceful transition of power. That pressure only mounted over the weekend as the deadly clashes continued:

Vice President Mike Pence plans to meet Guaidó face-to-face for the first time on Monday. The two are scheduled to meet in Bogota, on the sidelines of the Lima Group meeting.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday criticized Maduro’s “armed gangs,” and called on security forces to allow the humanitarian aid to reach the Venezuelan people. “Now is the time to act in support of democracy, and respond to the needs of the desperate Venezuelan people.” The following day, he told CNN that Maduro’s “days are numbered.”

US National Security adviser John Bolton called Maduro’s forces “masked thugs,” and hinted that more sanctions may soon be on their way.

2020 hopefuls are calling for restraint from Maduro. Sens. Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders both tweeted on Saturday condemning the violence from the Venezuelan military and security forces. Harris said Saturday she doesn’t condone US military action in the region — yet. (Both Sanders and 2020 hopeful Kirsten Gillebrand have previously said the same.) Sanders, who identifies as a Democratic socialist, is meanwhile catching criticism from Florida Democrats for not outright labeling Maduro as a dictator.

President Donald Trump, along with his administration, has said he wants to see a peaceful transition of power — but hasn’t taken military intervention off the table.

https://www.vox.com/2019/2/24/18238579/ ... d-violence

<4



LATINO

Cubans vote on a constitutional referendum which may reveal growing discontent

“They have to understand the message: support for the revolution has eroded. The question is: by how much?” one political analyst said.

By Carmen Sesin and Orlando Matos

Feb. 24, 2019, 4:17 AM CST

HAVANA — Cubans are heading to the polls Sunday for a constitutional referendum, and although it is expected to be approved overwhelmingly, experts say it could receive an unusual amount of rejection.

The draft constitution contains important changes, but retains the island's one-party communist system. It legitimizes private businesses that have been opening for the past decade and acknowledges the importance of foreign investment.

Experts believe the vote has become a referendum on people’s support for the 1959 communist revolution at a time when Cubans are feeling freer to voice their opinion.

In one of the last communist nations in the world, the government has been on an extensive propaganda campaign throughout the country, promoting #YoVotoSi (#IVoteYes) on television, and social media. Signs can be seen on buses and public buildings.

Cuba's president Miguel Díaz-Canel and his wife lined up outside a polling station early Sunday morning to cast their ballot. Speaking to the press after voting, he criticized what he called "imperalist threats" from the U.S. towards Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and urged Cubans to vote "yes" on the referendum.

Jorge Rodriguez, 36, says he will vote "yes" on Sunday. “There are things I have to thank the revolution for.” Before becoming a taxi driver Rodriguez went to vocational school for free. “I have never had to worry about what a hospital costs,” he added.

But critics say reforms to the island’s political system were never considered even though they were brought up: After the first draft was published in July, community meetings were held nationwide over a three-month period so citizens could voice their opinions. During the meetings, many Cubans called for direct election of the president and other officials but these demands were not reflected in the final draft.

A NEW CONSTITUTION AMID BIG CHANGES?

For the first time in over 60 years, neither the late Fidel Castro nor his younger brother Raul are at the helm. More Cubans have traveled outside the island since Castro ended the exit permit in 2013, exposing them to different views and governmental systems. Moreover, Cubans are increasingly connecting to the internet — according to the government, it's up to 6.4 million out of its 11 million residents.

Cuba is grappling with a stagnant economy, yet it's been losing one of its strongest allies, Venezuela, a country in the midst of political and economic crisis and growing international calls for its leader, Nicolás Maduro, to step down.

Cuba’s civil society is more vocal. With more access to internet, activists have turned to social media to promote their #YoVotoNo (#IVoteNo) campaign.

René Gómez Manzano, 75, a lawyer and member of the opposition, says he has spent decades not showing up to the polls “to not be an accomplice of the regime.” This time he says he will vote "no."

“It will be a message to the government that it must recognize there is a significant percentage of the population that is not in agreement with the [political] system,” Manzano said.

Cuban government officials will be looking to see if there is an increase in the amount of dissent during Sunday’s vote. In a nation with only one political party, candidates for government usually garner a “yes” vote well above 90 percent. The current constitution was approved in 1976 with 97.7 percent approval.


There are no opinion polls or independent mass media in Cuba, but the draft is expected to be ratified overwhelmingly. Arturo Lopez Levy, a former analyst with the Cuban interior ministry who is now a professor at Gustavus Adolphus College, calculates that the level of dissent will be around 15 to 30 percent.

This number includes “no” votes, those who abstain through an intentionally annulled ballot, and people who do not show up to the polls. For the government, a ‘no’ vote is considered a vote for the opposition, while annulled ballots and no-shows are considered discontent.

“They have to understand the message: support for the revolution has eroded. The question is by how much,” said Lopez Levy. “It is important to look at what level the discontent reaches.”

Catholic and evangelical leaders have also been promoting a “no” vote and its members are expected to widely reject the proposed constitution. Catholic leaders cited the draft’s ideological bent, denial of access to media and education, and they say it allows foreigners, but not Cubans, to invest in the island.

One of the more controversial revisions in the final draft was the elimination of a proposed article that would have legalized same-sex marriage by changing it to mean between two people instead of between a man and a woman. It was the article that sparked the most disagreement, with conservative groups rejecting the proposal.

The final draft reinserted the aim of “advancing toward communism” that had been removed from the first draft. Officials said its removal from the first version sparked concern among thousands of citizens.

Some members of the opposition who promoted the "no" vote have been temporarily detained after their homes were raided leading up to the referendum.

Results of the referendum will be announced Monday afternoon.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/cub ... nt-n974786

<5



POLITICS

After Stinging Presidential Loss, Popular Vote Movement Gains Momentum In States

Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday

SAM BRASCH

February 24, 20197:00 AM ET

An attempt at an Electoral College workaround is gaining momentum in the Mountain West.

Democrats in Colorado and New Mexico are pushing ahead with legislation to pledge their 14 collective electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote — no matter who wins each state.

The plan only goes into effect if the law passes in states representing an electoral majority. That threshold is 270 votes, which is the same number needed to win the presidency.

Democrats have been stung by the fact that President Trump's victory marked the second time in five cycles that a Democrat lost the presidency while winning the popular vote. 2016 was the most egregious example, with Hillary Clinton winning 3 million more votes than Donald Trump, but losing the election. It was the largest margin ever for someone who won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College.

Proponents of the national popular vote measures have argued that it's not political, but Republicans, who have benefited in recent elections from the Electoral College system, disagree.

And while a majority of the country has expressed support for giving the presidency to the person who wins the most votes — 55 percent in the latest Pew Research Center poll — there are sharp partisan divides. Three-quarters of Democrats are in favor of amending the Constitution to do so, but less than a third of Republicans are.

So far, 11 states — including New York, California and New Jersey — have joined the effort along with the District of Columbia, putting the effort 98 votes short of its goal.

Colorado appears poised to join as the 12th state. The state legislature passed the bill Thursday, and Gov. Jared Polis is expected to sign it. In New Mexico, the legislation is awaiting consideration in the state Senate after the House approved it earlier this month.

If the bills pass, it would show the plan has momentum outside of the Coastal U.S., especially in places where Democrats have full control of state government.

John Koza devised the plan and chairs the organization behind it. Koza also co-invented the scratch lottery ticket and taught computer science at Stanford. He turned his attention to the Electoral College, however, after growing frustrated with "winner-take-all" laws.

Koza said the rules are why presidential candidates only campaign in a handful of states. He recognized what might be a potential loophole in the Constitution — that while the Electoral College is in the Constitution, nothing says a candidate who wins a state has to get all of its electoral votes.

"The political power to the choose the president was basically given by the founders to the state legislatures," Koza said. "And over the years they've passed different laws specifying how to allocate their state's electoral votes."

In fact, Maine and Nebraska do not have "winner-take-all" systems. They allocate their electoral votes to presidential candidates by congressional district, with an additional two electoral votes going to the winner of the state.

Colorado state Sen. Mike Foote, who's sponsoring legislation, insisted that it's not a partisan response to Trump's 2016 win. Rather, he said, it's about upholding the democratic principle of one person, one vote.

"It's about time that every vote in the country counts equally," he said. "Right now, if you live in a state that is not a battleground state, then your vote doesn't count nearly as much."

Bipartisan appeals have not gone far in Colorado. Not a single Republican voted for the bill as it moved through the state legislature. During a debate on the House floor, one Republican even suggested renaming the bill the "We Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Hate Donald Trump Act of 2019."

Republican state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, who represents the plains east of Denver, worries about the impact of a popular vote on rural America. He said it would lead candidates to only campaign in the largest media markets, like New York and Los Angeles.

"You drop us from nine [electoral] votes to 5.5 million people, all of sudden Colorado is irrelevant," he said. "This is all about making sure presidential candidates realize Colorado is important to the rest of the country."

That partisan divide isn't limited to Colorado. Across the country, pollsters have seen a steep drop in Republican support for a popular vote for president since 2016. National Popular Vote's Koza said it has been much harder to get Republicans to support his plan in recent years.

While those opinions could change over time, it signals the compact is unlikely to succeed in the short-term. Only Democratic-leaning states have joined so far. Swing states, like Ohio and Florida, have the least reason to sign on, which means it likely needs support from deep red states.

There's also a broader question as to whether it would be constitutional. The Electoral College is clearly written into the nation's founding document. Some insist that Congress would have to approve it since it would overhaul national election procedures. Other scholars have argued that states can't bind their electors to voters outside their boundaries.

Koza insists Article II gives states broad power to decide how they choose electoral delegates. Still, he expects a series of lawsuits if enough of the National Popular Vote efforts went into effect.

Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver, said those legal battles are a long way off. In the short term, he sees it as a way to center a familiar debate over the unique way the country decides its president.

"It's about saying the status quo is unacceptable," he said. "This might not be the best way of changing it, but it's at least a way of forcing some change and forcing some discussion of it."

[url]https://www.npr.org/2019/02/24/696 ... -in-states[/url]

<6



Trump’s Secret to Victory in 2020: Hispanic Voters

Yes, it’s true: The man who wants to build a wall to keep out immigrants is winning over just enough Latinos to get re-elected. Unless Democrats figure out how to stop him.

By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN February 24, 2019

Then President Donald Trump tweeted, on January 20, that he had reached 50 percent approval among Hispanic Americans, most fair-minded observers reacted with skepticism, if not outright disbelief. Trump was, after all, still the same man who announced his candidacy by accusing Mexico of sending “rapists” across the border, the same man who ordered refugee children separated from their parents, the same man who has made building a wall to shut out migrants the focal point of his presidency. Yet here he was, crowing characteristic bravado: “Wow, just heard that my poll numbers with Hispanics has gone up 19%, to 50%. That is because they know the Border issue better than anyone, and they want Security, which can only be gotten with a Wall.”

So, when even the pollsters responsible for the data Trump was touting—Marist Institute for Public Polling, for NPR and PBS NewsHour—cautioned of the high margin of error for that subset, and a possible over-sampling of Republicans, many on the left promptly dismissed it as an anomaly.

One month later, however, and Trump is making an aggressive play for Hispanic-American votes in Florida and beyond. Meanwhile, new polls suggest Marist might have been onto something—and that Democrats should be genuinely worried that Hispanic voters could help re-elect Trump and keep the U.S. Senate in Republican control. If so, it will be a cosmic twist of fate: A party that has staked its future on a belief that America’s demographic picture is changing decidedly in its favor could find itself losing to a man whose politics of fear should be driving precisely those voters into the Democrats’ waiting arms.

In theory, the rosy predictions that once gave rise to chest-beating liberal books like “The Emerging Democratic Majority” are proving true: 2020 will be the first U.S. election in which Hispanics are the largest racial or ethnic minority in the electorate, according to the Pew Research Center. Pew estimates that 32 million Hispanics will be eligible to vote—a full two million more than black eligible voters, and more than 13 percent of the electorate. Hispanics figure to comprise at least 11 percent of the national vote, as they did in 2016 and 2018.

Many expected Hispanics to vote overwhelmingly against Trump in 2016. A Latino Decisions poll just before the election found Trump with support of just 18 percent of Hispanics. But the actual figure was 28 percent, which—given Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about immigrants—some analysts and pundits refused to believe from exit polls until further studies confirmed it. That was essentially just as good as Mitt Romney, as the 2012 Republican nominee, did with Hispanics—and it was enough to help Trump squeak to an Electoral College victory.

If Clinton had improved her share of the Hispanic vote by just three percentage points in Florida (from 62 percent to 65 percent of the Hispanic vote) and Michigan (from 59 percent to 62 percent), she would have won both states, and their 45 Electoral College votes. That would have been enough to make her president. Slightly bigger swings—let alone the Democrats’ 88 percent-8 percent margin among African-Americans—could have added Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin into the blue column as well.

Now, here’s the brutal truth for Democrats: If Hispanic Americans are in fact showing surging approval of Trump, he could be on his way to matching or exceeding the 40 percent won by George W. Bush in his 2004 re-election. If Trump does 12 percentage points better than his 2016 numbers with the growing Hispanic vote, it pretty much takes Florida, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina off the table for Democrats, who would then need to sweep Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to reach the necessary 270 electoral college votes. At the same time, that 12-point shift would give Trump a clear shot at winning Colorado and Nevada, states where Hispanic voters make up well over 10 percent of the electorate, and where Clinton won by five percentage points or less in 2016.

And if the Democratic path to the presidency looks hard without overwhelming Hispanic support, control of the Senate looks almost impossible. Any realistic scenario to gaining the necessary three seats—four if Trump retains the presidency—requires Democrats to defeat incumbents Cory Gardner in Colorado and Martha McSally in Arizona. Both have higher than average Hispanic electorates. Gardner won his seat in 2014 by evenly splitting the Hispanic vote. McSally, who was just appointed to succeed John McCain, narrowly lost her 2018 race to Kyrsten Sinema by winning just 30 percent of Hispanics. Any improvement among Hispanics for Republicans—or even just a lack of enthusiasm for turning out to vote against Trump—could easily return Gardner and McSally to the Senate, and leave Democrats in the minority.

Let’s take a closer look at the numbers.

A new poll from Morning Consult, partnering with Politico, found Trump’s approval rebounding to 45 percent overall, with Hispanic approval jumping especially sharply—to 42 percent, after bottoming out at 22 percent on January 21. That result, like the early Marist number, suffers from high margin of error for the ethnic subset. A more conservative rolling average puts the figure at around 35 percent, and rising.

Other polls also show Trump in the mid-30s with Hispanics. A new Economist/YouGov poll finds 32 percent approval rating among Hispanics; another from The Hill and HarrisX has it at 35 percent. In mid-January, Reuters/Ipsos found his approval among Hispanics at 36 percent, the highest since the 2016 election.

That’s about where Trump’s Hispanic approval spent most of 2018, according to previous Morning Consult polls, but about 10 points above where Reuters/Ipsos and Gallup polling showed him throughout the year. Whether keeping pace or on the rise, these polls suggest that Hispanics are responding to Trump as president more like Americans as a whole—close to 45 percent of whom approve of Trump—than like African-Americans, whose Trump approval remains around 10 percent.

That doesn’t necessarily translate into votes, cautions Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Polling. Despite that 50 percent approval rate, his poll found that only 27 percent of Hispanics said that they definitely plan to vote for Trump in 2020, with 58 percent definitely voting against him. Still, a definite 27 percent, if accurate, is already essentially equal to the percentage of Hispanic voters who chose Trump in 2016 (28 percent), or Mitt Romney over Barack Obama in 2012 (27 percent), or Republicans in the 2018 congressional midterms (29 percent).

There appears to be room for growth. Morning Consult’s polling showed Trump approval among Hispanics at or above 40 percent for much of his first year in office, perhaps in something of a grace period, to which he could potentially return.

And remember: pollsters in 2016 thought Trump would get only about 18 percent of the Hispanic vote; he actually got 28 percent. If polls are, for some reason, still underestimating his appeal among Hispanics by a similar margin, he could be on his way to 40 — and re-election.

So why might Trump be suddenly surging with Hispanic voters?

It’s easy to assume that all Hispanic Americans must detest and disapprove of the president who derides and vilifies immigrants coming across the southern border. But it hasn’t been the reality. It is a large, diverse population that does not act as a monolith.

As a whole, Hispanic Americans are becoming politically more and more like non-Hispanic white Americans. Two-thirds of the Hispanic electorate now is American-born, and they are far more likely to approve of Trump than naturalized immigrants, according to Pew Research Center data. They remain more Democratic than non-Hispanic white voters in part just because so many of them are young adults and share many of their generation’s progressive views.

But as the political analysis site FiveThirtyEight recently noted, Hispanic Democrats are considerably less liberal than others in the party. Hispanics make up about 12 percent of those who identify as Democrats or who tend to lean Democratic; but they are 22 percent of Democrats who describe themselves as moderate or conservative. Hispanics, roughly half of whom are Catholic (and another quarter are former Catholics), skew conservative on social issues, including abortion.

After Trump’s midterms misfire of trying to rally the Republican base through immigrant-bashing, there is evidence, too, that the 2020 playbook will return to the more tried-and-true method of characterizing Democrats as extreme leftists. He, and other leading Republicans, are lately criticizing Democrats more on abortion, taxes and “socialist” positions on health care and climate change. He’s also made a targeted appeal to Cuban-Americans in Florida by vocally supporting the overthrow of Nicolas Maduro, the socialist leader who has seized power in Venezuela. There is good reason to think that those efforts will be effective on Hispanic voters—or, at least, effective enough.

The Democratic Party certainly hasn’t been wowing them. Hispanic approval of congressional Democrats, and of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer individually, is generally poor. There are few, if any, elected Democratic Hispanics who are national household names. After Clinton passed on the opportunity to put a Latino on the national ticket in 2016, the 2020 presidential field has just one Hispanic in the mix: Julian Castro, who has been overshadowed by a white fellow Texan, Beto O’Rourke.

Meanwhile, Democrats’ hope of a deal to protect the “Dreamers” who came to the United States as children, but have remained in legal limbo for years, ended with nothing to show for it. Immigration reform and labor issues have taken a back seat in the Democratic-controlled House to climate change, health care, and gun control—similar to what happened the last time Democrats took control of the House, in 2009.

And most importantly, things are pretty good for most Hispanic Americans. Trump is correct that they have enjoyed record-low unemployment, notwithstanding a small uptick at the start of this year. And, despite all of Trump’s rhetoric, and the fear it genuinely induced, not much has actually changed for most Hispanic families here. Deportations are a little down from Obama administration peaks, while immigrant arrests are a little up.

The good economy might be Obama’s doing more than Trump’s, but regardless it’s a powerful incentive to keep the current political leadership in place.

None of this is to suggest that Hispanics are entering a prolonged love affair with Trump. But it does mean that the eventual Democratic nominee can’t simply assume that Hispanic voters will flock to the polls to prevent his second term. If anything, the challenge for the party looks tougher than in 2016—when it arguably cost them the White House.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... ump-225192

<7



POLITICS

California proposes phaseout of single-use plastics by 2030

California lawmakers introduced legislation this week to phase out single-use plastic food containers and other packaging that can’t demonstrate it’s recyclable or compostable.

Proponents of the legislation say it could help reduce the problem of plastic littering beaches and oceans.
Last year the Golden State became the first in the nation to restrict the use of plastic straws in restaurants.

California already has placed curbs on plastic items such as straws and bags — and this week legislation was introduced to phase out single-use plastic food containers and other packaging that isn’t recyclable or compostable.

Jeff Daniels

UPDATED SAT, FEB 23 2019 • 12:07 PM EST

KEY POINTS

The proposed measure also would apply to polystyrene foam containers used for takeout meals, as well as plastic detergent bottles. Assembly Bill 1080, introduced Thursday, would phase out the single-use plastics by 2030 and follows concerns about plastic debris going in oceans and on beaches.

If the legislation becomes law, some experts believe it could lead to other states taking similar steps. In 2014 California became the first state with a single-use plastic bag ban, they noted, which led to at least four other states introducing similar measures.

“What we do in California tends to spread across the country,” said Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a nonprofit environmental group. “If manufacturers have to comply with this rule in California, they probably are going to do this across the country.”

If passed, Murray said the legislation would be a “win” for companies making or marketing two common recycled plastic materials: polyethylene terephthalate (or PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE). PET is commonly used for plastic bottles that contain water or soda, while HDPE is used in milk jugs, shampoo bottles, household cleaning bottles and in some trash bags and cereal liners.


“For some plastic manufacturers who have invested in recycling and closed-loop recycling, this is going to be a boon,” Murray said. “The losers are going to be polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride and polypropylene, because those are the ones that aren’t being recycled.”

Proponents of the legislation say it could help reduce the problem of plastic ending up along beaches and in oceans and rivers. The issue has been highlighted by reports of whales and other marine life found with plastic items in their stomachs.

“We have to stop treating our oceans and planet like a dumpster,” said Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, who authored AB 1080. “Any fifth-grader can tell you that our addiction to single-use plastics is killing our ecosystems.” She added, “We have technology and innovation to improve how we reduce and recycle the plastic packaging and products in our state. Now we have to find the political will to do so.”

At the same time, backers of the legislation argue that discarded plastics has become a bigger concern in the past year since China started turning away plastic waste beginning in 2018.

Gonzalez teamed up with state Sen. Bill Allen, D-Santa Monica, who in December introduced Senate Bill 54 in an attempt to reduce the amount of single-use plastic waste that ends up polluting waterways and other places.

According to Allen, the plastic waste often breaks down into toxic chemicals, including some considered cancer-causing. Plastic can take hundreds of years to biodegrade in the ocean, according to research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“At the Plastics Industry Association, we believe uncollected plastics do not belong in our oceans or waterways,” said Scott DeFife, vice president of governmental affairs for PIA, a D.C.-based trade association. “We share the goal of increased recovery in order for plastics to be used at their highest and best potential.”

The American Chemistry Council, which represents leading makers of plastic resins, last May set a goal of 100 percent of plastic packaging being recycled, reused or recovered by 2040. ACC also advocates 100 percent of plastic packaging be recyclable or recoverable by 2030.

In 2014, California passed legislation to curb the use of single-use plastic bags at grocery stores. It mandated that retailers charge consumers for reusable plastic bags or paper bags.


A bartender at Wipeout Bar & Grill in San Francisco makes cocktails that have paper straws.

Last year the Golden State became the first in the nation to restrict the use of plastic straws in restaurants with the passage of Assembly Bill 1884. The state also passed Senate Bill 1335, legislation reducing the use of non-recyclable takeout food containers.

“Last year we worked closely with Sen. Allen on his SB 1335, a bill that we ultimately supported which created new requirements that food-service packaging used at state facilities be recyclable or compostable,” said Tim Shestek, senior director of state affairs for ACC. “We’d welcome the opportunity to work with Sen. Allen and all stakeholders on efforts to recycle and recover more plastic material so that it doesn’t become waste or ocean litter.”

However, some contend the state should stay out of the business of restricting plastics, whether straws or packaging. They also claim a small percentage of plastics in the ocean are coming from the United States.

“It won’t change anything, and nobody will see a difference,” said Kerry Jackson, a fellow at the Center for California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute, a conservative think tank based in San Francisco. “This is a freedom issue as well. [Companies] should be able to decide what they’re going to give to customers, and customers should be able to decide what they want to get.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/23/califor ... -2030.html

<8



Green New Deal is feasible and affordable

By Jeffrey Sachs

Updated 3:07 PM ET, Fri February 22, 2019

(CNN)There are three main ideas of the Green New Deal Resolution introduced by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey.

The first is to decarbonize the US energy system -- that is, to end the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning coal, oil and natural gas, in order to stop global warming.

The second is to guarantee lower-cost, high-quality health coverage for all.

The third is to ensure decent jobs and living standards for all Americans, in part by making colleges and vocational schools affordable for all.

The right wing and corporate lobbies are already hyperventilating: It is unachievable; it will bankrupt us; it will make us into Venezuela.

These claims are dead wrong. The Green New Deal agenda is both feasible and affordable. This will become clear as the agenda is turned into specific legislation for energy, health care, higher education, and more.

The Green New Deal combines ideas across several parts of the economy because the ultimate goal is sustainable development. That means an economy that delivers a package deal: good incomes, social fairness, and environmental sustainability. Around the world, governments are aiming for the same end -- a "triple-bottom line" of economic, social, and environmental objectives.

In the US, the economy is feeding the wealth of billionaires while leaving tens of millions of households with no financial cushion at all. Meanwhile, the fossil-fuel lobby continues to endanger the planet by promoting the use of fuels that contribute to climate change, raising the risk of mega-floods, droughts, hurricanes, and heat waves, claiming many lives and costing the US more than $450 billion during 2016-18, or more than $150 billion per year on average.

The key ideas of the Green New Deal -- decarbonization, lower-cost health care, and decent living standards for the working class -- have been studied for years. The Green New Deal Resolution is the opportunity, finally, to put that vast knowledge into effect.

What is absolutely clear is that the Green New Deal is affordable. The claims about the unaffordability of these goals are pure hype. The detailed plans that will emerge in the coming months will expose the bluster.

Decarbonizing energy

Consider the challenge of decarbonizing the energy system. As noted in the Green New Deal resolution, the recent report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change calls for global decarbonization by 2050, an achievable goal that requires coherent and accelerated actions by the US and other nations.

The Green New Deal is the occasion to put America's utilities, builders, and automakers to the challenge of accelerating their technological overhauls to complete decarbonization by 2050 or earlier. The resolution calls for a 10-year mobilization effort to achieve "net-zero greenhouse gas emissions" but not for a precise timeline for completing decarbonization. The timing will depend on the pace of new zero-carbon investments and the phase-out of existing fossil fuel-based technologies.

Decarbonization will include the following measures. Electricity generation will shift from coal and natural gas to wind, solar, hydro, and other zero-carbon technologies. Cars and trucks will shift from gasoline to electricity, using batteries or fuel cells (with hydrogen manufactured by electrolysis). Planes will use electricity for short flights and advanced zero-carbon fuels for longer flights. Buildings will be heated by electricity (such as heat pumps) rather than boilers and furnaces.

The costs of renewable energy are plummeting, making decarbonization eminently feasible. Detailed estimates put the costs of substantial decarbonization (80% or more by 2050) at around 1% of GDP per year or less. (See here for one recent study). In many cases, renewable energy is already at "grid parity," meaning that it is at a cost point comparable to fossil fuels. Most of the modest costs of decarbonization will never hit the federal budget, as they will be absorbed by the utility industry, the automobile producers, and other parts of the private economy.

Decarbonization is already underway in the US, just not yet with the pace and scale required. US utilities are no longer building coal-fired power plants; many are now scrapping plans for gas-fired plants in favor of renewable energy. Investors and in-house lawyers are warning companies not to invest in fossil fuels, as these investments would be stranded in future years. Automobile companies are rapidly shifting to electric vehicles. New buildings are going electric, with tough efficiency codes. These transformations are being driven mainly by environmental regulations, integrated resource planning by utilities, and market forces, not by federal outlays.

Medicare for all

Lower-cost, high-quality health care for all, for example through Medicare for All, is also within reach. As with decarbonization, the right wing and corporate lobbies are using scare tactics to hide the basic fact: Health care costs in the US can be cut considerably, while improving services.

The US spends around 17% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care coverage, while other countries spend 10-12%. The main difference lies with the high prices of US health care, for drugs, hospital stays, medical procedures, and other goods and services, rather than with greater utilization of health services. These high prices have resulted in part from the rising concentration and market power of health care providers at the metropolitan level. The result is outlandish salaries, bloated administration, heavy costs of advertising, and other inefficiencies that result in high incomes for the health care industry and exorbitant costs for taxpayers and for workers paying for private health care plans.

The question is therefore not whether we can afford Medicare for All, but whether we will get there before the private health care industry bankrupts us. As one approach, the private insurance premiums now flowing to private health insurers could be re-directed to a Medicare account that would reimburse the health providers at Medicare rates, with much lower management salaries and administrative costs. The nationwide cost savings of Medicare for All -- hundreds of billions of dollars per year -- could be remitted to taxpayers or used to reduce the federal budget deficit.

College for all

Similar budget analyses demonstrate the feasibility of other parts of the Green New Deal. Can debt-free higher education for all be achieved? The other rich countries all accomplish it. One proposal for "College for All," presented by Senator Bernie Sanders, would cost around one-quarter of 1% of GDP, a price point that is tiny compared with the burdens of a society weighed down by student debts that create lifelong anxieties until retirement years.

The Green New Deal proponents are absolutely correct on the merits. Decarbonization, Medicare for All, debt-free higher education, and other social benefits are feasible, affordable, and smart. They will deliver great savings in the case of health care, environmental benefits in the case of decarbonization, and renewed social mobility in the case of debt-free higher education.

As a next step, the Green New Deal ideas should be turned into legislation, plans and budgets. When the Federal Interstate Highway System was being debated in 1955, every Congressman received a booklet with detailed maps showing how their district would benefit from an interstate highway system. It's now important to provide a roadmap of the Green New Deal, showing for each part of the country how the Green New Deal package can be accomplished at low cost and with enormous economic, social and environmental benefits.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/opinions ... index.html

<9



POLITICS

Trade Chief Dumbs Down Contract Term After Donald Trump Doesn’t Get It

Robert Lighthizer said a document will be called a “trade agreement” because “memorandum of understanding” didn’t track for Trump.

By Mary Papenfuss

2/24/2019 03:20 am ET Updated 5 hours ago

America’s lead trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, had an awkward encounter with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Friday as he tried to calmly school him on legal terminology in front of reporters and a chuckling representative from China.

Lighthizer finally stopped trying, and instead deftly switched the term for the same document when he realized he wasn’t making any headway with the president.

It started when Trump was asked by a reporter how long “memorandums of understanding” being negotiated with China over trade disputes would last.

Trump shot back: “I don’t like MOUs because they don’t mean anything.”

Lighthizer calmly corrected the president, and turned to explain to reporters: “An MOU is a contract. It’s the way trade agreements are generally [established]. It’s an actual contract between the two parties. A memo of understanding is a binding agreement.”

He added: “It’s detailed, it covers everything. ... It’s a legal term; it’s a contract.”

“I disagree,” said a scowling Trump, causing top Chinese negotiator Vice Premier Liu He to laugh. “A memorandum of understanding is exactly that: It’s a memorandum of what our understanding is,” he said, circling his hands in the air. “How long will that take to put into a ... contract?”

In a flash, Lighthizer switched gears without breaking a sweat: “From now on we’re not using ‘memorandum of understanding’ anymore (sparking laughter from causing several people in the room). We’re going to use the term ‘trade agreement.’ We’ll have the same document; it’s going to be called a trade agreement. We’re never going to have an MOU again.”

“Good,” said Trump.

’Nuff said.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/robert-l ... fdaa55f93d

<10



POLITICS

Kushner Company Reportedly Seeking Federal Loan For $1.15 Billion Real Estate Deal

White House adviser Jared Kushner remains a key stakeholder in the family business.

By Mary Papenfuss

02/24/2019 02:09 am ET Updated 13 hours ago

Jared Kushner’s family real estate business is seeking federal financing for a $1.15 billion real estate deal, Bloomberg reports.

Kushner Cos. has been in talks with federal lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac about backing for its purchase of more than 6,000 rental apartments in 16 properties in Maryland and Virginia from private equity firm Lone Star Funds, two sources told Bloomberg. It’s not clear how much money the company is seeking.

It’s the firm’s biggest deal in more than a decade, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Kushner Cos. president Laurent Morali told the Journal that the firm plans to borrow about 70 percent of the cost of the Lone Star package. He said Kushner Cos. was “running a competitive process” to choose a lender, the Journal reported. Morali apparently didn’t mention the federal lenders to the Journal.

President Donald Trump’s son-in-law relinquished his management role at Kushner Cos. and divested from some assets in the family business when he became senior White House adviser. At that time the company held more than $500 million in loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to Bloomberg.

But Kushner remains a key stakeholder in the company and real estate deals. The real estate holdings and other investments of Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, were worth as much as $811 million last year, according to 2018 financial filings.


Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Jared Kushner’s attorney Abbe Lowell, emphasized to Bloomberg that Kushner no longer manages the company, adding that he is “walled off from any business or investment decisions and has no idea or knowledge of these activities.”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are regulated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is headed by Trump-appointee Joseph Otting. He used to be chief executive of OneWest Bank, which was founded by now-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is considered a close “ally of Kushner” in the White House, Bloomberg notes.

Kushner Cos. properties have been the target of several lawsuits. New York state is investigating charges by tenants that they were illegally forced out of their apartments in a Brooklyn building owned by Kushner Cos. so their homes could be sold as luxury condos.

Last year, New York City fined the company $210,000 for filing false construction documents claiming there were no rent-protected tenants in apartments the firm planned to sell.

The Maryland Attorney General also launched an investigation of operations at some of Kushner Cos.′ Baltimore-area apartment complexes after a lawsuit by tenants accused the company of charging them them improper fees.

Kushner Cos. representatives have denied any wrongdoing.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kushner- ... f6bb268c1d

<11



1. SUBTERFUGE

North Korean Press Warns Trump Democrats and Intel Officials Are “Chilling the Atmosphere” on Talks

4 HOURS AGO 2.24.19

North Korean state media criticized U.S. Democrats and intelligence experts prior to President Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, saying these officials were “chilling the atmosphere.” State news agency KCNA published a commentary maintaining that if Trump were to listen to his critics, he might confront a “shattered dream” and miss out on a “rare historic opportunity” to fix U.S.-North Korea relations, per Reuters. “The Democratic Party of the U.S. and other opponents to the negotiations move overtly and covertly to disrupt them as supported by skepticism backed by all sorts of groundless stories and misinformation even at such a crucial moment as now,” read the commentary, which ran under the byline Jong Hyon. The missive later said: “If the upcoming ... negotiations end without results as wished by the opponent forces, the U.S. people will never be cleared of the security threats that threw them into panic and then responsibility will be placed on those due.” While Trump has maintained North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat, his position stands in conflict with that of some top advisers and high-ranking politicians. Intelligence officials have also said that North Korea probably won’t abandon its cache of nukes. For his part, Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon that it's, “So funny to watch people who have failed for years, they got NOTHING, telling me how to negotiate with North Korea. But thanks anyway!”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/north-kor ... e-on-talks

<12



U.S. NEWS

Trump announces 'Salute to America' on Fourth of July in D.C.

By Allen Cone

UPDATED FEB. 24, 2019 AT 3:56 PM

Feb. 24 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump announced Sunday "one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, D.C." on Fourth of July.

Trump posted on Twitter plans for "A Salute To America" at Lincoln Memorial, which will include a "Major fireworks display, entertainment and an address by your favorite President, me!"

Earlier this month, he mentioned during a White House Cabinet meeting in front of reporters that he wanted an Independence Day extravaganza, saying it could "become a tradition."

However a parade takes place in the city, and a concert and fireworks display is held later that night at the U.S. Capitol. The event is televised on PBS and draws hundreds of thousands that spills past the West Lawn of the Capitol and onto the National Mall, including the Lincoln Memorial.

"We will be having one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, D.C., on July 4th," Trump tweeted Sunday.

The National Park Service, which is in charge of the National Mall, hasn't listed crowd sizes there since the Million Man March in 1995.

An estimated 1.8 million people attended the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama though Trump has boasted his crowd was as large in 2017.

Frequent marches and protests have drawn big crowds. Organizers for the March for Our Lives gun-control demonstration said it drew an estimated 800,000 protesters last March. And an estimated 600,000 attended the inaugural Women's March on 2017.

Originally, Trump had wanted a military parade in the nation's Capital on Independence Day but when the Defense Department officials determined it could cost as much as $92 million, Trump scrapped the plans last August.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/02 ... 494/?ts_=4

<13



POLITICS

Ole Miss Players Take A Knee During Anthem As Confederate Disciples Rally Nearby

“We meant no disrespect but had to take a stand against the negative things that went on,” said guard Breein Tyree.

By Mary Papenfuss

02/23/2019 11:55 pm ET Updated 3 hours ago

Eight players on the University of Mississippi’s basketball team took a knee during the national anthem at their home on Saturday as Confederate sympathizers gathered for a march and rally nearby.

The players — whose teams ironically is nicknamed the “Rebels” — bowed their heads as the anthem was sung at The Pavilion stadium in Oxford, Mississippi. At the same time, protesters from right-wing groups Confederate 901 and Hiwaymen gathered to march about a mile away.

Six players took a knee before the “Star-Spangled Banner” began, and two more joined on the last line, ESPN reported.

“The majority of it was we saw one of our teammates doing it and we just didn’t want him to be alone,″ top scoring guard Breein Tyree said at a press conference (see the video above at 1:35) after his team edged the University of Georgia, 72-71. “We’re just tired of these hate groups coming to our school and portraying our campus like it’s our actual university having these hate groups in our school.”

He said later in a tweet that the teammates “meant no disrespect,” but “we had to take a stand to the negative things that went on today.”

Ole Miss Athletic director Ross Bjork supported the action.

“These people that come here and spill hate and bigotry and racism, we don’t want them on our campus. Our players stood up for that,” Bjork said at the press conference (see the video above).

Coach Kermit Davis also backed his players, though he had vowed in his first news conference last year that his would be a team “that “respects the flag and the national anthem.”

“This was all about the hate groups that came to our community to try to spread racism and bigotry,” Davis said Saturday. “Our players made an emotional decision to show these people they’re not welcome on our campus, and we respect our players’ freedom and ability to choose that.″

President Donald Trump has railed against athletes who have taken a knee during the anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality.

Outside the basketball arena, counter-protesters shouting “Who lost the war?” faced off against the fans of the Confederacy as the groups walked from one Confederate monument in downtown Oxford to another on campus, The Clarion-Ledger reported. The “Mississippi Stands Rally” was characterized by organizers as a “line in the sand” concerning the university’s decision to distance itself from its Confederate past.


There were no arrests or violence, according to the Ledger.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ole-miss ... f6bb268206

<14



1. ALERT

Special Counsel Expert: Mueller’s Witch Hunt Has Found a ‘Coven’

3 HOURS AGO 2.24.19

The former top government lawyer who wrote the rulebook for special counsel investigations countered criticism of Robert Mueller’s investigation on Sunday: “If this is a witch hunt,” said Neal Katyal on NBC’s Meet the Press, “Mueller’s found a coven at this point.” Katyal, who was solicitor general under President Barack Obama, led a Department of Justice group in 1999 to draft new rules governing how a special prosecutor might function, in the event one is required to investigate the conduct of the president or of top administration officials. The framework they came up with is the one that applies to Mueller’s probe of President Trump’s ties with Russia. Katyal pointed to Mueller’s indictment of 37 people so far, with the possibility of more to come, to counter Trump and his allies’ insistence that the probe is a “witch hunt.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/special-c ... nd-a-coven

<15



RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

Schiff says he'll have Mueller testify if his report isn't made public

"We are going to get to the bottom of this," Schiff told ABC's "This Week." "We are going to share this information with the public."

By Allan Smith

Feb. 24, 2019, 9:58 AM CST

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff says he's got a plan ready if special counsel Robert Mueller's full report isn't made public.

And it includes bringing Mueller himself before his committee.

On Sunday, Schiff, a California Democrat, was asked on ABC's "This Week" about what Democrats will do should Attorney General William Barr decide to keep the highly anticipated report mostly under wraps.

"Well we will obviously subpoena the report, we will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress, we will take it to court if necessary," Schiff said. "And in the end, I think the department understands they're going to have to make this public. I think Barr will ultimately understand that as well."

Schiff said that if Barr, who was recently confirmed as attorney general, tried "to withhold, to try to bury any part of this report, that will be his legacy, and it will be a tarnished legacy."

"So I think there’ll be immense pressure not only on the department, but on the attorney general to be forthcoming," he said.

It was widely reported last week that Mueller's report could be submitted to Barr within a matter of days. But by Friday, new reporting suggested that the report is not expected to be delivered by the end of this week. In December, NBC News reported it could be submitted as soon as mid-February.

Late last week, several Democratic House committee chairs sent a letter to Barr stating "in the strongest possible terms, our expectation that the Department of Justice will release to the public the report Special Counsel Mueller submits to you — without delay and to the maximum extent permitted by law."

Speaking with reporters last week, President Donald Trump said he had not spoken with Barr about the Mueller report.

Schiff pledged Sunday that his committee will "get to the bottom of this," adding "if the president is serious about all of his claims of exoneration, then he should welcome the publication of this report."

Mueller was hired as special counsel after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey in May 2017 to take over the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russian officials. The probe was later expanded to include whether Trump had obstructed justice in the Russia probe through moves such as his firing of Comey.

Several Trump associates and former campaign officials have been indicted or convicted as part of Mueller's investigation, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone. In a separate investigation that stemmed from Mueller's work, Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen was convicted of a series of felonies, including campaign finance violations for hush-money payments he made to two women just prior to the 2016 presidential election to silence them about alleged past affairs with Trump.

So far, Mueller has not charged any Trump associates with crimes related to direct collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Trump has repeatedly blasted the investigation as a "witch hunt."

Asked what should be expected from Mueller's report, former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe — another frequent target of Trump's attacks — told "This Week" on Sunday, "I think first and foremost what you can expect from Robert Mueller is an honest, independent assessment of the work that they’ve done. How much detail he chooses to go into to convey to the Department of Justice is a great question. I hope they lean on the detailed side. This is not a normal investigation by any evaluation. It's one that I think the department, Congress and the public have enormous interest in finding out just exactly what they learned."

In calling for the full report to be released, Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that "everything about" the Mueller probe "has become political," and the only "way to end that is for the truth to be out there."

"The question of the Russian interference and the possibility of collusion by the president and his people has twisted our politics into something unrecognizable for the last two years, including behavior on the part of the president — attacking the FBI, attacking Bob Mueller,” said Himes, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

In an interview with CBS News, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon said 2019 "is going to be quite vitriolic" in American politics, which he said would be "triggered by the release of the Mueller report here in the next couple of weeks."

Bannon said he expects the report to contain "very little on Russian collusion."

"I think the bulk of the report will be obstruction of justice," he said. "And like I said, that depends on what your decision is about what the authority is of the president of the United States to make some of these decisions. I have a lot of respect for Bob Mueller. I will have to see how this report turns out."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rt-n975076

<16



HOT TAKE

Jeffrey Epstein's deal with federal prosecutors wasn't normal. The men who arranged it need to face the music.

Then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta violated the victim's rights, Justice Department policy and every prosecutor's instinct in this case.

By Mimi Rocah and Berit Berger

Feb. 23, 2019, 11:33 AM CST

As former federal prosecutors of over 25 years combined who worked on dozens of sex trafficking cases, the treatment of some of the most vulnerable victims by then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta in the Jeffrey Epstein case is stunning and raises every sort of red flag.

