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(CNN)The New York attorney general’s office announced a comprehensive amended lawsuit Thursday against six opioid manufacturers, one of America’s richest families and four opioid distributors as the opioid abuse epidemic rages.
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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/28/health/new-york-attorney-general-opioid-sackler-family-sued/index.html
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declined Thursday to take up an appeal challenging a federal ban on bump stocks that went into effect Tuesday.
After the Trump administration outlawed the devices — which allow rifles to be fired rapidly — owners, dealers and manufacturers were required to destroy them by midnight Monday or turn them into a local office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Federal authorities estimated that half a million were sold in the United States.
Bump stocks figured prominently in the 2017 mass shooting at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and wounded 500 others. Of 22 semiautomatic rifles in the hotel room used by the gunman, 14 were equipped with bump stocks, prompting President Donald Trump to push for a ban.
Gun rights groups filed two separate Supreme Court appeals. One, directed to Chief Justice John Roberts, was rejected Tuesday. A second, filed with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, was turned down Thursday after she referred it to the full court. In both decisions, the court gave no explanation, following its usual procedure.
A lawsuit challenging the ban remains before a federal court in Washington. The two Supreme Court appeals sought a temporary halt to the ban while the lower court case was pending.
Once attached to a rifle in place of the normal stock or end piece, bump stocks allow rounds to be fired in quick succession, almost as fast as an automatic weapon. The Trump administration concluded that they violated a federal law banning machine guns, defined as weapons that automatically fire more than one shot “with a single function of the trigger.”
An ATF spokesman declined Thursday to say how many bump stocks were surrendered before the ban went into effect, adding that the agency “does not feel the number turned in is an accurate depiction, because there were alternative methods of disposal.” However, local ATF offices around the country said very few were turned in.
An exception was in the state of Washington, where 1,000 were turned over to the state patrol. Each person surrendering a bump stock received $150 under a state buyback program.
Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rejects-effort-stop-trump-s-ban-rapid-fire-n988566
Until Jan. 24th, President Trump led the world in supporting Venezuelan human rights and that nation’s legitimate president, Juan Guaido.
But from the day after he recognized Guaido’s presidency until now, Trump’s policy has been defined by far too much rhetoric and far too little action. As with former President Barack Obama’s policy on Syria, Trump’s Venezuela policy is heading for disaster. Like Syria, it will be a disaster that matches grotesque humanitarian suffering to gutted American credibility.
Trump’s problem became clear again on Wednesday, when he met with Guaido’s wife at the White House. Trump offered vocal support to Guaido, and warned that “Russia has to get out” of Venezuela. But where it matters most, in pledges of major action, Trump once again offered nothing. It’s a big problem.
For a start, empty threats are no good against Vladimir Putin. Trump’s Wednesday threat was empty — hence what we’re seeing in Venezuela right now, where Russian military advance forces are arriving, almost certainly alongside other elements of Russian power. The parallels between Putin’s Venezuela deployment and his Syria deployment are striking.
In 2015, Putin came to understand that Obama’s lofty moral rhetoric on Syria existed in a vacuum of serious action. Obama refused to support the more moderate elements of the Syrian rebellion just at the moment Bashar Assad was weakest. And Putin took notice: He sent his military in to gut the rebellion, Syria’s civilian population, and U.S. interests. In 2019, Putin sees Trump’s lofty rhetoric on Venezuela matched with no action when action is needed most. Thus Russia, which would utterly fail to contest the U.S. in Venezuela were the U.S. acting seriously, is seizing the moment to save its ally, Nicolas Maduro.
Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo have got to wake up. They talk the talk, but they are most certainly not walking the walk.
Guaido’s request for a U.S.-led embargo on Maduro’s oil theft has been ignored. And Trump has rejected severe sanctions against Maduro, his cronies, and his military supporters. Don’t tell me the sanctions that the Treasury Department announces every couple of days are sufficient. They are not.
But in Venezuela, the reality is blinding: The humanitarian catastrophe is set to spiral into a truly nightmarish dystopia. And if Trump thinks his words and Venezuelan suffering will persuade Putin to be tougher on Maduro, he’s delusional. As in Syria, the Russians will do exactly the opposite. As in Aleppo, they will make the humanitarian suffering worse, and they’ll make it clear that the price tag for basic humanitarian relief will be America’s acquiescence to Maduro’s power.