Of course, federal prosecutors are not perfect, and mistakes and lapses in communication with victims — even tragic ones — do happen. But federal Judge Kenneth A. Marra’s detailed description of how things unfolded in this case makes clear that these were not mistakes by overwhelmed or overworked prosecutors. Rather, this appears to be a calculated plan by the prosecutor in charge — Acosta — acting in concert with Epstein’s defense attorneys to hide a plea agreement from young victims because they did not want bad publicity for Epstein, they did not want other perpetrators exposed and/or they did not want the victims to object.


Jeffrey Epstein's slap on the wrist raises a lot of questions. The DOJ needs to get answers.

Any one of these motivations would be contrary to the practices and instincts of the prosecutors with whom we have worked to not cater to powerful defendants, but hold them to the same standards applied in every criminal case.

Acosta’s actions are even more egregious when considering the accusations in the case: For six years, Jeffrey Epstein allegedly ran a sex trafficking ring that preyed on more than 30 girls, some as young as 13, and personally raped and sexually assaulted many of them. But, though there are stringent federal laws designed specifically to address this type of horrific conduct, Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to state, not federal, charges pursuant to a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in 2008 and received a shockingly lenient sentence.

An NPA typically allows a defendant to resolve his or her case without any admission of wrongdoing, as the government agrees not to prosecute the defendant or to drop charges that had previously been brought. This is a significant benefit to defendants

— they don’t have to admit the specifics of what they did wrong — and potentially a blow to victims, because they get no chance to confront the defendant in court and no closure from an admission of guilt. Judge Marra rightly noted in his ruling that prosecutors had discretion to enter into this kind of agreement with Epstein, but was extremely critical of the process by which they did that because, he said, they intentionally violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.


Corey Feldman: Every child who was sexually abused should be able to get the justice that was denied to me

The CVRA provides certain specific rights to victims, including the right to be heard at any public proceeding in the district court, the right to confer with the prosecutors and the right to be treated with fairness and with respect for their dignity. Judge Marra determined that prosecutors violated those provisions because “the office never conferred with the victims about a NPA or told the victims that such an agreement was under consideration” but instead “mislead the victims to believe that federal prosecution was still a possibility” when they had already decided against it and informed Epstein's lawyers of that fact.

The deal with Epstein also seems to have violated departmental policy: The U.S. Attorney’s Manual, which sets out guidelines that federal prosecutors are required to follow, specifically says that, when prosecutors are considering whether to offer a defendant a NPA, they must consider not only the defendant’s culpability, but the interests of any victims. It’s hard to see how Epstein's victims’ interests were considered when they weren’t even told of the agreement.

So, in light of Judge Mara’s decision that prosecutors violated federal law, what comes next?

The Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility, which has oversight for prosecutorial conduct, has opened an investigation of the handling of this matter. This is a good start, but likely will not be enough given OPR’s limitations in disciplining only current department employees — Acosta is currently the Secretary of Labor — and its limited subpoena and investigative powers. However, OPR can make criminal referrals to the department's Office of Inspector General, if warranted. In addition, referrals could be made to the relevant attorney bar associations, to allow them examine the conduct of the defense attorneys involved in the conduct the judge has found to violate the law.


Cyntoia Brown is shamefully typical of how we treat child sex trafficking victims

Outside of the Justice Department, it also seems untenable for Acosta to be allowed to remain in his position as head of the Department of Labor — a federal agency with significant role to play in combating and prosecuting human trafficking cases and protecting the rights of minors. He should be fired or resign.

Most significantly, Epstein and anyone else involved in this crime need to be held fully accountable and the rights of the victims fully vindicated. Judge Marra has already ruled that the CVRA authorizes “the rescission or ‘reopening’ of a prosecutorial agreement, including a non-prosecution agreement, reached in violation of a prosecutor’s conferral obligations under the statute.” Judge Marra seems to be suggesting that Epstein’s agreement be voided and the federal investigation reopened. (Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., has called for DOJ to do just that.)

It is always tricky to Monday morning quarterback another prosecutor’s decision: There are often facts and circumstances known only to the prosecutors that factor into whether to proceed with charges, take a case to trial or even enter into an NPA. However, given the many deficiencies in the NPA — most notably the systematic exclusion of victims from the resolution of this case, DOJ should reopen the investigation, and assign it to another U.S. attorney’s office or an arm of the DOJ.

The only way to preserve the integrity of this case is for a clean set of eyes to review the facts and ensure that justice is done.

CORRECTION (Feb. 23, 2019 5:53 pm ET): An earlier version of this article misstated the year of Jeffrey Epstein's conviction. It was 2008, not 2015.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/j ... ncna974911

<17



It is absolutely time to panic about climate change

Author David Wallace-Wells on the dystopian hellscape that awaits us.

By Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com

Updated Feb 24, 2019, 9:08am EST

A buffalo corpse seen rotting on the side of the road in southern Iraq on November 11, 2018. Severe droughts, caused by a combination of climate change, dams and internal water mismanagement, are creating a nightmare for buffalo herders in the region. John Wreford/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

“It is, I promise, worse than you think.”

That was the first line of David Wallace-Wells’s horrifying 2017 essay in New York magazine about climate change. It was an attempt to paint a very real picture of our not-too-distant future, a future filled with famines, political chaos, economic collapse, fierce resource competition, and a sun that “cooks us.”

Wallace-Wells has since developed his terrifying essay into an even more terrifying book, titled The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. And it is a brutal read. Wallace-Wells was criticized in 2017 for being too hyperbolic, too doom-and-gloomy. But as Vox’s David Roberts explained at the time, those criticisms were mostly misplaced.

Wallace-Wells isn’t counseling despair or saying all is lost; he’s merely laying out the alarming facts of what is likely to happen if we don’t radically change course.

What makes the book so difficult to read is not just the eye-popping stats, like the fact that we could potentially avoid 150 million excess premature deaths by the end of century from air pollution (the equivalent of 25 Holocausts or twice the number of deaths from World War II) if we could limit average global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or hold warming at 2 degrees without relying on negative emissions. It’s also the revelation that we’ve done more damage to the environment since the United Nations established its climate change framework in 1992 than we did in all the millennia that preceded it. Or, as Wallace-Wells puts it, “We have now done more damage to the environment knowingly than we ever managed in ignorance.”

I spoke with Wallace-Wells about just how dire the situation is, what it means for humans to survive in a climate that no longer resembles the one that allowed us to evolve in the first place, and if he believes we’ve already crossed a fatal ecological threshold for our species.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

Your 2017 essay and your book both begin with the same sentiment: Things are much, much worse than we realize. How bad is it, really?

David Wallace-Wells

It’s bad. The future looks pretty dark from where we are now. So we are a little north of 1.1 degrees C of [average] warming above the preindustrial baseline, which is the historical temperature conditions that we measure global warming against. And already at 1.1 degrees, we’re seeing a lot of really extreme climate events.

Last year in the summer of 2018 in the Northern Hemisphere you had this unprecedented heat wave that killed people all around the world. You had the crazy hurricane season. In California, wildfires burned more than a million acres. And we’re really only just beginning to see these sorts of effects.

If we continue on the track we’re on now, in terms of emissions, and we just take the wildfire example, conventional wisdom says that by the end of the century we could be seeing roughly 64 times as much land burned every year as we saw in 2018, a year that felt completely unprecedented and inflicted unimaginable damage in California.

And we see trajectories like this in basically every area of potential climate impact — from impact on agricultural yields, to public health issues, to the relationship between climate change and economic growth, climate change and conflict. On virtually every conceivable metric, things are going to get considerably worse. And if we don’t change course rapidly, they’re going to get catastrophically worse.

The UN says we’re on track to get to about 4 degrees or 4.3 degrees of warming by the end of the century if we continue as we are. I don’t think that we’ll get there, this century at least. I think that we’ll take enough action to avert that. But I think it’s really important to know what it would mean to land there, because that is a much more reasonable anchor for our expectations.

Sean Illing

Part of the problem when discussing climate threats is that so much of it feels abstract or distant. But as soon as you begin to quantify the damage, it’s pretty harrowing. For instance, you cite a recent study showing that we could avoid 150 million excess deaths from air pollution by end of century if we could limit warming to 1.5 degrees or hold warming at 2 degrees without relying on negative emissions.

How far away from a 2-degree warmer world are we?

David Wallace-Wells

Well, on the path that we’re on now, there are some experts who believe we’ll get there as soon as 2030. I think that’s probably a little fast, I think 2050 is probably a safer assumption. But again, as I said earlier, I don’t think it’s at all possible that we stay below 2 degrees without some dramatic transformation in the state of our technology with regard to negative emissions. So I think we’re basically certain to get there.

Sean Illing

Let’s clarify the stakes for readers here, as you do in the book. 150 million people is the equivalent of 25 Holocausts, more than twice the death toll of World War II.

David Wallace-Wells

That’s right. It’s an uncomfortable comparison for a lot of people, but it’s the reality we’re facing. Our best-case scenario is basically one in which we lose the equivalent of 25 Holocausts — and that’s just from air pollution alone.

Sean Illing

I often hear people say climate change is about “saving the planet,” but that seems utterly misguided to me — the planet will be fine, we will not be. And in the book, you outline a number of “comforting delusions,” one of which is that climate change is a crisis of the natural world, not the human world.

I’m curious what you mean by this.

David Wallace-Wells

I think one of the great lessons of climate change is that even those of us like me who grew up over the last few decades living in the modern world, in cities, and felt the whole time that we had sort of built our way out of nature. And that while there were things to be concerned about, with regard to climate, and other environmental issues, I still had this deep belief that we had built a fortress around ourselves that would protect us against a hostile world.

I felt that even if climate change unfolded quite rapidly, those impacts would be felt far away from where I lived, and the way I lived.

I think, especially with the extreme weather that we’re seeing over the last couple of years, we’re all beginning to relearn the fact that we live within nature, and in fact all of our lives are governed by its forces. None of us, no matter where we live, will be able to escape the consequences of this.

There are still people who focus on sea level rise and imagine that they’ll be fine so long as they don’t live on the coastline. But this is pure fantasy. No one will avoid the ravages of warming, and the reality of this will be impossible to ignore in the coming decades.

Now, there are countries in the world that are going to, at least in the short term, benefit slightly from global warming. Especially in the global north. Russia, Canada, and parts of Scandinavia are likely to see a little bit of benefit from warming, because slightly a warmer climate means greater economic productivity and higher agricultural yields.

But where we’re headed, we’re likely to even pass those optimal levels for those countries. And even in the short term, the balance of benefits and costs is so dramatically out of whack that the overwhelming majority of the world will be suffering hugely from the impacts of climate change. Even if there are a few places that benefit.

Sean Illing

What would you say is the biggest or most consequential error in our popular discourse on climate change?

David Wallace-Wells

The discourse is changing a bit, so it’s hard to say precisely right now. It’s an easier question to answer historically, and I would say that there are basically three misapprehensions concerning the scale of the threat. The first is about the speed of change. We were told for a very long time that climate change was slow. A lot of policymakers and advocates would often complain that the public was reluctant to take aggressive action because they didn’t believe that there was urgency behind it.

So the response was to just wait a while, we’ll have more economic growth, more technological innovation, and then we’ll just invent our way out of the problem. But in fact, more than half of the carbon emissions that have been produced from the burning of fossil fuels in the history of humanity have been produced in the last 25 or 30 years.

And that means that we have brought the planet from what is essentially a stable climate position to the real threshold of crisis and catastrophe in just a couple of decades. And that tells you that we’re doing that damage in real time, and the extreme weather we’re seeing now shows that the impacts are happening in real-time as well. So this is a really fast problem, not at all a slow problem.

The second big misapprehension is about scope. As I mentioned earlier, we’ve been taught the thing of climate change is essentially a matter of sea level rise, and as a result we felt like we could escape it if we were anywhere but the coast. But we can see clearly that that’s a delusion and no corner of the planet will go untouched by climate change.

And the third big delusion is about the severity. The scientists talked about 2 degrees of warming as a kind of threshold of catastrophe, and that meant that the kind of conventional understanding among journalists and among the public was that 2-degree level was about the worst case that we could possibly imagine. But in fact, that science suggests that it’s really much more like a floor than a ceiling, and that we’re headed towards 4 degrees of warming.

And yet there has been very little storytelling that sketched out exactly what that range of temperatures would mean — 2 degrees, 3 degrees, 4 degrees. And I think it’s very important to think about those impacts, not just directly in terms of what it would mean for sea level rise for instance, or what it would mean for public health. But also how much it will transform the way that we relate to one another, our politics, etc.

Things are moving much faster than most people realize, and the picture is far darker than the public understands. I’m not someone who has ever really understood himself to be an environmentalist. I was concerned about climate change like most liberals, but it felt like something that could be dealt with slowly, on the technocratic margins. And if we implemented a carbon tax or if we passed a cap-and-trade bill that the problem would be solved.

But the more that I looked at the research, the more I realized that the portrait of the planet that was emerging from our best science was just much, much scarier than that.

Sean Illing

You spoke to a ton of climate researchers in the course of writing this book. Did you encounter any skeptics, any credible data that at least gave you some pause and made you reconsider your position?

David Wallace-Wells

The short answer is no. The book is full of research, and many of these findings will no doubt be revised and we can never be 100 percent sure what will happen. But I can tell you that I’ve poured over this material for a couple years now, and the overwhelming majority of new research does seem to be moving in a darker, bleaker direction.

I don’t think that like every single detail in the book is absolutely true and can be counted on as a guide to our future world. And there are certainly scientists who I spoke to who had different interpretations and perspectives on particular findings. But we’re not going to get below 2 degrees, and we’re on track for something like 4 by the end of the century. I don’t think that any climate scientists would argue with any of that.

Sean Illing

And to those who say the planet has been warmer than that in the past ...

David Wallace-Wells

I say the planet has been warmer than that in the past, but it was long before human beings appeared. No humans have walked the earth in a climate as warm as this one. I’m not sure humans would have evolved in the first place in a climate such as this, and I’m even less sure civilization, as we know it, would have evolved. Because the parts of the world that gave rise to those developments, agriculture and civilization — that is, the Middle East — are now so hot that it’s hard to grow crops.

Human society is resilient, and we’ll continue to find ways to live and prosper. But we’re marching into a completely unprecedented environment. And we simply don’t know what it will look like or how it will impact us.

Sean Illing

Have we crossed an ecological threshold? Is it, in fact, too late to make a meaningful difference?

David Wallace-Wells

My feeling about that is kind of ambiguous. I still think we can make a difference, but it’s important not to see this in binary terms. It’s not a matter of whether climate change is here or not, or whether we’ve crossed a threshold or not. Every upward tick of temperature will make things worse, and so we can avoid suffering by reducing it as much as possible.

No matter how bad it gets, no matter how hot it gets, we’ll still have the ability to make successive decades relatively less hot, and we should never stop trying. There is always something we can do. It’s too late to avoid a 21st century that is completely transformed by the forces of climate change, but we have to do everything possible to make the future cooler, safer, and healthier.

I think everyone has to understand this. This has to be our attitude. The alternative is simply unimaginable.

Sean Illing

I’m going to be a father soon, and my fears about what my child will confront when he or she enters the world are so deep, so terrifying, that I’ve no choice but to suppress them. What do you say to someone like me?

David Wallace-Wells

I still think it’s within our power to change. If you want to secure the world for your child, we can do that. None of this is written in stone. What’s stopping us is political inertia, which means the solution is political action.

But I have a lot of the same feelings that you do. When I imagine my daughter’s life 20, 30, or 50 years down the road, I don’t imagine it unfolding in a world on fire. Even as someone who has spent several years really deep in this research, looking at it every day and thinking about it, it still hasn’t completely shaken my own emotional reflexes, and emotional intuitions about what the world will be like for me and my daughter, who is just 10 months old right now.

All we can do is fight our own complacency and status quo biases and take as much action as we can. For me, having a child was a strong incentive to do that, because I don’t want to leave a world on fire for her or anyone else.

But make no mistake: Things are going to be bad, and the question is simply how bad will we allow it to get?

Sean Illing

I’ll be honest, your book leaves me in a kind of paralysis. I understand the scope of the problem, can see the horrors over the horizon, but there’s nothing much I can do about it. I take your points about collective action, but I’m deeply cynical about our political situation and question whether our system will respond with anything like the urgency required. I suspect a lot of people feel the same way.

David Wallace-Wells

I think complacency is a much bigger problem than fatalism. And as someone who was awakened from complacency into environmental advocacy through alarm, I see real value in fear. I don’t think that fear should be the only way that we talk about this issue, I think that obviously there are other parts of the story, and other people tell them very well. But I know, as one person, that being scared about what is possible in the future can be motivating.

The movement against nuclear proliferation, the movement against drunk driving — these are all movements that depended on fear and alarm to mobilize, and very effectively. And I do see signs that the extreme weather we’re witnessing right now is shaking people out of their complacency.

Political change is much slower than you and I might like, but I have to say, on climate, it’s moving much faster than cynical me would have predicted a couple of years ago. Yale does an annual study, and in the most recent one they found that 70 percent of Americans believed global warming is real, and 61 percent were alarmed by it. So the numbers are reaching a point at which it’s almost impossible that even our dysfunctional bipartisan system can ignore.

Sean Illing

I actually don’t think those numbers are nearly high enough, but the disjunction between popular opinion and policy outcomes is precisely the problem. For instance, you say at the end of the book that “human action will determine the climate of the future, not systems beyond our control.”

I know what you mean, but my worry is that we don’t really have control over the system dominating the planet; the system has control over us. That we’re committing suicide in slow-motion, have the tools to limit it, and are nevertheless unable to do so really sums it all up for me. (By the way, Vox’s climate team has done a lot of great work on the tools we have to limit climate change. You can read more here, here, and here.)

David Wallace-Wells

I have those same feelings and impressions, too. And obviously the record on climate action over the last few decades is really, really dispiriting. Here’s what gives me hope: Conventional economic wisdom has changed dramatically in the last few years. It used to be the case that economists would say the impacts of climate change would be relatively small and that taking action would be very expensive, but that’s no longer what you hear. The economic incentives are now aligned with climate action, and that’s a big deal in terms of motivating actual change.

It’s also important to remember that it’s not merely American political inaction that is driving this problem anymore. And that means that the solution will be unfolding on a geopolitical stage, and one of the big themes of the second half of my book is how the geopolitical map will change as a result of climate change.

Much of the geopolitics of the coming century will be negotiated and navigated around the issue of carbon, in ways that we can’t yet anticipate. But hopefully this will produce much more meaningful global action than was generated in Paris in 2015 and 2016, which was using a model really imported from the 20th century.

In the end, we need a new carbon geopolitics, and I think climate change will be dramatic enough to get us there.

Correction 2/22:

A previous version of this story stated that 2 degrees Celsius of average warming will lead to at least 150 million deaths from air pollution alone. In fact, we could potentially avoid 150 million premature deaths by the end of the century from air pollution (the equivalent of 25 Holocausts or twice the number of deaths from WWII) if we could limit average global warming to 1.5 degrees or hold warming at 2 degrees without relying on negative emissions. The interviewee also suggested in a previous version that we are spending more electricity mining Bitcoin than is produced by all of the world’s solar panels combined. That was based on a 2018 study suggesting we were on track to break that mark by 2019, but that is no longer the case.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environm ... able-earth

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<1



Read: Michael Cohen's opening statement to Congress

TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL D. COHEN COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

FEBRUARY 27, 2019

Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today.

I have asked this Committee to ensure that my family be protected from Presidential threats, and that the Committee be sensitive to the questions pertaining to ongoing investigations. Thank you for your help and for your understanding.

I am here under oath to correct the record, to answer the Committee's questions truthfully, and to offer the American people what I know about President Trump.

I recognize that some of you may doubt and attack me on my credibility. It is for this reason that I have incorporated into this opening statement documents that are irrefutable, and demonstrate that the information you will hear is accurate and truthful.

Never in a million years did I imagine, when I accepted a job in 2007 to work for Donald Trump, that he would one day run for President, launch a
campaign on a platform of hate and intolerance, and actually win. I regret the day I said "yes" to Mr. Trump. I regret all the help and support I gave him along the way.

I am ashamed of my own failings, and I publicly accepted responsibility for them by pleading guilty in the Southern District of New York.

I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty -- of the things I did for Mr. Trump in an effort to protect and promote him.

I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump's illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience.

I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.

He is a racist.

He is a conman.

He is a cheat.

He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails.

I will explain each in a few moments.

I am providing the Committee today with several documents. These include:

***A copy of a check Mr. Trump wrote from his personal bank account -- after he became president - to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign;

***Copies of financial statements for 2011 -- 2013 that he gave to such institutions as Deutsche Bank;

***A copy of an article with Mr. Trump's handwriting on it that reported on the auction of a portrait of himself -- he arranged for the bidder ahead of time and then reimbursed the bidder from the account of his non-profit charitable foundation, with the picture now hanging in one of his country clubs;

***Copies of letters I wrote at Mr. Trump's direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores.

I hope my appearance here today, my guilty plea, and my work with law enforcement agencies are steps along a path of redemption that will restore faith in me and help this country understand our president better.

***

Before going further, I want to apologize to each of you and to Congress as a whole.

The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr. Trump.

Today, I'm here to tell the truth about Mr. Trump.

I lied to Congress about when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia. I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false -- our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign.

Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That's not how he operates.

In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there's no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.

There were at least a half-dozen times between the Iowa Caucus in January 2016 and the end of June when he would ask me "How's it going in Russia?" -- referring to the Moscow Tower project.

You need to know that Mr. Trump's personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.

To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.

And so I lied about it, too -- because Mr. Trump had made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie. And he made it
clear to me because his personal attorneys reviewed my statement before I gave it to Congress.

****

Over the past two years, I have been smeared as "a rat" by the President of the United States. The truth is much different, and let me take a brief moment to introduce myself.

My name is Michael Dean Cohen.

I am a blessed husband of 24 years and a father to an incredible daughter and son. When I married my wife, I promised her that I would love her, cherish her, and protect her. As my father said countless times throughout my childhood, "you my wife, and you my children, are the air that I breathe." To my Laura, my Sami, and my Jake, there is nothing I wouldn't do to protect you.

I have always tried to live a life of loyalty, friendship, generosity, and compassion -- qualities my parents ingrained in my siblings and me since childhood. My father survived the Holocaust thanks to the compassion and selfless acts of others. He was helped by many who put themselves in harm's way to do what they knew was right.

That is why my first instinct has always been to help those in need. Mom and Dad...I am sorry that I let you down.

As many people that know me best would say, I am the person they would call at 3AM if they needed help. I proudly remember being the emergency contact for many of my children's friends when they were growing up because their parents knew that I would drop everything and care for them as if they were my own.

Yet, last fall I pled guilty in federal court to felonies for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Individual #1.

For the record: Individual #1 is President Donald J. Trump.

It is painful to admit that I was motivated by ambition at times. It is even more painful to admit that many times I ignored my conscience and acted loyal to a man when I should not have. Sitting here today, it seems unbelievable that I was so mesmerized by Donald Trump that I was willing to do things for him that I knew were absolutely wrong.

For that reason, I have come here to apologize to my family, to the government, and to the American people.

***

Accordingly, let me now tell you about Mr. Trump.

I got to know him very well, working very closely with him for more than 10 years, as his Executive Vice President and Special Counsel and then personal attorney when he became President. When I first met Mr. Trump, he was a successful entrepreneur, a real estate giant, and an icon. Being around Mr. Trump was intoxicating. When you were in his presence, you felt like you were involved in something greater than yourself -- that you were somehow changing the world.

I wound up touting the Trump narrative for over a decade. That was my job. Always stay on message. Always defend. It monopolized my life. At first, I worked mostly on real estate developments and other business transactions. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Trump brought me into his personal life and private dealings. Over time, I saw his true character revealed.

Mr. Trump is an enigma. He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and bad, as do we all. But the bad far outweighs the good, and since taking office, he has become the worst version of himself. He is capable of behaving kindly, but he is not kind. He is capable of committing acts of generosity, but he is not generous. He is capable of being loyal, but he is fundamentally disloyal.

Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation -- only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the "greatest infomercial in political history."

He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign -- for him -- was always a marketing opportunity.

I knew early on in my work for Mr. Trump that he would direct me to lie to further his business interests. I am ashamed to say, that when it was for a real estate mogul in the private sector, I considered it trivial. As the President, I consider it significant and dangerous.

But in the mix, lying for Mr. Trump was normalized, and no one around him questioned it. In fairness, no one around him today questions it, either.

A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time. The answer is yes.

As I earlier stated, Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails.

In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump's office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of "wouldn't that be great."

Mr. Trump is a racist.

The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries "shitholes."

In private, he is even worse.

He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a "shithole." This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States.

While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way.

And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.

And yet I continued to work for him.

Mr. Trump is a cheat.

As previously stated, I'm giving the Committee today three years of President Trump's financial statements, from 2011-2013, which he gave to Deutsche Bank to inquire about a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills and to Forbes. These are Exhibits 1a, 1b, and 1c to my testimony.

It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.

I am sharing with you two newspaper articles, side by side, that are examples of Mr. Trump inflating and deflating his assets, as I said, to suit his financial interests. These are Exhibit 2 to my testimony.

As I noted, I'm giving the Committee today an article he wrote on, and sent me, that reported on an auction of a portrait of Mr. Trump. This is Exhibit 3A to my testimony.

Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons Event. The objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon. The portrait was purchased by the fake bidder for $60,000. Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation, which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the fake bidder, despite keeping the art for himself.

And it should come as no surprise that one of my more common responsibilities was that Mr. Trump directed me to call business owners, many of whom were small businesses, that were owed money for their services and told them no payment or a reduced payment would be coming. When I advised Mr. Trump of my success, he actually reveled in it.

And yet, I continued to work for him.

Mr. Trump is a conman.

He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did. Lying to the First Lady is one of my biggest regrets. She is a kind, good person. I respect her greatly -- and she did not deserve that.

I am giving the Committee today a copy of the $130,000 wire transfer from me to Ms. Clifford's attorney during the closing days of the presidential campaign that was demanded by Ms. Clifford to maintain her silence about her affair with Mr. Trump. This is Exhibit 4 to my testimony.

Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign. I did that, too -- without bothering to consider whether that was improper, much less whether it was the right thing to do or how it would impact me, my family, or the public.

I am going to jail in part because of my decision to help Mr. Trump hide that payment from the American people before they voted a few days later.

As Exhibit 5 to my testimony shows, I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1, 2017 -- when he was President of the United States -- pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea, to reimburse me -- the word used by Mr. Trump's TV lawyer -- for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf. This $35,000 check was one of 11 check installments that was paid throughout the year -- while he was President.

The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws. You can find the details of that scheme, directed by Mr. Trump, in the pleadings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

So picture this scene -- in February 2017, one month into his presidency, I'm visiting President Trump in the Oval Office for the first time. It's truly awe-inspiring, he's showing me around and pointing to different paintings, and he says to me something to the effect of...Don't worry, Michael, your January and February reimbursement checks are coming. They were Fed-Exed from New York and it takes a while for that to get through the White House system. As he promised, I received the first check for the reimbursement of $70,000 not long thereafter.

When I say conman, I'm talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.

As I mentioned, I'm giving the Committee today copies of a letter I sent at Mr. Trump's direction threatening these schools with civil and criminal actions if Mr. Trump's grades or SAT scores were ever disclosed without his permission. These are Exhibit 6.

The irony wasn't lost on me at the time that Mr. Trump in 2011 had strongly criticized President Obama for not releasing his grades. As you can see in Exhibit 7, Mr. Trump declared "Let him show his records" after calling President Obama "a terrible student."

The sad fact is that I never heard Mr. Trump say anything in private that led me to believe he loved our nation or wanted to make it better. In fact, he did the opposite.

When telling me in 2008 that he was cutting employees' salaries in half -- including mine -- he showed me what he claimed was a $10 million IRS tax refund, and he said that he could not believe how stupid the government was for giving "someone like him" that much money back.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump said he did not consider Vietnam Veteran, and Prisoner of War, Senator John McCain to be "a hero" because he likes people who weren't captured. At the same time, Mr. Trump tasked me to handle the negative press surrounding his medical deferment from the Vietnam draft.

Mr. Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery. He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.

He finished the conversation with the following comment. "You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam."

I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now.

And yet, I continued to work for him.

***

Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not. I want to be clear. But, I have my suspicions.

Sometime in the summer of 2017, I read all over the media that there had been a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 involving Don Jr. and others from the campaign with Russians, including a representative of the Russian government, and an email setting up the meeting with the subject line, "Dirt on Hillary Clinton." Something clicked in my mind. I remember being in the room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, when something peculiar happened. Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his father's desk -- which in itself was unusual. People didn't just walk behind Mr. Trump's desk to talk to him. I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: "The meeting is all set." I remember Mr. Trump saying, "Ok good...let me know."

What struck me as I looked back and thought about that exchange between Don Jr. and his father was, first, that Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world. And also, that Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone -- and certainly not without checking with his father.

I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump's knowledge and approval. So, I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary with the Russian representative when he walked behind his dad's desk that day -- and that Mr. Trump knew that was the meeting Don Jr. was talking about when he said, "That's good...let me know."

***

Over the past year or so, I have done some real soul searching. I see now that my ambition and the intoxication of Trump power had much to do with the bad decisions I made.

To you, Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, the other members of this Committee, and the other members of the House and Senate, I am sorry for my lies and for lying to Congress.

To our nation, I am sorry for actively working to hide from you the truth about Mr. Trump when you needed it most.

For those who question my motives for being here today, I understand. I have lied, but I am not a liar. I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man. I have fixed things, but I am no longer your "fixer," Mr. Trump.

I am going to prison and have shattered the safety and security that I tried so hard to provide for my family. My testimony certainly does not diminish the pain I caused my family and friends -- nothing can do that. And I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from President Trump.

And, by coming today, I have caused my family to be the target of personal, scurrilous attacks by the President and his lawyer -- trying to intimidate me from appearing before this panel. Mr. Trump called me a "rat" for choosing to tell the truth -- much like a mobster would do when one of his men decides to cooperate with the government.

As Exhibit 8 shows, I have provided the Committee with copies of Tweets that Mr. Trump posted, attacking me and my family -- only someone burying his head in the sand would not recognize them for what they are: encouragement to someone to do harm to me and my family.

I never imagined that he would engage in vicious, false attacks on my family -- and unleash his TV-lawyer to do the same. I hope this committee and all members of Congress on both sides of the aisle will make it clear: As a nation, we should not tolerate attempts to intimidate witnesses before congress and attacks on family are out of bounds and not acceptable.

I wish to especially thank Speaker Pelosi for her statements in Exhibit 9 to protect this institution and me, and the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Adam Schiff and Chairman Cummings for likewise defending this institution and my family against the attacks by Mr. Trump, and also the many Republicans who have admonished the President as well.

I am not a perfect man. I have done things I am not proud of, and I will live with the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life.

But today, I get to decide the example I set for my children and how I attempt to change how history will remember me. I may not be able to change the past, but I can do right by the American people here today.

Thank you for your attention. I am happy to answer the Committee's questions.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/27/politics ... index.html

<2



Michael Cohen Accuses Trump of Expansive Pattern of Lies and Criminality

By Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos

Feb. 27, 2019

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer accused him on Wednesday of an expansive pattern of lies and criminality, offering a damning portrayal of life inside the president’s orbit where he said advisers sacrificed integrity for proximity to power.

Michael D. Cohen, who represented Mr. Trump for a decade, told Congress that the president lied to the American public about business interests in Russia during the 2016 campaign and lied to reporters about stolen Democratic emails. Mr. Trump also told Mr. Cohen to lie about illegal hush payments to cover up alleged sexual indiscretions, the lawyer charged.

The allegations, aired at a daylong hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, exposed a dark underside of Mr. Trump’s business and political worlds in the voice of one of the ultimate insiders. Perhaps no close associate of a president has turned on him in front of Congress in such dramatic fashion since John Dean testified against President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

“He is a racist. He is a con man. And he is a cheat,” Mr. Cohen said of the president. Mr. Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to lying under oath to Congress, among other crimes, said he did so to protect Mr. Trump. “I am not protecting Mr. Trump anymore,” he said.

But it remained unclear whether his testimony would change the political dynamics of a series of scandals that have already polarized Washington and the country and that could lead to an impeachment battle later this year.

Assailing Mr. Cohen as a proven liar, Republicans denounced the hearing as a “charade” and an “embarrassment for our country.” Democrats said Republicans “ran away from the truth” as they sought to defend a corrupt president who has employed “textbook mob tactics.”

As with so many other moments of the Trump era, the hearing seemed to be as much about partisan theater as fact-finding, with the two sides fixed in their views and unbending in their approach. Democrats and Republicans set forth their own conflicting narratives about the man who once served Mr. Trump, either as a dissembling disgruntled former employee trying to reduce his sentence or a fallen sinner who has realized his mistakes and is now trying to redeem himself by coming clean.

Through it all sat Mr. Cohen, 52, with dark circles under his eyes as he awaits a three-year prison term that begins this spring. Apologizing repeatedly to his family, Mr. Cohen described his 10 years working for Mr. Trump as a trip into a world of deceit in which the lawyer ignored his own conscience in order to get close to a magnetic person of power.


“Sitting here today, it seems unbelievable that I was so mesmerized by Donald Trump that I was willing to do things for him that I knew were absolutely wrong,” Mr. Cohen said. When he met Mr. Trump, he knew him as “a real estate giant” and “icon” at the center of the action. “Being around Mr. Trump was intoxicating,” he said.

In private business, Mr. Cohen said he rationalized Mr. Trump’s dishonesty as “trivial” but as president, he said, “I consider it significant and dangerous.”

Mr. Cohen said he had come to realize that he sacrificed his own ethics and was now seeking redemption for his own misdeeds. “The more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering,” he said. “I’ve lost it all.”

The hearing came while the president was halfway around the world in Vietnam for a meeting with North Korea’s leader. His family and advisers expressed anger at the timing of the hearing, arguing that Democrats were undercutting Mr. Trump in sensitive nuclear diplomacy for political gain.

The president’s re-election campaign organization dismissed Mr. Cohen as a convicted perjurer who should not be believed. “This is the same Michael Cohen who has admitted that he lied to Congress previously,” Kayleigh McEnany, the campaign’s national press secretary, said in a statement. “Why did they even bother to swear him in this time?”

Republicans on the committee aggressively challenged Mr. Cohen along the same lines. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the ranking Republican, called Mr. Cohen a “fraudster, cheat, convicted felon and, in two months, a federal inmate.”

Mr. Jordan questioned Mr. Cohen’s motives in assailing Mr. Trump’s character and actions, suggesting that the former lawyer was embittered because the new president did not bring him to Washington.

A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know.

“You wanted to work in the White House — ” Mr. Jordan said.

“No, sir,” Mr. Cohen replied.

“ — and you didn’t get brought to the dance.”


“I did not want to go to the White House,” Mr. Cohen asserted.

Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, took issue with that on Twitter. “Michael was lobbying EVERYONE to be ‘Chief of Staff,’” he wrote. “It was the biggest joke in the campaign and around the office. Did he just perjure himself again?”

The hearing drew enormous interest on Capitol Hill, where Democrats just last month took control of the House and are under enormous pressure from their liberal base to impeach Mr. Trump. The crowds were huge and the sense of drama palpable. Lawmakers of both parties sat rapt during Mr. Cohen’s 30-minute opening statement as he outlined his accusations.

Representative Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who threatened to reveal what he said were Cohen’s extramarital affairs on Twitter on Tuesday, showed up for the hearing, although he is not on the committee.

Mr. Cohen laid out a series of actions by Mr. Trump that bolster previous allegations and presented documents to corroborate his account, including copies of checks issued by the president or his trust that he said were reimbursements for $130,000 in hush payments Mr. Cohen made to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actress who alleged an affair with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Trump, as a candidate, initiated the hush payment plan and, while president, arranged for 11 checks reimbursing the lawyer “as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws,” a crime to which Mr. Cohen has pleaded guilty.

After news reports about the payments in February 2018, Mr. Cohen told lawmakers, the president called him to discuss what the lawyer should say publicly about the scheme. Mr. Trump told him to say that the president “was not knowledgeable of these reimbursements and he wasn’t knowledgeable of” Mr. Cohen’s actions.

Democrats pressed Mr. Cohen on whether Mr. Trump provided false financial information to hide the hush payments. Mr. Trump’s annual personal financial disclosure statement in 2017 made no reference to reimbursing Mr. Cohen that year.

But the statement filed by Mr. Trump last year included a footnote indicating a repayment of $100,001 to $250,000 to Mr. Cohen, raising questions about whether the 2017 filing had improperly omitted the debt. While the 2018 statement did not specify the purpose of the payment, it was understood to refer to the hush payment.


“Why do you think the president did not provide the accurate information in his 2017 financial disclosure form?” Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, asked Mr. Cohen. “What was he trying to hide?

Mr. Cohen said the goal of the payment was to prevent Ms. Daniels from telling her story. “That would have embarrassed the president and it would have interfered with the election,” he said.

Mr. Cohen told lawmakers that Mr. Trump personally monitored negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, asking about it “at least a half-dozen times” between January and June 2016 even while running for president.

“Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” Mr. Cohen said. “He lied about it because he never expected to win. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.”

In previous testimony before his prosecution by federal authorities, Mr. Cohen lied to Congress by saying the project was dropped by January 2016. Mr. Trump did not explicitly instruct him to lie, Mr. Cohen said, but through his actions he “made clear to me” that “he wanted me to lie” and the president’s lawyers reviewed and even edited Mr. Cohen’s false testimony to Congress.

Mr. Cohen said he had no “direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia.” But, he added, “I have my suspicions.”

He pointed to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in which Donald Trump Jr., the candidate’s eldest son; Jared Kushner, his son-in-law; and Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman; met with visiting Russians after being told that they had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton from the Russian government.

The president has denied knowing about the meeting at the time, but Mr. Cohen cast doubt on that, saying he was in Mr. Trump’s office one day in June 2016 when Donald Jr. came in, went behind his father’s desk and, speaking in a low voice, said, “The meeting is all set.” The candidate, he said, replied, “O.K., good. Let me know.”


Mr. Cohen said that might have referred to the Russia meeting because “Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world” and that his son “would never set up any meeting of significance alone and certainly not without checking with his father.”

Mr. Cohen also recalled being in Mr. Trump’s office shortly before the Democratic National Convention in 2016 when Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser, called. Mr. Trump put him on speaker phone and Mr. Stone reported that he had just spoken with Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who said “that within a couple of days there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

“Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of, ‘Wouldn’t that be great?’” Mr. Cohen said.

In an interview with The New York Times last month, Mr. Trump denied speaking with Mr. Stone about WikiLeaks and the emails. Mr. Stone has been charged with obstructing justice, making false statements and witness tampering.

Mr. Cohen compared Mr. Trump to a mobster who inflated his net worth, rigged an art auction, frequently used racist language and threatened anyone who got in his way. Mr. Cohen estimated that he had threatened someone at Mr. Trump’s direction perhaps 500 times over 10 years, either berating a “nasty reporter” or warning of lawsuits.

He provided several documents to the committee. He offered what he said were financial statements that Mr. Trump gave to institutions such as Deutsche Bank and said the president inflated or deflated his assets when it served his purposes. He also offered letters he wrote at Mr. Trump’s direction to the president’s high school, colleges and the College Board threatening them not to release his grades during the 2016 campaign.

Mr. Cohen said Mr. Trump did not run for president to make the country great, calling it the “greatest infomercial in political history” for his business. “He never expected to win the primary,” he said. “He never expected to win the general election. The campaign, for him, was always a marketing opportunity.”

The former lawyer also described racist conversations in which Mr. Trump asked if he could “name a country run by a black person that wasn’t a shithole” and, while driving through a struggling neighborhood, remarked that only African-Americans could live that way. “He told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid,” Mr. Cohen said.

As the day progressed, Republicans pressed their argument that Mr. Cohen was not to be believed. They argued that he lied even in signing a committee form in which he did not disclose payments he received from a bank in Kazakhstan.

“You’re a pathological liar,” charged Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona.

“Are you referring to me or the president?” Mr. Cohen retorted.

Mr. Cohen suggested that the panel’s Republicans were falling into the trap that he did, trading their honor for a president who did not deserve it.

“I did the same thing that you’re doing now for 10 years,” he said. “I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/p ... e=Homepage

<3



All the documents Michael Cohen brought to back up his House Oversight testimony

Included: Trump’s Stormy Daniels reimbursement checks.

By Jen Kirbyjen.kirby@vox.com Feb 27, 2019, 1:20pm EST

Michael Cohen’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee is full of explosive allegations about President Donald Trump — and he’s got some documents to back them up.

Cohen is providing Congress with multiple pieces of evidence to corroborate several of his claims. Some of the documents are critical to investigations involving the president, including a check, signed by Trump in August 2017, that’s a partial reimbursement for the illegal hush money payment Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf.

Cohen also brought paperwork that speaks more to Trump’s character and personal insecurities, including letters Cohen sent to academic institutions on Trump’s behalf warning them not to publicly release the president’s grades.


Cohen worked for Trump for more than a decade, acting as his personal lawyer and “fixer.” But in April 2018, he came under investigation by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and apparently broke ties with Trump.

Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance violations involving those hush money payments to two women, including Daniels. Cohen also pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about the timeline of the Trump Tower Moscow project.

So Cohen is not exactly the most credible witness, as he readily admits in his testimony. Which is why he’s bringing some receipts this time around to back up his claims.

Cohen has provided 13 pieces of evidence to the Oversight Committee. Here’s a quick look at them.

Trump’s financial statements (2011-2013) and examples of Trump inflating his wealth for personal gain
Cohen said he’s providing Congress with three years of Trump’s financial statements, from 2011 to 2013. According to Cohen, he gave them to Deutsche Bank “to inquire about a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills” and to Forbes, the magazine that puts out its annual ranking of billionaires.

“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” Cohen told the committee.

He also included two news articles to try to make the case that Trump adjusted his wealth when it suited him.

Trump bragging about his portrait at a charity auction that was actually a setup
Cohen alleges in his testimony that Trump directed him to find a straw buyer for a portrait of himself that was going up for auction in the Hamptons. “The objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon,” Cohen said.

Cohen says the buyer, identified as Stewart Rahr, won the portrait on a $60,000 bid — and was later reimbursed for that amount by the Trump Foundation. Cohen doesn’t actually offer evidence of the reimbursement, but he does present a Trump tweet (there’s always a tweet) and an item from an article dated July 19, 2013, but he doesn’t include the name of the publication.

According to the Washington Post:

If Cohen’s account is true, the payment to Rahr was not mentioned in the Trump Foundation’s IRS filings for 2013. Those filings show only a $60,000 payment from the Trump Foundation, but that was listed as going to the American Cancer Society.

But Cohen’s story tracks with other claims that are already public knowledge — including an allegation from the New York attorney general that Trump used money from his charitable organization, the Trump Foundation, to purchase a $10,000 painting of himself at an auction for a children’s foundation in March 2014.

Stormy Daniels reimbursement checks — from Trump and Don Jr.
Cohen presented three documents relating to the illegal hush money payments he made to Daniels to keep her silent about an alleged affair she had with Trump in 2006.

Cohen first document is what he says is a wire transfer from him to Daniels’s attorney to complete the $130,00 hush money payment.

Cohen also presented Congress with a $35,000 check, signed by Trump on August 1, 2017 — that is, while Trump was president — that was a partial reimbursement for the hush money payment to Daniels.

There was one more surprise reimbursement check for the hush money: a $35,000 check dated March 17, 2017, which Cohen claims is signed by Donald Trump Jr. and Trump Organization finance chief Allen Weisselberg, implicating them in the reimbursement scheme as well.

Trump really, really didn’t want anyone to know the academic background of a “very stable genius”
In his testimony, Cohen alleges that Trump ordered him to threaten Trump’s past schools not to release his grades or SAT scores.

To back this up, Cohen provided a letter that he sent to Fordham University — where Trump went to school for two years before transferring to the Wharton School — threatening legal action if the university released Trump’s grades. (Fordham University has confirmed someone from Trump’s camp did reach out and send a letter.)

And if Cohen’s break with the president weren’t already obvious, Cohen included a 2011 news article where Trump questions former President Barack Obama’s academic credentials.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... -documents

<4



POLITICS

Michael Cohen Accuses Republican Lawmakers Of ‘Blindly’ Following Donald Trump

“I’m responsible for your silliness,” Trump’s former personal attorney told House oversight committee members.

By Hayley Miller

02/27/2019 12:51 pm ET Updated 5 hours ago

Michael Cohen, during his explosive testimony before the House oversight committee on Wednesday, accused Republican lawmakers of trying to protect President Donald Trump.

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) asked Trump’s former personal attorney when he decided during his life to start telling the truth. Cohen was convicted in November of lying to Congress about his involvement in a Trump Tower Moscow deal during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“There are several factors: Helsinki, Charlottesville, watching the daily destruction of our civility to one another, putting up silly things like this,” Cohen responded, referring to anti-Cohen posters that GOP committee members had erected ahead of Wednesday’s heated hearing.

Republican committee members used most of their time for questions to attack Cohen’s credibility. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) used Department of Housing and Urban Development official Lynne Patton, who is black, as a prop in an attempt to debunk Cohen’s allegation that Trump is racist.

Cohen bashed the relentless Republican attacks against him during the hearing as “really unbecoming of Congress.”

“It’s that sort of behavior that I’m responsible for,” he said. “I’m responsible for your silliness because I did the same thing that you’re doing now for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.”

“I can only warn people: The more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering,” he said.

He then lamented that he had “lost it all” since working for Trump.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), during his allocated time slot for questioning, suggested his Republican counterparts were upset because Cohen “stopped lying to Congress for the president.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michael- ... b30eba5639

<5



GIVING AWAY THE GAME

Chris Christie on Cohen Hearing: No Republicans Are Actually Defending Trump on ‘Substance’

‘I think that’s something that should be concerning to the White House,’ the Trump ally noted.

Justin Baragona

02.27.19 1:36 PM ET

During the first break of Wednesday’s much-anticipated House Overnight Committee testimony of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, former New Jersey governor and long-time Trump ally Chris Christie made a keen observation: Republican committee members have not at all attempted to defend Trump “on the substance” of Cohen’s allegations.

At the start of the hearing Wednesday, the former Trump fixer shredded the president as a “racist,” “conman” and a “cheat,” adding that he was “ashamed” that he took part in “concealing Mr. Trump’s illicit acts.” Cohen also provided a series of documents corroborating some of his testimony.

With committee Republicans entirely focused on destroying Cohen’s credibility as a witness, Christie—now a paid ABC News analyst—observed that it really stood out how Republicans were not actually defending the president.

“The interesting thing is that there hasn’t been one Republican yet who has tried to defend the president on the substance, and I think that’s something that should be concerning to the White House,” Christie noted.

Asking “why are no Republicans standing up and defending the president on the substance” in the hearing, the former Trump transition-team chief added that this is “either a failure of those Republicans on the Hill or a failure of the White House to have a unified strategy with them.”

Christie concluded that they had to know this was coming with Cohen, so it will be a tired line of attack going after Cohen as the hearing continues.

“He’s not a credible witness, but he does have corroboration on certain things,” he asserted, asking once again: “Where is the defense of the president?”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/chris-chr ... e?ref=home

<6



The House just passed what could be the biggest change to federal gun laws in decades

The research, however, suggests that Congress should go even bigger.

By German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com Feb 27, 2019, 3:46pm EST

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a universal background check bill — which, if the Senate were interested in passing it, would be the most significant gun control legislation in a generation.

Under current federal law, licensed dealers are required to run a background check to make sure a buyer doesn’t have a criminal record, history of mental illness, or any other factor that legally bars him from purchasing a gun.

But the law has a big loophole: Private sellers — meaning unlicensed sellers — don’t have to run a background check. So someone who doesn’t run a licensed gun shop can sell or gift a firearm at a gun show, over the internet, or to friends and family without verifying through a background check that the buyer isn’t legally prohibited from purchasing the weapon.

The new bill, HR 8, would close this loophole, although it would leave some exemptions for gun transfers among family and temporary transfers (like lending a gun) while hunting.

For years, the proposal — for universal or comprehensive background checks — has been the top item on gun control advocates’ wish list. It polls extremely well among gun owners, people who don’t own guns, Democrats, Republicans — basically everyone. And it certainly makes sense: If there’s a loophole that potentially lets criminals get guns, why not close it?

Yet the House proposal faces tough odds in the Senate, which is controlled by Republican lawmakers who have been much more reluctant to approve any gun control bills — despite widespread support for universal background checks among GOP constituents. President Donald Trump’s administration has also come out against the bill.

And some research suggests a universal background check bill alone may not do much to reduce gun violence in the US. Several studies published in the past year found background checks would have a limited effect on gun deaths, whether homicides or suicides.

Still, advocates and experts argue that comprehensive background checks are a much-needed foundation. Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, previously told me that they’re a “logical first step.” Based on the research, though, more will be necessary.

Universal background checks may have a limited effect on gun violence

The universal background check bill would help close a major loophole under the current law. About one in five gun transfers (sales or otherwise) are done without any background check at all, based on recent research. The bill would aim to close this loophole and, in doing so, attempt to ensure that fewer potentially dangerous people are obtaining firearms.

But several studies in the past year have found that universal background checks, enacted at the state level, have a limited effect:

One study, by UC Davis and Johns Hopkins researchers, found that after California enacted comprehensive background checks, as well as misdemeanor violence prohibitions for guns, the policy changes were not associated with changes in the firearm homicide or suicide rates. (A caveat: It’s possible comprehensive background checks had some effect, but it was just too small to detect in a population-level study.)

Another study, from UC Davis, UC Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins researchers, found that after Indiana and Tennessee repealed comprehensive background checks, the repeals were not associated with changes in the firearm homicide or suicide rates. (Again, it’s also possible that there was an effect, but it was simply too small for the study to detect.)

A study by Johns Hopkins researchers found that comprehensive background checks alone in urban counties were actually associated with an increase in firearm homicides, although the authors cautioned that background checks very likely did not cause the increase and instead had little effect while homicides were already increasing.

Previously, the research base on background checks was limited but promising. A review of the evidence released by the RAND Corporation early last year looked at the best US-based studies for all sorts of gun policies, including background checks.

RAND found “limited” to “moderate” evidence that background checks in general reduce violent crime, including homicides, and suicides. But RAND cautioned that the research just on closing the background check loopholes, to go from having a system at all to making the system more universal, was “inconclusive” when it came to firearm homicides. The newer studies fill in that gap — and they don’t look good for comprehensive background checks.

In short: Establishing a background check system, as the US has already done on a national scale, likely has an effect. But making the system more comprehensive or universal doesn’t seem to have a significant effect on its own, at least at a population level.

That doesn’t mean universal background checks are useless. Policies that are proven to be far more effective, such as a gun licensing system, are built in part on background checks — to ensure that, say, someone’s criminal record doesn’t prohibit him from getting a license. To that end, comprehensive background checks may be worth enacting even if they don’t do much on their own.

“There’s some challenges with background check systems as they currently stand, but you can’t have the other laws function without requiring a background check for every sale,” Cassandra Crifasi, a researcher (and gun owner) at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, told me.

The problem with universal background checks may come down to poor implementation and enforcement. For example, the California study looked at the policy during a period when the state’s background check system was less sophisticated and comprehensive — missing some records, particularly for mental health history. Perhaps background checks are now better by virtue of having fuller data to work with.

“What this new body of research is telling us is not that these policies don’t work,” Rose Kagawa, one of the UC Davis researchers involved in the new studies, told me, “but that they need to be designed and implemented in really rigorous and effective ways.”

There are also some practical questions. Even if a system is built well, how can officials possibly track every single gun transfer, especially when it happens between two friends or family members in a private home or vehicle? Governments can encourage individuals to record and report these transfers, but it will be a constant challenge to ensure this always happens.

Other problems can arise. Maybe a system is underresourced or understaffed, limiting just how thorough the checks, even under a supposedly universal system, can be. Perhaps some law enforcement officials just aren’t taking warning signs seriously enough, as has been found to be true in the past with the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Some experts, like Crifasi, argue that there needs to be a cultural change too, creating “a social norm that selling a gun without a background check is a bad thing.”

All these limitations lead to a limited effect in the evidence so far.

Other policies could have stronger effects on gun violence
The disappointing results for background checks don’t mean gun control policies are totally ineffective. In fact, there’s growing evidence for at least one approach: a licensing system, which requires people to obtain a permit, typically via a police department, before they can purchase a gun from a licensed or private seller.

The big studies so far come out of Connecticut and Missouri. In Connecticut, researchers looked at what happened after the state passed a permit-to-purchase law for handguns — finding a 40 percent drop in gun homicides and 15 percent reduction in handgun suicides. In Missouri, researchers looked at the aftermath of the state repealing its handgun permit-to-purchase law — finding a 23 percent increase in firearm homicides but no significant increase in non-firearm homicides, as well as 16 percent higher handgun suicides.

In the past, advocates pointed to these studies as evidence that comprehensive background checks work, because the licensing systems in the states were paired with comprehensive background checks. But the evidence increasingly suggests that it’s the licensing system, not the comprehensive background checks, that’s key.

For example, the Johns Hopkins study, which found that comprehensive background checks alone correlated with more firearm homicides in urban counties, found that licensing systems were the one policy associated with fewer firearm homicides.

“Ironically, advocacy organizations and politicians trying to promote background checks used studies on licensing that we had done to say background checks work,” Webster said, “when it is a combination of background check requirement as part of a permitting process [that works].”

One possible explanation for why gun licensing works better than background checks: It’s a more straightforward system.

“It’s far easier as a seller to say, ‘Okay, I need to see your permit,’” Crifasi suggested. “And there’s accountability. If my gun is recovered in the hands of someone else, and I’m in a state with licensing, and that person doesn’t have a license, it’s easier to hold me accountable. I can’t say, ‘Oh, sure, I asked for a license,’ because they don’t have a license.”

That’s not to say gun licensing systems are the end-all, be-all. RAND’s report found some evidence that child access prevention laws reduce suicides and unintentional shootings, and prohibitions associated with mental illness reduce suicides and violent crime. There’s also some evidence that Australia’s gun reforms in the 1990s, including a mandatory buyback of certain types of firearms, led to fewer gun deaths.

And some experts aren’t giving up on background checks. Garen Wintemute, who leads gun research at UC Davis, said he would like to “give fixing standard comprehensive background checks a chance,” and intends to figure out how to do that with future studies.

The best approach may even be a combination of policy changes. A 2016 review of 130 studies in 10 countries, published in Epidemiologic Reviews, found that gun control laws lead to fewer gun deaths, but it likely came down not to one policy but the “potential synergistic effects, or the aggregated individual effects of multiple laws, when they are simultaneously implemented within a narrow time window.” Indeed, the Johns Hopkins researchers emphasized that a licensing system can’t work well without a comprehensive background check system, and some form of database or record keeping to track gun sales and transfers benefits both licensing and background checks.

Still, the research increasingly indicates that comprehensive background checks alone, at least as they’ve long worked in the US, don’t do much about gun violence. So if lawmakers really want to tackle this issue, they’re going to have to think bigger than they have so far.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... e-congress

<7



REPERCUSSIONS

Republican Operative McCrae Dowless Charged With Obstruction, Illegal Ballot Possession in Disputed NC Election

There will be a new election in North Carolina's 9th district after the state board said that Dowless led an improper ballot-collecting operation.

Gideon Resnick

02.27.19 12:43 PM ET

North Carolina political operative Leslie McCrae Dowless was indicted and arrested Wednesday amid an investigation into an alleged absentee-ballot fraud operation he ran during the disputed 2018 race for North Carolina’s 9th congressional district.

Dowless is charged with three felony counts of obstruction of justice, two counts of conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice, and two counts of possession of absentee ballots.

The news of his indictment followed the unanimous decision from the State Board of Elections to hold a new election in the district given Dowless’ work in the race on behalf of Republican candidate Mark Harris.

Harris himself said during explosive testimony last week that he would support a new election and, on Tuesday, he ruled out a run in the do-over race, citing personal health issues.

His Democratic opponent, Dan McCready, who trailed Harris by 905 votes in the initial vote count, has announced that he will run again.

“These indictments should serve as a stern warning to anyone trying to defraud elections in North Carolina,” said Kim Westbrook Strach, State Board executive director. “Today is a new and better day for elections in our state.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/republica ... ref=scroll

<8

<1



POLITICS

Trump Learns That Love Letters From A Murderous Dictator Don’t Mean Much After All

North Korea experts see a silver lining in the collapse of the summit with Kim Jong Un: At least nothing really bad happened.

By S.V. Date

02/28/2019 05:24 pm ET

WASHINGTON ― The love letters, the lavish praise, the insistence on another face-to-face meeting halfway around the world: as it turns out, none of it was enough for President Donald Trump to win a nuclear deal from a dictator half his age.

Having claimed “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea” following his first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore last June, Trump returned from their second meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, with zero progress to report ― while being forced to concede that Kim still presents a nuclear threat, after all.

“I think as we continue to work on this in the days and weeks ahead, we can make progress so that we can ultimately achieve what it is that the world wants, which is to denuclearize North Korea,” Trump said in a news conference on Thursday after his much-touted summit ended with half of that day’s scheduled meeting time abandoned.

“There’s no denying that this summit was a total failure,” said Victor Cha, a Korea expert in President George W. Bush’s National Security Council who himself negotiated with North Korea in previous talks. “Frankly, it’s a disaster and a disaster of the president’s own making.”

Despite warnings from both inside and outside his administration that the necessary lower-level preparation for a summit had not really been done, Trump insisted on scheduling a second face-to-face with Kim. Critics said the president was focused on creating a foreign policy “win” to counter both his defeat on funding for his border wall and the continuing federal investigations into his family business and his campaign. Even some Republicans close to the White House acknowledged that Trump was hoping to change the subject to an area in which he has been claiming major success ever since he met with Kim in Singapore.

That strategy fell apart Thursday morning in Hanoi, as Trump and Kim ended their talks even before a scheduled lunch. A signing ceremony for a new statement was scrapped, a news conference set for the late afternoon was moved ahead two hours, and shortly afterward Trump was airborne on the long flight back to Washington.

“No one ever thought it was a good idea except for one person: Donald Trump,” said Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and an NSC spokesman under President Barack Obama. “And that’s been the problem with this process all along. It has revolved around Trump rather than the professionals precisely because Trump wanted the limelight and resulting political boon. We, and he, now see the consequences of that as clear as day.”

After the Singapore meeting, Trump took to praising Kim ― who reportedly has had his uncle and his stepbrother murdered, while incarcerating countless political prisoners ― as a visionary leader. He has called Kim “very honorable,” a “very worthy, very smart negotiator,” and “very open and terrific.” He has gushed over the letters that Kim sent him and told audiences that he and the dictator “fell in love.” Just before the start of the Hanoi summit, Trump even called him “my friend” and said the United States and North Korea have a “special relationship,” a term once reserved for America’s ties to Great Britain.

Robert Gallucci, a U.S. negotiator with North Korea under President Bill Clinton, said he is willing to cut Trump some slack on the over-the-top language, but wishes it were part of a cohesive negotiating strategy.

“Saying the threat’s gone, life is wonderful, we’re in love, all kinds of stuff ― it doesn’t have to mean anything,” Gallucci said. “It certainly wouldn’t be the way I would proceed. It wasn’t the way I proceeded. And as a matter of substance, it certainly was not true. But I feel pretty generous about that kind of nonsense.”

Now a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University, Gallucci said the result of the summit is far better than what he had feared, given Trump’s track record ― he unilaterally ended U.S.-South Korea military exercises after the Singapore sitdown ― and his apparent need for a political victory.

“I’m feeling good because nothing really bad happened,” Gallucci said, adding that he understands, but doesn’t necessarily agree with, the view that the summit failed entirely. “These people traveled long distances; there’s enormous hoopla over it. And then, if the meeting isn’t a success, it’s very deflating.”

Cha, who is now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that while the two sides could continue to talk, the path forward is unclear because of the collapse at the very top. “When diplomacy at the leadership level fails, there’s not really a whole lot of rope after that,” he said.

For his part, Trump said Thursday that discussions would continue. “I think the relationship was very warm, and when we walked away it was a very friendly walk,” he said.

That friendliness ― at least from the president ― was on display during his 40-minute news conference.

Asked about the June 2017 death of University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier following his imprisonment in North Korea for the attempted theft of a propaganda poster, Trump said that Kim was uninvolved. “He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word,” Trump said.

The president also cast doubt on U.S. intelligence analysts’ finding that North Korea is continuing to produce nuclear material and long-range missiles. “Some people are saying that and some people aren’t,” Trump said.

The comments continue Trump’s pattern of believing authoritarian leaders over his own intelligence agencies ― including siding with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s take on the murder and mutilation of a Washington Post journalist and with Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s views on a number of issues, including Russian interference in the 2016 election to help Trump win.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-ki ... 0c3fbf2d35

<2



Donald Trump's shocking, shameful about-face on Otto Warmbier

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Updated 4:19 PM ET, Thu February 28, 2019

(CNN)When Otto Warmbier was returned to the United States in 2017 and died shortly afterward, President Donald Trump condemned the North Korean regime for the imprisonment and suspected torture of the college student who was arrested in 2015 for alleged spying.

"You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all," Trump said, addressing Warmbier's parents, during his 2018 State of the Union address. "Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with American resolve." He added in that same speech: "We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies."

Fast forward to Thursday in Hanoi, when, at a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Trump said this of Warmbier and North Korea: "He tells me that he didn't know about it and I will take him at his word." Trump added that Kim "felt badly about it. He felt very badly."

Wait. WHAT?

Trump is, apparently, taking the word of a brutal dictator who had his half-brother murdered with nerve gas at an airport and who continues to live a posh lifestyle while his country suffers the effects of staggering economic sanctions? The guy who North Korean media says began driving a car at age 3, helped cure Ebola and can control the weather? We're going to believe THAT guy???

On its face, Kim's claim that he was unaware of Warmbier's arrest and treatment is beyond laughable. Kim rules North Korea with an iron fist. He wouldn't know that an American college student had been arrested in his country? He would miss how Warmbier's arrest and incarceration became a massive national and international story? And at no time in the 18 months Warmbier was held would anyone in Kim's government ever see fit to mention that they were holding an American prisoner?

Like I said, that's beyond unbelievable.

So why did Trump reverse course on Warmbier and North Korea? Simple: Because it was the politically expedient thing to do.

Trump wants to make a denuclearization deal with North Korea. He suspects, rightly, that doing so would be a massive foreign policy achievement and a major pillar of his presidential legacy. To make that deal, which Trump was unable to close during this second summit with Kim, he knows that he has to keep Kim happy, keep him talking and keep him in the right mindspace to make a deal.

In order to do that, Trump is willing to say and do whatever is needed -- up to and including giving a violent dictator a pass on the wrongful imprisonment and mistreatment of an American college student who, after being held for 18 months, was returned to the United States in a vegetative state and died days later.

While Trump's willingness to overlook Kim's clear falsehoods about Warmbier may make an eventual denuclearization deal more likely (although, at this point, who really knows?) the question that has to be asked is, at what cost? How much of our moral principles and standing in the world are we willing to sacrifice to appease a dictator with a horrendous human rights record?

Trump's answer -- at least on Thursday -- appears to be all of our moral principles. Because if we have to accept the farce that Kim Jong Un knew nothing about what happened to Otto Warmbier, what other atrocities will we be made to overlook?

Rick Santorum said it best on CNN Thursday morning.

"This is reprehensible, what he just did," the Republican former Pennsylvania senator told anchor John Berman of Trump. "He gave cover, as you said, to a leader who knew very well what was going on with Otto Warmbier. And again, I don't understand why the President does this. I am disappointed, to say the least, that he did it."

Yup.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/28/politics ... index.html

<3



POLITICS

Ilhan Omar: Trump Impeachment Is ‘Inevitable,’ But Pence Is ‘Terrifying’

“I believe that impeachment is inevitable,” the Congresswoman said. “It also is a terrifying notion.”

By Andy Campbell

02/28/2019 11:16 am ET

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) believes that President Donald Trump’s impeachment is “inevitable,” but that his unseating would mark the rise of someone she’s more worried about: Vice President Mike Pence.

In an interview with Rolling Stone that published Wednesday, Omar ― a refugee, immigrant and Muslim whom the publication dubbed “everything Trump is trying to ban” ― said that Trump’s ouster is a damned if we do, damned if we don’t situation.

“I believe that impeachment is inevitable,” she said. “It also is a terrifying notion. Pence is an ideologue, and the ideology he holds is more terrifying to me and my constituents.”

Critics have long held that the beliefs of Pence and his family pose a threat to ethnic and religious minorities, and especially the LGBTQ community. (His wife, Karen, took a job at a school that discriminates against LGBTQ students and staff, for example, and Pence himself keeps racists close by.)

Trump, meanwhile, has been sparring with Omar on social media this year, saying earlier this month that her apology over her controversial tweets about pro-Israel lobbying efforts was “lame.”

“You have trafficked in hate your whole life — against Jews, Muslims, Indigenous, immigrants, black people and more,” she tweeted at him in response at the time.

Now, she’s calling him a dictator.

“We have not had a full impeachment that removes the president from office,” she told Rolling Stone. “Nations struggle any time [they] overthrow a dictator, and Trump really has the markings of a dictator.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ilhan-om ... 2f89df11d0

<4



1. WHAT HE SAYS, GOES

Trump Ordered Top-Secret Security Clearance for Kushner: NYT

2.28.19

President Trump reportedly ordered his then-Chief of Staff John Kelly to grant his senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance in 2018 despite concerns from intelligence officials and White House counsel. According to The New York Times, Trump’s directive in May prompted Kelly to write an internal memo describing how he was “ordered” to give Kushner the clearance. Then-White House counsel, Don McGahn, also wrote a memo of his own reportedly “outlining the concerns that had been raised” by agencies like the CIA, and how he had “recommended that [Kushner] not be given a top-secret clearance.” While Kushner’s clearance was upgraded, he never received a higher-level designation that would allow him access to “sensitive compartmented information,” the newspaper reports.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the Times that the White House does not “comment on security clearances.” A spokesman for Kushner’s lawyer told the newspaper they stood by the White House’s previous assertions that Kushner’s clearance was obtained through “the regular process with no pressure from anyone.” This comes as Kushner recently met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a trip to the Middle East.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-ord ... kushner-nyt

<5



PLASTIC PLAGUE

Why Recyclable Single-Use Water Bottles + Other Plastics Are A Plague on Our Planet

AD BY BRITA

02.22.19 12:17 PM ET

By Matt Villano

To be honest, it’s remarkable that plastic isn’t already covering every square inch of our planet.

Recent research estimates humans have produced 6,300 metric tons of waste since 1950, only 9 percent of which has been recycled. If production and waste management trends continue at this pace, roughly 12,000 metric tons of plastic waste will be in landfills or the natural environment by 2050. Each year, upwards of an estimated 8 million tons of plastic waste enters the ocean from coastal regions, according to researchers. Related modeling suggests some plastics could take up to several hundred years for their compounds to break down into their constituent molecules. Some experts say it’s completely possible that many of these plastic compounds will never break down at all. No matter which data sets you investigate, or how you spin the results, the picture is bleak: Plastic is suffocating Earth.


Single-use plastic bottles are a frequent culprit: They’re the third most common item found in ocean debris and represent 15 percent of marine waste, according to a report by Citi GPS. These are the bottles you see lining refrigerated cases at gas stations, the ones you buy in 24- and 48- and 64-packs at warehouse stores for less than $5. Even when you recycle these bottles–and only 14 percent of all plastic gets recycled, by the way–you’re not eliminating the problem: you’re just postponing the inevitable.

The Problem With Plastics

Humans have been making plastics since the early 1900s. The first synthetic plastics were derived from cellulose, a substance found in plants and trees. Scientists (mostly from the petrochemical industry) heated this cellulose together with different chemicals, and that process created new materials that were extremely durable.

Today, plastics are chains of like molecules linked together. They’re called polymers. These chains often are composed of carbon and hydrogen and also can comprise oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, chlorine, fluorine, phosphorous, or silicon.

While these minerals occur naturally in the world, long chains of them do not. Many plastics also contain synthetics and toxins that act as sponges for other toxins in the environment. For these reasons, plastics don’t biodegrade; they just break down into smaller plastics. This, in turn, exacerbates the negative effect on the environment—some plastics these days are so small they’re practically undetectable to the human eye.

Without question, single-use plastics, which comprise everything from plastic bags and plastic coffee cup lids to plastic bottles and straws, are among the worst of the bunch, according to a report from Earth Day Network, as they frequently don’t make it to a landfill or get recycled. In addition, while roughly a third of the 400 million tons of plastic produced each year is used in packaging, only 14 percent of packaging waste is recycled, according to the Citi GPS report.

While recent pushes to ban plastic bags and straws have raised awareness about the oppressive amount of single-use plastics in the world, neither push has had a large impact to date. What’s more, because we’re creating new, or “virgin,” plastic at a rate that far exceeds the pace with which we’re recycling and removing it, the situation keeps getting worse.

Roland Geyer, professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has had enough. “I think it’s a function of how many of us are here on this planet and the kinds of lifestyles we have,” says Geyer. "Everyone wants to buy everything and have everything and fly around the world and see amazing places and live to 100. You can’t do all of that without creating waste and leaving behind a real footprint on the environment. It’s time we started thinking about some of these bigger pictures. It’s time we started thinking about how we’re going to make this place last.”

---“Everyone wants to buy everything and have everything and fly around the world and see amazing places and live to 100. You can’t do all of that without creating waste and leaving behind a real footprint on the environment.”

Geyer isn’t one to mince words; he’s been studying the impacts of plastics in the environment for the better part of three decades. The bottom line: Plastics are up there with climate change as one of the biggest environmental problems of our time. (And indeed, the two are linked: When exposed to the elements, plastic releases methane and ethylene, two greenhouse gases that can worsen climate change, according to a study from University of Hawaii.)

Unless we take drastic action now, scientists expect that the amount of plastic littering the world’s oceans will triple within a decade. The Pacific garbage patch covers an estimated surface area of 1.6 million square kilometers--that’s equivalent to twice the size of Texas. Mike Osmond, senior program officer for the World Wildlife Fund, added that whales and turtles regularly wash up on beaches all over the world with stomachs full of plastic.

“In a large albatross colony in the northwest Hawaiian Islands, albatross are seen feeding plastics to their chicks, which obviously die soon after,” Osmond wrote in an email from his San Francisco office. “Microplastics are now making their way into the human food chain, with seafood that’s consumed by humans being contaminated.”

---“Microplastics are now making their way into the human food chain, with seafood that’s consumed by humans being contaminated.”

How do even recyclable varieties of plastic end up bobbing around in our seas? While the greatest volume of pollution is created by systemic dumping, around the world, we have large populations living in coastal areas, generating litter that is often mismanaged. Consider how easy it is for a water bottle to get blown out of a garbage receptacle, or carelessly left behind. This is why cleaning up our oceans requires a combination of local and global initiatives.


Potential Paths Forward

Though we likely won’t reverse the current “plastipocalypse,” there are some steps we can take to stem the tide. Perhaps the easiest solution: Eschew buying single-use plastic bottles and instead invest in a home filter system, like a Brita pitcher with a Long last system filter. Use it to fill reusable bottles at home and it will filter the equivalent of up to 1,800 single-use water bottles a year.

Recycling reduces the prevalence of plastics in our environment, but only if we commit to it consistently, all the time and all over the world. In a paper published in Science Advances in July 2017, three researchers estimated that 90.5 percent of all plastic waste ever made has never been recycled—a truly staggering number. A broader (and more hard-core) solution: Sever all dependence on plastics completely.

Policy changes might help, too. For instance, Peru banned visitors from carrying single-use plastics into Machu Picchu as a response to tourists leaving literally tons of garbage behind at natural and cultural protected areas.

Then, of course, there are the business solutions. The Plastic Bank, a Vancouver, B.C.-based economic development firm founded by David Katz, seeks to establish in poor communities a monetary system for plastic to be used like cash, so people see it as valuable. Another option: Renewlogy, a Salt Lake City-based startup that has commercialized a strategy for breaking down certain kinds of plastic into its chemical components.

Renewlogy CEO and Founder Priyanka Bakaya, says her company’s process returns plastic to its molecular levels, breaking it down into small carbon chains that can be used to make new products. “Currently we have linear economy—we’re making these virgin plastics, we use them, then they go to the landfill and back into the environment,” she says. “For us the key is creating circular economy so at the end of a plastic’s life we can take it back, break it down, and use to make a virgin plastic again.”

---“For us the key is creating circular economy so at the end of a plastic’s life we can take it back, break it down, and use to make a virgin plastic again.”

None of these options will work on its own. To even begin easing our plastic waste problem, we will have to embrace many if not all these solutions—and then some. If stemming climate change rests on the shoulders of government and corporations, reducing single-use plastic waste rests on us. We can pledge to buy zero disposable plastic water bottles, choose sustainable alternatives to single-use plastics whenever possible and encourage brands to evolve by making packaging a deciding criteria when we shop. Our individual, daily choices have a profound impact on our planet and its oceans, now more than ever.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-recyc ... ref=scroll

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<1



The Kentucky House approves bill to let people carry concealed guns without a permit

BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 03/01/19 05:01 PM EST

The Kentucky House on Friday passed a bill that would allow people to carry concealed firearms without a permit or training.

The GOP-led state House voted 60-37 to approve the legislation and send it to Gov. Matt Bevin for a potential signature, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

The legislation had passed the state's Republican-controlled Senate last month on the one-year anniversary of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting.

The Hill has reached out to the governor’s office about whether he plans to sign the measure.

Kentucky law currently requires people to get a permit before carrying a concealed firearm. The process includes a background check, gun safety training and $60 fee, the Courtier-Journal noted.

If Bevin signs the bill into law, it would remove the permit requirement for anyone who’s at least 21 years old and meets other legal rules for owning a gun.

Having a concealed-carry permit would still be available under the law but it would no longer be mandatory, the Courier-Journal reported.

The bill was endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and others who argued that the mandatory fees are unfair to people with lower incomes who want to carry a concealed gun for self-defense.

"This is simply applying and acting upon a constitutional right that each and every one of us has," said state Rep. John Blanton (R).

The bill was opposed by the Louisville Metro Police Department and the Kentucky State Fraternal Order of Police (FOP).

“We are supportive of the rights we protect for all citizens but have safety concerns with this bill as it stands,” the FOP group said in a tweet before the vote. “We are concerned this bill could have potentially deadly, unintended consequences,:

---
KY State FOP

The @KYSTATEFOP is opposed to SB150 in its current form. We are supportive of the rights we protect for all citizens but have safety concerns with this bill as it stands. We are concerned this bill could have potentially deadly, unintended consequences.

10:22 AM - Mar 1, 2019

If the bill becomes law, Kentucky will become the 15th state to adopt a permitless carry or "constitutional carry" laws, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) signed similar legislation into law in January.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watc ... ealed-guns

<2



PREP SCHOOL

Hanoi Summit Failed Because Trump Refuses to Prep

Trump hates to prepare and likes to negotiate from the gut. The Hanoi humiliation with Kim Jong Un was the direct result.

Samantha Vinograd

02.28.19 10:37 AM ET

Nothing about the Hanoi summit’s outcome is a surprise. The writing was on the wall, the president just refused to read it.

President Donald Trump’s failure to engage in the most basic preparatory work for this summit—and his longstanding penchant for putting personal convictions ahead of his experts’ opinions—meant that there was no way that he could have come out of this summit with a denuclearization deal.

I helped prep President Barack Obama for high-level meetings, and President Trump’s failure to engage in the first step of any presidential meeting prep was a strong indicator that this summit was doomed to fail.

-Step 1: Establish a Baseline Assessment

Typically, summit prep begins with the president and his intelligence community agreeing on a baseline assessment of the state-of-play, in this case the status of North Korea’s nuclear program and Kim Jong Un’s intentions. The intelligence community’s assessment that North Korea will not denuclearize, the open-source analysis that Pyongyang is still proliferating weapons of mass destruction, and reporting that North Korea is taking extra steps to disburse its arsenal seemingly fell on deaf ears.

In January President Trump said that his intelligence community was wrong on North Korea and there’s reporting that he put more faith in Vladimir Putin’s North Korea analysis (which is never unbiased) underplaying North Korea’s missile threat than he did in the U.S. intelligence community’s analysis.

Without presidential agreement on a baseline assessment on North Korea’s program and Kim’s intentions, it was clear that President Trump couldn’t have been fully prepping with his own, home team. Absent an agreed upon assessment, there was no way to identify a realistic goal for the summit or a strategy to achieve it.

-Step 2: Define Your Goal

Because President Trump still thought that denuclearization was possible heading into the Hanoi Summit–based on his own personal assessment (or Putin’s) of Kim Jong Un’s intentions–his goals for the Summit were out of touch with reality.

The intelligence community assessed that Kim wouldn’t denuclearize, but instead of taking a step back and reassessing what we could realistically get from Kim—a nuclear freeze vs. denuclearization for example—President Trump went into the summit with unachievable goals.

Because he didn’t prepare appropriately and fully understand his counterpart’s intentions in this complex negotiation he pushed for something that none of his intelligence experts thought he would ever get.

-Step 3: Know Your Counterpart

It’s clear that President Trump’s counterparts do their homework. They study what makes him tick. It’s no accident that North Korean state media condemned Democrats for “chilling the atmosphere” ahead of the Hanoi Summit or that Kim has consistently flattered President Trump personally. Stoking partisan divisions and flattering the president are two ways to get on his good side.

If the president had done real preparatory work, and listened to his team, he would not have agreed to meet with Kim Jong Un one-on-one. Kim has tried to play to the president’s personal narcissism—including with love letters—and has put most nuclear negotiations in the leader-to-leader track rather than allowing experts from both sides to have the time and space to negotiate. This isn’t because Kim likes alone time with the president but rather because he knows the president is softest when he’s by himself, without experts and too often without accountability.

Unfortunately, President Trump didn’t do his own prep work on Kim Jong Un. Any basic skimming of even open source media would show that sanctions relief is at the forefront of Kim’s wish list. His patrons in Beijing and elsewhere have pushed for it and it’s Kim’s holy grail.

Because U.S. and North Korean experts met so infrequently, working out the details of denuclearization in exchange for phased sanctions relief wasn’t really possible at a detailed level. Allowing empowered sanctions and denuclearization experts to meet with North Korean counterparts well ahead of the summit would have allowed them to report back to President Trump on Kim’s red lines and his demands.

President Trump’s decision to walk rather than sign a second, superficial communique, is the only surprising thing about what happened in Hanoi. He did something out of character in Vietnam by walking away from Kim Jong Un and acknowledging that their personal relationship—something he’s put a lot of personal faith in—couldn’t carry the two leaders to a substantive denuclearization deal.

-Step 4: Don’t Hand Out Presents When You Walk Out

That’s no cause for celebration anywhere but Pyongyang. The President’s own statements that “I’d much rather do it right than do it fast” may be the best outcome for Kim. Time is on Kim’s side, and while he keeps proliferating weapons and new global relationships, we are freezing major military exercises, at least while we determine next steps.

President Trump has, at the least, cemented the status quo: North Korea as a nuclear power that is increasingly normalized on the world stage.

President Trump is known for viewing the world in pretty black and white shades, and if he does any substantive debriefing with his team and realizes that he has in fact been played for the last 12 months, it is also entirely possible that we see a return to the 2017 “fire and fury” president which, undoubtedly, would be met with responses from Kim himself.

The president’s failure to engage in real prep—before his rushed Singapore Summit with Kim and before this latest summit in Vietnam—means that North Korea has had 12 more months to become stronger, not only because Kim did his prep work. He said earlier that he wants to do things “right” not “fast” but his addiction to doing things fast, not right, is what got us here in the first place.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-the ... s?ref=home

<3



Otto Warmbier’s Parents Release Scathing Statement Responding to Trump’s Defense of Kim Jong Un

“We have been respectful during this summit process. Now we must speak out.”

INAE OHMARCH 1, 2019 10:47 AM

The parents of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died after being imprisoned in a North Korean labor camp, have issued a scathing statement responding to President Donald Trump’s recent comments defending North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

The family’s statement, released Friday, specifically and unequivocally pushed back against Trump’s claim that he believed the leader had been unaware of Warmbier’s detainment.

“We have been respectful during this summit process. Now we must speak out,” Fred and Cindy Warmbier wrote. “Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that.”

The statement follows Trump’s shocking defense of Kim at the close of a failed nuclear summit between the two countries in Hanoi, Vietnam, this week, during which Trump told reporters that he believed the North Korean leader felt “badly” about what had happened to Warmbier. “I don’t believe he would have allowed that to happen,” Trump said during a press conference. “He tells me that he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word.”

He continued, “Those prisons are rough, they’re rough places, and bad things happened. But I really don’t believe that he—I don’t believe that he knew about it.”

Warmbier died in 2017 after being returned to the United States in a coma.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... nts-trump/

<4



The Jared Kushner security clearance story reveals Donald Trump's two biggest flaws

Chris Cillizza

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Updated 10:20 AM ET, Fri March 1, 2019

(CNN)If you needed one clear example of the fundamental flaws of Donald Trump's presidency, this new reporting out of The New York Times would do the trick nicely: The President reportedly ordered his then-chief of staff John Kelly to secure a top-secret security clearance for his son-in-law Jared Kushner, ignoring the objections of the intelligence community and of Kelly himself.

"It is not known precisely what factors led to the problems with Mr. Kushner's security clearance," read the Times report. "Officials had raised questions about his own and his family's real estate business's ties to foreign governments and investors, and about initially unreported contacts he had with foreigners. The issue also generated criticism of Mr. Trump for having two family members serve in official capacities in the West Wing."

Stop and think about this for a second: The President of the United States overrode concerns expressed, according to The New York Times, by intelligence officials, his chief of staff and his White House counsel, to push for a top-secret security clearance for his son-in-law, who, not for nothing, he had endowed with such a broad portfolio that Kushner was referred to as the "Secretary of Everything" in the early days of Trump's White House.

That Trump would pull such a power move -- which is legal, yes, but ethically dicey -- speaks to his commitment to nepotism, a trait that has always defined his life in and out of politics. Trump has few close friends or associates, choosing to surround himself with his offspring -- with a handful of "yes" men and hangers-on liberally sprinkled in.

Trump's closest advisers in the Trump Organization were his sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and his daughter, Ivanka. (Eric and Don now run the day-to-day operations of the company with their father in the White House.) In the 2016 campaign, his three eldest children were again his inner circle, along with Ivanka's husband, Kushner. (Remember that at that meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer in June 2016, only three members of the Trump campaign were present: Trump Jr., Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort.)

And now, in the White House, Trump has Ivanka and Kushner close by, with amorphous job titles and broad mandates. The elevated status of "Javanka" -- how has that nickname not caught on more?? -- has rankled all sorts of non-family staffers and led some to leave the administration, often not by their own volition.

That Trump has two family members in such critical positions already raised some eyebrows. That he forced members of his administration to grant Kushner a top-security clearance over the concerns of senior (and career) staffers is deeply troubling -- especially when you consider that without Trump forcing the matter, it seems likely that Kushner would have never received his current top-secret clearance.

Trump's blind nepotism created this: One of the most senior White House staffers, who has a hand in any number of extremely sensitive situations, including attempting to negotiate peace in the Middle East(!), is someone about whom intelligence officials had concerns regarding the potential exposure he could cause the US government. Sit with that for a minute.

Then, consider this second obvious flaw: Trump did not tell the truth when asked directly about the role that he played in securing Kushner's security clearance.

In January, Trump told the Times that he "was never involved with the security" clearances regarding Kushner, adding: "I know that there was issues back and forth about security for numerous people, actually. But I don't want to get involved in that stuff."

According to the Times -- and later reporting in which The Washington Post confirmed much of the Times report -- Trump was not telling the truth in that interview. Not only did he get "involved" with Kushner's security clearance, he ordered Kelly to give Kushner the top-secret clearance over the objections of the then-chief of staff.

(Asked Thursday about that obvious contradiction, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said this to the Times: "We don't comment on security clearances.")

Nepotism. Ignoring the advice of career officials -- and members of your own staff. And then not telling the truth when called on it. Yes, this is the Trump presidency.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/01/politics ... index.html

<5



U.S.

DONALD TRUMP CAN'T KEEP IVANKA AND JARED 'OFF LIMITS' IN NEW CONGRESS INVESTIGATIONS, CHRIS CHRISTIE SAYS

BY DAVID BRENNAN ON 3/1/19 AT 3:46 AM

Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie warned that President Donald Trump’s family members working in his administration could not be considered off-limits in federal investigations.

Speaking with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday night, Christie—once aTrump ally—said that Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner were fair game for investigators because of their senior positions in the White House.