Maduro knows it. Which is why he’s taking increasingly aggressive action against Guaido’s inner circle. On the present track, Guaido is going to end up in the SEBIN gulag, or shot dead by Maduro’s cutouts. Then Trump will have his Syria — as with Obama, his credibility will have been gutted by a lesser power as a despot continues to destroy his people.
It needn’t be this way. Employment of U.S. military force against Maduro is not yet warranted. But Trump has far more means of action against Maduro than he’s currently employing. If Trump chooses to use them, Venezuela’s people will find salvation, Maduro will disappear, democracy will prevail, and American interests will trump Putin’s agenda.
Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/venezuela-is-becoming-trumps-version-of-obamas-syria
MPs will be asked to vote again on Brexit on Friday but only on part of the deal negotiated with the EU.
They will vote on the withdrawal agreement on the Irish “backstop”, divorce bill and citizens’ rights.
But it will not amount to a third “meaningful vote” on the deal, as it will not include a vote on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
Amid anger from MPs, Andrea Leadsom said it was “crucial” if the UK wanted to secure a Brexit delay until 22 May.
MPs will be debating the motion on the day the UK was supposed to leave the European Union – 29 March.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said Theresa May was essentially asking MPs to turn it into a game of two halves – just voting on the first part of the deal which sorts out the UK’s departure and leaving the longer term part for the next few weeks.
But it is still not certain it will get through – both Labour and the Democratic Unionist Party say they will vote against the withdrawal agreement on Friday.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the withdrawal agreement could not be separated from the political declaration “because otherwise you move into a blindfold Brexit”.
The DUP’s deputy leader Nigel Dodds said he was not expecting “any last minute rabbits out of the hat” that would change the party’s position.
The vote, on what was meant to be Brexit Day, is a request to MPs to allow her to keep going, to carry on pursuing her route, with its well-documented flaws.
There’s a challenge there too, not just to her own Brexiteers but to Labour and the other opposition parties, to say “no” to a long delay to our departure from the EU, the last moment when Number 10 believes anything even approaching a timely exit can be guaranteed.
There are signs now of course that many Eurosceptic MPs are ready to say yes – not because they suddenly have realised her deal is perfect but because more of them officially realise that it is the clearest break from the EU they can realistically hope for.
Yet her Northern Irish allies are not persuaded. Labour, even though they have sometimes accepted that what’s on the table tomorrow, the divorce deal, will never be unpicked by the EU, will still, in the main, resist.
He told the BBC that the DUP was concerned about plans for “a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK and what that would mean in terms of who makes our laws – not Stormont or Westminster”.
The PM’s deal includes a withdrawal agreement – setting out how much money the UK must pay to the EU as a settlement, details of the transition period, and the backstop arrangements – and a political declaration on the way the future EU-UK relationship will work.
Last week the European Council agreed to postpone Brexit beyond the expected date of 29 March – offering an extension until 22 May, if MPs approved the withdrawal agreement by the end of this week.
If not, it offered a shorter delay until 12 April – the date by which the UK would have to indicate whether it would stand candidates in the 2019 European Parliament elections – allowing the UK time to get the deal through or to “indicate a way forward”.
BBC Brussels reporter Adam Fleming said the official conclusions from last week’s summit only mention the need to pass the withdrawal agreement by Friday, not the political declaration.
Leader of the Commons Mrs Leadsom told MPs that the European Council would only agree to the 22 May extension if MPs approved the withdrawal agreement by 23:00 GMT on Friday.
“It’s crucial therefore that we make every effort to give effect to the council’s decision and tomorrow’s motion gives Parliament the opportunity to secure that extension,” she said.
“I think we can all agree that we don’t want to be in the situation of asking for another extension and facing the potential requirement of participating in European Parliament elections.”
But she faced anger from some MPs. Labour’s Mary Creagh described it as an “extraordinary and unprecedented reverse ferret of the commitments that have been made… that we should have our say on both items together”.