Cuomo and Christie were discussing a New York Times report published Thursday that said Trump had ordered former Chief of Staff John Kelly to issue Kusher top-secret security clearance, overriding opposition from Kelly and intelligence officials. Kushner, a senior adviser to Trump, was eventually given the clearance in May 2018.

According to The Times, both Kelly and then-White House counsel Donald McGahn were so riled by Trump's order that they wrote contemporaneous internal memos documenting the decision. McGahn’s memo included objections raised about Kushner by the CIA, and noted that the former White House counsel had recommended that Kushner not be granted top-secret clearance.

The revelations came soon after House Democrats said they would pursue hearings with Ivanka Trump and Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., following testimony by former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen before the House Oversight and Reform Committee this week.

Cuomo asked Christie if the White House was now “at war” with all those seeking to investigate his children and closest family members.

Christie dismissed the suggestion, but said, “The president placed his daughter and his son-in-law into official positions in the White House. Not as informal advisers but as official job holders in the White House. You can’t say they’re off-limits now.”

The former governor said that—at least in congressional investigations as opposed to those conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and allleged links to the Trump campaign—“You can say that [Trump’s two sons] Eric and Donnie are a different story, they’re in private business here in New York City. I think that’s different, they’re not involving themselves in government.”

But Ivanka and Jared are firmly in the firing line. The House, with its new Democratic majority, has already shown its enthusiasm for using its newly found oversight powers, and will likely continue its investigations all the way to the 2020 election.

“I told the president this…[Congress] is not going to stop at anything,” Christie said. “They’re going to bring everybody they think they have to bring in.”

In his testimony this week, Cohen named several influential figures within the Trump Organization that the House Oversight and Reform Committee may now wish to question. Cuomo asked Christie if he thought Democrats should now pursue those named, which included some of Trump’s children and closest associates.

“I think that Michael Cohen yesterday laid out a list of witnesses that the House now has to give serious consideration to calling in,” Christie replied. “Whether it’s [Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer] Allen Weisselberg or Jared, Ivanka and the rest.”

“They're going to want more, they’re going to want Allen Weisselberg, they're going to want the president’s children,” Christie said.


<

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-i ... on-1348571

<6



Omar condemns poster linking her to 9/11 attack: No wonder why I'm on a 'hitlist'

BY BROOKE SEIPEL - 03/01/19 07:18 PM EST

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Friday slammed Republicans after a poster linking her to the 9/11 attack was hung in the West Virginia statehouse, saying it's "no wonder" she is on the "hit list" of a domestic terrorist.

"No wonder why I am on the 'Hitlist' of a domestic terrorist and 'Assassinate Ilhan Omar' is written on my local gas stations. Look no further, the GOP's anti-Muslim display likening me to a terrorist rocks in state capitols and no one is condemning them!" Omar wrote on Twitter.

The poster was reportedly put on display for a “Republicans Take the Rotunda” event. It shows a photo of the Twin Towers in flames with the words, "Never forget - you said...." followed by, "I am the proof you have forgotten," alongside a photo of Omar.

It wasn't immediately clear what "hit list" Omar was referring to in her tweet, though prosecutors have said that the Minnesota lawmaker was among the Democrats included on a list of targets for a Coast Guard lieutenant arrested for plotting to kill prominent politicians.

The poster at the West Virginia statehouse reportedly sparked an explosive argument on Friday between Democrats and the House's Republican sergeant at arms, Anne Lieberman, for allegedly making an anti-Muslim remark.

According to Democrat Mike Angelucci, Lieberman said, "all Muslims are terrorists."

Lieberman denied making the remark, but later resigned. One staffer was also reportedly injured during the fighting and had to be sent to the hospital.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4322 ... der-why-im

<7



The average worker isn’t seeing Trump’s “economic miracle.” Here’s why.

Just look at these two charts.

By Alexia Fernández Campbell@AlexiaCampbellalexia@vox.com Mar 1, 2019, 3:50pm EST

You may have heard President Donald Trump say that the US economy is booming right now.

That’s an exaggeration, but the economy is definitely growing, as the latest economic indicators show.

But why doesn’t it feel like the economy is growing? The answer is pretty simple: Because economic growth is not really benefitting the average American worker.

The chart below says it all. The red line shows that overall wages are growing faster than they have in a long time — about 3 percent per year. That’s great, right? Not really. Look at the blue line. That’s the actual wage growth when you factor in inflation and cost of living (based on the Consumer Price Index).

Real wages only grew 1.9 percent in 2018.


Here is another measure of income growth, which shows a similar trend. This shows that wage growth still hasn’t caught up to 2006 levels. The chart below is based on data from Payscale.com, which includes government statistics and business surveys.


Taking all this into account, it’s no surprise that many Americans aren’t experiencing an “economic miracle” under Trump. Nearly half — 48 percent — of Americans say they believe economic conditions are worsening. That’s up from 45 percent in December and 36 percent in November, according to a January Gallup poll.

The slow wage growth problem probably has a lot to do with that.

Economists don’t understand why pay is barely rising

Slow income growth has been the most persistent problem afflicting the US economy since the recession ended, around 2010. Wages have barely kept up with the cost of living, even as the unemployment rate dropped and the economy expanded.

Mainstream economists have been baffled by this. Free-market economics revolves around a simple theory: When unemployment is low, employers will be forced to raise wages to keep and attract workers. That has happened in past economic expansions, but low unemployment has not boosted wages much in the past two years —at least not fast enough to keep up with the cost of living.

In January, private sector workers (excluding farmworkers) got an average 3-cent hourly raise, adding up to an average hourly pay of $27.56. In the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have only increased 85 cents, or 3.2 percent, and that doesn’t even take inflation into account.

January’s 3-cent average hourly wage hike suggests that the trend has not really shifted.

It’s true that wages are rising faster than they have in a decade, but that’s only because the US economy collapsed 10 years ago. Comparing current wage growth to recession-era wage growth sets a pretty low standard.

And over the past year, prices rose, so paychecks had to stretch further. When the 1.5 percent inflation rate is taken into account (based on the Consumer Price Index), workers’ wages only grew about 1.7 percent within the past year — a pathetic amount compared to the sky-high payouts to corporate CEOs.

Frustration over stagnant wages is also the major underlying factor behind widespread worker strikes across the country in places like California, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. Congressional Republicans had promised that their massive corporate tax cuts would help the average worker, but the gains have been meager.

The tax cuts did more harm than good

GOP’s signature economic policy achievement, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, did little to boost wages and business investment.

In November 2017, the president assured Americans that slashing taxes on corporations and private businesses would provide the “rocket fuel our economy needs to soar higher than ever before.” And when Trump signed the tax bill on December 22, 2017, in the Oval Office, he also promised that businesses would invest those tax savings in their businesses and give “billions and billions of dollars away to their workers.” He pointed to a handful of big companies that promised to raise wages and give employees $1,000 cash bonuses — among them Walmart, Bank of America, and Comcast.

More than a year later, economic data shows that the tax bill’s benefit to workers never materialized.

The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute recently crunched compensation data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing that the much-touted bonuses did little to boost workers’ paychecks. In the past 12 months, cash bonuses only gave workers an extra 2 cents in average hourly compensation, adjusted for inflation. (This does not include bonuses tied to productivity goals.)

Instead, US companies have spent a record amount of money this year buying back shares of company stock, an effort to inflate their value for shareholders. US corporations have announced spending $1 trillion on stock buybacks so far this year. That’s a 64 percent increase from 2017, according to CNN Business. So it’s no mystery why the savings from the GOP tax bill didn’t trickle down to workers. Only a handful of companies (34 from the Fortune 500) said they are using the tax savings to invest in US operations.

Economists do believe the tax bill helped boost overall economic growth — for a little while, at least. The economy was growing at about 2.2 percent a year since the end of the recession in 2009, and then hit 2.9 percent last year.

Economists expect growth to slow more in 2019, then fall even further in 2020.

Wall Street banks are already preparing for the US economy to slow down. The International Monetary Fund also expects the global economy to cool down this year, partly because of the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies: the United States and China.

So to recap, instead of rocket fuel, the tax cuts ended up being more like a sugar high. They gave the US economy a brief jolt while triggering an $800 billion hole in the federal budget.

The average American worker is still waiting for the promised economic boom.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... es-economy

<8



WHITE HOUSE

Deficit-swelling Trump White House plans to use deficit against Democrats

After mostly brushing off deficit concerns for two years, the White House now plans to reposition itself as an unlikely enforcer of fiscal responsibility.

By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and NANCY COOK 03/01/2019 07:07 PM EST

The self-described “king of debt” is about to get religion.

In the next several months, the Trump administration faces several big spending and budget showdowns with Congress. And after mostly brushing off deficit concerns while pushing through a costly tax-cut plan, the White House now plans to reposition itself as an unlikely enforcer of fiscal responsibility led by its new top budget official, a veteran of the conservative group Heritage Action.

The series of budget fights will come into focus on Saturday, when the U.S. government hits its debt limit, already at a record of roughly $22 trillion. That won’t cause an immediate crisis, thanks to Treasury’s ability to keep paying the bills for a limited amount of time using a power known as “extraordinary measures.”

Still, Saturday marks the beginning of a series of budget challenges for the Trump White House. The next marker comes on March 11, when the White House is scheduled to release the president’s broad budget priorities, which will feature a call for deep spending cuts — and be dead on arrival in the Democratic-led House. Administration officials have been meeting for weeks to devise a strategy to dramatically boost defense spending, fulfilling a promise to Trump’s base, while at the same time placing a strong new rhetorical emphasis on deficit concerns in a bid to undermine Democratic demands for more spending on nondefense programs like foreign aid, education and environmental protection.

It’s a long-shot plan certain to face accusations of hypocrisy — especially since it’s coming from Trump, who once boasted, “I’ve made a fortune by using debt.” Privately, many White House officials also dismiss the notion that the federal debt is a major problem.

The approach will also touch off another fierce, months-long fight with newly empowered Democrats in Congress, who have railed for two years now that the Trump administration is recklessly exploding the deficit.

But administration officials insist they’ve got the upper hand this time around. They think they’ve found a way to fund their defense spending increase — and they contend Democrats have more to lose from the automatic spending cuts triggered by sequestration.

Russ Vought, acting head of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, sent the opening salvo in a recent op-ed lamenting Washington’s spending problem and warning of sky-high annual deficits and the national debt. Some D.C. budget wonks scoffed, previewing the reaction that is sure to become more pronounced as the battle heats up and politicians begin examining Trump’s blueprint.

The president’s critics countered that the Trump administration backed a tax-cut plan that will cost an estimated $2.3 trillion over 10 years and add $1.9 trillion to the debt. And after much consternation, Trump agreed to sign a massive $1.3 trillion spending bill last year — though afterwards, he told aides he’d regretted it apart from the boost it gave to the military.

“It rightly identifies the problem and then is totally wrong on the solutions,” said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, of Vought’s op-ed.

And if the Trump administration were really serious about tackling spending, these critics said, it would take on politically treacherous issues like entitlements. One senior administration official said the president’s upcoming budget proposal would not offer any new cuts to mandatory spending and would track with what they’ve proposed in past budgets.

“The core structural problems remains and have not been addressed,” said Michael Peterson, CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Those problems include the growing share of the federal budget taken up by spending on Medicare and Social Security, two programs for the elderly, disabled and children that politicians have been loath to touch. Peterson warned that the United States is on a “very unsustainable, dangerous and damaging fiscal path.”

Trump’s plan to raise defense spending without allowing the traditionally reciprocal increase in nondefense discretionary spending requires some tricky math. Among the tools the administration plans to use to cut spending: raiding the Overseas Contingency Operations fund, which has not been subject to the sequestration budget caps Congress put in place earlier this decade.

Such a move has long come under fire from fiscal conservatives, including Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget as well as the acting White House chief of staff, who once sponsored legislation to prevent the OCO from being used in that way and has called the move a “gimmick.” Democrats also oppose the tactic.

But administration officials said Mulvaney is now embracing use of the OCO, though they privately acknowledge the tricky politics of his abrupt shift. Even some in the administration are hesitant about the approach, reluctantly going along with it because it’s seen as the only option. “I don’t like it, personally,” one senior administration official told POLITICO.

The release of the president’s budget will kick off a series of deadlines for the administration, which should last through the fall of 2019.

Even though the U.S. will officially reach its debt limit on Saturday, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the country won’t run out of money to pay its bills until late summer or early fall, during which Congress will be negotiating a deal to raise the debt ceiling.

Congress must also strike an agreement by Oct. 1 to raise the sequestration budget caps.

In the wake of the bruising government shutdown, budget experts say appropriators and Republican congressional leadership have little appetite for any type of budget showdown this fall — just as the funding bills for the government also must get passed. Republicans saw their approval ratings tank during the 35-day partial federal shutdown over border wall funding, with the majority of Americans in poll after poll saying they blamed both Trump and congressional Republicans.

“Similar to last year, I think they will work out the agreement on the debt limit and an agreement to adjust the caps for 2020 and 2021. There will be pressure to try to make sure they don’t have to deal with it in an election year,” said William G. Hoagland, former Republican staff director of Senate Budget Committee.

Still, that sentiment hasn’t stopped the Trump administration and the new acting director of the budget office from attempting to make demands — even in this new era of divided government. Vought’s op-ed called on Congress to adhere to the 5 percent spending cuts for major swaths of the federal government and then boost military spending by taking cash from the overseas fund.

One senior administration official defended the idea, saying that raiding the OCO fund has never been used as an opportunity to cut spending and therefore is a new, valid idea.

“That is what different this time around,” the official said. “We are saying: We are in divided government.”

Just as the administration now views OCO as a legitimate vehicle for cutting spending, some administration officials are also now expressing deep concern about the deficit — hence, the expected proposal of deep spending cuts in the upcoming budget.

Aides said the Treasury Department will take point on debt limit talks, while the Office of Management and Budget is driving the budget proposal.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said he would like Congress to raise the debt ceiling without any political showdowns or attempts to extract additional policy concessions — a move that could anger some House Republicans.

One of the senior administration officials dismissed concerns that the debt limit fight will become a political nightmare, calling the issue, “much sound and fury signifying nothing.”

But the debt limit and budget cap negotiations will force the White House to help congressional leadership deliver votes on a key issue, all while keeping the president — the king of debt — on message.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/ ... ts-1198671

<

<1



“All of a Sudden They’re Trying to Take You Out With Bullshit.”

In a rambling two-hour speech, President Trump slams his foes, sings his own praises, and prepares for 2020.

MADISON PAULY MARCH 2, 2019 3:48 PM

“There’s so much love in this room,” President Donald Trump said to the crowd of adoring right-wing activists who came out to see him speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, this morning. He smiled. “It’s easy to talk. You can talk your heart out.”

And so he did. In a rambling, largely ad-libbed speech that stretched over two hours, Trump veered wildly from topic to topic, slamming the Mueller investigation and related “bullshit”; mocking Democrats such as “little shifty [Rep. Adam] Schiff” and Sen. Mazie Hirono (“the crazy female senator from…Hawaii”), former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and his other foes; riffing on trade, Syria, and health care; and hyping his 2020 reelection campaign. “You know I’m totally off script now,” he said at one point. “This is how I got elected—by being off script.”

Keeping track of Trump’s train of thought wasn’t easy. (Toronto Star correspondent Daniel Dale, a veteran Trump speech-watcher, called the speech “extraordinarily bizarre.”) Here were some of the more memorable—and odder—moments:

---“They’re trying to take you out with bullshit”: Three days after Michael Cohen accused Trump of crimes before the House Oversight committee, Trump avoided mentioning his former lawyer by name. But he dismissed Cohen’s allegations and slammed him for a lack of loyalty: “You put the wrong people in a couple of positions, and they leave people for a long time that shouldn’t be there, and all of a sudden they’re trying to take you out with bullshit.” He also praised “the great” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), for fighting “so hard” against the investigations into Trump’s business dealings and relationships with Russia.

---A new executive order: Trump announced that he would soon sign an executive order requiring universities to protect free speech on campus, putting their federal funding in jeopardy if they do not. He called Hayden Williams onstage and praised the conservative activist for taking a punch last month at the University of California-Berkeley, where he had been recruiting for a right-wing youth group. “Sue the college, the university, and maybe sue the student,” Trump urged him. Williams, he added, “is going to be a very wealthy young man.”

---“Great, historic progress” in talks with North Korea: Trump’s negotiations with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un collapsed on Thursday. But in his CPAC speech, Trump said his relations with the country are “going well.” “North Korea has an incredible, brilliant economic future if they make a deal,” he said. He also talked about “beautiful, beautiful Otto” Warmbier, the American student who died after being imprisoned in North Korea. Earlier in the week, Trump said he believed Kim’s claims that he knew nothing about Warmbier’s treatment. Trump lamented that Warmbier’s death had put him in “a horrible position.”

---Doubling down on false claims about immigration: It took almost 90 minutes for Trump to land on some of his favorite refrains about immigration. He repeatedly suggested that many immigrants are criminals. Referring to the migrant caravans from Central America, he said, “some are phenomenal people, but in those caravans you have stone cold killers.” He returned to the infamous line from his 2015 campaign launch that immigrants who cross the US-Mexico border are criminals and rapists. “From day one, I mentioned the word rape. That was so innocent compared to what’s really happening,” Trump said. “We are being invaded. We are being invaded by drugs, by people, by criminals.”

---False claims about “extreme late term abortion”: In January, New York passed a law that permits women to get an abortion after 24 weeks “if their health is threatened or the fetus isn’t viable.” (Previously, abortions after 24 weeks were banned in New York unless the life of the mother was threatened.) After a lurid description of a doctor taking a living baby from its parents’ arms, Trump falsely claimed that the law would allow doctors to “execute the baby after birth.”

---“You’re a great president”: Trump claimed that he recently received a call from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat whose state has sued the Trump administration more than 45 times, in which the newly elected governor told him. Newsom, he claimed, “called me up and said, ‘You’re a great president. You’re doing a great job.'”

---Crowd size, again: Throughout his speech, Trump returned to the theme of crowd size, re litigating the size of his 2017 inauguration (“it was all a phony deal”), and at one point repeating a false claim that 55,000 people attended a rally he spoke at in Georgia last year.

Parts of the speech seemed like a preview of how he plans to frame his 2020 campaign for his Republican base. Democrats, he said, are “embracing open borders, socialism and extreme late-term abortion.” Around minute 75, Trump seemed to realize he’d already said too much. “I’m going to regret this speech,” he said, leaning into the microphone. “This speech should have been delivered one year from now—not now, damn it.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... eech-cpac/

<2



POLITICS

Kim — Not Trump — Was Right About Summit Snag, Says State Department

Just to set the record straight.

By Mary Papenfuss

03/02/2019 02:40 am ET Updated 5 hours ago

North Korea had the more accurate take on what happened at the summit with President Donald Trump before talks failed, according to an official with the U.S. State Department.

The president claimed Thursday that he had walked away from negotiations in Hanoi after Kim Jong Un demanded that all sanctions against the nation be lifted.

“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that,” Trump said. “We had to walk away from that.”

But Pyongyang representatives called a late-night news conference later that day to correct Trump’s statements, saying that Kim wanted only economic sanctions imposed since 2016 lifted — and not any concerning weapons. In exchange, Kim offered to shut down the nation’s main nuclear complex — and was prepared to offer in writing a permanent halt to the nation’s nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, according to his officials.

North Korea’s account of the sanction issue was accurate, a State Department official said Friday in a briefing to the media. The Associated Press reported that Kim had sought the lifting of only United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed since March 2016 — not sanctions going back decades. The concession would have removed sanctions on a range of goods, but not weapons.

Kim’s position was no surprise, the official said, because it had been brought up repeatedly in lower-level talks. But Trump and his negotiators decided lifting the sanctions posed from 2016 onward was too much.

Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said Trump’s reaction puzzled Kim. She said that Kim “may have lost his will [to continue] North Korea-U.S. dealings,” the AP reported.

Trump on Friday, meanwhile, tried to backpedal from his comments Thursday that he believed Kim’s statement that he had no idea what had happened to American student Otto Warmbier while he was in a North Korean prison. Warmbier died after being returned to the U.S. in a vegetative state in 2017.

Kim “tells me he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word,” Trump said at a press conference in Hanoi.

Warmbier’s parents shot back in a statement that “Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that.”

Trump responded that his words had been “misinterpreted,” that he “loves” Otto Warmbier, and “of course I hold North Korea responsible for his mistreatment and death.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kim-trum ... 4614da320a

<3



New debt showdown begins for Trump, Democrats

BY SYLVAN LANE - 03/02/19 06:38 AM EST

An extension of the nation’s debt limit ran out on Saturday, starting the clock for a potentially painful negotiation between the Democratic House and President Trump on raising the nation’s borrowing limit.

The government has until sometime after mid-summer to raise the legal cap on how much the federal government can owe creditors.

The Treasury Department on Friday suspended the sale of certain bonds and began a series of accounting maneuvers, known as “extraordinary measures” that will keep the U.S. government’s nearly $22-trillion debt beneath the legal limit.

Those methods are expected to give lawmakers until August or September to cut a deal before the U.S. misses a debt payment.

The full faith and credit of the U.S. underpins the global economy, and a missed debt payment or default could unleash unprecedented chaos. Battles over the debt limit in 2011 and 2013 led to downgrades of the country’s credit rating and spurred fears of a financial meltdown.

The U.S. “comes shockingly close on a yearly basis to defaulting on its obligations,” said Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “But we keep choosing to roll the dice.”

Republicans are also looking to bolster their debt-cutting credentials after two years of spending hikes under Trump. GOP fiscal hawks in the House and Senate have introduced resolutions that would declare the debt a national security threat. Such a measure would likely clear the Republican-controlled Senate but could fail to make it out of the Democratic House.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wrote in a Feb. 21 letter to congressional leaders that “honoring the full faith and credit of the United States is a critical commitment,” urging them to raise the debt limit.

And Trump suggested eliminating the debt limit entirely in 2017, though Republicans showed little interest in following through.

The deadline to raise the debt ceiling is also likely to occur close to an Oct. 1 deadline to prevent the imposition of automatic spending caps created by the Budget Control Act.

That dynamic has generated some bipartisan interest in reaching a budget and spending deal that would lift the debt ceiling and fund the government beyond the 2020 election.

A senior House Democratic aide told The Hill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would prefer to raise the debt ceiling through a broader bipartisan budget deal. A new House rule would automatically send a debt limit extension to the Senate if a budget passes the lower chamber, expediting the process.

Both parties also have their own incentives to reach a deal to avoid mandatory spending caps: Democrats are eager to boost funding on social programs, and Republicans want to avoid cuts to defense spending.

Even so, tying the debt limit to spending talks risks entangling the nation’s credit in difficult negotiations over sticky partisan issues. A showdown over border wall funding led to the longest government shutdown in modern history, leaving more than 800,000 federal workers without pay for 35 days.

“I think there are a lot of people in both parties who want to get past the Budget Control Act, get a debt limit that goes into 2021, and if we could get a two-year deal on spending, that would be a nice package,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), chairman of the House Budget Committee.

“But it's an irrational world.”

Party leaders have been mum on the debt ceiling so far, but appear eager to avoid any fiscal crises ahead of the 2020 election that could impede congressional reelection bids or the battle for the White House.

While Republicans had previously demanded spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit under former President Obama, the Trump administration and GOP leaders have previously supported increasing the ceiling with no strings attached under Trump.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Thursday that the debt limit “should always be voted on by itself” while Congress mulls how to “change the direction of spending of America.”

Yarmuth said he’s confident that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would back a debt limit increase and called his fellow Kentuckian “a willing partner.”

“I've known Mitch for a long time,” Yarmuth said. “His primary goal would be to get past the election and avoid any shutdowns or any crises where they're going to get blamed for it.”

McConnell’s office declined to comment on the record for this article, but the majority leader has previously said there’s “zero chance” that Congress will let the U.S. breach the debt ceiling.

“America's not going to default. And we'll get the job done in conjunction with the secretary of the Treasury,” McConnell said in August 2017, amid a previous scramble to lift the debt ceiling.

A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) did not respond to requests for comment.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/4322 ... -democrats

<4



POLITICS

Million Taxpayers Losing $323 Billion In Deductions In Trump Tax Hit

More bad news for middle America after corporate taxes were slashed.

By Mary Papenfuss

03/02/2019 06:48 am ET Updated 5 hours ago

There’s more bad news for taxpayers. A government report has revealed that 11 million taxpayers are losing out on $323 billion worth of deductions due to a punishing change in President Donald Trump’s tax law.

The hard news comes after early filers were stunned by shrinking — to vanishing — tax refunds.

The deduction wallop detailed in the government report centers on capped deductions for state and local taxes — including real estate taxes. Formerly, all local taxes could be deducted from federal taxes; now it’s capped at $10,000, which particularly hurts homeowners in major metropolitan areas — especially in the Northeast and California — where housing tends to be more expensive.

The cap was imposed to help pay for huge tax cuts to corporations, whose tax rates were slashed from 35 percent to 21 percent.

The deduction hit is so staggering that it could end up swamping modest gains taxpayers had expected to enjoy due to tax cuts.

The figures were revealed in an audit conducted by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that examined Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s efforts to block local governments’ attempts to stop the federal government from taking an extra bite out of community residents.

Several states ― including New York and New Jersey ― are challenging the deduction cap in court, claiming the new tax law is unconstitutional because of federal overreach and the harm to some states and their residents.

Tax refunds were also down significantly — 17 percent — for the first three weeks of the filing season this year (ending Feb. 15) over the same time last year. But by the end of the fourth week, refunds ticked up a total of 1.3 percent over the same period last year.

Taxpayers’ ultimate status and how they’ll fare in different demographics won’t be completely known until an analysis after the end of tax season.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tax-dedu ... f77651b412

<5



Trump asks China to remove all agricultural tariffs on US

CNN Digital Expansion 2018, Caroline Kelly

By Caroline Kelly, CNN

Updated 12:24 AM ET, Sat March 2, 2019

(CNN)President Donald Trump asked China in a tweet Friday to lift all of its tariffs on American agricultural products, pointing to his decision to delay a second round of tariffs and to improving trade relations with China.

"I have asked China to immediately remove all Tariffs on our agricultural products (including beef, pork, etc.) based on the fact that we are moving along nicely with Trade discussions," he tweeted Friday, adding, "and I did not increase their second traunch of Tariffs to 25% on March 1st. This is very important for our great farmers - and me!"

Trump had announced the decision to delay the tariffs, as well as a planned summit to wrap up the trade agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, in a tweet Sunday. The tariffs had been set to go into effect Friday if no trade deal were reached.

China is the United States' second largest agricultural market, according to data from the Office of the US Trade Representative. US agricultural exports to China hit $20 billion in 2017, with soybeans, the largest sole export, accounting for $12 billion.

Trump on Sunday had lauded "substantial progress" in the talks covering "important structural issues including intellectual property protection, technology transfer, agriculture, services, currency, and many other issues" and resulting in "a very good weekend for U.S. & China!"

Trump's request Friday came following his decision to walk away from negotiations with North Korea at a summit in Vietnam on Thursday, alleging that leader Kim Jong Un had insisted on full sanctions relief in exchange for partial denuclearization in an unacceptable offer.

Trump had characterized his relationship with Xi as positive and beneficial leading into the summit with North Korea in a tweet earlier Sunday.

"President Xi of China has been very helpful in his support of my meeting with Kim Jong Un," he tweeted. "The last thing China wants are large scale nuclear weapons right next door. Sanctions placed on the border by China and Russia have been very helpful. Great relationship with Chairman Kim!"

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/01/politics ... index.html

<6



WORLD ISRAEL ISRAEL'S ATTORNEY GENERAL RECOMMENDS INDICTING PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU FOR BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION

Israel's Attorney General Recommends Indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Bribery and Corruption

By ARON HELLER AND JOSEF FEDERMAN / AP Updated: February 28, 2019 8:22 PM ET

(JERUSALEM) — Israel’s attorney general on Thursday recommended criminal charges against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a series of corruption cases, shaking up an already tumultuous election campaign and threatening to end the Israeli leader’s decades-long political career.

The potential charges stretch across an array of embarrassing scandals that have painted Netanyahu as a hedonistic, and sometimes petty, leader with a taste for expensive gifts and an obsession over his public image. They include allegations he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars of champagne and cigars from billionaire friends, and allegedly used his influence to help a wealthy telecom magnate in exchange for favorable coverage on a popular news site.

While a final decision on charges is still months away, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit’s recommendations threatened to hurt Netanyahu’s standing in the heat of a tight re-election battle. Netanyahu quickly faced calls to immediately step aside while he deals with the distraction of trying to clear his name.

Appearing on national TV late Thursday, Netanyahu dismissed the allegations as an “unprecedented witch hunt” by political opponents intent on seeing him lose the April 9 election.

He called the timing of the recommendations “outrageous” and accused prosecutors of caving in to pressure from “the left.” Appearing emotional at times, he called the case a “blood libel,” said he would debunk all charges and vowed to remain prime minister for many years.

“This house of cards will collapse,” he said as he addressed voters. “Don’t let this witch hunt affect you.”

Mandelblit announced his recommendations after more than two years of intense investigations and deliberations by police, legal experts and financial regulators.

“The attorney general has reached his decision after thoroughly examining the evidence collected during the investigations,” his statement said.

Netanyahu was not formally charged. Under Israeli law, he is entitled to defend himself at a hearing before charges are officially filed. That process is expected to take many months and be completed long after the election.

Tomer Naor of the Movement for Quality Government, a watchdog group, said the hearing process could take about a year. While charges are not guaranteed, he said most of the cases, particularly the bribery case, appeared to be solid.

The recommendations nonetheless plunged Israel into uncharted legal waters, marking the first time in its history that a sitting prime minister is so close to facing criminal charges.

While Israeli prime ministers are not required by law to resign if charged, the prospect of a prime minister standing trial while simultaneously running the country could increase calls, even from his allies, to step down.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who spent time in prison for corruption, stepped down a decade ago, months before police completed an investigation against him. As opposition leader, Netanyahu called on Olmert to step down before his indictment, saying he could not devote his full attention to governing.

Netanyahu has a solid base of hard-line, nationalist and religious voters who are likely to rally behind him. For now, Likud officials and his current coalition partners are also supporting him.

But polls have indicated that the upcoming vote, in which Netanyahu is seeking a fourth consecutive term, could be swayed by a small number of voters who abandon him in favor of a new centrist party headed by a popular former military chief, Benny Gantz.

Those voters could well be turned off by Netanyahu’s lengthy rule and never-ending scandals.

Gantz, whose campaign has focused heavily on Netanyahu’s character, late Thursday called on Netanyahu to resign immediately to deal with his legal problems.

He said Israel could not afford to have a “part-time prime minister.”

“Let’s imagine our reality when the prime minister needs to divide his time between court and dealing with the critical issues facing the state of Israel,” he said.

Even before Thursday’s announcement, Netanyahu’s campaign had shown signs of trouble.

The alliance formed by Gantz and Yair Lapid, another centrist leader, has been welcomed by voters. Their “Blue and White” alliance enjoys a slight lead in opinion polls, making them the first credible threat to Netanyahu’s decade-long rule.

Lapid also called on Netanyahu to step down.

“This is a sad day for the state of Israel,” he said. “If Netanyahu loves the state of Israel as he always says he does, then he needs to do what’s best for the country. He needs to resign, immediately.”

Netanyahu has also come under fire, both in Israel and abroad, for forming a partnership with the political heirs of an ultranationalist party that was banned for its racist views toward Arabs.

The campaign now appears to be morphing into a referendum on Netanyahu as he seeks to become the longest-serving premier in Israeli history. Netanyahu has been prime minister since 2009 and served a previous term between 1996 and 1999.

Netanyahu had previously tried unsuccessfully to persuade Mandelblit to delay publication of his recommendations until after the election. And on Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected an attempt by the Likud Party to block publication.

The most serious allegations against Netanyahu involve his relationship with Shaul Elovitch, the controlling shareholder of Israel’s telecom giant Bezeq.

Mandelblit recommended a bribery charge in the case based on evidence collected that confidants of Netanyahu promoted regulatory changes worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Bezeq.

In exchange, they believe Netanyahu used his connections with Elovitch to receive positive press coverage on Bezeq’s popular news site Walla.

A related charge against Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, was dropped.

Mandelblit’s statement said there was a unanimous opinion among investigators that the relationship between Netanyahu and the Elovitches was “give or take,” constituting bribery.

Mandelblit also filed breach of trust charges in two other cases. One involves accepting gifts from billionaire friends, including over $300,000 worth of champagne and cigars from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan.

The second revolves around alleged offers of advantageous legislation for a major newspaper in return for favorable coverage.

Mandelblit’s office said the timing of Netanyahu’s hearing would be set in the near future in coordination with the prime minister’s lawyers.

President Donald Trump, with whom Netanyahu has forged a close connection, offered the Israeli leader a boost earlier Thursday.

“I can say this: that he’s done a great job as prime minister. He’s tough, he’s smart, he’s strong,” Trump said in Hanoi, where he was holding a summit with the leader of North Korea.

Yohanan Plesner, a former lawmaker who now heads the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent think tank, said he does not expect any dramatic changes in voting patterns, but there could be small enough shifts “that can actually make the difference.”

Plesner said from a “practical standpoint,” Netanyahu should step down due to the severity of the charges. “But this will probably not happen,” he said.

http://time.com/5541291/benjamin-netany ... orruption/

<7



SCIENCE

A Troubling Discovery in the Deepest Ocean Trenches

In the Mariana Trench, the lowest point in any ocean, every tiny animal tested had plastic pollution hiding in its gut.

ED YONG

FEB 27, 2019

Alan Jamieson remembers seeing it for the first time: a small, black fiber floating in a tube of liquid. It resembled a hair, but when Jamieson examined it under a microscope, he realized that the fiber was clearly synthetic—a piece of plastic. And worryingly, his student Lauren Brooks had pulled it from the gut of a small crustacean living in one of the deepest parts of the ocean.

For the past decade, Jamieson, a marine biologist at Newcastle University, has been sending vehicles to the bottom of marine trenches, which can be as deep as the Himalayas are tall. Once there, these landers have collected amphipods—scavenger relatives of crabs and shrimp that thrive in the abyss. Jamieson originally wanted to know how these animals differ from one distant trench to another. But a few years ago, almost on a whim, he decided to analyze their body for toxic, human-made pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which have been banned for decades but which persist in nature for much longer.

The team found PCBs galore. Some amphipods were carrying levels 50 times higher than those seen in crabs from one of China’s most polluted rivers. When the news broke, Jamieson was inundated with calls from journalists and concerned citizens. And in every discussion, one question kept coming up: What about plastics?

The world produces an estimated 10 tons of plastic a second, and between 5 million and 14 million tons sweep into the oceans every year. Some of that debris washes up on beaches, even on the world’s most isolated islands. About 5 trillion pieces currently float in surface waters, mostly in the form of tiny, easy-to-swallow fragments that have ended up in the gut of albatrosses, sea turtles, plankton, fish, and whales. But those pieces also sink, snowing into the deep sea and upon the amphipods that live there.

Brooks eventually found plastic fibers and fragments in 72 percent of the amphipods that the team collected, from all six trenches that they had surveyed. In the least polluted of these sites, half of the amphipods had swallowed at least one piece of plastic. In the 6.8-mile-deep Mariana Trench, the lowest point in any ocean, all of the specimens had plastic in their gut.


Does a single fiber really matter amid all the sediment and detritus that amphipods regularly swallow? Jamieson thinks so. For a start, PCBs and other toxins can stick to plastic, turning fibers into sinks for other contaminants. Also, many of the pieces that his team found were relatively huge. “The worst example I saw was a purple fiber, a few millimeters long, tied in a figure-of-eight in an animal no longer than a centimeter,” Jamieson says. “Imagine if you swallowed a meter of polypropylene rope.”

If trenches from places as distant as Japan, Peru, and New Zealand can be contaminated, it’s likely that humanity’s plastic fingers have stretched into every part of the ocean, including habitats we have barely begun to understand. No marine ecosystem is untouched. “It builds upon a growing body of evidence suggesting that the deep sea, by far the largest habitat on the planet, may very well be the largest reservoir of plastic waste on the planet,” says Anela Choy from the University of California at San Diego.

“It’s not a good result,” Jamieson adds. “I don’t like doing this type of work.”

When he submitted his findings to a scientific journal, the researchers who reviewed the paper reasonably asked how he could tell that the fibers were actually plastic. “Our response was, ‘Some of it’s purple!’ ” Jamieson says. “There’s bits of pink in there. This doesn’t come from animals.” To satisfy the critics, his team chemically analyzed a subset of the fibers and found that all of it was synthetic.

They also took steps to ensure that they hadn’t inadvertently introduced plastic into the trenches. The landers that they used to collect the amphipods have some plastic parts, but they are all bright green and yellow, and no such colors were found in the specimens. Even if the amphipods had eaten plastic from the landers (or from the bait used to attract them), the team only dissected the last of the creatures’ several stomachs to avoid sampling their most recent meals. And they performed those dissections within a special chamber, where continuously rising air stops fibers from their equipment or clothes from settling in the samples. Given these precautions, Jamieson is confident that the fibers he found had sunk into the abyss on their own.

Other scientists have also found plastic litter in the deep; just last year, one team documented a plastic bag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Until now, no one had shown that abyssal animals were actually eating those fragments, but in retrospect, it seems obvious that amphipods would. They are exceptional scavengers that excel at finding food. By deliberately pumping water over their body, they can detect the faintest plumes of odor, and with taste buds on their legs, they can forage with every footstep. When a morsel hits the ocean floor, amphipods turn up in droves. “We can catch 10,000 in one day with just a pipe, some bait, and a funnel,” Jamieson says.

Food is scarce in the deep, so amphipods can’t afford to be fussy. They’ll eat pretty much anything, which makes them particularly vulnerable to plastics. And since they sit at the bottom of the trench food webs, their catholic appetite can doom entire ecosystems. “They’re like bags of peanuts,” Jamieson says. “Everything else eats amphipods—shrimp, fish—and they’ll end up consuming plastics, too. And when the fish die, they get consumed by amphipods, and it goes round and round in circles.”

“What you put in the trench stays in the trench,” he adds. Which means that the plastic problem “is only going to get worse. Anything going in there isn’t coming back.”

That’s a hypothesis the team can test in later studies. If Jamieson is right, then amphipods from deeper parts of the same trench should have higher levels of plastics than those from higher up. But Choy says, “We certainly don’t need decades of further scientific study to necessitate more responsible behavior and policies now.”

“I imagine pollution in the Mariana Trench is an abstract concept for most people, but for those of us living in the Mariana Islands this has consequences for what ends up on our dinner plates,” says Angelo Villagomez, an indigenous Chamorro from the Mariana Islands who works for the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project. “So what can we do? The International Union for the Conservation of Nature recommends we protect 30 percent of every marine habitat to address human impacts, but that will only help if we’re also sustainably managing the remaining 70 percent, reducing carbon emissions, and limiting the pollution being dumped in the ocean in the first place.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arc ... ic/583657/

<8



Trump's alleged financial fraud creates an important new vulnerability

By Steve Benen 03/01/19 04:11PM

When it comes to Donald Trump's many controversies, there are qualitative differences between the stories. Some, such as his response to racist violence in Charlottesville, are gut-wrenching and painful, but these stories don't create any criminal liabilities for the president. The consequences of these fiascoes are political, not legal.

But there are a series of other Trump-related scandals that appear to put the president in legal jeopardy. For example, there's the counter-intelligence investigation into whether Trump's political operation cooperated with Russia during its attack on our elections.

There are also questions about possible obstruction of justice. And the campaign-finance scandal in which the president has already been named as an unindicted co-conspirator. And the investigation into the Trump Foundation's alleged crimes. And the criminal probe into the president's inaugural committee.

But this week, Americans were introduced to an entirely new line of inquiry. Bloomberg News reported this week:

How President Donald Trump may have inflated and deflated his personal wealth is more than mere curiosity: It could be of keen interest to any authorities trying to figure out if he misrepresented himself to insurance companies and lenders.

Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen attested to Trump's shifting wealth valuations to lawmakers on Wednesday, bearing what he said were annual net-worth summaries prepared for Trump earlier this decade. Trump handed the summary with high valuations to lenders and journalists, Cohen testified. When it came to tax authorities, he lowballed.

If falsehoods went to financial institutions, that would provide fertile ground for prosecutors in New York....

I can appreciate why some observers, even fierce Trump critics who'd love to see him prosecuted, may find this inherently underwhelming. When it comes to criminal misdeeds that bring down powerful individuals, exaggerated assets probably seem boring, if not trivial.

Let me try, however, to persuade you otherwise.


If you saw Rachel’s first segment last night, you know about Donald Trump’s mansion in Bedford, New York, which he purchased in 1995. He paid $7.5 million for it, and the purchase proved to be a good investment: by 2013, the home was assessed at $18.9 million. Four years later, its value was pegged at $19.6 million. As part of his presidential financial disclosure forms, Trump recently valued the home inside the range of $25 million and $50 million.

So far, this seems pretty normal. Fancy mansions in Westchester County grow in value, so the trajectory here seems wholly unremarkable.

But this week, Michael Cohen shed new light on the president’s finances – specifically Trump’s financial statements from earlier this decade, when the future president’s assets were allegedly exaggerated for a variety of specific purposes.

For example, Trump inflated his wealth to Deutsche Bank when seeking a loan. According to Cohen, he also exaggerated his assets to mislead insurance companies.

And in the case of his mansion in Westchester County, according to documents produced by Cohen, Trump briefly valued the property at $291 million in 2012.

That’s not a typo. In 1995, he bought the home for $7.5 million, and in 2013, it assessed at $18.9 million, but in between, Trump said it was worth $291 million. He soon after changed his mind and put its value at a less ridiculous figure.

So what explains that radical, one-year exaggeration? Trump, according to Cohen’s materials and testimony, used inflated figures like these to deceive financial institutions for his benefit.

And if the evidence is correct, and the president tried to perpetrate a fraud against financial institutions, that could be a felony – for which the statute of limitations has not expired.

We know this isn’t some kind of financial version of jaywalking, which no one is ever prosecuted for. In fact, we were recently reminded of the opposite: Paul Manafort, who led Trump’s political operation in 2016, was convicted on a variety of felony counts, including defrauding banks and other financial institutions.

Indeed, Cohen himself will soon go to jail for, among other things, making “false statements for the purpose of influencing the actions of a financial institution.”

We’re talking about felony financial fraud, which routinely sends people to jail. We’re also, evidently, talking about a fraud that the sitting president of the United States may have also perpetrated – according to his own former personal attorney.

To be sure, I’m not saying Trump will be prosecuted over these allegations. In fact, I can’t say for certain whether this is even the subject of an investigation, though it appears to be an area of interest to House Democrats.