Friday’s vote would not allow Parliament to ratify the withdrawal package, because Brexit legislation allows this only after the passage of a “meaningful vote” on both the Withdrawal Agreement and a Political Declaration on the future relationship.
The government would either have to pass part two of the deal – the political declaration on the future relationship – at a later date, or change the law so that it is not needed to ratify the treaty.
Some MPs questioned the government’s motion, with Labour’s Valerie Vaz saying “on the face of it breaks the law”.
“This is no way to run a government,” she told MPs.
And the Labour chairman of the Brexit select committee, Hilary Benn, asked if Brexit was delayed to 22 May, whether at that point it would “no longer be possible” to apply for a further extension beyond that – because it would be too late to take part in the European Parliamentary elections.
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said he would address this point on Friday.
Commons Speaker John Bercow said the government’s “new” motion complied with his ruling that he would not allow a third “meaningful vote” on the motion MPs have already rejected twice by large margins.
On Wednesday, the Commons failed to find a majority for a way forward after voting for eight different options to take Brexit forward – including leaving without a deal, creating a customs union and backing a confirmatory referendum on any deal.
Brexit votes: What happens next?
Mrs May told a meeting of Conservative backbenchers on Wednesday that she would not lead the talks with Brussels over the future relationship between the UK and EU and would resign as party leader after 22 May if her deal was passed, but stay on as PM until a new leader is elected.
While she has won over some, including former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, a number of Brexiteers are still refusing to vote for the deal. She needs to win over 75 rebels to overturn the 149-vote rejection of her deal when it was last voted on, on 13 March.
Meanwhile a petition calling for Brexit to be halted by revoking Article 50, which has attracted nearly six million signatures – is to be debated by MPs on Monday.
They will also debate a petition calling for another EU referendum, which has more than 160,000 signatures, and another – with 165,000 signatures – demanding that “Parliament must honour the referendum result”.
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47740158
“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement.
Carlos Osorio/AP
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Carlos Osorio/AP
“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement.
Carlos Osorio/AP
Updated at 2:58 p.m. ET
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is suing social media giant Facebook for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act.
HUD says Facebook does so by “encouraging, enabling and causing housing discrimination” when it allows companies that use their platform to improperly shield who can see certain housing ads.
In the charging document, HUD accuses Facebook of unlawfully discriminating against people based on race, religion, familial status, disability and other characteristics that closely align with the 1968 Fair House Act’s protected classes.
HUD also alleges Facebook allowed advertisers certain tools on their advertising platform that could exclude people who were classified as “non-American-born,” “non-Christian” or “interested in Hispanic culture,” among other things. It also said advertisers could exclude people based on ZIP code, essentially “drawing a red line around those neighborhoods on a map.”
“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement.
“Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”
(Note: Facebook is among NPR’s financial sponsors.)
HUD said that the charges would be heard by a U.S. administrative law judge or in federal district court.
The charges come on the heels of a complaint HUD filed in August, saying “reasonable cause exists” that a violation had occurred.
Facebook appeared caught off guard by the announcement.
“We’re surprised by HUD’s decision, as we’ve been working with them to address their concerns and have taken significant steps to prevent ads discrimination,” Facebook said in a statement.
“While we were eager to find a solution,” Facebook added. “HUD insisted on access to sensitive information — like user data — without adequate safeguards. We’re disappointed by today’s developments, but we’ll continue working with civil rights experts on these issues.”
Housing Department officials say they still see evidence of discrimination on Facebook’s platforms and as result felt compelled to move forward with the charges. There is a period of about three weeks that either Facebook or HUD can move to have the case heard in federal court, according to HUD officials.
An injunction or civil penalties, which could include a payment to those who may have been harmed by Facebook’s ad targeting practices, are all possible outcomes should this case be taken up by the courts.
Last week, Facebook said it would be settling lawsuits for just under $5 million with several civil rights and housing advocates, including the National Fair Housing Alliance.
In that announcement, Facebook said “we can do better” and promised to make changes to its platform, including not allowing housing advertisers to “target by age, gender or ZIP code.”
It also said advertisers that offer housing, employment and credit items “will have a much smaller set” of targeting criteria to choose from.