At this point, I imagine some of the White House’s allies will compare going after the president for financial fraud to going after Al Capone for tax evasion. In fact, last year, some Trump allies pushed this exact line – as if other misdeeds, outside of possible “collusion” with Russia, don’t really count.

Unfortunately for the president, criminal law doesn’t work this way. When prosecutors are presented with evidence of a felony, the accused doesn’t get to say, “Yeah, but those crimes aren’t as dramatic as some of the other stuff I was investigated for doing.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... lity#break

<

Friday’s Mini-Report, 3.1.19

03/01/19 05:30 PM

By Steve Benen

Today’s edition of quick hits:

* Apparently, publicly siding with a dictator bothers some people: “The parents of Otto Warmbier issued a blistering statement Friday saying Kim Jong Un and his government ‘are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity’ after President Donald Trump asserted that the North Korean dictator had been unaware of the harrowing treatment the student endured while detained there.”

* On a related note: “President Donald Trump on Friday attempted to clarify his comments that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was not responsible for the death of Otto Warmbier after a bipartisan backlash and a blistering statement from Warmbier’s parents.”

* Speaking of Trump’s concessions to North Korea: “The U.S. military is preparing to announce that annual large-scale joint exercises conducted with South Korea every spring will no longer be held, according to two U.S. defense officials.”

* This week changed the direction of the debate: “House Democrats on Thursday made plans to dig deeper into President Trump’s business and charity, using testimony from former Trump attorney Michael Cohen as a road map to call new witnesses and seek new internal documents.”

* On a related note: “The top tax-writing committee in the House is readying a request for years of President Donald Trump’s personal tax returns that is expected to land at the Internal Revenue Service as early as the next few weeks, according to congressional aides involved in the process. And Democrats are prepared to ‘take all necessary steps,’ including litigation, in order to obtain them.”

* House Democrats “held an emotional debate behind closed doors Thursday over how to stop losing embarrassing procedural battles with Republicans – a clash that exposed the divide between moderates and progressives.”

* HHS: “Health and Human Services officials refused Thursday to meet with Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), saying the House Ethics Committee chair must first apologize for stating publicly earlier this week that HHS staff sexually abused migrant children in agency custody.”

* I continue to believe the Trump Foundation scandal is among the most serious surrounding the president: “Rep. Maxine Waters, who is leading a probe into President Donald Trump’s finances, wants Trump’s nonprofit foundation to be the Democrats’ next target because of tax evasion concerns.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... 3119#break

<

<1



Trump Mocked Immigrant Members Of Congress And Said Some "Hate Our Country"

Some in the rowdy crowd shouted the name of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.

Julia Reinstein

Posted on March 2, 2019, at 5:01 p.m. ET

In rambling, two-hour speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, President Trump mocked immigrant members of Congress and said some of them hate the United States.

"We have people in Congress right now, we have people in Congress that hate our country," Trump told the audience during a segment of his speech on immigration. "And you know that, and we can name every one of them if they want. They hate our country."

The rowdy crowd booed the unnamed members of Congress, with some shouting the name of Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who immigrated to the US as a teenage refugee from Somalia.

The president said these members of Congress, whom he didn't name, "very sad" comments about the United States.

"How did they do in their country?" he continued. "Just ask them. How did they do? Did they do well? Were they succeeding? Just ask that question."

"Somebody would say, 'Oh, that's terrible that he brings that up.' But that's OK. I don't mind. I'll bring it up."

"How did they do in their country? Not so good. Not so good."

According to the Pew Research Center, there are currently 13 foreign-born members of the House and just one in the Senate. All are Democrats.

Representatives for the White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump's rollicking, off-script speech at Maryland's Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center lasted over two hours, which several news outlets said was his longest ever as president.

The president also used his remarks to attack Democrats and those investigating him as part of the Russia probe, saying his enemies are “trying to take [him] out with bullshit!”

The crowd erupted at that line, clapping and chanting, "Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!"

In January, the president castigated Rep. Rashida Tlaib for her "disgraceful" language when she told a crowd of supporters she would "impeach the motherfucker."

In an extensive airing of grievances, Trump also relitigated old arguments over his crowd sizes, while simultaneously mocking a journalist for not "flying private."

He criticized Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel, who in Dec. 2017 tweeted a photo of a scant crowd in an arena where Trump was having a rally.

Weigel deleted the tweet after learning the venue had not yet filled up, but Trump responded at the time by demanding an apology and for Weigel to be fired.

"He got there four or five hours early, because he doesn't fly private, you know....The place hadn't started taking in people," Trump told the crowd..

In yet another return to the size of his inauguration crowd, Trump falsely claimed the media had compared his crowd to the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009 by using photos of his 2017 inauguration "taken hours before."

"I saw pictures that there were no people," Trump said. "Those pictures were taken hours before, right?"

Trump has previously accused the media of altering photos of his inauguration crowd size, but official photos released by the National Park Service clearly show that the crowd at President Obama's inauguration was far bigger.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ju ... crowd-size

<2



US POLITICS

Anti-Muslim Signs in Statehouse Roil West Virginia, Draw Outrage

March 02, 2019 8:38 PM

Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.VA. —

An anti-Muslim poster outside the West Virginia House of Delegates chamber falsely connecting a freshman congresswoman to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has drawn strong rebukes from local and national lawmakers, while causing the resignation of a Capitol staffer and the reported injury of another.

The sign, which loomed over a table loaded with other Islamophobic flyers on a “WV GOP Day” at the legislature Friday, bore an image of the burning World Trade Center juxtaposed with a picture of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat and one of the first Muslim congresswomen ever elected. “‘Never forget’ — You said,” was written over the Twin Towers. On Omar’s picture, a caption read, “I am the proof you have forgotten.”

---Ilhan Omar

@IlhanMN
No wonder why I am on the “Hitlist” of a domestic terrorist and “Assassinate Ilhan Omar” is written on my local gas stations.

Look no further, the GOP's anti-Muslim display likening me to a terrorist rocks in state capitols and no one is condemning them! https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politi ... ks-n978371 …

50.6K

4:44 PM - Mar 1, 2019

On Saturday, the West Virginia’s Republican Party condemned the appearance of the anti-Muslim flyers and posters.

“Our party supports freedom of speech, but we do not endorse speech that advances intolerant and hateful views,” West Virginia Republican Party Chairwoman Melody Potter wrote in a statement, which added that they did not approve of the sign and had asked the exhibitor to remove it. No one acknowledged permitting the display.

---Designated hate group

The group responsible for the display, ACT for America, has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. Onlookers outside the House chambers Friday snapped photos of the poster and the additional literature.

“Readin’, Writin’, And Jihadin,’ The Islamization of American Public Schools,” read one of the pamphlets. Another flyer warned of “The Four Stages of Islamic Conquest.”

A phone number listed for the organization went straight to a voicemail box that was full and could not accept messages. The answering machine message described the group as “the nation’s largest nonprofit grassroots organization devoted to promoting national security and defeating terrorism.”

---'Beyond shameful'

Many House delegates denounced the group just as the body convened. One lawmaker admitted to getting so mad that he kicked a House door open, which resulted in a doorkeeper being physically injured, according to the speaker of the House. Another delegate grew furious, saying he had heard a staffer make an anti-Muslim remark.

“The sergeant of arms of this body, that represents the people of the state of West Virginia, said, ‘All Muslims are terrorists.’ That’s beyond shameful,” said Del. Michael Angelucci, a Democrat, his voice rising to a shout. “And that’s not freedom of speech. That’s hate speech, and it has no place in this house.”

The sergeant of arms, Anne Lieberman, resigned later Friday. She has declined to comment after being reached by phone by The Associated Press.

Republican House Speaker Roger Hanshaw questioned how things had gone so wrong.

“We owe it to ourselves; we owe it our constituents; we owe it to the men and women and children and families that we represent to do better than we are,” Hanshaw told lawmakers.

“We have allowed national level politics to become a cancer on our state, to become a cancer on our legislature, to invade our chamber in a way that frankly makes me ashamed,” Hanshaw said.

https://www.voanews.com/a/anti-muslim-s ... 11126.html

<3



Fact Checking Trump (and others) at CPAC

By Holmes Lybrand

Updated 7:36 PM ET, Sat March 2, 2019

Washington (CNN)The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event attracts college Republicans, populists, nationalists, some libertarians, and the occasional Revolutionary reenactor. For the past three years, it's also attracted President Donald Trump.

While waiting more than half-an-hour (much of it on their feet) for Trump's speech to begin, the CPAC audience was treated to a video montage of CPAC's chairman Matt Schlapp arguing against journalists and media personalities on a pro-Trump spree -- as event staff closed the doors and kept anyone from leaving.

When he finally showed up, Trump did not disappoint. He spoke for more than two hours, delivering the longest speech of his presidency to a wildly enthusiastic crowd. In what felt at times like a standup comedy special -- "I'm in love, you're in love and we're all in love together," Trump told the audience at one point -- the President touched on favorite topics ranging from the Mueller investigation, North Korea, trade, and the Democrats' Green New Deal.

Here are the facts.

---Tariffs

In talking about trade and tariffs, Trump pulled out one of his favorite lines, telling the audience, "Billions of dollars right now are pouring into our Treasury."

Facts First:

Technically this is true. It's just that the billions of dollars aren't coming from foreign countries and companies, as Trump has suggested in the past. Instead, it's American companies and consumers that are paying most of the cost of these tariffs.

We fact checked a similar statement from Trump during his speech in El Paso last month. Here's what we found:

When Trump talks about tariffs, he often talks about the amount of money that is now pouring into the US Treasury. He tends to give the impression that money is being paid by foreign companies. But that's not really what's happening. Instead, most of those tariffs are being paid by US companies that import those foreign goods.

The real question is who bears the cost. Often, US companies will pass it on to the consumer by raising prices, while other times a company will reduce compensation or employment internally to offset these higher costs. In some instances, the Chinese supplier might take on the burden of the tariff by reducing its prices in order to maintain its price advantage in the US.

Trump is trying to realign trade so that US products become more competitive with their cheaper Chinese alternatives. That will likely require a long-term adjustment of the US industrial base. In the short term, US consumers and companies will most likely end up bearing the cost of the tariffs. The Tax Foundation said last year that it expects the tariffs to lower the gross domestic product and wages, and cost American jobs, hitting lower- and middle-income households the hardest.

---Mueller

Trump also went after the Russia probe, claiming that "13 Democrats" work on Robert Mueller's team.

Facts First:

According to several reports, 13 members of Mueller's team have registered as Democrats in the past. The majority of them though have been longstanding Department of Justice employees.

As CNN has previously reported:

Mueller assembled a team that at its peak consisted of at least 17 lawyers and "dozens" of FBI agents to help with his investigation. Nine of the lawyers donated to Democratic candidates before 2017, according to federal records. Eight of those lawyers gave only to Democrats, while one has donated to Democrats and Republicans before.

It's worth noting that making political donations is within the rules and is not itself a disqualification, as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (who appointed Mueller as special counsel) told Congress in 2017.

Asked by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham whether political donations should prevent attorneys from working on the investigation, Rosenstein replied, "No, senator, it is not a disqualification. It is not."

The Washington Post has reported that "13 of the 17 members of Mueller's team have previously registered as Democrats."

Mueller was a registered Republican as recently as 2017 and was appointed as FBI director under George W. Bush. Rosenstein is also a registered Republican.

Trump also claimed that one of the lawyers on Mueller's team has been "involved with the Hillary Clinton Foundation, running it."

Facts First:

This is false. No one on Mueller's team ever ran the Clinton Foundation.

Trump may be referring to one of Mueller's lawyers, Jeannie Rhee, who previously represented the Clinton Foundation in a civil racketeering lawsuit that was eventually dismissed.

---Manufacturing

Trump claimed that he brought back "600,000 beautiful manufacturing jobs that were never going to come back to our country."

Facts First:

While the pace of manufacturing job creation has increased since Trump took office in 2017, he is overstating the number by nearly 150,000. It's also unclear how much credit any president deserves for the decisions made by manufacturing companies to hire more workers.

Based on current data, 454,000 manufacturing jobs were added since the beginning of 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

We've also fact checked the idea that manufacturing jobs were not increasing before Trump took office, something he has suggested before:

By the time former President Barack Obama left office, there were some 190,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than existed at the start of his administration. But that doesn't tell the whole story. The US was in a deep recession when Obama entered the White House in January 2009, and the manufacturing sector was shedding tens of thousands of jobs a month. But the losses stopped by early 2010. Over the next six-plus years, manufacturing jobs rose by more than 800,000.

Under Trump, the pace of growth is certainly faster. During his first two years in office, the economy has added more than 470,000 manufacturing jobs. (According to MarketWatch, the manufacturing job growth from August 2017 to August 2018 was "the best 12-month stretch in 23 years.")

The reason for this result is likely multifaceted. Oil prices dropping, healthy job numbers nationwide, and deregulation are all often cited reasons for the uptick. However, the decline in vehicle sales paired with uncertainty around trade might harm these numbers.

Also, while the number of manufacturing jobs continues to increase, the total is stil below its pre-recession level.

---Employment

Trump repeated the claim that "more people are working today in the United States than ever before in our country."

Facts First:

This is true but needs context.

In a way, this is the equivalent of Trump taking credit for a growing population. The more relevant statistic is the percentage of people who are participating in the labor force. That number, which is up recently, still remains below pre-recession levels.

Here's what we found when Trump made the same claim during his State of the Union address:

According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the total number of people employed in the US stands at 156,694,000. That works out to an employment-population ratio of 60.7 percent, according to data from the Federal Reserve, which is below the 64.7 percent ratio from April 2000. That figure from 2000 is the highest-ratio since 1948, when the Fed began mapping the data.

---Immigration

The President repeated the claim that one in three women are assaulted on the journey to the US southern border.

Facts First:

This appears to be somewhat true though there are reasons to be skeptical of the data it's based on.

Trump made a similar claim during a speech on immigration in January. "One in three women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek up through Mexico. Women and children are the biggest victims by far of our broken system," he said. "This is the tragic reality of illegal immigration on our southern border."

Here's what we found at the time:

Indeed, the trek to the US-Mexico border has been reported to be violent. According to data from Doctors Without Borders, 68.3% of migrants and refugees "entering Mexico reported being victims of violence during their transit toward the United States," and nearly one-third of women said they'd been sexually abused. But this very violence is also why women have chosen to travel in caravans.

This data from Doctors Without Borders, however, is measuring a small group of migrant women and more data is needed to accurately assess the number of women that are assaulted, physically or sexually.

---Abortion

Invoking the recent story of the "Covington kids" (where video of high school students approached by Native American activists created a media firestorm) CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp claimed on Saturday that New York and Virginia governors supported post-birth abortions.

"How many of you followed this Covington story?" Schlapp asked the CPAC audience Saturday. "Do you know why they came to the nation's capital? They came to the nation's capital to march against what the governor of Virginia and the governor of New York want to see happen, which is literally post-birth abortions."

Facts First:

Recent legislation introduced in Virginia and New York has sought to ease restrictions on certain third-trimester abortions. Much of the current controversy stems from a radio interview Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam gave, in which he made some odd claims on proposed abortion legislation that created confusion around the bill. But Schlapp's characterization of the legislation in New York and Virginia is not accurate.

Trump made a similar claim regarding New York and Virginia during his State of the Union address. Here's what we found in our SOTU fact check:

---New York

The Reproductive Health Act, signed into law by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in January, allows for abortions after 24 weeks if an authorized health care practitioner determines that "the abortion is necessary to protect the patient's life or health" or if "there is an absence of fetal viability."

New York's new law expands access to abortions into the third trimester by loosening restrictions on when the procedure is permitted. Previously, an abortion could only be performed after 24 weeks if the physician deemed it necessary to preserve the life of the mother. Under the new law, the requirement has been expanded to include the general health of the mother.

---Virginia

Virginia Democratic Delegate Kathy Tran recently sponsored legislation that would have relaxed certain requirements around third-trimester abortions in the state.

Under current state law, third-trimester abortions can only be performed if three doctors agree the "pregnancy is likely to result in the death of the woman or substantially and irremediably impair the mental or physical health of the woman." The failed bill would have reduced the number of physicians needed to approve the abortion to one, and removed "substantially and irremediably" from the language of justification for the abortion.

During a committee hearing on the now defunct bill, Tran was asked "how late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion if he indicated it would impair the mental health of the woman?" "Through the third trimester," Tran responded, clarifying that there was no limit in the proposed bill for when an abortion could be performed prior to the birth.

Northam was asked about Tran's comments in a Jan. 30 interview with the radio station WTOP. Northam began to explain what he thought occurs in such an instance. His comments sparked confusion and controversy among abortion opponents.

"The infant would be delivered," Northam said, "the infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother."

Later, a spokesperson for Northam said his "comments were limited to the actions physicians would take in the event that a woman in those circumstances [i.e. nonviable pregnancy and severe fetal abnormalities] went into labor."

This clarification, however, does not address the statement made by Northam that "the infant would be delivered."

---By the numbers

According to the Guttmacher Institute -- an organization focused on sexual and reproductive health -- "slightly more than 1% of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later." From states that report abortion procedures to the CDC, 638,169 abortions were performed in the US during 2015.

The battle over abortion legislation continues to rage in state capitals around the country. Nothing is expected to come from the currently divided Congress. In February, the US Supreme Court blocked Louisiana's Unsafe Abortion Protection Act from taking effect. The law would have required a doctor to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility where the abortion is performed.

---Opioids

While discussing the opioid epidemic and illicit drugs, Fox News contributor Sara Carter told CPAC's audience that in the height of the crisis, places in Ohio ran out of room for bodies in the morgues and had to put some in freezer trailers outside.

"I've never seen anything quite like this then when I went to the epicenter in Ohio and other states who are facing this crisis," said Carter, "where the morgues were so overflowing with bodies that they had to rent freezer trailers to put the children in the freezer trailers outside of the mortuary."

Facts First:

This is true.

Initially, Carter's claim was met with skepticism online, with some accusing her of overblowing the opioid crisis.

As CNN reported, the state of Ohio purchased several mobile morgues (trucks that have refrigerated trailers) in the mid-2000s. Originally, the trailers were meant to be used for emergency/mass casualty incidents like mass shootings and so forth. Several times in 2015 and 2016 some morgues in Ohio had to use the trailers due to overcrowded morgues, with officials citing overdose deaths as the primary cause of the overflow.

In 2017, Ohio Coroner in Montgomery County Dr. Kent Harshbarger told CNN "overdoses are coming in all the time and we're constantly full on a day-to-day basis."

---Tax cuts

While praising President Donald Trump during his remarks at CPAC, Vice President Mike Pence listed off some of the accomplishments he believes the administration has made in its first two years. Among them, of course, was the 2017 tax reform.

"With the support of this generation of conservatives, President Trump signed the largest tax cut and tax reform in American history," the Vice President said. "That's promises made and promises kept."

Facts First:

The tax cut Trump signed into law in December 2017 was certainly large, but the largest? No.

When it comes to measuring the size of these tax reforms, many studies look at how the federal tax revenue lost from the cut compares as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over time.

An analysis from CNN on this very claim found that Trump's tax reform comes in at around -1.1% of GDP. By this measurement, the 2017 tax reform is below at least six previous tax cuts passed under presidents including Obama, George W. Bush, John F. Kennedy, and Reagan.

When looking at the current inflation-adjusted dollar amount the tax reform would cost, it still comes in under the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, and the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 according to data from the Treasury Department.

No matter how many times the administration makes this claim, it's still incorrect.

---Dead cows

During the second day of CPAC, several speakers made jokes (some more seriously than others) about the Green New Deal, specifically suggesting that Democrats are looking to get rid of cows.

Referencing the Green New Deal resolution, former Deputy Assistant to President Trump Sebastian Gorka claimed that Democrats "'want to take your pickup truck, they want to rebuild your home, they want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved." Sen. Ted Cruz, too, made reference to the removal of cows.

"I hope to see PETA supporting the Republican party," he said, "now that the Democrats want to kill all the cows." Rep. Mark Meadows joined in on the joke, suggesting that Chick-Fil-A's stock will increase with Democrats "trying to get rid of all the cows," citing the Green New Deal.

Facts First:

Getting rid of cows was mentioned in a now-removed FAQ on the Green New Deal but is not in the actual resolution.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's team released an FAQ following the Green New Deal resolution. Dealing with the question of why the resolution focused on "100% clean and renewable" energy as opposed to "100% renewable" the FAQ explained that "we aren't sure that we'll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast."

Those 18 words set off a wave of attacks from conservatives and Republicans, quickly becoming a focal point of their criticism of the Green New Deal. (The upcoming cover of the conservative magazine National Review features Ocasio-Cortez surrounded by cattle.)

The FAQ was later renounced by Ocasio-Cortez and her team, with her Chief of Staff Saikat Chakrabarti tweeting that an "early draft of a FAQ that was clearly unfinished and that doesn't represent the GND resolution got published to the website by mistake."

Regarding agriculture, the resolution does not mention cows but focuses on "working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/02/politics ... index.html

<4



The week democracy struck back

The Cohen hearing and Netanyahu indictment news shows that liberal democracy still has some fight in it.

By Zack Beauchamp@zackbeauchampzack@vox.com Mar 1, 2019, 11:20am EST

Each week in politics nowadays feels like a parade of horrors. But if the grand story of modern Western politics is the struggle to preserve liberal democracy in the face of rising anti-democratic forces, this past week was actually a pretty good one.

This rare optimistic moment comes from two big developments: Michael Cohen’s testimony in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday and the Israeli attorney general’s decision to seek an indictment against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption and bribery charges on Thursday.

While these may seem like unconnected events, both demonstrate the ways liberal democratic systems are pushing back against anti-democratic excesses by their leaders.

In the US case, the Mueller probe and Democratic victories in 2018 are constraining President Trump’s ability to block oversight of his own actions, including potentially criminal ones. The Cohen hearing pushed things even further, laying the groundwork for more exposure.

In Israel, the case against Netanyahu — which focuses on his effort to use the power of the state to neuter criticism of his government in the Israeli media — came in advance of early April elections, giving Israeli voters a chance to decide if they want to keep an alleged criminal in office.

In two threatened democracies, the legal and electoral systems are effectively working together to check leaders with worryingly authoritarian tendencies.

This does not mean that everything is fine when it comes to democracy in either the United States or Israel. Far, far from it. Both countries have deep structural flaws that have produced crises of democracy. American political polarization has led to an increasingly democracy-skeptical Republican Party, one willing to restrict the franchise and weaken democratic rights if it helps them hold on to power. In Israel, the collapse of the peace process and subsequent conflict with the Palestinians led to major right-wing drift among voters and elected officials; many of its leaders now have an exclusivist vision of Israel’s Jewish identity that discards core democratic values.

But amid perpetual concern about democratic backsliding — formerly democratic countries like Hungary and Turkey turning toward authoritarianism — it’s also worth noting when institutions in established democracies show signs of life. And this week, we got a glimpse of democratic resilience.

The Cohen hearing was a win for the rule of law in America

Consider the chain of events that brought us to Wednesday morning’s extraordinary events. In a hearing that Republicans never would have allowed if they held the House of Representatives, Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney labeled the president a “racist,” a “con man,” and a participant in “a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws.”

The origins of this shocking development go back to 2017, when the president fired then-FBI Director James Comey for looking too closely into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Experts on democratic backsliding were alarmed: This was a clear attempt by the president to exert control over the Department of Justice, an independent check on his authority, in order to shield himself from accountability for potentially criminal wrongdoing.

But the Comey firing was met with such a backlash that the White House was forced to accept the Justice Department’s decision to set up the special counsel’s office to continue the Trump-Russia investigation. That investigation uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Cohen, which it then handed off to the FBI’s Southern District of New York, which led to Cohen’s guilty pleas and ultimate cooperation with the Russia investigation.

This already is a kind of example of the system working as intended. An anti-democratic action by the president was met with alarm by the public and elected officials, which blocked Trump’s power grab and led to continued (arguably increased) oversight into potential executive wrongdoing. The Mueller investigation’s very existence is an example of democratic resilience of a sort.

But the fact that an investigation is ongoing is not nearly enough. Mueller almost certainly won’t indict Trump while he’s in office, and absent that, he has no formal power to check the president’s authority. Oversight and exposure of wrongdoing only matters if there are people willing to act on what’s being exposed.

Dictators and Democrats, a book by scholars Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman, looked at a large data set on modern democracy to analyze the best predictors of democratic survival. A key feature, they find, is a sort of alliance between formal institutions and groups with actual political power.

“Institutions are likely to be effective [in stopping authoritarian backsliding] only if they are accompanied by strong social checks on political power: Through opposition parties, interest groups, NGOs, and the threat of contentious politics and mass mobilization,” Haggard and Kaufman write.

That is why the Cohen hearing was so noteworthy. It was an example of an “opposition party” using “contentious politics” to put a brake on Trump’s ability to get away with wrongdoing.


The road that got us here starts with Democrats’ victory in the 2018 midterm. By winning a majority in the House of Representatives, Democrats gained control over committee leadership — including, vitally, the ability to subpoena witnesses for hearings. House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings and the Democratic leadership decided to bring Cohen out in a public hearing that Republicans never would have held.

The hearing itself served two core small-d democratic functions. The first is to further expose the evidence of presidential wrongdoing to the mass public, giving people a broader and deeper insight into the undemocratic and potentially criminal elements of the president’s character. Cohen helped paint a picture of a man unconcerned with constraints on his power, the rule of law, and minority rights — even directly warning in his closing statement that Trump posed a threat to American democracy.

“Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and this is why I agreed to appear before you today,” he said.

Second, the hearing helped set the stage for even more inquiries. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), for example, asked sharp questions that provided the committee with obvious avenues to follow up: She asked Cohen whether Trump had ever deliberately inflated his assets — he said yes — and then whether the committee would “need to review his financial statements and tax returns” to verify that, to which Cohen also said yes. In a few probing questions, the newly elected representative moved toward exposing whatever Trump is keeping hidden in his taxes as well as potentially revealing insurance fraud by the president.

“It’s unlikely Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will just hand over the information if ... the House Oversight Committee makes a request,” my colleague Emily Stewart explains. “The more evidence Democrats have that they have a legitimate reason to ask questions, the better.”

This shows that the oppositional nature of American democracy is working as it’s supposed to: With Democrats in charge of a chamber of Congress, it’s going to be much harder for Trump to hide any misbehavior from voters in advance of the 2020 election.

A Netanyahu indictment could help halt democratic backsliding

While the Cohen hearing was important for the United States, the Netanyahu decision was orders of magnitude more important for Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has been in power for the past 10 years. During that time, Netanyahu has drifted further and further right, aligning his center-right Likud party with other factions that are outright hostile to Israeli minorities and the idea of a peace deal with the Palestinians.

Over time, his far-right coalition has manifested a willingness to trample basic democratic principles in pursuit of its objectives. In 2017, two Israeli scholars warned of “a direct attack on the constitutional order” from the Netanyahu government. In December 2018, a poll from the Israel Democracy Institute found that 45.5 percent of Israelis believed their country’s democracy was “in grave danger.”

Under Netanyahu’s leadership, Israel passed a law declaring that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people” — an exclusive vision of national identity that excludes Arabs and other non-Jewish minorities. It passed a law aimed at silencing NGOs that monitored the Israeli military’s human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, and passed a law allowing the government to declare war without permission from the Knesset (the Israeli parliament).

Perhaps the single most worrying example of authoritarian drift in Israel is Netanyahu’s efforts to suborn the media.

One of the hallmarks of democratic backsliding is the government exerting control over independent media outlets — as a compliant media allows the government to get away with other kinds of wrongdoing. In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has either gotten cronies to buy up independent media outlets or pressured others into shutting through punitive tax policies. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a less subtle route, jailing journalists and seizing control of independent newspapers.

Two of the cases against Netanyahu, known as Case 2000 and Case 4000, allege that he has attempted a smaller-scale version of these anti-media actions.

In Case 2000, Netanyahu allegedly attempted to strike a deal with the owner of Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest newspaper: He would pass a law limiting circulation of one of its rivals, the already pro-Netanyahu Israel Hayom, in exchange for more favorable coverage in the Netanyahu-skeptical Yedioth.

In Case 4000, Netanyahu allegedly manipulated regulatory powers in order to benefit Bezeq, a major Israel company. In exchange, the Bezeq-owned news organization Walla gave the prime minister more favorable coverage. Unlike Case 2000, this apparently went beyond the conspiracy stage, with Netanyahu trading regulations for good press over the course of a five-year period.

These attempts to manipulate the media, Israeli observers warned, were a clear and present danger to their democracy.

“What many of the allegations against Netanyahu point to is a systematic attempt to skew media coverage of the prime minister in his favor. And this is no piffling matter,” writes eminent Israeli journalist David Horovitz. “If a leader can line up most or even many of the ostensibly competing media organizations that cover national events reliably on his side, he can subvert their role as independent watchdog, misdirect the reading and watching public, and advance a long way toward cementing his position as prime minister — his non-term-limited position as prime minister in Israel.”


The Israeli legal system appears, finally, to be stepping up to the plate. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit plans to go after Netanyahu on bribery and “breach of trust” charges for these media conspiracies, and will formally indict him pending a hearing. Unlike in Hungary and Turkey, where would-be authoritarian leaders managed to cement control over the media, the Israeli legal system is treating Netanyahu’s ability to do the same as a crime.

And much like in the US case, there’s a key intersection between the legal and political systems — the “contentious politics” that Haggard and Kaufman see as so important.

Israel’s national elections are scheduled for April 9. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party is already polling behind a new centrist opposition party, a serious challenge to his power. However, he was still polling well enough that in Israel’s fractured political landscape, he might be able to scrape together a right-wing coalition to maintain power.

Now, I don’t want to come across as Pollyannaish, in either the American or the Israeli case. The problems in both democracies are fundamental and difficult to solve.

No amount of oversight over Trump will change the fact that the GOP is comfortable with anti-democratic voter ID laws and state-level power grabs. The problems in American democracy extend beyond one president and are rooted instead in the nature of the major parties in a two-party system — a particularly difficult problem to reform.

In Israel, the situation is even worse. The country’s drift to the right shows no sign of stopping, with the Israeli left a shadow of its former self. Netanyahu recently maneuvered to bring Otzma Yehudit, a nakedly racist party previously shunned by everyone in Israel, into a bloc with (relatively) more mainstream right parties. These issues stem from two fundamental problems — a deep tension between the state’s democratic and Jewish characters, and the conflict with the Palestinians — and show no signs of abating.

But the fact that both countries have major problems doesn’t mean they’re doomed. The past week has shown that in both the United States and Israel, key parts of the democratic systems are functioning in exactly the way they’re supposed to — as antibodies targeting an anti-democratic infection. Whether this will be enough in the long run is still very much an open question.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics ... -netanyahu

<5



POLITICS

Michael Cohen’s Road Map for Democrats

After the former Trump attorney’s testimony last week, House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings says that “all you have to do is follow the transcript.”

NATASHA BERTRAND

MAR 2, 2019

The frenzy over the reportedly imminent release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report—a rumor shot down within days by the Justice Department—had barely subsided when House Democrats announced that they’d snagged the witness of the year to testify in public: President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

His appearance on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee was a day-long spectacle that didn’t disappoint—Cohen testified that Trump had foreknowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans to release embarrassing Democratic emails in 2016; that Trump implicitly asked Cohen to mislead Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations that continued throughout the election; and that Trump, while president, reimbursed the hush-money payments Cohen made to a porn star on Trump’s behalf just days before his election victory in violation of campaign-finance laws.

Republicans attacked Cohen’s credibility, asking why they should believe someone who has already lied to them once. (Cohen was indicted late last year for making false statements to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow deal.) Democrats used Cohen as a Rolodex for additional witnesses and corroborating evidence that could help them in their investigations of the president. Most importantly, though, the hearing was a sign of what’s to come: exhaustive congressional probes of Trump’s business dealings that are likely to outlast Mueller.

While Mueller has reportedly been winding down his nearly two-year-old probe into Trump’s campaign and Russia, the newly empowered House Democrats have been gearing up for intense scrutiny of the Trump Organization and Deutsche Bank—the Trump family’s bank of choice for decades, which was recently involved in a massive Russian money-laundering scheme. Meanwhile, the Senate has kept up a steady pace of questioning witnesses with knowledge of Trump’s trips to Russia to scope out real-estate deals. The president complained on Friday about Congress investigating his finances, which he has called a “red line” in the past. “Now that the 2 year Russian Collusion case has fallen apart, there was no Collusion except bye Crooked Hillary and the Democrats, they say, ‘gee, I have an idea, let’s look at Trump’s finances and every deal he has ever done,’” he tweeted.

House Oversight Committee Democrats are now poring over Cohen’s transcript for new names and leads, according to a committee spokeswoman, and the chairman, Elijah Cummings, has indicated that anyone Cohen mentioned can expect to be asked for an interview. “All you have to do is follow the transcript,” Cummings told reporters when asked who would be brought in to testify. Asked who could corroborate some of his claims about the Trump Organization’s alleged misconduct over the years, Cohen brought up names both familiar—including Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization—and unfamiliar, including the former Trump bodyguard Matthew Calamari, and Ron Lieberman, the Trump Organization’s executive vice president in charge of management and development.

The House Intelligence Committee, meanwhile, plans to have Cohen back for a second closed-door interview on March 6. To say the panel learned something new from the president’s longtime personal lawyer behind closed doors “would be an understatement,” Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who sits on the committee, told CNN on Thursday, adding that “there’s very valuable new leads that we learned.” And Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters following Cohen’s closed-door testimony earlier this week that the Russia investigation “may be the most important thing I’m involved in in my public life in the Senate. Nothing I heard today dissuades me from that view.”

Democrats have always considered Trump’s decades-long real-estate career—and, in particular, his pursuit of massive building projects in Russia—to be fundamental to any serious investigation of whether the president has been compromised by a foreign entity. The Senate Intelligence Committee, despite being under Republican control, evidently does, too; the panel has in recent weeks homed in on Trump’s 1996 visit to Russia, where he scoped out potential construction sites and announced his plans to invest $250 million in two high-rise towers.

Cohen, who pursued a multimillion-dollar Trump Tower Moscow deal during the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf, has been able to shed some light on the president’s longtime desire to do business in Russia. But he’s not the only one. The Senate Intelligence Committee recently interviewed architect Ted Liebman, who sketched a proposed Trump International Hotel for Trump to present to Moscow city officials during his 1996 trip, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Senate investigators have also been particularly interested in David Geovanis, an American businessman who reportedly helped organize the 1996 Russia trip and worked for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in the early 2000s.

Cohen said earlier this week that he believed it possible that Trump was compromised during the election because of the Trump Tower Moscow negotiations. On Tuesday, Cohen named Calamari as someone familiar with Trump's alleged illicit business dealings, including potential tax and insurance fraud.

The focus on Trump’s business dealings isn’t arbitrary, veteran investigators have explained. Rather, it’s “essential” to any real understanding of an individual’s network, Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, told me in a recent interview. “I think people think of following the money simply as a way of uncovering whether somebody's been involved in money-laundering, or a financial crime, which is of course important,” McCabe said. “But on a much more fundamental level, it's a way of understanding relationships and networks, to understand who the person that I'm interested in is connected to, who they’re communicating with, and who they’re receiving money from or giving money to.”

“That is all association evidence,” McCabe continued. “And it goes to proving the existence of an organization—or, as RICO [the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] would say, an enterprise.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... ls/583996/

<6



U.S.

IF TRUMP DOESN’T WIN IN 2020, SDNY WILL 'BE WAITING WITH CUFFS' WHEN HE LEAVES OFFICE: MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST

BY CHRISTINA ZHAO ON 3/2/19 AT 3:29 PM

Legal analyst and Above the Law editor Elie Mystal told MSNBC on Saturday said that if President Donald Trump isn’t reelected in 2020, he could be arrested immediately by the Southern District of New York (SDNY) when he leaves the White House.

During a segment on AM Joy, Mystal explained to host Joy Reid that the SDNY investigation has elevated the stakes for the president when it comes to winning the 2020 presidential election.

“The irony here, that I hope it is not lost on people, is that the Trump Organization, which appears to be a massive criminal front, is so small potatoes that if Trump hadn’t run for president, SDNY wouldn’t care,” he said. “SDNY cares about stopping terrorists.

“Putting SDNY on the Trump investigation is a little bit like bringing in Sherlock Holmes to figure out who framed Roger Rabbit,” Mystal continued. “These people are such cartoonish criminals that now that SDNY is on it, they’re all going down.”

The legal analyst went on to argue that “the key thing” from Trump’s former attorney and “personal fixer” Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee earlier this week was the warning he issued to “the rest of the people in the Trump Organization from the CFO Allen Weisselberg all the way down to the secretary: You lie for Trump, you’re going to get got.”

“SDNY is lining all of them up, right?” Mystal explained. “When Cohen said Trump was inflating his assets to get a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills, Michael Cohen wasn’t trying to buy the Buffalo Bills, Donald Trump was. Do you know what the statute of limitations is on bank fraud that apparently happened in 2014? It’s 10 years.”

He added: “This election is so important for Donald Trump. Because if he does not win, SDNY is going to be waiting with cuffs on his way out the door.”

Reid then reiterated Mystal’s analysis. “For Donald Trump, winning that election then becomes existential, in order to get away with it, he’s gotta win and keep the immunity. He’ll do anything to win,” she said.

In a dramatic testimony on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Cohen called his former employee “a con man” and a “liar.” He also told lawmakers that Trump exaggerated his personal wealth when it suited him over the course of his career as a businessman and revealed that the president attempted to obtain a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014 by inflating his net worth by $4 billion.

“Mr. Trump is a cheat," Cohen said. "It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.”

When asked whether he was aware of any other illicit activities that could implicate Trump, Cohen replied: “Yes, and again those are part of the investigation that’s currently being looked at by the Southern District of New York.”

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-2 ... on-1349868

<7



U.S.

'UTTER DISREGARD FOR NATIONAL SECURITY’: DEMOCRATS THREATEN SUBPOENAS OVER JARED KUSHNER CONTROVERSY

BY RAMSEY TOUCHBERRY ON 3/1/19 AT 11:07 AM

Congressional Democrats had already begun to investigate the White House security clearance procedure, and Thursday night’s report by The New York Times that President Donald Trump had ordered a top-secret security clearance for his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner—against the objections of intelligence and senior administration officials—had Democrats ready to subpoena documents and witnesses.

Since the House Oversight Committee launched its wide-ranging inquiry into the security clearances of several current and former administration officials, including Kushner, in January, Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said that over the past five weeks, the White House "has stalled, equivocated and failed to produce a single document or witness to the Committee."

As a result, Cummings demanded Friday in a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone for the administration to be in "full and immediate compliance" and begin "scheduling transcribed interviews... and producing all responsive documents immediately." The chairman said he expects a response by Monday, making it clear this would be the "final time" he requests "voluntary cooperation."

“The Committee expects full compliance with its requests as soon as possible, or it may become necessary to consider alternative means to compel compliance,” Cummings said in a statement Thursday night.

General John Kelly, who was chief of staff at the time, disagreed with Trump's order to grant Kushner’s top-secret clearance, which was received in May 2018, so strongly that he wrote an internal memo about the president’s “order,” according to The Times. Don McGahn, who was then White House counsel, did the same, outlining the concerns that both he and the CIA had about Kushner receiving such top-secret and sensitive information.

These documented objections by Trump's inner circle fly in the face of the president's previous denials. Trump told The Times in January that he “was never involved” in Kushner’s security clearance and denied ordering Kelly to approve it. Previously, Kushner had been operating under a temporary security status. The president’s oldest daughter, senior adviser and wife of Kushner, Ivanka Trump, made similar denials to ABC News last month. She said that despite “anonymous leaks” about issues involving security clearances, “the president had no involvement pertaining to my clearance or my husband's clearance, zero.”

As for the White House response, press secretary Sarah Sanders said, "We don't comment on security clearances."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement this was the “latest indicator of the president's utter disregard for our national security and for the men and women who sacrifice so much every day to keep us safe. Worse still was the White House's oft-repeated lie that Kushner had been granted the clearance at the conclusion of a normal process.”

Schiff vowed to work closely with the Oversight Committee’s investigation into the White House security clearance process.

The president does have the legal authority to overrule security and intelligence officials when granting top secret security clearances. While not all details surrounding the objections to Kushner receiving a top-secret security clearance are known, it is believed his family's real estate ties and his previous foreign and business contacts with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Russia worried the FBI and CIA, according to The Times.

"If true," Cummings said in his letter to Cipollone, "these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation’s most sensitive secrets," why Trump may have "concealed his role," why Kelly and McGahn documented their concerns and why the White House continues to "withhold key documents and witnesses."

Citing Kelly's concession that there were major “shortcomings” in the security clearance process in a letter he sent to the White House in January, Cummings requested documentation on the policies, protocols and practices pertaining to background checks and various levels of security clearances. The letter also asked for a list of all White House employees or contractors who applied for clearances, including anyone who was denied, and details regarding the background investigations of several administration officials, including former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Kushner.

Amid controversy following the revelation that former White House staff secretary Rob Porter operated under temporary clearance status because of allegations of domestic abuse against him, Kelly amended the process. In a five-page memo in February 2018, Kelly conceded to the “shortcomings” in the process, and said the White House “should—and in the future, must—do better." He added that “now is the time to take a hard look at the way the White House processes clearance requests.”

Kelly revoked the interim security clearance status of anyone whose background check had been pending since June 1, 2017, which included Kushner and reportedly Ivanka Trump, too.

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-thre ... ce-1349082

<8



U.S.

'INDICT JARED KUSHNER! INDICT IVANKA TRUMP!': MSNBC GUEST RIPS TRUMP'S SON-IN-LAW AS 'MASSIVE NATIONAL SECURITY RISK'

BY CHRISTINA ZHAO ON 3/2/19 AT 4:44 PM

Journalist and author Sarah Kendzior on Saturday slammed President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner as a “massive national security risk” and argued that he, and his wife Ivanka Trump, should be indicted.

During a segment on AM Joy, panelists discussed recent reports that revealed Trump ordered his former chief of staff John Kelly to grant Kushner a top-secret security clearance last year, against the objections of intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer.

“Basically, Trump has been grooming those two for a dynastic kleptocracy,” Kendzior, author of The View From Flyover Country, claimed. “This is very common. This is something you see in autocracies, this is something you see in mafia states, where the leader will put his children or relatives into office in order to keep the corruption going, keep the money flowing, not get caught, override prosecution.”

She added: “This is like the 12th time I’ve been on your show talking about Jared Kushner and the fact that he lied on his clearance forms, that he’s done illicit dealings, that he’s giving away state secrets and that he’s a massive national security risk. And so is Ivanka Trump.”

Kendzior then asserted that “the only way” to stop having these conversations about Kushner is “if he is indicted!”

“That is is what needs to be done. Because this problem is enormous. It’s going to persevere. Even if he is gone, he is carrying around this information, other people are carrying around classified information,” she continued. “They do not have loyalty to the country. They have debt. They have financial interests. They have personal interests.

“This problem needs to be handled now,” Kendzior declared. “Just indict Jared Kushner! Indict Ivanka Trump and get this crime family out of the White House!”

Senior administration officials found the president’s decision last May to be so troubling that Kelly penned a contemporaneous internal memo outlining how he was “ordered” to allow Kushner top-secret clearance, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

Then-White House counsel Don McGahn also wrote a similar internal memo detailing concerns raised about Kushner’s security clearance, including by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Although the Times didn’t specify the reason why officials were concerned over Kushner’s security clearance, some sources told the newspaper that White House officials believed it was too risky to share top secret information with a staffer who has multiple international business interests.

In January, congressional Democrats launched a wide-ranging inquiry into the security clearance of several current and former White House officials, including Kushner. But the House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said that in the five weeks since, the Trump administration “has stalled, equivocated and failed to produce a single document or witness to the Committee.”

Cummings penned a letter on Friday to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone where he demanded that the White House be in “full and immediate compliance.”

“If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation’s most sensitive secrets, why President Trump concealed his role in overruling that recommendation, why General Kelly and Mr. McGahn both felt compelled to document these actions, and why your office is continuing to withhold key documents and witnesses from this Committee,” Cummings wrote.

https://www.newsweek.com/msnbc-indict-j ... mp-1349891

<9



WORLD NEWS

Record Australian heat brings fire to a scorched land

Alison Bevege

MARCH 2, 2019 / 8:33 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Firefighters battled 25 blazes across the Australian state of Victoria on Sunday as a record-breaking heatwave delivered the hottest start to March on record for the southern third of the country.

The continent is prone to deadly blazes thanks to its combination of remote terrain, high summer temperatures and flammable eucalyptus bush.

A severe four-day heatwave has brought fire weather across the southern parts of Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania over the weekend.

The south-eastern state of Victoria was the worst hit, with more than 2,000 firefighters, water-bombing aircraft and volunteers battling blazes on Sunday.

A cool change was forecast for late on Sunday but an associated wind change would bring danger for firefighters.

“It’s a dangerous time, putting it bluntly,” Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said in a televised emergency briefing on Sunday.

“Not just for communities but for firefighters.”

In 2009, the worst bushfires on record destroyed thousands of homes in Victoria, killing 173 people and injuring 414 on a day the media dubbed “Black Saturday”.

The largest fire in Bunyip State Park was sparked by multiple lightning strikes on Friday.

Rural townships were evacuated with no reported injuries or deaths, but three homes and several properties had been destroyed by noon on Sunday.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said the heatwave, defined as three consecutive days and nights of above-average temperatures, had broken more than a century of records.

“It’s broken heat records for March in four states along the southern coastline,” meteorologist Dean Narramore told Reuters by telephone on Sunday.

Temperatures in Tasmania, Australia’s southernmost state, reached 39.1 degrees Celsius (102°F) on Saturday, the hottest in 131 years of records, Narramore said.

Australia’s hottest summer on record is causing several industries to wilt, including the $4.4 billion wine industry with grape yields set to drop to the lowest in years.

Drought has also damaged the winter wheat crop and is expected to drag the wool clip to a record low.

The Pacific nation had its third warmest year on record in 2018, a year marked by severe drought in parts of the country and a prolonged bushfire season.

Australia continued the trend into 2019 with its hottest January on record.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aust ... SKCN1QK018

<10



Trump's new climate panel is a waste of time and money

By Alice Hill

Updated 5:30 PM ET, Sat March 2, 2019

(CNN)Imagine an ordinary courtroom scene. The judge sits above the crowd wearing a black robe while one of the lawyers questions a witness. The witness gives an answer, but it's not the one the lawyer was looking for. So, the lawyer asks the question again, but the witness gives the same answer. When the lawyer asks a third time, the attorney for the other side rises to her feet and exclaims, "Objection! Asked and answered!" The judge agrees and, in a voice dripping with irritation, tells the first lawyer to move on to another question.

Judges don't take kindly to repeated attempts to ask the same question in the hopes of getting a different answer. Nor should the court of American public opinion -- at least not when it comes to questioning whether climate change is occurring and why.

According to The Washington Post, the Trump administration has decided to do just that by assembling a group of federal scientists to re-examine the government's scientific conclusions regarding climate change and the role humans play in contributing to it.

This latest White House proposal builds off an earlier plan championed by William Happer, a senior director on the National Security Council and physicist who claims that more carbon in the atmosphere is helpful, not harmful to the planet. The details regarding the proposed group have evolved in recent days, but the idea is the same: Establish a committee to question government climate reports concluding that fossil fuel emissions harm the planet.

Congress established the US Global Change Research Program in 1990 to coordinate climate research across 13 federal agencies with a mandate to produce a national climate assessment every few years. Last fall, the program released its latest assessment, which runs more than 1,500 pages. The report reflects the consensus statement of a team of 300 federal and non-federal experts who received input from stakeholders across the country during a two-year period of study. The assessment, which was subjected to review by experts, the general public and the federal government, underwent external peer review as well.

The report found that human-caused emissions of greenhouse gasses were negatively affecting everything from our infrastructure to our health. It didn't take long for President Donald Trump to announce, "I don't believe it." And now, because the President and his advisers don't like the answer the rest of the federal government and climate science keep giving them, the White House wants to ask the question again -- despite the assessment's clear and resounding conclusions.

The question the White House wants to raise -- whether fossil fuels are harming the planet -- has been asked and answered. Decisively. Asking the question again won't change the answer or the science. Many Americans already know that climate change is happening, and the percentage of those who are worried about its impact has risen sharply in five years, according to a national survey by Yale and George Mason universities.

More than two-thirds of Americans say that climate change is happening and they are "worried about it," while 62% understand that global warming is caused mostly by human activities. Given that the United States is witnessing weather and climate-related extreme events that cause more and more damage, the public's conclusions should come as no surprise.

Re-examining the climate science is a waste of everyone's time and taxpayer money. More dangerously, the Trump administration's effort to push for a different answer reduces the government's focus on answering the urgent question of what to do about climate change and its impact. At this moment, those answers are lacking.

For example, the Federal Emergency Management Agency -- responsible for helping the nation prepare for extreme weather -- didn't even bother to mention climate change in its strategic plan for 2018-2022. And within months of taking office, Trump killed the federal agency planning requirements for climate change as well as efforts to address the national security risks. Just 10 days before Hurricane Harvey deluged Houston, Trump revoked the federal building standard designed to address increased flooding from climate change.

All of this has left the government and the American people desperately ill-prepared for the accelerating impact of climate change. Instead of rehashing questions that have been asked and answered, our government should be giving Americans the answers they need to prepare.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/02/opinions ... index.html

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Russian state TV mocks end of Trump-Kim summit

BY RACHEL FRAZIN - 03/02/19 10:17 AM EST

Russian state-run media reportedly mocked the sudden collapse of talks between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week.

“It ended so badly the sides even avoided signing any joint agreement," one host said, according to a translation reported by CNN. "Crafty Kim Jong Un was ready for some concessions, but not the ones Trump reportedly wanted.”

Another reportedly called the results "meager."

“Overall very, very meager for such a pompous summit," she said, according to the translation.

Analysts reportedly went as far as suggesting that the U.S. would invade North Korea if Kim gave up his country's nuclear arsenal.

Talks between Trump and Kim in Vietnam broke down on Thursday as the leaders failed to reach an agreement. Trump defended his decision to terminate the negotiations, saying "sometimes you have to walk."

A spokesperson for Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the Kremlin is working to put together its own meeting with Kim, according to CNN.

“This meeting is on the agenda,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov reportedly said. “We will continue to coordinate this with our North Korean counterparts through diplomatic channels."

https://thehill.com/policy/internationa ... mit-report

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What the ‘hiccup’ in the Trump-Kim bromance means for the new power dynamic in East Asia

The pathway to a unified ‘Korea’ remains viable, and with it important economic implications that few realise

The Trump-Kim talks should be seen as adjourned rather than terminated

China has too much to lose from disrupting a peace process that has been developing very much to its advantage

Anthony Rowley

Updated: Sunday, 3 Mar, 2019 11:05am

What does the abrupt termination of the Trump-Kim talks in Hanoi on North Korea mean for the future of East Asia’s economy? There will be much analysis of the strategic implications of the dialogue’s collapse but probably little on the economic fallout. Yet it is of great importance to this region.

On the face of things, the failure of negotiations (at this stage at least) suggests that changes in the balance of economic power that have been underway for some time in East Asia will be slowed, and that China’s ascent in this regard may not be as rapid as it was shaping up to be before Hanoi.

The breakdown of the talks took most people – with the exception perhaps of the most hardened North Korea cynics – by surprise. I for one had already penned a column in the expectation that there would be some further progress in Hanoi even if still stronger on symbolism than on substance.

The pre-Hanoi scenario was that economic cooperation between North and South Korea would accelerate, with some UN sanctions against Pyongyang being dismantled even if political unification of the two halves remained some way off. “Korea” would become a significantly more powerful economic player.

North and South would also become more closely integrated into the Chinese economy. The economic bounds of “Greater China” (meaning mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) were poised, it seemed, to become greater and wider still as the two Koreas were drawn further into China’s sphere of influence.

Rapprochement among Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington ostensibly would be good for everyone with the prospect it brings of peaceful coexistence and an end to the East Asian cold war. But for Japan there was a looming risk of being left out in the cold by the gathering forces of unification.

All this may yet come to pass and whatever the short term impact of the “failure” of the Hanoi talks, the longer term forces that are at work in this region are unlikely to be deflected. It seems extremely unlikely meanwhile that things will revert to the status quo ante.


It is probably best to see the Trump-Kim talks as being adjourned rather than terminated, even though President Donald Trump did say in Hanoi that there were no further plans at this stage for a further summit. The impression was of a negotiating hiccup rather than an end of engagement.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un may have overplayed his hand by insisting on an end to all economic sanctions against his country (if that is what he really did do). And Trump who sees himself a consummate exponent of the “art of the deal” may have judged that Kim will lower the stakes if he risks losing.

The chances are that Pyongyang will find a way to signal to Washington that it is prepared to come back to the table if ways can be found to save face. And (provided he survives politically) Trump could brush off Hanoi as a disagreement among “friends” – and go on to collect his Nobel Peace Prize.

China will no doubt react with caution and restraint. Beijing has far too much to lose from disrupting a US-North Korea peace process that has been developing very much to China’s advantage in recent months. Probably the full economic implication of this has escaped many people.

There is already agreement between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Kim that linking the two by means of a modern road and rail system would give them both direct overland access to China and, more importantly in the long run, to Europe via China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

It is impossible to believe that the two Korean economies would not become more closely integrated generally as a result, even if the form of ultimate political cooperation is not yet fully discernible. Currently their combined GDP is around a third of Japan’s but that could change dramatically.

As president Trump said during his summit with Kim in Hanoi, North Korea’s economic potential is “awesome” if only the context can be created for it to be exploited. It derives from possession of a wealth of mineral and other natural resources all crying out to be made into high value added goods.

In past decades, before China’s economic modernisation, it was assumed that if and when North Korea did emerge from its “hermit” state, the US, Japan and Europe would finance this transition. But China has become much richer and its infrastructure can easily integrate with that of the Koreas.

The two Koreas, or eventually a unified Korean nation would wish to remain at arm’s length politically from China and presumably to stay on good terms with the US and Europe. But there is little love lost between either of the Koreas and Japan, so it is hard to envisage any Korea-Japan alliance.


With present policies, Japan may thus find itself rather lonely in East Asia, especially if Donald Trump continues to put bilateral deal-making ahead of traditional ties and “special relationships.” Some in Japan are already beginning to contemplate what would happen under such scenarios.

Japan may be tempted to adopt an “I told you so” attitude toward the breakdown of the Hanoi talks and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to snuggle even closer than he already imagines himself to be to US president Trump, especially now that Trump has had a tiff with “Rocket-man” Kim.

But the emergence of a China-Koreas economic alliance is posing a major challenge to neighbouring Japan and that is unlikely to go away. It may even be accelerated if the two Koreas and China come to view their mutual relationship as being more reliable than that with Washington. The course of economic history has been delayed but likely not diverted.

https://www.scmp.com/business/companies ... -east-asia

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USA

Experts: 'Experience Matters' in Negotiating With North Korea

March 02, 2019 0:05 AM

Christy Lee

WASHINGTON —
The American team’s lack of experience in negotiating with North Koreans, as well as a lack of preparation, may have contributed to the collapse of this week’s Hanoi summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, who favors top-down diplomacy, according to experts.

The two-day summit that began Wednesday ended when Trump walked out on Thursday without a denuclearization deal or a declaration of peace to end the Korean War, a move met with approval in Washington, even though the summit began with hope of concrete agreements on denuclearization.

“Sometimes, you have to walk, and this was just one of those times,” Trump said at a press conference Thursday.


The talks broke down because, according to Trump, North Korea demanded all sanctions imposed on the country be lifted in exchange for its offer to dismantle its Yongbyon nuclear facility.

Later, at a separate press briefing in Hanoi, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said North Korea had asked for partial sanctions relief in exchange for continuing to halt its nuclear and missile testing.

The Hanoi summit was the leaders’ second, taking place eight months after their first summit in Singapore last June, which produced a widely criticized vague agreement.


---‘Correct decision’

Experts agree that Trump did the right thing.

“I think sometimes the best deals are the ones you walk away from,” said Christopher Hill, a chief negotiator with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration.

Joseph DeTrani, a former special envoy for nuclear talks with North Korea, said, “The president made the correct decision.”

Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council said, “Trump … deserves credit for that moment of realism.”

But according to experts, the summit collapsed in part because Trump’s top-down style left little room for U.S. negotiators to reach agreements during working-level meetings with their North Korean counterparts who have much more experience in denuclearization talks.

Sung-yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, emphasized that North Korea’s “chief full-time America-handlers” average three decades of on-the-job experience, while the current U.S. negotiators have logged about 2½ years of dealing with North Korea.

“Who has the advantage?” Lee asked. Many of the State Department’s most experienced North Korea experts have retired recently from government.

The final agreement on denuclearization was left for the two leaders, who failed because “both Trump and Kim overestimated their respective ability to take the other side into a deal they wanted,” Manning said.


---‘Top-down approach to negotiating’

“This was the risk you take when you do a top-down approach to negotiating,” said Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council’s senior director for East Asia affairs during the George W. Bush administration. “In other words, clearly, an agreement hadn’t been made before the men got to Hanoi.”

Wilder said Kim misjudged Trump and “overplayed his hand” and “overreached in the negotiations,” thinking that he could “get something big for putting very little on the table,” which was based on his previous experience in dealing with Trump, who was “quite easy on the North Korean leader and did not demand a great deal of him” at the first summit.

“The failure of the Hanoi summit shows the downside of top-down diplomacy,” Manning said. “I would have insisted on having the basic framework and some minimal nuclear-for-benefit trade-off agreed to before I agreed to a summit.”

Hill said, “I think it kind of speaks to some of the preparation, which I thought was inadequate.”

He added, “There needs to be a clearer understanding about [reaching agreements prior to talks] before they ask the president, before the president gets involved.”

Wilder said U.S. negotiators probably “knew perfectly well what North Korea’s position was,” but think Trump felt his chemistry with Kim would enable him to strike a deal that perhaps he thought Special Representative for North Korea Steve Biegun and lower-level North Korean negotiators “wouldn’t have [had] the latitude” to strike.

“I think [the Trump administration] decided to somewhat gamble, to roll the dice to see what they could get,” Wilder said.

Manning, of the Atlantic Council, thinks Biegun tried to make an agreement before the summit, but that the North Korean side probably refused because Kim wanted to deal directly with Trump at the summit.

“Steve Biegun did make a major effort to learn from past Korea diplomacy, meeting with dozens of those previously involved in the diplomacy, and tried to build on the lessons,” Manning said. “But North Korea would not negotiate a minimal nuclear deal at that level because they thought Trump was a soft target.”

Hill said, “To have it just fall apart” signifies that the diplomacy was not quite ready “to be brought out of the diplomatic oven, if you will.”

---‘Experience matters’

In dealing with North Korea, Manning said, “Experience matters.”

Wilder said, “On the North Korean side, you have people very, very, very expert in negotiating with the United States.” He continued, “They’ve spent their entire career doing this, whereas on the American side, they’re relatively less steeped in all of this.”


U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo poses with Vice Chairman of the North Korean Workers' Party Committee Kim Yong Chol, North Korea's lead negotiator in nuclear diplomacy with the United States, and U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun as they start talks aimed at clearing the way for a second U.S.-North Korea summit at a hotel in Washington, Jan. 18, 2019.

According to Korean studies professor Lee, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has two years of dealing with North Korea, and Biegun, has half a year and National Security Adviser John Bolton had five years of dealing with North Korea, including time in the George W. Bush administration. Former South Carolina Congressman Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s current acting White House chief of staff and director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, has little foreign experience.


?On the North Korean side, Minister of Foreign Affairs Ri has 35 years of dealing with the U.S., while Kim Yong Chol, head negotiator on nuclear talks, has dealt with the U.S. for 30 years. Vice Foreign Minister Choe Sun Hui has 25 years of experience with the U.S. And Kim Kye Gwan, a leading negotiator during the Six-Party talks who is also believed to be working behind the scenes advising current negotiators, has 30 years of experience with the U.S.

Going forward, Wilder thinks Trump “is going to be “a little more wary” of having another summit with Kim “without some understanding beforehand.”

He added, “So I would guess that he is now going to give Mr. Pompeo and Steve Biegun more authority to negotiate.”

As for North Korea, Lee thinks “Kim was taken aback” and is likely to “regroup and dangle another sweet carrot to Trump.”

Lee said Trump will most likely “take the bait and settle for only a partial freeze of Kim’s vast nuclear and missile programs while bomb-making goes on in other undisclosed locations.”

“For Kim, two steps forward and one step back is still progress,” Lee said.

[ SO! WHERE ARE ALL OF OUR DIPLOMATS ]

https://www.voanews.com/a/experts-exper ... 10437.html

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The Medicare for All bill is a winner

By Jeffrey Sachs

Updated 2:59 PM ET, Fri March 1, 2019

(CNN)Rep. Pramila Jayapal introduced a sweeping Medicare for All (MFA) bill on Wednesday (H.R. 1384), and the national debate on healthcare is bound to intensify through the 2020 election. Voters rank healthcare costs as their second most important priority, just after the economy. The political fate of MFA will likely depend on one key question: Will it reduce healthcare costs while preserving the freedom to choose health providers?

If properly structured, MFA can do that: cut costs while improving choice.

Medicare for All has come a long way since Sen. Bernie Sanders launched his 2016 presidential campaign on that theme, while fellow Democrats ran from the label. Sanders also faced the wrath of mainstream pundits like Paul Krugman, who described Sanders' healthcare plan as "smoke and mirrors." Now, every major Democratic Party candidate endorses the label, (though they will certainly differ on the details) and Sanders could well become president in 2021 on the basis of his clear and persistent MFA advocacy.

No doubt the debate will become heated, even shrill. We are talking about serious money, and the largest single sector of the American economy.

Healthcare outlays in the United States account for nearly 18% of the country's gross domestic product. Profits are soaring in the private healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, both of which will fight fiercely against MFA. President Donald Trump has weighed in, declaring that Democrats are "radical socialists who want to model America's economy after Venezuela."

While former President Barack Obama spoke out in favor of a single-payer plan, he avoided the battle back in 2009 with the Affordable Care Act. And by making health insurance available to millions more Americans, the Affordable Care Act allowed private industry to raise prices given the increase in demand. The result is that Obamacare expanded overall coverage, and provided hugely popular guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions, while avoiding any decisive steps on cost containment.

MFA picks up at that point. Real cost containment will be the critical issue that either makes or breaks each MFA proposal.

Americans currently pay around $10,000 per person per year in health outlays, compared with roughly half that amount in other high-income countries such as Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, or Sweden. The reasons have been debated and studied in detail. Do Americans use more and better healthcare and therefore also pay more? Alas, no. Americans use roughly the same or less healthcare, but pay far more for health services including drugs, hospital stays, and medical procedures such as an MRI.

---The Canada comparison

A comparison of healthcare costs between the US and 10 other high-income countries allows a detailed comparison of the US and Canada, the most relevant peer country. According to the comparative data, the US spends 17.8% of GDP compared with Canada's 10.3%, amounting to $9,403 per person in the US compared with Canada's $4,641.

All Canadians are covered by the healthcare system, while 10% of Americans lack public or private insurance coverage. Total pharmaceutical spending per person per year averages a whopping $1,443 in the US, compared with $613 in Canada.

For example, the cholesterol drug Crestor is $86 per month in the US, and $32 in Canada; the arthritis drug Humira is $2,505 in the US, compared with $1,164 in Canada. Yet despite the much higher health spending per person, life expectancy in the US is 78.8 years, while in Canada it is 81.7 years.

The article reaches the following conclusion: "The United States spent approximately twice as much as other high-income countries on medical care, yet utilization rates in the United States were largely similar to those in other nations. Prices of labor and goods, including pharmaceuticals, and administrative costs appeared to be the major drivers of the difference in overall cost between the United States and other high-income countries."

---Huge private costs in the US

US private health insurance costs are out of sight. A typical US family of four covered by employer-based health insurance pays, in total, around $28,000 per year, taking into account the insurance premium paid for by the employer out of the worker's total compensation, the premium paid directly by the household, and all of the extra costs, including deductibles, co-payments, and out-of-network payments. The cost of healthcare is crippling working-class families, which may explain why it is at the top of the political agenda.

What is the reason for these extraordinary costs in the US? Astronomical administrative costs, for one, are the result of countless and conflicting payments systems facing almost any patient who visits the doctor's office or hospital. One study in 2014 suggested that America's extraordinarily complicated multi-payer system leads to administrative costs for billing and insurance that are five times the costs of a simplified payment system such as Canada's.

The second is the soaring monopoly profits and sky-high salaries along the entire private supply chain, from drug manufacturers to hospitals. The drug companies use their extraordinary monopoly power, whether due to patents or FDA approvals on out-of-patent drugs, to overcharge Americans with markups that are sometimes hundreds of times the production cost of the medicines. And private providers are a highly concentrated industry in most metropolitan areas.

With the mergers and closures of hospitals during the past 20 years, driven by for-profit medicine, this market power has soared, and so too have monopoly profits and healthcare costs facing consumers.

Check out the CEO compensation of the big systems providers -- $59 million for Aetna, and $44 million for Cigna in 2017 -- or the salaries of the executives of the "not-for-profit" hospitals in your area, often running several million dollars per year.

For these reasons, healthcare costs in the US could be brought down by cutting three main areas: administrative costs, drug prices, and monopoly profits of private insurers, which in turn could be achieved by much lower reimbursement rates for medical services and more effective contracting.

Recent studies (here and here) have shown prospective savings on national health expenditures resulting from Medicare for All would save trillions of dollars over 10 years.

---Smart cost control

The Jayapal bill is smart on cost control. It would have Medicare negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to drive drug prices down, with the threat of removing the monopoly rights of patents if the drug company doesn't reach a reasonable agreement on prices. (Technically, the government would issue a compulsory license to competitors). It would have Medicare set an annual budget with hospital providers. This annual budget would focus on healthcare provision rather than wasted time and expenses on billing. It would not permit astronomical management salaries and super-profits.

By wringing massive administrative costs, monopoly profits, and sky-high salaries out of the healthcare system, costs would be slashed, with the savings passed on to households. Remember, if the US paid the same share of income as our peer countries like Canada, the total saving would be on the order of 6% of GDP (from 18% today to around 10-12% as in the peer countries). With a GDP of around $62,000 per person in the US, 6% of GDP saving comes to a cost saving of around $3,700 per person, or around $14,800 for a family of four.

Such savings wouldn't be achieved in full, or even in the early years. The pushback from industry against cost-cutting will be fierce. Moreover, the sheer inertia of existing costs, prices, budgets, and administrative systems cannot be doubted. But what can be said with confidence is that a well-designed MFA system would put the US on a path toward the reasonably priced healthcare systems of other comparable countries.

Moreover, MFA would allow us to rethink healthcare delivery to take into account perhaps the biggest feasible benefit in health outcomes. America's current disease burdens often reflect unhealthy life circumstances -- great stress, obesity-inducing diets, lack of exercise, drug dependence, and others. These are social ills turning into medical ills.

A fairer, more balanced, health system based on good health rather than maximum profits would turn its attention to helping Americans live healthier lives.

Getting MFA through the political process won't be easy. The drug industry is one of America's top lobbies and campaign contributors, befitting a massive economic sector rolling in profits. Lobbying outlays in 2018 across the health sector are estimated at around $549 million and campaign funding in the 2018 election cycle at $255 million. The industry will be ready to fight an MFA plan with guns blazing, and trot out the usual arguments: stop socialized medicine, save personal choice, don't put yourself into the hands of government bureaucrats, don't let American become Venezuela -- you name it.

Yet Sanders and Jayapal and their many colleagues who have come on board now (including 106 co-sponsors) have the best chance to prevail in our modern history. Americans know that the healthcare system is rigged, and they will support a new system that convincingly shows the way to fair and reasonable healthcare costs.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/01/opinions ... index.html

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U.S. NEWS

Deported parents demand the return of their children in U.S. custody

A group of 29 parents traveled from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border with the hope of reuniting with their kids.

By Phil McCausland and Mariana Atencio

March 2, 2019, 7:41 PM CST

MEXICALI, Mexico — Parents deported to Central America by U.S. immigration officials returned to the southern border Saturday to demand asylum and reunification with the children they were forced to leave behind.

The 29 parents, who were sent back to their home countries last year after crossing illegally into the U.S. with their children, traveled over the past month with immigration lawyers, religious leaders and other supporters in the hope of rejoining their kids.

A father at the border in Mexicali, Mexico, told MSNBC's Mariana Atencio that he waited for seven hours Saturday for information from U.S. immigration officials.

"Time doesn't matter," said the Guatemalan man, who provided only his first name, Neri. "Our love for our child has no price."

The families have 27 children in U.S. custody, and the youngest is 5 years old. Some of the parents have been separated from their kids for nearly a year, said members of private organizations representing the parents. The longest separation is 14 months, they said.

Some of the children remain detained while others have been sent to live with foster families or relatives, according to the immigration organizations Al Otro Lado, Families Belong Together and Together Rising.

Sandra Cordero, director of Families Belong Together, said the parents presented themselves for asylum at the port of entry in Mexicali, Mexico, on Saturday, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection told them it had reached capacity and could not allow them to enter the U.S.

"The CBP says they're at capacity," she said. "But they're not giving us information on what that capacity is. We're staying."

Late in the day, Customs and Border Protection began processing the parents' asylum claims, five at a time. The process could mean detention and more delays in possible reunions with their children.

Cordero said in a video that the parents in this group continue to be separated from their children about nine months after they had been told family separations had stopped.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/de ... dy-n978571

<

The federal deficit ballooned at start of new fiscal year, up 77 percent from a year before

By Damian Paletta March 5 at 2:30 PM

The federal budget deficit ballooned rapidly in the first four months of the fiscal year amid falling tax revenue and higher spending, the Treasury Department said Tuesday, posing a new challenge for the White House and Congress and they prepare for a number of budget battles.

The deficit grew 77 percent in the first four months of fiscal year 2019 compared with the same period one year before, Treasury said.

The total deficit for the four month period was $310 billion, Treasury said, up from $176 billion for the same period one year earlier.

The government is collecting less money in taxes and spending more money that it did a year ago, in part because of policy decisions that the White House and lawmakers embraced in recent years.

Lawmakers enacted sweeping tax cuts at the end of 2017, and those changes continue to reduce revenue flowing to the Treasury Department.


Tax revenue for October 2018 through January 2019 fell $19 billion, or 2 percent, Treasury said, though there were major reductions in the amount of money collected from businesses. Treasury found corporate tax payments over the first four months of the fiscal year dropped from from $75.5 billion to $58.9 billion, a fall of roughly 22 percent.

Spending, meanwhile, increased 9 percent over the same period according to the new Treasury Department data.

The biggest increases were for defense military programs, which saw a 12 percent increase, and Medicare, which saw a 16 percent increase.

The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the deficit this year will reach close to $900 billion because the government spends so much more money than it brings in through revenue. The Obama administration and Congress made progress in cutting the deficit in 2012 and for several years, but it has picked up in recent years because the White House has approved spending increases and tax cuts.


The White House next week is expected to propose a new budget plan for the fiscal year that begins in October, and Democrats are working on spending plans of their own. So far, there has been little effort to reconcile differences between both parties, and neither has shown much interest in addressing the widening budget deficit.

They must reach an agreement on a new spending package by Sept. 30, 2019 or they could face another government shutdown. Policy makers must also reach an agreement by this fall on raising or suspending the debt ceiling, as the government will no longer be able to borrow money to cover many payments if Congress doesn’t act.

Lawmakers have not begun debating how to deal with the debt ceiling at all, even though the last temporary suspension ended March 1. The Treasury Department is now suspending certain payments and enacting delay tactics to allow it to continue funding operations to buy policy makers more time.

During the tax cut debate in 2017, the White House promised that slashing tax rates would end up creating more revenue because it would allow the economy to grow at a faster clip. Economic growth did pick up in 2018, but Democrats have said the growth will be short-lived. So far, the growth has not come close to the levels needed to offset the $1.5 trillion in tax reductions that were part of the legislation.

<1



A Reporter at Large

The Making of the Fox News White House

Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?

[ WARNING! LOOOOOONG ARTICLE BUT WORTH SPENDING A DAY READING IT ]

By Jane Mayer

March 11, 2019 Issue

In January, during the longest government shutdown in America’s history, President Donald Trump rode in a motorcade through Hidalgo County, Texas, eventually stopping on a grassy bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The White House wanted to dramatize what Trump was portraying as a national emergency: the need to build a wall along the Mexican border. The presence of armored vehicles, bales of confiscated marijuana, and federal agents in flak jackets underscored the message.

But the photo op dramatized something else about the Administration. After members of the press pool got out of vans and headed over to where the President was about to speak, they noticed that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, was already on location. Unlike them, he hadn’t been confined by the Secret Service, and was mingling with Administration officials, at one point hugging Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The pool report noted that Hannity was seen “huddling” with the White House communications director, Bill Shine. After the photo op, Hannity had an exclusive on-air interview with Trump. Politico later reported that it was Hannity’s seventh interview with the President, and Fox’s forty-second. Since then, Trump has given Fox two more. He has granted only ten to the three other main television networks combined, and none to CNN, which he denounces as “fake news.”

Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one. The same can be said of Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn’t existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the author of “Messengers of the Right,” a history of the conservative media’s impact on American politics, says of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”

Hemmer argues that Fox—which, as the most watched cable news network, generates about $2.7 billion a year for its parent company, 21st Century Fox—acts as a force multiplier for Trump, solidifying his hold over the Republican Party and intensifying his support. “Fox is not just taking the temperature of the base—it’s raising the temperature,” she says. “It’s a radicalization model.” For both Trump and Fox, “fear is a business strategy—it keeps people watching.” As the President has been beset by scandals, congressional hearings, and even talk of impeachment, Fox has been both his shield and his sword. The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead. All day long, Trump retweets claims made on the network; his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, has largely stopped holding press conferences, but she has made some thirty appearances on such shows as “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity.” Trump, Hemmer says, has “almost become a programmer.”

Fox’s defenders view such criticism as unfounded and politically biased. Ken LaCorte, who was in senior management at Fox News for nearly twenty years, until 2016, and recently started his own news service, told me, “The people at Fox said the same thing about the press and Obama.” Fox’s public-relations department offers numerous examples of its reporters and talk-show hosts challenging the Administration. Chris Wallace, a tough-minded and ecumenical interviewer, recently grilled Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser, on the need for a border wall, given that virtually all drugs seized at the border are discovered at checkpoints. Trump is not the first President to have a favorite media organization; James Madison and Andrew Jackson were each boosted by partisan newspapers. But many people who have watched and worked with Fox over the years, including some leading conservatives, regard Fox’s deepening Trump orthodoxy with alarm. Bill Kristol, who was a paid contributor to Fox News until 2012 and is a prominent Never Trumper, said of the network, “It’s changed a lot. Before, it was conservative, but it wasn’t crazy. Now it’s just propaganda.” Joe Peyronnin, a professor of journalism at N.Y.U., was an early president of Fox News, in the mid-nineties. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he says of Fox. “It’s as if the President had his own press organization. It’s not healthy.”

Nothing has formalized the partnership between Fox and Trump more than the appointment, in July, 2018, of Bill Shine, the former co-president of Fox News, as director of communications and deputy chief of staff at the White House. Kristol says of Shine, “When I first met him, he was producing Hannity’s show at Fox, and the two were incredibly close.” Both come from white working-class families on Long Island, and they are so close to each other’s children that they are referred to as “Uncle Bill” and “Uncle Sean.” Another former colleague says, “They spend their vacations together.” A third recalls, “I was rarely in Shine’s office when Sean didn’t call. And I was in Shine’s office a lot. They talked all the time—many times a day.”

Shine led Fox News’ programming division for a dozen years, overseeing the morning and evening opinion shows, which collectively get the biggest ratings and define the network’s conservative brand. Straight news was not within his purview. In July, 2016, Roger Ailes, the co-founder and C.E.O. of Fox, was fired in the face of numerous allegations of chronic sexual harassment, and Shine became co-president. But within a year he, too, had been forced out, amid a second wave of sexual-harassment allegations, some of them against Fox’s biggest star at the time, Bill O’Reilly. Shine wasn’t personally accused of sexual harassment, but several lawsuits named him as complicit in a workplace culture of coverups, payoffs, and victim intimidation.

With Shine, the Fox and White House payrolls actually do overlap. The Hollywood Reporter obtained financial-disclosure forms revealing that Fox has been paying Shine millions of dollars since he joined the Administration. Last year, he collected the first half of a seven-million-dollar bonus that he was owed after resigning from Fox; this year, he will collect the remainder. That sum is in addition to an $8.4-million severance payment that he received upon leaving the network. In December, four Democratic senators sent a letter to the White House counsel’s office, demanding proof that Fox’s payments to Shine don’t violate federal ethics and conflict-of-interest statutes.

Shine is only the most recent Fox News alumnus to join the Trump Administration. Among others, Trump appointed the former Fox contributor Ben Carson to be his Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the former Fox commentator John Bolton to be his national-security adviser, and the former Fox commentator K. T. McFarland to be his deputy national-security adviser. (McFarland resigned after four months.) Trump recently picked the former Fox News anchor Heather Nauert to be the Ambassador to the United Nations, but she soon withdrew herself from consideration, reportedly because her nanny, an immigrant, lacked a work permit. The White House door swings both ways: Hope Hicks, Shine’s predecessor in the communications job, is now slated to be the top public-relations officer at Fox Corporation. Several others who have left the Trump White House, including Sebastian Gorka, a former adviser on national security, regularly appear on Fox. Gorka recently insisted, on Fox Business, that one of Trump’s biggest setbacks—retreating from the shutdown without securing border-wall funds—was actually a “masterstroke.”

Other former Fox News celebrities have practically become part of the Trump family. Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former co-host of “The Five,” left Fox in July; she is now working on Trump’s reëlection campaign and dating Donald Trump, Jr. (Guilfoyle left the network mid-contract, after a former Fox employee threatened to sue the network for harassment and accused Guilfoyle of sharing lewd images, among other misconduct; Fox and the former employee reached a multimillion-dollar settlement. A lawyer who represents Guilfoyle said that “any suggestion” that she “engaged in misconduct at Fox is patently false.”) Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host, and Lou Dobbs, the Fox Business host, have each been patched into Oval Office meetings, by speakerphone, to offer policy advice. Sean Hannity has told colleagues that he speaks to the President virtually every night, after his show ends, at 10 p.m. According to the Washington Post, White House advisers have taken to calling Hannity the Shadow Chief of Staff. A Republican political expert who has a paid contract with Fox News told me that Hannity has essentially become a “West Wing adviser,” attributing this development, in part, to the “utter breakdown of any normal decision-making in the White House.” The expert added, “The place has gone off the rails. There is no ordinary policy-development system.” As a result, he said, Fox’s on-air personalities “are filling the vacuum.”

Axios recently reported that sixty per cent of Trump’s day is spent in unstructured “executive time,” much of it filled by television. Charlie Black, a longtime Republican lobbyist in Washington, whose former firm, Black, Manafort & Stone, advised Trump in the eighties and nineties, told me, “Trump gets up and watches ‘Fox & Friends’ and thinks these are his friends. He thinks anything on Fox is friendly. But the problem is he gets unvetted ideas.” Trump has told confidants that he has ranked the loyalty of many reporters, on a scale of 1 to 10. Bret Baier, Fox News’ chief political anchor, is a 6; Hannity a solid 10. Steve Doocy, the co-host of “Fox & Friends,” is so adoring that Trump gives him a 12.

It is hardly unprecedented for American media barons to go beyond their pages to try to influence the course of politics. At the 1960 Democratic National Convention, Philip Graham, the co-owner of the Washington Post, helped broker a deal in which John F. Kennedy selected Lyndon Johnson as his running mate. But now a direct pipeline has been established between the Oval Office and the office of Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born billionaire who founded News Corp and 21st Century Fox. Multiple sources told me that Murdoch and Trump often talk on the phone. A former aide to Trump, who has been in the Oval Office when Murdoch has called, says, “It’s two men who’ve known each other for a very long time having frank conversations. The President certainly doesn’t kowtow to Murdoch, but Murdoch also doesn’t to him. He speaks to him the same way he would have five years ago.” According to Michael Wolff’s 2018 book, “Fire and Fury,” Murdoch derided Trump as “a fucking idiot” after a conversation about immigration. The aide says Trump knows that Murdoch has denigrated him behind his back, but “it doesn’t seem to matter” that much. Several sources confirmed to me that Murdoch regales friends with Trump’s latest inanities. But Murdoch, arguably the most powerful media mogul in the world, is an invaluable ally to any politician. Having Murdoch’s—and Fox’s—support is essential for Trump, the aide says: “It’s very important for the base.”

Murdoch may be even closer to Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Well-informed sources say that Kushner, an increasingly valued White House adviser, has worked hard to win over Murdoch, showing him respect and asking him for advice. Kushner has regularly assured Murdoch that the White House is a smooth-running operation, despite many reports suggesting that it is chaotic. Kushner now has an almost filial status with Murdoch, who turns eighty-eight this month, and numerous sources told me that they communicate frequently. “Like, every day,” one said.

Murdoch has cultivated heads of state in Australia and Great Britain, and someone close to him says that “he’s always wanted to have a relationship with a President—he’s a businessman and he sees benefits of having a chief of state doing your bidding.” Murdoch has met every American President since Kennedy, but, the close associate says, “until now a relationship has eluded him.” Still, Murdoch’s coziness with Trump may come at a cost. Roger Ailes, during his final days at Fox, apparently warned Murdoch of the perils. According to Gabriel Sherman, a biographer of Ailes who has written about Fox for New York and Vanity Fair, Ailes told Murdoch, “Trump gets great ratings, but if you’re not careful he’s going to end up totally controlling Fox News.”

Trump became famous, in no small part, because of Rupert Murdoch. After Murdoch bought the New York Post, in 1976, he was introduced to Trump through a mutual acquaintance, Roy Cohn, the infamous legal fixer, who, as a young man, was Senator Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel. Cohn saw the potential for tabloid synergy: Trump could attain celebrity in the pages of the Post as a playboy mogul, and Murdoch could sell papers by chronicling Trump’s exploits.

In private, Murdoch regarded Trump with disdain, seeing him as a real-estate huckster and a shady casino operator. But, for all their differences, the two men had key traits in common. They both inherited and expanded family enterprises—an Australian newspaper; an outer-borough New York City real-estate firm—but felt looked down upon by people who were richer and closer to the centers of power. As Edward Luce, of the Financial Times, has noted, both men have tapped into anti-élitist resentment to connect with the public and to increase their fortunes. Trump and Murdoch also share a transactional approach to politics, devoid of almost any ideology besides self-interest.

Murdoch could not have foreseen that Trump would become President, but he was a visionary about the niche audience that became Trump’s base. In 1994, Murdoch laid out an audacious plan to Reed Hundt, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission under President Bill Clinton. Murdoch, who had been a U.S. citizen for less than a decade, invited Hundt to his Benedict Canyon estate for dinner. After the meal, Murdoch led him outside to take in the glittering view of the Los Angeles Basin, and confided that he planned to launch a radical new television network. Unlike the three established networks, which vied for the same centrist viewers, his creation would follow the unapologetically lowbrow model of the tabloids that he published in Australia and England, and appeal to a narrow audience that would be entirely his. His core viewers, he said, would be football fans; with this aim in mind, he had just bought the rights to broadcast N.F.L. games. Hundt told me, “What he was really saying was that he was going after a working-class audience. He was going to carve out a base—what would become the Trump base.”

Hundt recalled the conversation as “overwhelming.” He said, “I was at this house more expensive than any I could ever imagine. This person’s made a huge mark in two other countries, and he had entered our country and was saying, ‘I’m going to break up the three-party oligopoly that has governed the most important medium of communication for politics and policy in this country since the Second World War.’ It was like a scene from ‘Faust.’ What came to mind was Mephistopheles.”

Blair Levin, at that time the chief of staff at the F.C.C. and now a fellow at the Brookings Institution, says, “Fox’s great insight wasn’t necessarily that there was a great desire for a conservative point of view.” More erudite conservatives, he says, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., and Bill Kristol, couldn’t have succeeded as Fox has. Levin observes, “The genius was seeing that there’s an attraction to fear-based, anger-based politics that has to do with class and race.”

In 1996, Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to create a conservative TV news outlet. Ailes, who died in 2017, was a master of attack politics and wedge issues, having been a media consultant on several of America’s dirtiest and most divisive campaigns, including those of Richard Nixon. Ailes invented programming, Levin argues, “that confirmed all your worst instincts—Fox News’ fundamental business model is driving fear.” The formula worked spectacularly well. By 2002, Fox had displaced CNN as the highest-rated cable news network, and it has remained on top ever since.

In 2011, at Ailes’s invitation, Trump began making weekly guest appearances on the morning show “Fox & Friends.” In a trial run of his campaign tactics, he used the channel as a platform to exploit racist suspicions about President Barack Obama, spreading doubt about whether he was born in America. (In one segment, Trump suggested that Obama’s “family doesn’t even know what hospital he was born in!”) As Hundt sees it, “Murdoch didn’t invent Trump, but he invented the audience. Murdoch was going to make a Trump exist. Then Trump comes along, sees all these people, and says, ‘I’ll be the ringmaster in your circus!’ ”

Trump’s arrival marked an important shift in tone at Fox. Until then, the network had largely mocked birtherism as a conspiracy theory. O’Reilly called its promoters “unhinged,” and Glenn Beck, who at the time also hosted a Fox show, called them “idiots.” But Trump gave birtherism national exposure, and, in a sign of things to come, Hannity fanned the flames. Hannity began saying that, although he thought that Obama had been born in the United States, the circumstances surrounding his birth certificate were “odd.”

Fox’s hostility toward the Obama Administration grew increasingly extreme. Its coverage of the Benghazi debacle—a tragic embassy ambush not unlike others that had claimed American lives in previous Administrations—devolved into a relentless attack on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In certain instances, however, Fox executives enforced journalistic limits. The network cancelled Beck’s show, in 2011, because his paranoid rants had become too embarrassing. (Among other things, Beck accused the White House science adviser of having proposed stemming population growth through forced abortions and “sterilants” in the water.) At the height of the Tea Party rebellion, Ailes reprimanded Hannity for violating the line between journalism and politics. Hannity had arranged to tape his evening Fox show at a Tea Party fund-raiser in Ohio. When Ailes learned of the plan, only hours before the event, he demanded that Hannity cancel his appearance. According to a former Fox executive, Ailes then blew up at Bill Shine, who had authorized Hannity’s trip. “Roger was livid, and ripped the shit out of Shine,” the former executive says, recalling that Ailes yelled, “No one at Fox is shilling for the Tea Party!” Afterward, Shine released a statement criticizing Hannity’s actions. And Murdoch, at a panel about the news, expressed a similar view, saying, “I don’t think we should be supporting the Tea Party or any other party.”

Such niceties no longer apply. In November, Hannity joined Trump onstage at a climactic rally for the midterm elections. Afterward, Fox issued a limp statement saying that it didn’t “condone any talent participating in campaign events” and that the “unfortunate distraction” had “been addressed.” Many Fox News reporters were angry, and provided critical anonymous quotes to the media, but Hannity didn’t apologize, saying that he had been “surprised yet honored” when Trump called him up onstage. This response was dubious: before the rally, Trump’s campaign had advertised Hannity as a “special guest.” When Hannity joined Trump, he not only praised him for “promises kept”; he also echoed the President’s attacks on the press, castigating the rest of the media covering the rally as “fake news.” The evening ended with a high five between Hannity and Shine, who had recently started working at the White House.

For Greta Van Susteren, a host on Fox between 2002 and 2016, Hannity’s rally appearance illustrates the difference at Fox since Ailes’s departure. For all of Ailes’s faults, Van Susteren argues, he exerted a modicum of restraint. She believes that he would have insisted on at least some distance from President Trump, if only to preserve the appearance of journalistic respectability embodied in the motto Ailes devised for Fox: “Fair and Balanced.” (That motto was retired in 2017.) Van Susteren says, “ ‘Hannity’ is an opinion show, but when he went onstage with Trump he became part of the campaign. That was an egregious mistake. It was way over the line.”

Although Ailes paid occasional lip service to journalistic integrity, Fox News was hardly fair and balanced under his leadership. Gabriel Sherman, in his biography, “The Loudest Voice in the Room,” reports that Ailes was so obsessed with bringing down Obama in 2012 that he declared to colleagues, “I want to elect the next President.”

Yet, during the 2016 campaign, Fox executives were initially uneasy about Trump’s candidacy. Murdoch tweeted that Trump was “embarrassing his friends” and “the whole country.” An editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Murdoch’s flagship newspaper, called Trump’s candidacy a “catastrophe.” Murdoch, an immigrant himself, bridled at Trump’s xenophobia. In 2015, when Trump claimed that most immigrants coming from Mexico were criminals and rapists, Murdoch corrected him on Twitter, noting that “Mexican immigrants, as with all immigrants, have much lower crime rates than native born.” He also tweeted that El Paso was “the safest city” in America.

Murdoch’s views could scarcely be more at odds with Fox’s current diatribes about hordes of “illegal aliens” who are “invading” the U.S. and killing innocent Americans, leaving behind grieving “Angel Moms” and “Angel Dads.” Van Susteren told me that she wasn’t surprised by this rhetorical turn. “Don’t kid yourself about his support for immigration,” she said of Murdoch. “Rupert is first about the bottom line. They’re all going out to play to their crowd, whether it’s Fox or MSNBC.” (After leaving Fox, Van Susteren was for a short time a host on MSNBC.) Fox’s mile-by-mile coverage of the so-called “migrant caravan” was an enormous hit: ratings in October, 2018, exceeded those of October, 2016—the height of the Presidential campaign.

Fox’s embrace of Trumpism took some time. Sherman has reported that, when the network hosted the first Republican Presidential debate, in August, 2015, in Cleveland, Murdoch advised Ailes to make sure that the moderators hit Trump hard. This put Ailes in an awkward position. Trump drew tremendous ratings and had fervent supporters, and Ailes was afraid of losing that audience to rival media outlets. Breitbart, the alt-right Web site led by Stephen K. Bannon, was generating huge traffic by championing Trump. What’s more, Ailes and Trump were friendly. “They spoke all the time,” a former Fox executive says. They had lunch shortly before Trump announced his candidacy, and Ailes gave Trump political tips during the primaries. Ken LaCorte contends that Ailes took note of “Trump’s crazy behavior”; but Trump’s growing political strength was also obvious. According to the former Fox executive, Trump made Ailes “nervous”: “He thought Trump was a wild card. Someone Ailes could not bully or intimidate.”

Anthony Scaramucci, a former Fox Business host who was fleetingly President Trump’s communications director, told me in 2016 that the network’s executives “made a business decision” to give on-air stars “slack” to choose their candidates. Hannity was an early Trump supporter; O’Reilly was neutral; Megyn Kelly remained skeptical. Trump had hung up on Kelly after she ran a segment about his 1992 divorce from Ivana Trump, which noted that Ivana had signed an affidavit claiming that Trump had raped her. (Ivana later insisted that she hadn’t meant rape in the “criminal” sense.)

Against this strained backdrop, at the debate in Cleveland, Kelly asked Trump a famously tough question. “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs,’ and ‘disgusting animals,’ ” she said. Trump interrupted her with a snide quip: “Only Rosie O’Donnell!” The hall burst into laughter and applause.

Kelly kept pressing Trump: “You once told a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect President?” But he’d already won over Republican viewers. (Fox received a flood of e-mails, almost all of them anti-Kelly.) The showdown helped shape Trump’s image as shamelessly unsinkable. It also kicked off a feud between Trump and Fox, in which Trump briefly boycotted the channel, hurting its ratings and forcing Ailes to grovel. Four days after the debate, Trump tweeted that Ailes had “just called” and “assures me that ‘Trump’ will be treated fairly.”

Trump has made the debate a point of pride. He recently boasted to the Times that he’d won it despite being a novice, and despite the “crazy Megyn Kelly question.” Fox, however, may have given Trump a little help. A pair of Fox insiders and a source close to Trump believe that Ailes informed the Trump campaign about Kelly’s question. Two of those sources say that they know of the tipoff from a purported eyewitness. In addition, a former Trump campaign aide says that a Fox contact gave him advance notice of a different debate question, which asked the candidates whether they would support the Republican nominee, regardless of who won. The former aide says that the heads-up was passed on to Trump, who was the only candidate who said that he wouldn’t automatically support the Party’s nominee—a position that burnished his image as an outsider.

These claims are hard to evaluate: Ailes is dead, and they conflict with substantial reporting suggesting that the rift between Trump and Fox was bitter. A former campaign aide is adamant that Trump was genuinely surprised and infuriated by Kelly’s question. A Fox spokesperson strongly denied the allegations, and declined requests for interviews with employees involved in the debate.

Kelly also declined to comment, but she broached the subject in her 2016 memoir, “Settle for More.” She wrote that the day before the debate Trump called Fox executives to complain, saying he’d heard that Kelly planned to ask “a very pointed question directed at him.” She noted, “Folks were starting to worry about Trump—his level of agitation did not match the circumstances.” When this passage stirred controversy, Kelly tweeted that her book “does not suggest Trump had any debate Qs in advance, nor do I believe that he did.” Yet her account does suggest that Trump had enough forewarning to be upset, and that he contacted Fox before the debate.

Later in the campaign, WikiLeaks posted stolen e-mails from Donna Brazile, then the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee and a CNN contributor. Without CNN’s knowledge, she had alerted Hillary Clinton’s campaign about questions that the network planned to ask during a televised event. CNN fired Brazile, and Trump has cited the incident as evidence that CNN is “a total fake.” Last April, in an interview on “Fox & Friends,” he said, “Can you imagine, by the way, if you gave me the questions to a debate? They would have you out of business.”

In the summer of 2016, two weeks before Trump secured the Republican nomination, Gretchen Carlson, the former co-host of “Fox & Friends,” sued Ailes for sexual harassment. Her suit alleged that he had propositioned her during a meeting, and that he’d spoken of having the power to “make anything happen” if she “understood” him, and that they “should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago.” Within weeks, Fox had forced Ailes out, giving him a forty-million-dollar severance package. The network apologized to Carlson, and paid her a twenty-million-dollar settlement.

Murdoch was slow to see the gravity of the sexual-harassment issue, but his two sons—James, the C.E.O. of 21st Century Fox, and Lachlan, its executive chairman—were more responsive. At a board meeting held after the news of Carlson’s suit broke, James, the more politically independent of the two, pushed for an outside legal investigation. His demand forced the company to take action, since the notes of the meeting created a public paper trail. Fox’s outside law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, began an inquiry, and exposed an appalling culture of sexual harassment, intimidation, payoffs, and coverups at Fox.

Ailes, meanwhile, joined Trump’s debate team, further erasing the line between Fox and conservative politicians. Ailes also began developing a plan to go into business with Trump. The Sunday before the election, Ailes called Steve Bannon, Trump’s campaign chairman, and said that he’d been talking with Trump about launching Trump TV, a nationalist competitor to Fox. Ailes was so excited that he was willing to forfeit his severance payment from Fox, which was attached to a non-compete agreement. He asked Bannon to join the venture and to start planning it as soon as Trump lost the election.

“What are you talking about?” Bannon recalls replying. “We’re going to win.”

“Stop the bullshit,” Ailes responded. “It’s going to be a blowout. It’ll be over by eight o’clock.”

Any hopes that Fox would clean house after Ailes’s departure vanished on August 12, 2016, when Fox named two Ailes loyalists as co-presidents: Jack Abernethy, an executive who managed Fox’s local stations, and Bill Shine. The opinion side of Fox News, which Shine had run, had won out, as had his friend Sean Hannity.

For years, Ailes had been the focus of liberal complaints, and so when Fox pushed him out many people thought that the channel would change. They were right. The problem, Fox’s critics say, is that it’s become a platform for Trump’s authoritarianism. “I know Roger Ailes was reviled,” Charlie Black, the lobbyist, said. “But he did produce debates of both sides. Now Fox is just Trump, Trump, Trump.” Murdoch may find this development untroubling: in 1995, he told this magazine, “The truth is—and we Americans don’t like to admit it—that authoritarian societies can work.”

Greta Van Susteren believes that Ailes’s departure posed a huge challenge for his successors: “It’s like what happens when a dictator falls. If you look historically, when you get rid of a Saddam in Iraq, or a Qaddafi in Libya, the place falls apart.” The celebrity opinion-show hosts who drive the ratings became unbridled and unopposed. Hannity, as the network’s highest-rated and highest-paid star, was especially empowered—and, with him, so was Trump.

After Ailes was ousted, Murdoch, then eighty-five, assumed the title of acting C.E.O. of Fox News, and moved into Ailes’s corner office on the second floor of News Corp’s Manhattan headquarters. Lachlan and James wanted their father to hire an outsider with journalistic experience to run the channel, but Murdoch, who still thinks of himself as a newsman at heart, couldn’t resist filling the top slot himself.

The following winter, Murdoch slipped while on Lachlan’s yacht, seriously injuring his back. For months, people close to the family say, he was in very bad shape, convalescing at home in L.A. Ken LaCorte, the former Fox executive, says that Murdoch shouldn’t be discounted because of his age: “He’s definitely got all his marbles, and is one hundred per cent sharp. When it came to numbers, like ratings, revenues, G.D.P. growth—you name it—he’s like a savant. If you made a mistake with a number, he’d usually catch and correct it.” But a Fox insider told me that Murdoch “was gone a lot,” adding, “He’s old. He likes the idea that he’s running it, but the lunatics took over the asylum.”

When Shine assumed command at Fox, the 2016 campaign was nearing its end, and Trump and Clinton were all but tied. That fall, a FoxNews.com reporter had a story that put the network’s journalistic integrity to the test. Diana Falzone, who often covered the entertainment industry, had obtained proof that Trump had engaged in a sexual relationship in 2006 with a pornographic film actress calling herself Stormy Daniels. Falzone had worked on the story since March, and by October she had confirmed it with Daniels through her manager at the time, Gina Rodriguez, and with Daniels’s former husband, Mike Moz, who described multiple calls from Trump. Falzone had also amassed e-mails between Daniels’s attorney and Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, detailing a proposed cash settlement, accompanied by a nondisclosure agreement. Falzone had even seen the contract.

But Falzone’s story didn’t run—it kept being passed off from one editor to the next. After getting one noncommittal answer after another from her editors, Falzone at last heard from LaCorte, who was then the head of FoxNews.com. Falzone told colleagues that LaCorte said to her, “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.” LaCorte denies telling Falzone this, but one of Falzone’s colleagues confirms having heard her account at the time.

Despite the discouragement, Falzone kept investigating, and discovered that the National Enquirer, in partnership with Trump, had made a “catch and kill” deal with Daniels—buying the exclusive rights to her story in order to bury it. Falzone pitched this story to Fox, too, but it went nowhere. News of Trump’s payoffs to silence Daniels, and Cohen’s criminal attempts to conceal them as legal fees, remained unknown to the public until the Wall Street Journal broke the story, a year after Trump became President.

In January, 2017, Fox demoted Falzone without explanation. That May, she sued the network. Her attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, declined to comment but acknowledged that a settlement has been reached; it includes a nondisclosure agreement that bars Falzone from talking about her work at Fox.

After the Journal story broke, Oliver Darcy, a senior media reporter for CNN, published a piece revealing that Fox had killed a Stormy Daniels story. LaCorte, who by then had left Fox but was still being paid by the company, told Mediaite that he’d made the call without talking to superiors. The story simply hadn’t “passed muster,” he claimed, adding, “I didn’t do it to protect Donald Trump.” Nik Richie, a blogger who had broken the first story about Daniels, tweeted, “This is complete bullshit. Ken you are such a LIAR. This story got killed by @FoxNews at the highest level. I know, because I was one of your sources.”

Richie told me, “Fox News was culpable. I voted for Trump, and I like Fox, but they did their own ‘catch and kill’ on the story to protect him.” He said that he’d worked closely with Falzone on the article, and that “she did her homework—she had it.” He says he warned her that Fox would never run it, but “when they killed it she was devastated.” Richie believes that the story “would have swayed the election.”

Shine was liked by most of the on-air stars he managed; they describe him as well organized and forthright. Shine, who is tough-looking, with a doughy, dented face, is the son of a New York City policeman. After a brief period working at a Long Island television station, he went on to be Hannity’s producer and rode his coattails at Fox, becoming Ailes’s deputy, enabler, and enforcer. Colleagues say that Shine knew how to coach talent to look good on TV, and how to drive ratings. In 2001, he put psychics on Fox shows to offer opinions about unsolved murders, and in 2007 he defended Fox against what he called “false racism accusations,” after O’Reilly expressed amazement, on the air, that people in Harlem dined at nice restaurants without “any kind of craziness,” just like in “an all-white suburb.”

Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters for America, a liberal watchdog group that routinely criticizes Fox News, says that Shine became “an expert in collecting and enforcing soft power,” adding, “He was responsible for on-air contributors to programs, so ultimately you were auditioning for Bill Shine. He was the one who would give you the lucrative contract. He controlled the narrative that way.” Nevertheless, some people at Fox called him Bill the Butler, because he was so subservient to Ailes. A former Fox co-host says, “He’s perfect for the White House job. He’s a yes-man.” Another Fox alumnus said, “His only talent was following orders, sucking up to power, and covering up for people.”

On the fourteenth floor of the network’s headquarters, the former Fox executive told me, Ailes had a “Black Ops” room, where he and others collected dirt on perceived enemies. They allegedly compiled a dossier on Gabriel Sherman as he worked on his Ailes biography, and obtained the phone records of another journalist, Joe Strupp, in an effort to find out who was leaking to him.

Separately, Ailes and a small group kept a close eye on internal talent. “We had a file on pretty much everyone,” the former Fox executive said, adding that Ailes talked about “putting hits” in the media on anyone who “got out of line.” If a woman complained about being sexually harassed, he said, Shine or other supervisors intimidated her into silence, reduced her air time, or discontinued her contract. The former executive recalls, “Shine would talk to the woman with a velvet glove, saying, ‘Don’t worry about it’—and, if that didn’t work, he’d warn her it would ruin her career.”

Shine’s defenders maintain that he was unfairly tarnished by Ailes’s harassment scandals. “He was a victim of sexual McCarthyism,” LaCorte told me. Van Susteren notes that Shine “was never accused of compromising behavior—he was accused of looking the other way.” She adds, “He’s one of those people in management who put out fires. These people often get burned themselves.”

But at least four civil lawsuits against Fox have named Shine as a defendant for enabling workplace harassment. One of these cases, a stockholder lawsuit that Fox settled in 2017, for ninety million dollars, claimed that Ailes had “sexually harassed female employees and contributors with impunity for at least a decade” by surrounding himself “with loyalists”—including Shine. The suit faults Fox for spending fifty-five million dollars to settle such claims out of court.

The use of company funds for payoffs prompted a criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan. In 2017, Shine was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, but instead he agreed to be interviewed by prosecutors. The criminal investigation seems to have been dropped after Ailes’s death, but Judd Burstein, an attorney whose client was interviewed by prosecutors, told me, “I don’t think someone can be a serial sexual abuser in a large organization without enablers like Shine.”

In 2011, Fox paid a news booker named Laurie Luhn $3.15 million to keep silent about two decades of sexual mistreatment by Ailes. A copy of the confidentiality agreement shows that Shine co-signed it. The day that Ailes left Fox, Luhn broke her silence. She had sexually serviced Ailes for years, she said, in part because he had blackmailed her with compromising videotapes. According to the stockholder suit, Ailes was abetted by “the direct involvement of Shine,” who scheduled the encounters as work meetings. After Luhn suffered a “mental breakdown,” the suit says, Shine sought a psychiatrist for her. During this period of distress, Luhn claimed, Ailes’s deputies booked her into a New York hotel; Luhn has said that she was required to forward all her e-mails to Shine, for monitoring. A spokesperson for Shine has denied this account, and has said that Shine was unaware that Ailes and Luhn had a sexual relationship. The former Fox executive is dubious that Shine didn’t know, and recalls Shine rolling his eyes and saying, “Laurie Luhn—she’s a problem.”

Fox News struggled under Shine’s leadership. In January, 2017, NBC lured away Megyn Kelly. (She has since left NBC.) Three months later, the Times revealed that 21st Century Fox and Bill O’Reilly had paid a total of thirteen million dollars to five female employees who had accused him of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior. At the time, O’Reilly was negotiating a thirty-two-million-dollar payment to a sixth accuser. (He has dismissed all the accusations as “crap.”) The news sparked advertiser boycotts and street demonstrations, and Fox fired O’Reilly. Shine soon followed him out the door.

Hannity had warned that it would be “the total end” of Fox News if his friend Shine were ousted. But, with O’Reilly and Kelly gone, Hannity was in his strongest position yet: he was now Fox’s top-rated star, and Trump’s highest-profile promoter. He’d taken Kelly’s 9 p.m. slot and was getting even higher ratings—some three million viewers a night. Two months after Shine left Fox, Hannity became a matchmaker, arranging a dinner with the President at the White House, attended by himself, Shine, and Scaramucci, at that time Trump’s communications director. Hannity proposed Shine as a top communications official, or even as a deputy chief of staff. A year later, Shine was both.

By the time Trump was elected, Murdoch had adeptly improved ties with him. In the summer of 2016, he and his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, joined Trump for a visit to Trump’s golf club in Scotland. Murdoch appears to have been wise in securing a rapprochement. Telecommunications is a highly regulated industry, and under Trump the government has consistently furthered Murdoch’s business interests, to the detriment of his rivals. Hundt, the former F.C.C. chairman, told me that “there have been three moves that have taken place in the regulatory and antitrust world” involving telecommunications “that are extremely unusual, and the only way to explain them is that they’re pro-Fox, pro-Fox, and pro-Fox.”

Last June, after only six months of deliberation, the Trump Administration approved Fox’s bid to sell most of its entertainment assets to Disney, for seventy-one billion dollars. The Murdoch family will receive more than two billion dollars in the deal, and will become a major stockholder in the combined company. The Justice Department expressed no serious antitrust concerns, even though the combined company will reportedly account for half the box-office revenue in America. Trump publicly congratulated Murdoch even before the Justice Department signed off on the deal, and claimed that it would create jobs. In fact, the consolidation is projected to result in thousands of layoffs.

In July, the F.C.C. blocked Sinclair Broadcast Group, a conservative rival to Fox, from combining with the Tribune Media Company. The F.C.C. argued that the deal would violate limits on the number of TV stations one entity can own, upending Sinclair’s hope of becoming the next Fox.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, went to court in an effort to stop A. T. & T.’s acquisition of Time Warner, which owns CNN. Time Warner saw the deal as essential to its survival at a time when the media business is increasingly dominated by giant competitors such as Google and Facebook. Murdoch understood this impulse: in 2014, 21st Century Fox had tried, unsuccessfully, to buy Time Warner. For him, opposing his rivals’ deal was a matter of shrewd business. Trump also opposed the deal, but many people suspected that his objection was a matter of petty retaliation against CNN. Although Presidents have traditionally avoided expressing opinions about legal matters pending before the judicial branch, Trump has bluntly criticized the plan. The day after the Justice Department filed suit to stop it, he declared the proposed merger “not good for the country.” Trump also claimed that he was “not going to get involved,” and the Justice Department has repeatedly assured the public that he hasn’t done so.

However, in the late summer of 2017, a few months before the Justice Department filed suit, Trump ordered Gary Cohn, then the director of the National Economic Council, to pressure the Justice Department to intervene. According to a well-informed source, Trump called Cohn into the Oval Office along with John Kelly, who had just become the chief of staff, and said in exasperation to Kelly, “I’ve been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened! I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”

Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs, evidently understood that it would be highly improper for a President to use the Justice Department to undermine two of the most powerful companies in the country as punishment for unfavorable news coverage, and as a reward for a competing news organization that boosted him. According to the source, as Cohn walked out of the meeting he told Kelly, “Don’t you fucking dare call the Justice Department. We are not going to do business that way.”

A spokesperson for Cohn declined to comment, and Kelly did not respond to inquiries from The New Yorker, but a former White House official confirmed that Trump often “vented” in “frustration” about wanting to block the A. T. & T.-Time Warner merger. “The President does not understand the nuances of antitrust law or policy,” the former official says. “But he wanted to bring down the hammer.” (Last month, a federal court ruled against the Justice Department.)

Trump Administration officials say that political considerations did not guide the government’s actions on the three deals. Blair Levin, the former F.C.C. official, told me, “There may be innocent explanations.” But, he adds, “Trump famously said you’re going to get sick and tired of winning, and that may not be true for the rest of America, but it sure is true of Murdoch.” He says of Murdoch, “He’s an incredibly cunning political player. He leaves no fingerprints. He’s been in the game of influencing government behavior to his benefit longer than most of us have been alive.”

David Axelrod, who was Barack Obama’s chief strategist, believes that Murdoch has long put his business interests above any political concerns. He recalls attending a dinner where Murdoch pushed him to move ahead on immigration reform. Axelrod suggested that it would help if Fox stopped fanning nativist hysteria, and he says that Murdoch responded, “You’ll have to talk to Roger about that,” as if he had no sway over Fox. Axelrod says, “There are probably a lot of aspects of Trumpism that he’s uncomfortable with. But ultimately he’s a businessman. And it’s useful to have a friend who’s the President, particularly if there are close regulatory calls, and a President who is untroubled by the rules and norms in that regard.”

During a recent dinner with reporters, the incendiary right-wing commentator Ann Coulter, who has been feuding with Trump over his immigration policy, said that the President told her that “Murdoch calls me every day.” She recalled that, “back when Trump was still speaking to me,” she complained to him that Fox was no longer inviting her to appear. She said that Trump told her, “Do you want me to call Murdoch and tell him to put you on?” Coulter accepted Trump’s offer. He may have called Hannity, not Murdoch, she says, but in any case she was invited back on Fox “within twelve hours.”

As Murdoch’s relations with the White House have warmed, so has Fox’s coverage of Trump. During the Obama years, Fox’s attacks on the President could be seen as reflecting the adversarial role traditionally played by the press. With Trump’s election, the network’s hosts went from questioning power to defending it. Yochai Benkler, a Harvard Law School professor who co-directs the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, says, “Fox’s most important role since the election has been to keep Trump supporters in line.” The network has provided a non-stop counternarrative in which the only collusion is between Hillary Clinton and Russia; Robert Mueller, the special counsel, is perpetrating a “coup” by the “deep state”; Trump and his associates aren’t corrupt, but America’s law-enforcement officials and courts are; illegal immigration isn’t at a fifteen-year low, it’s “an invasion”; and news organizations that offer different perspectives are “enemies of the American people.”

Benkler’s assessment is based on an analysis of millions of American news stories that he and two co-authors, Robert Faris and Hal Roberts, undertook for their 2018 book, “Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation and Radicalization in American Politics.” Benkler told me that he and his co-authors had expected to find “symmetric polarization” in the left-leaning and the right-leaning media outlets. Instead, they discovered that the two poles of America’s media ecosystem function very differently. “It’s not the right versus the left,” Benkler says. “It’s the right versus the rest.”

Most American news outlets try to adhere to facts. When something proves erroneous, they run corrections, or, as Benkler and his co-authors write, “they check each other.” Far-left Web sites post as many bogus stories as far-right ones do, but mainstream and liberal news organizations tend to ignore suspiciously extreme material. Conservative media outlets, however, focus more intently on confirming their audience’s biases, and are much more susceptible to disinformation, propaganda, and outright falsehoods (as judged by neutral fact-checking organizations such as PolitiFact). Case studies conducted by the authors show that lies and distortions on the right spread easily from extremist Web sites to mass-media outlets such as Fox, and only occasionally get corrected.

When falsehoods are exposed, core viewers often react angrily. According to Media Matters, Fox hosts used the word “invasion” thirty-three times in the thirty days before the midterm elections. After Shepard Smith, the Fox News anchor, contradicted Trump’s scaremongering about immigrants—declaring, “There is no invasion, no one is coming to get you”—viewers lashed out at him on social media.

Sometimes such pushback has a salutary effect. Recently, Chris Wallace told Sarah Sanders that her claim that “nearly four thousand known or suspected terrorists come into our country illegally” every year was wildly inaccurate. Showing Fox’s clout, the White House has dropped the talking point.

Such breaks with the Trump narrative on Fox are rare, though. Unlike Glenn Beck, Hannity has been allowed to spew baseless conspiracy theories with impunity. For more than a year, Hannity and other hosts spread the lie that the hacking of Democratic Party e-mails during the 2016 campaign was an inside job. Hannity claimed that the hacking had been committed not by Russian cyber-warfare agents, as the U.S. intelligence community concluded, but by a Democratic staffer named Seth Rich, who had been murdered by unknown assailants on a D.C. street. Benkler and his co-authors studied Fox’s coverage, and found that not only did the channel give the Seth Rich lie a national platform; it also used the conspiracy story as a distraction, deploying it as a competing narrative when developments in Mueller’s investigation showed Trump in a bad light. In 2017, after Rich’s parents demanded an apology and advertisers began shunning the network, Fox finally ran a retraction, and Hannity dropped the story.

By then, Fox hosts had begun pushing a different conspiracy: the “Uranium One” story, which Hannity called “the biggest scandal ever involving Russia.” On an October, 2017, broadcast, Hannity claimed that Hillary Clinton, when she was Secretary of State, had given “to Vladimir Putin and Russia twenty per cent of America’s uranium, which is the foundational material to make nuclear weapons.” Ostensibly, the deal was in exchange for giant payments to the Clinton Foundation. Hannity also claimed that “the corrupt, lying mainstream media” was withholding this “bombshell” from Americans, because it was “complicit” in a “huge coverup.” More than a year earlier, the Times had run a front-page story about the deal, based on the right-wing book “Clinton Cash.” But the story had gone cold, because other reporting had poked holes in it, revealing that multiple government agencies had approved the deal, and that the quantity of uranium was insignificant. Yet Fox kept flogging it as the real national-security scandal involving Russia. On “Hannity,” the former Trump White House adviser Sebastian Gorka argued that the Clintons’ crime was equivalent to the Cold War treason of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg—and reminded viewers that the Rosenbergs were executed. Within two days, Trump picked up Fox’s story, tweeting, “Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help and Obama Administration knowledge, is the biggest story that Fake Media doesn’t want to follow!”

Alisyn Camerota was a co-host on “Fox & Friends” for years before joining CNN, in 2014. She says that Fox has solid news reporters, but she became so troubled by the lack of standards on “Fox & Friends” that she wrote a thinly veiled novel, “Amanda Wakes Up,” about the blurring of journalistic lines at a cable morning show. “ ‘Fox & Friends’ was a fun show, but it was not a news show,” she says. “It regularly broke the rules of journalism. It was basically Roger’s id on TV. He’d wake up in the morning with some bee in his bonnet, spout it off to Bill Shine, and Shine would tell us to put it on TV.” She says that the show’s producers would “cull far-right, crackpot Web sites” for content, and adds, “Never did I hear anyone worry about getting a second source. The single phrase I heard over and over was ‘This is going to outrage the audience!’ You inflame the viewers so that no one will turn away. Those were the standards.”

To the astonishment of colleagues, the Fox co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle often prepared for “The Five” by relying on information provided to her by an avid fan: a viewer from Georgia named David Townsend, who had no affiliation either with Fox News or with journalism. She’d share the day’s planned topics with Townsend, and then he’d e-mail her suggested content. A former colleague of Guilfoyle’s says, “It was a joke among the production assistants—they were, like, ‘Wait till you hear this!’ She actually got research from him! It was the subject of hilarity.”

Townsend is a frequent contributor to the fringe social-media site Gab, which Wired has called a “haven for the far right.” (He has promoted the idea that “physically weak men” are “more likely to be socialists,” and has argued that it is not anti-Semitic to observe that “the most powerful political moneybags in American politics are Zionists.”) The server company that hosts Gab removed it from the Internet temporarily after it was revealed to have posted hate-filled rants by Robert Bowers, the gunman who killed eleven people at a Pittsburgh synagogue, last October.

When I asked Townsend about his e-mails to Guilfoyle, he said, “Mind your own business. I’m just a Fox fan. I’m a keyboard warrior. I’m a nobody.” He said, “I’ve sent stuff to various people at Fox for years, and I don’t get a penny for it,” and added, “I don’t know what tree you’re barking up but you better be careful.”

Given Fox’s status as a dominant source of information for Trump, some people argue that the network should be especially vigilant about outside influence. Aki Peritz, a former C.I.A. analyst who is an adjunct professor at American University, has written that Fox News has become an inviting target for foreign spy agencies, because “it’s what the President sees.” But a source who spoke to me about Guilfoyle and Townsend says, “It’s even worse than a conspiracy of the dark Web, or something trying to manipulate Fox. It was just a guy in his underwear in Georgia who had influence over Fox News! And Fox News influences the President!”

Officially, Trump’s day begins at 11 a.m., with his national-security briefing. But Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters, who has spent more than a year tracking how closely Trump’s tweets correspond to Fox News, told me that “the real briefing is on ‘Fox & Friends,’ four hours earlier.” Judging from the timing of Trump’s tweets, Gertz believes that the President records “Fox & Friends” and views it from the beginning, often with a slight delay. As Trump watches, he frequently posts about points that he agrees with. Since August, 2018, Media Matters has tallied more than two hundred instances of Trump disseminating Fox News items to his fifty-eight million Twitter followers. “Trump serves as a carnival barker for Fox,” Levin says, giving invaluable promotional help to the channel.

Fox hosts sometimes reverse their opinions in order to toe the Trump line: Hannity, who in the Obama era called negotiations with North Korea “disturbing,” now calls such efforts a “huge foreign-policy win.” But Gertz has come to believe that Fox drives Trump more than Trump drives Fox. During the recent standoff with Congress over funding for a border wall, Fox anchors and guests repeatedly pushed Trump to reject compromises favored by Republicans in Congress and by his own staff, and to pursue instead an extreme path favored by Fox’s core viewers.

White House aides confirm that Trump has repeatedly walked away from compromises at the last moment because Fox hosts and guests opposed the deals. Last March, Trump was widely expected to sign an omnibus appropriations bill, thus avoiding a government shutdown. Both Mick Mulvaney, his budget director at the time, and Vice-President Mike Pence had described it as a done deal. But on March 22nd Trump became agitated, a former top aide told me, when the evening hosts at Fox “lit him up,” and the next morning, on “Fox & Friends,” one of the President’s most reliable supporters, Pete Hegseth, “ripped him.” At 8:55 a.m., Trump tweeted that he might veto the bill, because it lacked funding for the “BORDER WALL.” The former top aide said of Trump’s sudden reversal, “It was all Fox.”

Trump’s tweet caused panic in Washington: many members of Congress had left town, and it wasn’t clear that enough were present to pass a stopgap spending bill. Defense Secretary James Mattis rushed to the White House and explained to Trump that, if he vetoed the bill, funding for U.S. troops would run out at midnight. That afternoon, Trump relented and signed the bill.

Mattis prevailed in this instance, but former White House aides and other political players in Washington believe that Trump is more influenced by Fox pundits and guests than by his staff, or by the intelligence experts who brief him. Marc Short, who was formerly in charge of congressional relations for the White House, tried to counter the effect by enlisting Republican allies in the House to go on Fox. According to a Senate staffer, one high-profile Republican senator claims that his preferred way of getting the President’s ear is by going on Fox. He calls a friendly host and offers to appear on the air; usually, before he’s taken his makeup off in the greenroom Trump is calling him. “It’s the way to get into his head,” the Senate staffer says.

Gertz is not alone in believing that Fox hosts played a key part in driving Trump’s recent shutdown of the government and his declaration of a national emergency on the southern border. Hannity and Dobbs urged Trump nightly on their shows to make these moves; according to press reports, they also advised Trump personally to do so.

On December 19th, with Republicans still in control of both houses of Congress, Trump’s staff indicated that he would sign a spending bill with $1.6 billion earmarked for border security. That night, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh assailed the deal, and the next morning Fox pounded Trump. Representative Mark Meadows, of North Carolina, a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, appeared on “Fox & Friends,” calling the bill not a “punt” but a “fumble,” and warning Trump not to “cave.” At 7:33 a.m., Hegseth tweeted at Trump, “Don’t listen to squish advisers. . . . No WALL = SHUT IT DOWN.” By the next day, Trump had refused to sign the spending bill, forcing much of the government to shut down. For the next thirty-five days, Hannity and the other Fox hosts kept cheering Trump on, even as polls showed that the American public was increasingly opposed to the shutdown. Oliver Darcy, of CNN, says that Democrats, rather than negotiating with Trump, “might as well call Sean Hannity and get him on the phone,” adding, “It seems we sort of elected Sean Hannity when we elected Trump.”

Gertz, of Media Matters, argues, “The President’s world view is being specifically shaped by what he sees on Fox News, but Fox’s goals are ratings and money, which they get by maximizing rage. It’s not a message that is going to serve the rest of the country.” Blair Levin, the former F.C.C. official, says that Trump and Fox are employing the same risky model: inflaming the base and intensifying its support, rather than building a broader coalition. Narrowcasting may generate billions of dollars for a cable channel, but as a governing strategy it inevitably alienates the majority. The problem for Trump, as one former Fox host puts it, is that “he can’t afford to lose Fox, because it’s all he’s got.”

Similarly, Fox has a financial incentive to make Trump look good. Cable ratings at both Fox and MSNBC dip when the news is bad for their audience’s side. Van Susteren likens the phenomenon to audiences turning away when their sports team is losing. During the Bush Administration’s disastrous handling of Hurricane Katrina, Fox’s ratings slumped so badly, a former Fox producer told me, that he was told to stop covering it. Since the midterms, in which the Republicans lost the House, the Nielsen ratings for Fox’s evening lineup—Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham—have fallen by twenty per cent. Few things cause ratings to spike like an exclusive Presidential interview, however, and on February 28th Hannity landed yet another one, during the President’s meeting in Hanoi with Kim Jong Un. At one point in the interview, Hannity addressed the week’s biggest news—Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress—and assured viewers that, even if Stormy Daniels had been paid off before the 2016 election, the President was innocent of criminal wrongdoing. Cohen, he told Trump, had “said to me at least a dozen times that he made the decision on the payments, and he didn’t tell you.”

“Yeah,” Trump said.

When Hannity lamented that the Cohen hearings had upstaged Trump’s diplomatic effort, intoning, “I thought politics stopped at the water’s edge in America,” Trump called the timing “really inappropriate.”

At the White House, Bill Shine, just as he did at Fox, defers to the man he calls “the boss.” When Trump became irritated by the White House press corps, Shine acted as his enforcer. Disregarding the norms protecting press freedom, he tried to strip the aggressive CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta of his White House pass; he also attempted to “disinvite” the CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins from covering a Rose Garden event. She had annoyed the President earlier that day with a question about Michael Cohen.

Shine also berated Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for the Times, after hearing—inaccurately—that Baker, at a summit in Buenos Aires, had laughed when Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzō Abe, congratulated Trump on his “historic victory” in the midterm elections. Baker declined to comment, but a colleague of his witnessed Shine pulling Baker aside from the press pool. Shine poked a finger in his face and demanded to know if he’d laughed at Trump. The incident was settled amicably after Baker sent Shine an audio recording proving that the accusation was false. But Shine’s attempt to police a veteran reporter was reminiscent of the culture of intimidation at Fox News.

A source close to Trump says that the President has been complaining that Shine hasn’t been aggressive enough. Late last year, Trump told the source, “Shine promised me my press coverage would get better, but it’s gotten worse.” The source says, “Trump thought he was getting Roger Ailes but instead he got Roger Ailes’s gofer.”

In recent months, Shine has practically ended White House press briefings. Trump prefers to be his own spokesman. “He always thought he did it the best,” a former senior White House official says. “But the problem is that you lose deniability. It’s become a trapeze act with no net, 24/7. The shutdown messaging was a crisis. There was no exit strategy.”

As Trump has been condemning reporters as “enemies of the people,” Fox News, too, has been cracking down on dissenting voices. Van Susteren was replaced by Tucker Carlson, and under the leadership of Fox’s current C.E.O., Suzanne Scott, a longtime deputy of Shine’s, the prime-time lineup has become more one-sided than ever. Fox has become Trump’s safe space in times of stress. When he was alone in the White House on New Year’s Eve, he called in to Pete Hegseth’s live broadcast and wished him a happy New Year. A few weeks later, when Trump was humiliated by the news that the F.B.I. had considered launching a counterintelligence investigation of him, he called the Fox host Jeanine Pirro for on-air reassurance. Conservative critics of Trump who used to appear on Fox, such as Stephen Hayes and George Will, have largely vanished; Will told the Washington Post that Fox discontinued his contract, in 2017, without explanation. It’s almost shocking to recall that, as recently as 2009, Fox balanced Hannity with a liberal co-host, Alan Colmes.

Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic veteran of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, went on Fox regularly for more than ten years. In November, 2017, he had a heated on-air exchange with a Fox host, Melissa Francis, about the Republican tax bill. When Francis hectored him, accusing him of merely repeating talking points, he vowed on the air never to return. “It was always clear that this wasn’t just another news organization,” Rosenberg told me. “But when Ailes departed, and Trump was elected, the network changed. They became more combative, and started treating me like an enemy, not an opponent.” With Shine joining Trump at the White House, he said, “it’s as if the on-air talent at Fox now have two masters—the White House and the audience.” In his view, the network has grown so allied with the White House in the demonization of Trump’s critics that “Fox is no longer conservative—it’s anti-democratic.”

After Fox completes the spinoff of its entertainment properties to Disney, the news channel will be part of a much smaller company, under the day-to-day supervision of Lachlan Murdoch. Like Rupert, Lachlan is a conservative, but there’s talk around Fox that he may want to bring the news network closer to the center-right. The biggest test yet of Fox’s journalistic standards is the impending showdown over Mueller’s findings. For two years, the network has been priming its viewers to respond with extraordinary anger should the country’s law-enforcement authorities close in on the President. According to Media Matters, in the first year after Mueller was appointed Hannity alone aired four hundred and eighty-six segments attacking the federal criminal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election; thirty-eight per cent of those segments claimed that law-enforcement officials had broken the law. In recent weeks, Hannity has spoken of “a coup,” and a guest on Laura Ingraham’s program, the lawyer Joseph diGenova, declared, “It’s going to be total war. And, as I say to my friends, I do two things—I vote and I buy guns.”

Jerry Taylor, the co-founder of the Niskanen Center, a think tank in Washington for moderates, says, “In a hypothetical world without Fox News, if President Trump were to be hit hard by the Mueller report, it would be the end of him. But, with Fox News covering his back with the Republican base, he has a fighting chance, because he has something no other President in American history has ever had at his disposal—a servile propaganda operation.” ♦

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Sean Hannity was godfather to Bill Shine’s children. It also also misstated the job functions of Hope Hicks, Pete Hegseth, and Shepard Smith.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019 ... hite-house

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Daily Comment

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Coming for Your Hamburgers!

By David RemnickMarch 3, 2019

Sebastian Gorka, late of the Trump Administration, stood before the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference last week and made plain the inner frenzy of a party that must place its hopes for 2020 on a President who had just been described before a congressional committee as “a racist,” “a con man,” and “a cheat.” Hence the rhetorical smoke bombs. Wild-eyed Democrats are coming! Gorka declared, “They want to take your pickup truck! They want to rebuild your home! They want to take away your hamburgers! This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved!”

The Stalinist nightmare that Gorka had on his mind is the Green New Deal, a still rough proposal that calls on the U.S. government to come to the belated rescue of the planet with the same sense of urgency that it displayed in rescuing the economy during the Great Depression. To Gorka, such a proposal is a communist “watermelon”: “green on the outside, deep, deep red communist on the inside.”

The President, who dismisses climate change as “a Chinese hoax,” also waxed derisive at cpac. “New Green Deal or whatever they hell they call it . . . I encourage it,” he said caustically, in a sweaty, two-hour rant on Saturday. “I think it’s really something Democrats should promote. . . . No planes! No energy! When the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric. ‘Darling, is the wind blowing today? I’d like to watch television, darling.’ ”

The focus of this fear campaign, the nexus of all danger, is a member of Congress who has been in office for two months: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, at twenty-nine, represents parts of the Bronx and Queens. With Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, she is a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. Because she questions our habits of fossil-fuel consumption and industrial agriculture, her opponents reason, she can’t possibly be trying to head off global catastrophe. She just wants to steal your Chevy Colorado and your Big Mac.

“Apparently, I am a cow dictator,” Ocasio-Cortez told me. “What’s humorous to me is that we’re finally proposing a clear, ambitious, but necessary and grounded policy on the scale of the problem. And so it’s hard for the Republicans to refute the actual policy on its substance. They resort to mythologizing it on a ludicrous level. Ted Cruz says we want to ‘kill all the cows.’ How far have we slid in our discourse? But that’s what half our political representation is up to.”

Ocasio-Cortez upset a veteran of her own party in a primary race, and came to office as an unabashed idealist. The mocking attacks have been a constant on the right ever since. There are phony memes about her clothes, her makeup, her intellect, her boyfriend, her apartment building, her childhood, her high school, her relatives, her old nickname, her dance routine from her days at Boston University. There is a creepy dimension to some of them. A nude selfie made its way through social media—until it was unmasked as a fraud.

Members of the Republican caucus have been no more welcoming. As Ocasio-Cortez rose to cast her vote for Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, Republicans booed. In the cartoon being painted of her, Ocasio-Cortez is both ideologically monstrous and intellectually limited. “Every time she opens her mouth, I think she’s kidding,” Jerry Falwell, Jr., the evangelical leader and president of Liberty University, told the delegates at cpac. Ed Rollins, an old Reagan adviser who appears frequently on Fox News, referred to her as a “little girl.” On Fox, mispronouncing “Ocasio-Cortez” is considered hilarious.

“It feels like an extra job,” she said of the attacks. “I’ve got a full-time job in Congress and then I moonlight as America’s greatest villain, or as the new hope. And it’s pretty tiring. I’m just a normal person. I knew that I was not going to be liked. I’m a Democrat. I’m a woman. I’m a young woman. A Latina. And I’m a liberal, a D.S.A. member,” she said, referring to the Democratic Socialists of America. “I believe health care is a right and people should be paid enough to live. Those are offensive values to them. But this ravenous hysteria—it’s really getting to a level that is kind of out of control. It’s dangerous and even scary. I have days when it seems some people want to stoke just enough of it to have just enough plausible deniability if something happens to me.”

The Trump family has attacked her from the start. Because she had the D.S.A.’s endorsement, last December, Donald Trump, Jr., posted a joke on Instagram about how in socialist countries people eat their dogs rather than walk them. (“It’s funny cuz it’s true!!!” he wrote.) Ocasio-Cortez’s office had no comment, but she did, tweeting, “Please, keep it coming Jr—it’s definitely a ‘very, very large brain’ idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month.”

In fact, last week, in her first major appearance as a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Ocasio-Cortez approached the job of interrogating Michael Cohen with care. Republicans have accused her of being a knowledge-lite performer whose only talent is a mastery of Twitter. But, while most of the Republican committee members and even a few Democrats put on laughably self-regarding performances, Ocasio-Cortez followed a line of questioning that helped tease out important facts and responses from Cohen. Thanks in part to that exchange, we can expect to hear from some essential characters from Trump Tower, Misters Weisselberg and Calamari.

Ocasio-Cortez says that she has tried to keep her focus partly by avoiding watching Trump on television: “He relies and thrives on attention, and so the less attention he’s given, even if it’s just one set of eyeballs, the weaker he is.” She said that watching Trump in the House chamber at the State of the Union address made her feel “sick” and “underwhelmed.”

“He is such a small, mediocre person,” she told me. “I grew up with a real romanticism about America. I grew up in a first-generation household where your parents give up everything, and for me America was the greatest thing ever to exist. To be there on the floor of the House was beyond anything my parents would have ever dreamed of. But the person behind the podium was so unskilled. It was kind of sad.”

Ocasio-Cortez has proposed a set of left-leaning ideas: Medicare for All, a seventy-per-cent tax rate on income above ten million dollars, a guaranteed living wage. At first, she seemed to unnerve Democratic leaders. She supported and appeared at a sit-in outside Nancy Pelosi’s office with an environmental group, the Sunrise Movement. Pelosi was unamused and later referred dismissively to the Green New Deal as a “dream.”

But that was weeks ago. Pelosi has found a modus operandi with Ocasio-Cortez, and posed with her (along with Representives Jahana Hayes and Ilhan Omar) for the cover of Rolling Stone. The idea of a Green New Deal has won endorsement from Democratic Presidential candidates (Harris, Warren, Sanders, Booker, Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Inslee) and a growing number of senators and congressmen. Of course, it is not entirely clear, in detailed legislative terms, what exactly they are endorsing. In general, the idea is to pour government money into transforming the economy in ways that might head off the worst of climate change. At this point, the most salient feature of the proposal is a sense of urgency, its conversation-changing radicalism.

There is enormous value in that. So far, moderation has done nothing to override denialism. In an interview after her primary win, Ocasio-Cortez told me that one of the books she read in college that influenced her most was Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s “Why We Can’t Wait,” which includes his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” There King wrote, “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”

“I think King had a point,” she told me.

Moderation, to say nothing of science denial on the right, has certainly done far too little to head off the catastrophic effects promised by climate change in our time. Just before Ocasio-Cortez won her seat, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that, if carbon emissions continue to rise as they are, the world will soon experience immense destabilization, with cities and regions with intolerable temperatures creating tens of millions of “climate refugees” forced to escape spreading deserts. Unique ecosystems and entire species will vanish. The Great Barrier Reef, already in dire condition, will die. Whole industries, like fishing, will diminish enormously. We have already seen the rise of extreme storms, floods, heat waves, wildfires. The window for meaningful change is closing. “The next few years are probably the most important in our history,” Debra Roberts, the co-chair of one of the I.P.C.C.’s three working groups, has said.

There is no question that the Green New Deal is more substantial in its sense of urgency and ambition than it is in its fine-grained detail. But what has the Republican Party offered, other than a phony restitution of a coal economy and a withdrawal from the Paris climate accord? The recent spectacle of a powerful Democrat like Dianne Feinstein dismissing a group of earnest schoolchildren and students imploring her to support a Green New Deal was maddening to watch. “I know what I’m doing!” she told the kids.

Agree with Ocasio-Cortez’s solutions or not, it’s to her credit that, in such a short time, she has helped change the terms of the debate. “Radicalism pushes the bonds of what liberals will jump on board with,” Saikat Chakrabarti, the representative’s chief of staff, said. “Every major social movement has worked that way.”

The Republican strategy—to brand the Democratic Party and its 2020 nominee, no matter who it is, a harebrained revolutionary—comes from a familiar playbook. Obama was routinely branded a socialist, even a Kenyan socialist, by the far-right opposition. This time around, Donald Trump, as he made clear in his State of the Union Address, will try to hang “socialism” around the neck of the Democratic Party and describe the Democratic candidate as the second coming of Kim Jong Un. But wait! The President “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un. Whatever. That will surely be the move, and Ocasio-Cortez, who is six years short of eligibility for the Presidency, will surely be a focal point of Trump’s tantrums.

Why? Well, first of all, she comes from New York, but not Trump’s New York. She grew up without great privilege. She is a person of color. And she is a woman. And, “In politics,” as Ashley Reese wrote for Jezebel, “women are often either characterized as hideous harpies like Hillary Clinton or pretty idiots whose ‘craziness’ is bound up with their sex appeal. . . . To her critics, Ocasio-Cortez is firmly in the pretty idiot category.”

When I read that to Ocasio-Cortez, she could only agree. “I feel like I predicted it from day one,” she told me. “The idea that a woman can be as powerful as a man is something that our society can’t deal with. But I am as powerful as a man and it drives them crazy.”

Was that the case with Trump? I asked.

“I can see Trump being enormously upset that a twenty-nine-year-old Latina, who is the daughter of a domestic worker, is helping to build the case to get his financial records. I think that adds insult to injury to him.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s staff members say that they often debate whether she is overexposed—if she is taking on too much or getting too far out ahead of the debate. So far, despite the occasional stumble and the endless attacks, she’s decided that the time demands a headlong direction. “When there is a fire, there are the people who run toward the fire and people who run away,” she told me last year. “I want to be with the people who run toward it.”

When I recalled that line, Ocasio-Cortez said, “It still feels terrifying every time. I am trying to pick my battles, but, until there are more people running toward the fire, it’s hard to take a break. The good news is that there seems like more people are running toward the fire. It’s scary running into a burning building. But what is the choice? It can’t be understated how imperilled our democracy is right now.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-co ... hamburgers

<3



Did Trump interfere in case over AT&T, Time Warner merger?

By Steve Benen

03/04/19 10:51 AM—UPDATED 03/04/19 10:53 AM

Just two weeks before Election Day in 2016, Donald Trump decided to weigh in publicly on a proposed corporate merger. “AT&T is buying Time Warner, and thus CNN,” the Republican told a Pennsylvania audience. He quickly added that this was a merger “we will not approve in my administration.”

About a year later, however, the president told reporters he would not “get involved” in the litigation.

It was against this backdrop that the Justice Department did, in fact, try to stop the corporate merger – not because of the president’s petty preoccupation with CNN, which is owned by Time Warner, but because of the nation’s anti-trust laws.

At least, that’s the official story. Jane Mayer covers an enormous amount of important ground in her new piece for the New Yorker, but of particular interest was her reporting on Trump’s behind-the-scenes efforts in this case.

*n the late summer of 2017, a few months before the Justice Department filed suit, Trump ordered Gary Cohn, then the director of the National Economic Council, to pressure the Justice Department to intervene. According to a well-informed source, Trump called Cohn into the Oval Office along with John Kelly, who had just become the chief of staff, and said in exasperation to Kelly, “I’ve been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened! I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”

Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs, evidently understood that it would be highly improper for a President to use the Justice Department to undermine two of the most powerful companies in the country as punishment for unfavorable news coverage, and as a reward for a competing news organization that boosted him. According to the source, as Cohn walked out of the meeting he told Kelly, “Don’t you f***ing dare call the Justice *Department. We are not going to do business that way.”

It’s possible, of course, that Justice Department officials would’ve filed the case anyway. What’s more, there’s no reason to see the larger issue through a partisan or ideological lens: the merger has been panned by many on the left over concerns about corporate consolidations.

But if Jane Mayer’s reporting is correct – it hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News – the underlying revelation points to yet another instance in which Trump tried to abuse the powers of his office in a flagrant, and perhaps even dangerous, way. When Richard Nixon tried to use federal agencies to target his perceived domestic enemies, he was forced from office in disgrace.

Indeed, if the president did try to intervene he may have been driven by petty contempt for a news organization, or possibly by a desire to help Rupert Murdoch’s rival media empire. Neither explanation, however, casts Trump in a favorable light.

When then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was asked under oath whether the president intervened in merger discussions, he wouldn’t answer. Six months later, in May 2018, Rudy Giuliani said that Trump “denied the merger” between AT&T and Time Warner, but the presidential attorney walked this back soon after.

I’m also reminded of this TPM report from a year ago this week:

*A group of former Justice Department officials is raising concerns that President Trump may have influenced the department’s decision to block AT&T’s merger with Time Warner to punish Time-Warner-owned CNN for its news coverage.

Such politically-motivated interference would be unconstitutional, the former officials said in an amicus brief filed Thursday night in the lawsuit filed by DOJ to block the merger. It would also be part of a pattern of Trump appearing to use the DOJ to try to advance his political agenda.

“President Trump has urged a criminal investigation of his political rivals; he has suggested that he can instruct the Department to halt investigations into his associates; and he has claimed an ‘absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,’” the filing reads.

“The president neither has the absolute right to do what he wants with the Justice Department nor the constitutional authority to punish a news *organization for its critical coverage,” it adds.

We didn’t need fresh questions about Trump corruption, but we appear to have some anyway.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... rger#break

<4



Trump tries to blame Democrats for his failed North Korea talks

By Steve Benen

03/04/19 09:20 AM—UPDATED 03/04/19 01:40 PM

When Donald Trump canceled military training exercises with our South Korean allies last year, it was a tough decision to defend. It appeared that the American president had just handed a generous gift to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in exchange for nothing, which Trump made worse by echoing the dictatorship’s rhetoric.

The Republican later emphasized the cost savings, which didn’t make any sense.

It was not, however, a one-time change. NBC News reported the other day that the annual large-scale joint exercises conducted with South Korea every spring “will no longer be held.” Over the weekend, Trump defended the shift in American policy by arguing, among other things, that “reducing tensions with North Korea at this time is a good thing!”

In other words, U.S. national security policy is being shaped by the president’s desire to make North Korea happy – making this another victory for the rogue dictatorship, which the White House appears to have offered in exchange for nothing.

But that’s not all the Republican said on the matter over the weekend.

*President Trump said Sunday that the congressional testimony of Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer and fixer, was in part responsible for the collapse in negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear program last week – continuing to vent about the investigations encircling him and his associates. […]

“For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the ‘walk,’ ” he tweeted. “Never done when a president is overseas. *Shame!”

Even for Trump, this is rather pitiful.

To hear the American president tell it, congressional oversight may have “contributed” to Trump’s inability to negotiate a deal with his pal in Pyongyang. In reality, Trump’s failures are his own.

As for his belief that last week’s hearing was somehow unprecedented, plenty of modern presidents have traveled abroad during congressional oversight hearings – it’s not like Republicans stopped pursuing Benghazi conspiracy theories when Barack Obama boarded Air Force One – but we haven’t heard Trump’s predecessors blame lawmakers when they failed to reach international agreements.

So what are we left with? A scandal-plagued American president, looking for someone to blame for his latest diplomatic failure, making new concessions to a rogue dictator who’s getting a lot more than he’s giving.

It’s not a good look.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... alks#break

<5



FULL CIRCLE

The Guy Trump Called ‘Fat Jerry’ Is Chairman Nadler Now

The congressman who stood his ground against the developer in New York is up against the president in Washington now.



Michael Daly

03.05.19 4:55 AM ET

Long before there was Crooked Hillary and Lyin’ Ted, there was Fat Jerry.

That 1995 bit of name-calling by Donald Trump was aimed at Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the Democrat from New York who now serves as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

The insult may not make much sense to those who have begun taking notice of Nadler only now that he has sent out more than 80 letters to individuals and entities asking for a wide range of documents relating to their dealings with Trump.

But the present Nadler is a person transformed since he underwent stomach-reduction surgery in 2001 and shed more than 100 pounds. He had been noshing himself toward a peak weight of 328 pounds back when he first roused Trump’s ire.

Their original object of contention was Television City, a metropolis within a metropolis that Trump proposed on a 52-acre tract he acquired on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 1980s. The initial plan was for eight towers and 5,700 apartments, as well as television and movie studios.

Nadler met with Trump as the state assemblyman who then represented the area. Trump excitedly told him that the centerpiece would be a 150-story building, the tallest in the world. The lower floors were to be NBC’s new headquarters. Trump would of course occupy a palatial penthouse apartment at the very top.

“Above the clouds,” he told Nadler.

“New Yorkers want the tallest building,” Trump also said. “And so do I.”

Nadler was more of the opinion that New Yorkers wanted an affordable apartment. He opposed Trump’s project, viewing it as a neighborhood-destroyer. Enough of the neighborhood agreed with him that he was elected to Congress after the incumbent, Rep. Ted Weiss, died the day before the primary in 1992.

Mayor Ed Koch had also opposed the project and thought he had killed it when he used generous tax abatements such as Trump had wanted for Television City to convince NBC to remain at Rockefeller Center. Koch engaged in a bit of name-calling himself as he made clear his feelings regarding Trump.

“Piggy! Piggy! Piggy!” Koch said.

Whatever else Trump might have been, he was also determined. He nixed the world’s tallest building and reduced the number of apartments planned to 4,000. But, lest anyone think he was defeated, he changed the name of the project from Television City to Trump City. He changed it again to Riverside South as he sought to finance the project with a $356 million low-interest loan guaranteed by a federal program designed to generate low- and moderate-income housing.

The Housing and Urban Development inspector general issued a 1997 report that called the proposed financing into question. The IG noted that more than 80 percent of the apartments in the Trump project would be affordable only to upper-income individuals.

“Trump’s mortgage guaranty application is purely a ploy to get taxpayers to foot the bill for his luxury housing mega-development,” Nadler said in a statement.

The IG also noted that Trump’s application for mortgage insurance had been refused because the collateral he put up included land that had been promised to the city as a park in an effort to sell the proposal.

“I congratulate HUD for piercing one of Trump’s many scams,” Nadler was quoted saying.

Nadler was joined by Sen. John McCain in opposing the financing. McCain gave a speech from the Senate floor that may have still rankled Trump in 2016. Maybe the truth is that Trump likes war heroes who don’t challenge one of his scams.

“The Department of Housing and Urban Development is processing an application from a team of developers, headed by the venerable Donald Trump,” McCain began.

McCain noted that the loan guarantee would entitle Trump to “a vast array of municipal tax benefits, which one group calculates to be in the range of nearly $4.5 million per ‘needy’ individual assisted.”

“Not exactly what most Americans would consider cost-effective use of government assistance,” McCain said. “I certainly have nothing against luxury apartments nor do I have anything against very successful project developers, including Mr. Trump. I do object, however, to asking the taxpayer to bear the risk of a development for one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs in the country, to help finance a project that will predominantly benefit upper-income Americans.”

McCain noted, “Congressman Nadler, who represents the area in the House and who is a member on the other side of the aisle, does not consider the area around the development site to be blighted and he opposes the project.”

McCain went on, a principled conservative Republican expressing an opinion he shared with the ultra-liberal Nadler: “The Donald Trumps of the world can more than afford to bear the risk of their endeavors, and should not be indemnified with taxpayer dollars.”

By that point, Trump had already gone into multiple corporate bankruptcies. He was rescued from personal bankruptcy when a Hong Kong group led by the Cheng family provided the needed financing.

But Trump was not done with seeking public funds. He sought to have taxpayers spend $350 million to move the West Side Highway so that it no longer ran between his development site and the Hudson River. Nadler was among those who noted that this same stretch of highway had just undergone a $70 million renovation.

“It’s a sin against taxpayers,” Nadler said, terming the proposed highway project “a pork barrel boondoggle.”

Nadler introduced and single-handedly marshaled legislation that ruled out any federal funding for the project beyond what had already been allocated for a feasibility study.

Trump responded with name-calling and spin.

“Fat Jerry Nadler is doing me a favor,” he said. “He’s too stupid to realize it. He’s making me a lot of money.”

Trump argued that moving the highway to allow direct access to the waterfront would have only been a concession to the community and not an effort to make his property more appealing and therefore valuable. He said the highway as presently located would accord a fortune in free advertising once the project was built.

“I have to say we get a bigger benefit from leaving the highway where it is, because when cars go by they will look at our masterpiece,” Trump was quoted saying.

But Trump did not yet have a base that let him name-call with impunity. And, being a mix of every possible kind of person, New York prizes fairness and tolerance more than most places.

Trump ended up saying he had only referred to Nadler as “Fat Jerry” out of concern for his health.

“I did it for a reason,” he told the New York Daily News. “I really feel that whatever can inspire him to go out and lose that tremendous amount of weight should be done.”

Trump continued, “To be honest with you, he’s a walking time bomb and if I can convince him to put himself, not in great, but in reasonable shape, I’m doing great service to him and his family.”

And people say Trump is devoid of empathy!

Surely, only modesty prevented him from claiming credit when Nadler had the weight-reduction surgery.

In the meantime, construction had begun on a scaled-down version of Television City, turned Trump City, turned Riverside South. Trump only owned 30 percent of it, but three of the buildings were emblazoned with words that made you think otherwise.

“TRUMP PLACE”

The developer who had once spoken of living above the clouds now sought to draw attention to his far more modest development by hiring magician David Blaine to spend seven days buried alive in a water-filled coffin at Trump Place. Some 75,000 are said to have come to gawk. Blaine afterward reported having a vision that was very New York as Nadler knows the city, but very un-Trumpian.

“Every race, every religion, every age group banding together,” Blaine exulted.

Nadler never responded to Trump’s name-calling, but you can be sure he never forgot it.

And now, Fat Jerry has a new name whose ramifications Trump is only beginning to learn.

Chairman Nadler.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-and ... r?ref=home

<6



1. KEEP IT SECRET

Military Academy Buried Trump’s Academic Records: WaPo

2 HOURS AGO 3.5.19

President Trump's wealthy friends and fellow alumni of the New York Military Academy reportedly told the superintendent of the school to bury his academic records after he challenged Barack Obama to release his in 2011. The Washington Post reports the alumni told then-superintendent Jeffrey Coverdale to hand over Trump's records, but Coverdale said he refused. Instead, he took the records and secured them so no one else could have access. “I moved them elsewhere on campus where they could not be released,” he was quoted as saying. “It’s the only time I ever moved an alumnus’s records.” At the time, Trump was reportedly considering challenging Obama in 2012 and had suggested that Obama was not qualified to attend Columbia or Harvard—where he went to undergrad and law school. According to the Post, Trump even said he'd donate $5 million to charity if Obama would release his college transcripts. Trump has reportedly boasted about his academic success, although he never released any records to back those claims up. Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney, told Congress last week that the president had previously ordered him “to threaten his high school, his colleges and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/military- ... cords-wapo

<7



Cummings blasts White House for failing to comply with security clearance probe

BY MORGAN CHALFANT - 03/05/19 03:00 PM EST

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Tuesday criticized the White House for failing to comply with requests for documents and interviews in connection with his panel’s probe into the Trump administration’s security clearance process.

Cummings, who said he would consult committee lawmakers to “determine our next steps” to obtain those materials, also released a new letter written by White House counsel Pat Cipollone in which he accused the committee of making “unprecedented and extraordinarily intrusive demands” in the course of its probe.

Cipollone also argued that the committee was overstepping its oversight powers with the requests, writing that the “decision to grant or deny a security clearance is a discretionary function that belongs exclusively to the Executive Branch.”

Cummings on Tuesday blasted the White House counsel’s argument as “[defying] the Constitutional separation of powers, decades of precedent before this Committee, and just plain common-sense.”

“The White House appears to be arguing that Congress has no authority to examine decisions by the Executive Branch that impact our national security — even when the President’s former National Security Advisor has pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with foreign government officials,” Cummings said.

“There is a key difference between a president who exercises his authority under the Constitution and a president who overrules career experts and his top advisors to benefit his family members and then conceals his actions from the American people,” the top Democrat said.

Tuesday's developments represent an escalation in the battle between the White House and one of multiple Democratic-led probes in the House. They also raise the possibility that Cummings could look to subpoena the administration for the documents and interviews in order to force its compliance.

Cummings did not specifically raise the possibility of a subpoena but said ominously, “I will be consulting with Members of the Committee to determine our next steps.”

Cummings first announced the expansive investigation into security clearances issued to President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and other top White House officials on Jan. 23. That same day, he asked the White House for a trove of documents related to security clearances and background investigations of top White House officials by Feb. 6. He also sought the White House’s cooperation in scheduling transcribed interviews with staff working in the personnel security office beginning the week of Feb. 11.

Cummings accused the White House of stonewalling the probe on Friday and imposed a Monday deadline for the Trump administration to respond to the committee’s probe.

Cummings also released written correspondence between his committee and Cipollone in which the White House counsel wrote that the executive branch was “committed to accommodating legitimate requests for information” but argued that there are “limits” on the authority Congress has to conduct oversight of decisions regarding security clearances within the executive office of the president.

Cipollone expanded on his argument in the March 4 letter released by Cummings on Tuesday. In it, Cipollone claimed that the committee, “has failed to point to any authority establishing a legitimate legislative purpose for the Committee’s unprecedented and extraordinarily intrusive demands—including the demand to examine the entire investigative files of numerous individuals whom the President has chosen as his senior advisors."

“Although we are prepared to continue negotiations in good faith, the Committee seeks unilateral concessions without any offer of accommodation on its part, and then complains that the White House has refused to simply turn over everything the Committee inappropriately seeks,” Cipollone wrote in the correspondence.

“These actions suggest that the Committee is not interested in proper oversight, but rather seeks information that it knows cannot be provided consistent with applicable law,” he wrote.

The security clearance investigation is one of several congressional probes that the White House is contending with from the Democratic-controlled House.

On Monday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) unveiled a sprawling probe into allegations of obstruction, abuses of power and public corruption by Trump, sending document requests to dozens of associates of the president, executive branch agencies and private organizations.

Trump has blasted the probes as “Presidential Harassment” and on Tuesday signaled the White House will not comply with a barrage of congressional investigations.

“It's a disgrace to our country. I'm not surprised that it's happening. Basically, they've started the campaign. So the campaign begins,” Trump told reporters after signing an executive order on veterans’ suicide prevention at the White House.

“Instead of doing infrastructure, instead of doing health care, instead of doing so many things that they should be doing, they want to play games,” Trump added.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-sec ... h-security

<8



WHITE HOUSE

Christie: Trump family's lack of honesty about security clearances is 'not defensible'

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO 03/04/2019 10:19 AM EST

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday that the White House’s lack of transparency surrounding security clearances for President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, is indefensible.

Christie, a frequent defender of Trump on cable TV who came close to being his pick for vice president in 2016, said that last week’s reporting by The New York Times that Trump went against legal advice and ordered Kushner be given a security clearance — in contradiction with statements by the president and his daughter — “make it very, very difficult” for Trump’s allies to defend him.

The Times reported that Trump’s decision to override flags raised by intelligence officials during Kushner’s background check unnerved then-chief of staff John Kelly and then-White House counsel Don McGahn, who both memorialized the incident.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Christie said that the Times’ report underscores the issue with Trump’s decision to bring on family members for official positions in the White House, like Ivanka Trump and her husband's roles as senior advisers. And he allowed that Trump has the right to award a security clearance to whomever he wants, though he argued the president “needs to be held to account for that.”

But, he said, “If The New York Times story is true — and I have not reason to believe it isn't — then why not tell the truth about it?” Christie asked. “Why not just say I did it, and why wouldn't Ivanka do the same? Just say, ‘Listen, my father thinks I'm trustworthy. My husband is trustworthy. He's made the decision we should have access, he’s said needs us to consult with him on these issues of foreign policy and intelligence.’”

In an interview with the Times earlier this year, the president unambiguously denied intervening in the clearance process on behalf of his son-in-law. And just last month, Ivanka Trump did the same, telling “The View” co-host Abby Huntsman that her father had “zero” involvement in the clearance process for the couple.

A spokesperson for Kushner's lawyer pleaded ignorance to the claims in the Times report, arguing last week that when Kushner finally received his clearance, "White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone." They asserted that "new stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time."

Christie said Thursday the discrepancies exposed by the Times story would end up causing the president more political trouble down the road but in the meantime, he bemoaned the squeeze Trump’s opaqueness put on his surrogates.

“For those of us who are out here at times defending the president and what goes on, moments like what happened Thursday night when that New York Times story broke make it very, very difficult, because you can't defend that,” he said. “Now, some people try to defend it. I won't try to defend it. It's not defensible. You need to tell the American people the truth about what happened here.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/ ... es-1201280

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U.S. NEWS

Trump's decision to withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership could cost farmers $1.8B

ByJessie Higgins

MARCH 5, 2019 / 4:44 PM

EVANSVILLE, Ind., March 5 (UPI) -- The Trump administration's decision to walk away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement in March 2018 will cost farmers nearly $2 billion annually, according to a new Purdue University study.

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership could have been big," said Wallace Tyner, an agricultural economist at Purdue who co-authored the study. "But we're out of it now."

That trade agreement was signed March by 11 countries, including some of America's closest trading partners -- Canada, Mexico and Japan. Had the United States joined those countries, farmers would have gained $2.9 billion in annual exports, according to the study.

The U.S. initiated talks that eventually led to the creation of the TTP in 2008 under the Bush administration. President Barack Obama continued the talks after taking office in 2009, and the 12 countries involved in the negotiations finally reached an agreement and signed a pact in 2016.

However, the agreement never was ratified by Congress, as it became a "target" during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

President Trump formally withdrew from the TTP when he took office in Jan. 2017.

Following this decision, agricultural groups all over the country voiced strong concern over the loss of Pacific rim trade partners, and urged Trump to continue working to establish trade agreements with those nations.

More than 100 agriculture groups sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer and members of Congress in February 2018 urging them to rejoin TPP.

"We believe there are compelling reasons to ensure that American farmers, ranchers, agribusinesses, retailers, workers and consumers benefit from the opportunities that exist in the Asia-Pacific region," the letter said.

"American food and agricultural producers and companies are facing significant barriers in these markets that could be addressed with the improved rules and higher standards through re-engagement with the TPP countries."

Trump's withdrawal from TPP was the first in a series of moves the president has made that restrict international trade.

A year later, he imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from key U.S. trading partners and began earnestly renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. Several months after that, he imposed billions of dollars of tariffs on Chinese imports.

"This is not the normal way of doing business," Tyner said. "What we're doing now is diplomacy by cannon fire."

U.S. agriculture has been particularly hard hit, he added.

The study also looked at the broad implications of all the U.S. various trade disputes -- including the possibility that Trump will pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico without Congress ratifying its replacement -- the new U.S. Mexico Canada trade agreement. Should that happen, the agricultural sector would lose a staggering $21.8 billion a year, researchers said.

"We did [the NAFTA study] because nobody's talking about it, and it's a real possibility," Tyner said. "It's hard to get Congress to agree on anything. And, if this happens, it will be a disaster."

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/03 ... 551815280/

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U.S. NEWS

Treasury chief Mnuchin asks Congress to raise U.S. debt ceiling

By Danielle Haynes

MARCH 5, 2019 / 2:56 PM

March 5 (UPI) -- Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin asked top lawmakers in Congress to raise the debt limit ceiling while his department enacts special accounting measures to avoid a default.

The debt ceiling -- preventing the United States from borrowing money internationally -- went back into effect this month after it was suspended for a full year.

In a letter sent Monday, Mnuchin said a debt issuance suspension period went into effect this week through June 5. Through the process, he said he's suspending investments in civil service retirement and federal employee funds to free up cash.

"I respectfully urge Congress to protect the full faith and credit of the United States by acting to increase the statutory debt limit as soon as possible," Mnuchin said in the letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and six other congressional leaders.

President Donald Trump signed a law in February 2018 that temporarily eliminated the statutory limit on the debt ceiling -- or the maximum amount of debt the Treasury Department can issue to the public or federal agencies. That suspension expired at midnight Friday.

The national debt reached $22.01 trillion in January, exceeding $22 trillion for the first time in history.

Although the United States has maxed out its borrowing limit, experts say it will be months before it really begins to hurt. The Congressional Budget Office said last week the United States in the interim can rely on "a large inflow of tax revenues" in April as well as extraordinary measures to continue financing federal activities for a few months.

Those measures will only net enough money for a short period of time. The CBO analysis predicted the Treasury, without a raise in the debt ceiling, will run out of money by the end of September.

Pushing up the debt ceiling would require acts of Congress, but analysts say neither chamber is expected to act anytime soon because, with the months-long fiscal buffer, there's no sense of urgency. Backlogs caused by the 35-day federal shutdown earlier this year also makes it unlikely lawmakers will address the issue for a while, experts say.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/03 ... 551811084/

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POLITICS

Trump to nominate federal prosecutor Jessie Liu for No. 3 Justice Department post

[ CHANGE IN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PERSONNEL; JESSE LIU WAS IN CHARGE OF ALL THE HIGH PROFILE CASES ON THE MUELLER PROBE AND TRUMP INVESTIGATION. JESSIE LIU WAS IN CHARGE; NOW SHE AIN'T! TRUMP CAN NOW REPLACE LIU WITH HIS OWN CHOICE.......KEEP AN EYE ON THIS SPACE !!!! ]

Sarah N. Lynch

MARCH 5, 2019 / 5:27 PM / UPDATED 43 MINUTES AGO

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump plans to nominate Jessie Liu, the current U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, to serve in the third-ranking post at the Justice Department, the department said on Tuesday.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Liu would serve as associate attorney general - a job that involves overseeing the department’s civil litigation, including antitrust matters, civil rights, and environmental law.

A White House representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. Attorney General William Barr confirmed the plan in a statement, adding that he had recommended Liu for the post.

“With her record of public service, particularly in civil justice and federal law enforcement matters, it is clear that she will be an outstanding addition to our leadership team at the Department,” Barr said.

The associate attorney general’s job at the Justice Department does not involve overseeing criminal cases or national security.

However, it became a focus of interest in February 2018 after then-Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand quit the job to take a position with Walmart.

At the time of her exit, she was next in the line of succession to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for oversight of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential collusion between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

At the time, speculation was high about whether Trump might try to fire Rosenstein in an effort to kill Mueller’s probe, a step Trump never took.

Brand’s departure came only nine months into her tenure, after Trump unleashed blistering attacks against many top Justice Department officials including former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired in 2017.

Reuters previously reported that Brand was starting to feel increasingly uncomfortable with Trump’s attacks on her department and the FBI.

Since her departure, the No. 3 post has been filled by Jesse Panuccio, who has not been confirmed by the Senate.

Liu has served as U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., since September 2017.

Prior to her confirmation, she acknowledged to U.S. senators that she had a rare in-person interview with Trump for the job. That is a departure from standard practice, and could become a focal point for Senate Democrats who raised concerns about whether it constituted improper meddling by the White House.

Liu’s office has been involved in some high-profile cases since she joined.

It has taken the lead on handling Mueller’s criminal case against former Trump political adviser Roger Stone, and convened a grand jury to investigate whether former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe should face criminal charges for lying to investigators about his interactions with reporters.

A lawyer for McCabe said late last month that investigation is still going on.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... QM2RH?il=0

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Photos taken just 2 days after the Trump-Kim Hanoi summit show rebuilding at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, North Korea's operational space launch facility.

By Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Andrea Mitchell

March 5, 2019, 5:26 PM CST / Updated March 5, 2019, 5:42 PM CST

WASHINGTON — North Korea is pursuing the "rapid rebuilding" of the long-range rocket site at Sohae Launch Facility, according to new commercial imagery and an analysis from the researchers at Beyond Parallel.

Sohae Satellite Launching Station, North Korea's only operational space launch facility, has been used in the past for satellite launches. These launches use similar technology to what is used for intercontinental ballistic missiles.

"This renewed activity, taken just two days after the inconclusive Hanoi Summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, may indicate North Korean plans to demonstrate resolve in the face of U.S. rejection of North Korea's demands at the summit to lift five U.N. Security Council sanctions enacted in 2016-2017," the analysts said. As NBC News reported, Beyond Parallel, a project sponsored by the defense think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, recently identified 20 undisclosed missile sites in North Korea.

Beyond Parallel reports the activity at Sohae, photographed March 2, is "evident at the vertical engine test stand and the launch pad's rail-mounted rocket transfer structure."

"The activity they are undertaking now is consistent with preparations for a test, though the imagery thus far does not show a missile being moved to the launch pad," Victor Cha, one of the authors of the report, said.

"The activity on the ground," Cha said, "shows us that they do have a (nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile) capability that is not just developmental, but in the prototype phase. They've already tested a few of these and it looks like they're preparing the launch pad for another act."

Asked for comment, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, "We don't comment on intelligence."


After the first summit between the two leaders in Singapore in June 2018, North Korea began to dismantle some facilities at Sohae. "The facility has been dormant since August 2018, indicating the current activity is deliberate and purposeful," the analysts said.

Other researchers have said that there has been continued low-level activity at the site in the interim, including an analysis from 38 North, which posted satellite photos from Oct. 31, 2018, showing new equipment being installed and "the continued presence and movement of vehicles" at several of the headquarters buildings.

The same day the satellite photos at Sohae were taken, Trump touted his talks with Kim in Hanoi as "very productive," saying the two leaders have "made great historic progress."

"But I had to walk," he said Saturday in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "Because every once in a while, you have to walk, because the deal wasn't a deal that was acceptable to me."

The president, however, said "the one thing we have, though, is we have no testing, no missiles going up, no rockets going up. No nuclear testing."

He said that before he started talking to Kim: "Mountains were being — these are big mountains. They were being shoved over three, four inches. People thought it was massive earthquakes, then they found out, no, that was nuclear weapons — nuclear testing. So much."

"We've made a lot of progress," Trump said. "In fact, when I came home, they put out a statement that, actually, they were willing to do much less on the sanction front. But you see, that's not what happened there."

At a news conference in Hanoi after the summit, Trump said he and Kim discussed the dismantling of Yongbyon, North Korea's major nuclear facility, and that the North Korean leader expressed a willingness to dismantle it.

"He would do that, but he wants the sanctions for that," Trump said. "There's plenty left after that. And I just felt it wasn't good," he said, adding, "That facility, while very big, it wasn't enough."

"We had to have more than that," he said.

Trump said he wanted Kim to take steps on other elements of North Korea's program that the U.S. had discovered, including a second uranium enrichment plant.

"And we brought many, many points up that I think they were surprised that we knew," he said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that "even the Yongbyon facility and all of its scope — which is important, for sure — still leaves missiles, still leaves warheads and weapons systems. So there's a lot of other elements that we just couldn't get to."

Trump has questioned U.S. intelligence on North Korea’s ballistic missile program since the early days of his presidency, according to former FBI Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe wrote in a new book that during a briefing with intelligence officials in July 2017, Trump expressed doubt about their assessment that North Korea was capable of reaching the U.S. with a ballistic missile. Trump told the officials that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him North Korea doesn’t have such capabilities, and that he believes Putin, according to McCabe.

Trump has sharply criticized McCabe, saying his book is littered with lies.

During his news conference in Hanoi last Thursday, Trump appeared to question the intelligence on North Korea again. Asked about North Korea expanding its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in recent months, Trump said "some people are saying that and some people aren’t.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-kore ... ow-n979721

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Tuesday's Mini-Report, 3.5.19

By Steve Benen

Today's edition of quick hits:

* A new line of inquiry: "New York State regulators have issued an expansive subpoena to the Trump Organization's longtime insurance broker, the first step in an investigation of insurance policies and claims involving President Trump's family business, according to a person briefed on the matter."

* The FDA chief recently said he wouldn't quit, which makes me wonder what changed his mind: "Food and Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who used his post to tackle difficult public health issues from youth vaping to opioid addiction – surprising early skeptics worried about his drug industry ties – resigned Tuesday, effective in about a month, according to an administration official."

* More evidence that deserves to be taken seriously: "The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine isn't associated with an increased risk of autism, even among kids who are at high risk because they have a sibling with the disorder, a Danish study suggests."

* Post-Snowden: "The National Security Agency has quietly shut down a system that analyzes logs of Americans' domestic calls and texts, according to a senior Republican congressional aide, halting a program that has touched off disputes about privacy and the rule of law since the Sept. 11 attacks."

* Not surprising: "New Attorney General William Barr will maintain oversight of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and not recuse himself as his predecessor did, a Justice Department spokeswoman said Tuesday."

* Fallout from Khashoggi's murder: "Senate Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee appeared dissatisfied with a Trump administration briefing Monday on the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi."


White House's Sanders struggles to defend Trump on the substance, too

By Steve Benen 03/05/19 03:07PM

Among the striking developments in Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony last week was the Republicans’ reluctance to defend Donald Trump on the merits. GOP members of the House Oversight Committee were eager to tear down the president’s former fixer, but they avoided the issue of Trump’s innocence or guilt.

It didn’t look great for the White House. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said during the hearing, “The interesting thing is there hasn’t been one Republican who’s tried to defend the president on the substance. And I think that’s something that should be concerning to the White House. Why are no Republicans standing up and defending the president on the substance?”

An unnamed senior House Republican told the Washington Post soon after, “Truthfully, it is tough to ignore some of the gross immoral behavior by the president. The reason there was no defense is because there is no defense.”

It’s against this backdrop that the House Judiciary Committee has begun an expansive investigation into Trump World abuses, prompting White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to release a rather intemperate written statement last night:

*“Today, Chairman Nadler opened up a disgraceful and abusive investigation into tired, false allegations already investigated by the Special Counsel and committees in both Chambers of Congress. Chairman Nadler and his fellow Democrats have embarked on this fishing expedition because they are terrified that their two-year false narrative of ‘Russia collusion’ is crumbling.

“Their intimidation and abuse of American citizens is shameful. Democrats are harassing the President to distract from their radical agenda of making America a socialist country, killing babies after they’re born, and pushing a ‘green new deal’ that would destroy jobs and bankrupt America.

“The American people deserve a Congress that works with the President to address serious issues like immigration, healthcare, and infrastructure. The Democrats are more interested in pathetic political games and catering to a radical, leftist base than on producing results for our citizens. The *Democrats are not after the truth, they are after the President.”

Right off the bat, the statement is reminiscent of the Republicans’ response to Cohen. Note that there’s not much here in the way of a defense: Sanders makes a passing reference to the allegations against the president being “false,” but that’s literally one word in a 152-word statement.

As Vox’s Aaron Rupar noted, “Sanders, notably, isn’t defending Trump by arguing he did nothing wrong. Instead, she’s throwing up a lightning rod issue to distract from the larger point of accountability of the president.”

Indeed, she threw up several lightning-rod issues, all of which were based on errors of fact and judgment.

Sanders said the Judiciary Committee’s lines of inquiry are already being examined by Robert Mueller, but that’s not true. She said the investigation into the Russia scandal is “crumbling,” but that’s not true. She said Dems intend to create a “socialist country,” which is both wrong and silly. She said Dems support infanticide, which is needlessly incendiary and factually ridiculous.

And Sanders said Congress should be focused on the substance of governing, which is kind of hilarious given everything we’ve seen from this White House for the last 26 months, and overlooks the fact that meaningful oversight of the executive is substantive governing.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... -too#break

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