Facebook has been facing housing discrimination allegations for years.
As part its investigation into Facebook’s ad-targeting practices, ProPublica discovered in 2016, the company allowed advertisers access filters it referred to as “Ethnic Affinities.” After that report, Facebook promised reforms.
But in a follow-up report, also by ProPublica found “a significant lapse” in Facebook’s monitoring of advertisers.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/03/28/707614254/hud-slaps-facebook-with-housing-discrimination-charge
California Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna says impeachment is a very high bar, lots of evidence is needed.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., doesn’t like William Barr’s tone.
Pelosi on Thursday slammed the attorney general’s four-page letter on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as “condescending” and demanded to see the entire report.
“No thank you Mr. Attorney General,” Pelosi said. “I don’t need your interpretation.”
“Show us the report,” she added. “We have to see the facts.”
TOP DEMS WANT REPORT, NOW SUBMITTED, MADE PUBLIC ASAP
Pelosi called Barr’s decision to write the letter “arrogant.” Congress, she said, doesn’t need Barr “to be our interpreter of something that he should just show us.”
The Democratic chairmen of six House committees have demanded that Barr release the Mueller report to Congress by Tuesday.
Pelosi also defended House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who faced calls Thursday from Republicans to resign his chairmanship over comments that there was significant evidence the president and his associates conspired with Russia.
Pelosi said the Republicans are “scaredy cats” afraid of a “patriotic leader.”
Barr’s letter on the special counsel’s report said that Mueller found no evidence of coordination with Russia, but the report did not make a determination on whether Trump committed obstruction of justice in the Russia probe. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein determined that evidence gathered by Mueller was insufficient on that front.
Trump has maintained since the announcement of the special counsel’s investigation that he never colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign. He has long decried the probe as a “witch hunt” while attacking the FBI figures who launched the original Russia probe that was eventually taken over by Mueller in 2017.
Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-calls-barrs-letter-on-mueller-probe-as-condescending-calls-for-release-of-full-report
A bump stock, left, is a device that can be added to a gun to increase its firing speed. The devices were banned by the federal government his week.
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A bump stock, left, is a device that can be added to a gun to increase its firing speed. The devices were banned by the federal government his week.
George Frey/Getty Images
The U.S. Supreme Court officially denied an appeal from gun makers seeking to stop a Trump administration ban on bump stocks, the gun add-ons that can dramatically increase their rate of fire. The ban went into effect on Tuesday.
Gun makers had filed separate appeals to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, requesting a temporary hold on the ban. Roberts denied one appeal earlier this week; Sotomayor referred hers to the full court, which denied it on Thursday, allowing the ban to proceed while challenges to it move through the courts.
Bump stocks gained national attention after they were used in the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, where a gunman used bump-stock outfitted rifles to kill 58 people at an outdoor concert.
The ban requires bump stocks to be destroyed — such as by melting, shredding or crushing — or handed over at an office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The ATF recommends making an appointment with the ATF office beforehand.
As NPR’s Bill Chappell reported on Wednesday, the anticipation of a ban spurred sales of the devices:
RW Arms, a prominent bump stock retailer based in Fort Worth, Texas, says its entire remaining inventory of 60,000 bump stocks has now been turned over to the ATF’s custody. The items will be “shredded and recycled under the supervision of ATF agents,” the company said.
In the run-up to the total ban, RW Arms had rushed to sell as many bump stocks as it could, posting a countdown clock on its website to warn customers of the impending change. Its bump stocks were priced at between $179 and $199; the website now says they’re out of stock.
The ATF isn’t saying exactly how many bump stocks have been turned in so far — in large part because there are many ways for gun owners to comply with the law. But the agency’s chief of public affairs, April Langwell, says bump stock owners have turned the accessories in at ATF field offices “all across the country.”
Some states and cities banned the devices more than a year ago.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/03/28/707637489/bump-stock-ban-proceeds-after-supreme-court-denies-gun-makers-request-to-halt-it
House lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday that would make Puerto Rico the 51st state of the United States.
Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., who represents a sizable Puerto Rican constituency in his south Orlando district, unveiled the bill dubbed “The Puerto Rico Admission Act of 2019,” which sets the terms for Puerto Rico’s statehood. Under the bill, Puerto Rico’s statehood would be granted within 90 days of getting President Trump’s signature.
Though statehood for Puerto Rico has broad support among Republicans, a potential problem is the president’s public feud with Puerto Rican leaders over the handling of Hurricane Maria federal funds and assistance after the 2017 storm devastated the island. “With the mayor of San Juan as bad as she is and as incompetent as she is, Puerto Rico shouldn’t be talking about statehood until they get some people that really know what they’re doing,” Trump said in a September interview.
[ Related: Trump administration yet to deliver much of the disaster funds it owes Puerto Rico]
The bill is co-sponsored by Jenniffer Gonzalez, a Republican in office representing Puerto Rico since 2017. As a nonvoting member, Gonzalez is not allowed to vote on final legislative measures on the floor, but she is allowed to vote in committees, introduce legislation, and co-sponsor proposals.
In 2017, the Puerto Rican government held a public referendum to guide the official position of the island. Over 97 percent of Puerto Ricans supported statehood.
Florida’s Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, both Republicans, have publicly supported for Puerto Rico statehood.
Since 2012, the Republican Party has included Puerto Rican statehood as an official party position in their platform. The position was ratified again in the 2016 Republican National Convention when Trump was formally chosen as the party’s nominee for the presidency.
“We support the right of the United States citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state,” the official Republican platform reads.”We support the federally sponsored political status referendum authorized and funded by an Act of Congress in 2014 to ascertain the aspirations of the people of Puerto Rico. Once the 2012 local vote for statehood is ratified, Congress should approve an enabling act with terms for Puerto Rico’s future admission as the 51st state of the Union.”
The bill is a reintroduction of the Puerto Rico Admissions Act of 2018 that failed to clear the Natural Resources Committee. The new bill, however, is expected to be more warmly received under the Democratic leadership of the committee.
Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bipartisan-group-introduced-puerto-rico-statehood-bill-in-congress
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China has made unprecedented proposals in talks with the United States on a range of issues including forced technology transfer as the two sides work to overcome remaining obstacles to a deal to end their protracted trade war, U.S. officials told Reuters.
U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports last year in a move to force China to change the way it does business with the rest of the world and to pry open more of China’s economy to U.S. companies.
Among Trump’s demands are for Beijing to end practices that Washington alleges result in the systematic theft of U.S. intellectual property and the forced transfer of American technology to Chinese companies.
China put proposals on the table in the talks that went further than in the past, including on technology transfer, said one of four senior U.S. administration officials who spoke to Reuters.
Negotiators have made progress on the details of the written agreements that have been hashed out to address U.S. concerns, he said.
“If you looked at the texts a month ago compared to today, we have moved forward in all areas. We aren’t yet where we want to be,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“They’re talking about forced technology transfer in a way that they’ve never wanted to talk about before – both in terms of scope and specifics,” he said, referring to Chinese negotiators. He declined to give further detail.
Reuters reported previously that the two sides were working on written agreements in six areas: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrive in Beijing on Thursday for a new round of talks with Chinese officials to work on a deal that would end a months-long trade war that has cost both sides billions of dollars and hurt global economic growth.
The in-person talks, which will be followed by a round in Washington next week, are the first face-to-face meetings the two sides have held in weeks after missing an initial end-of-March goal for a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to sign a pact.
Talks would continue as long as progress is being made on the core issues, the official said.
“It could go to May, June, no one knows. It could happen in April, we don’t know,” another administration official said.
The two sides still have differences over intellectual property and how to enforce a deal, he said.
China wants the United States to lift its tariffs as part of a deal. Washington, which is cognizant that the tariffs give it leverage to ensure Beijing follows through on any commitments it makes, is wary of lifting them right away.
Trump said last week the United States may leave tariffs on Chinese goods for a “substantial period” to ensure compliance.
“Some tariffs will stay,” the second official said. “There’s going to be some give on that, but we’re not going to get rid of all the tariffs. We can’t.”
The topic will be addressed in upcoming talks.
“Obviously that is an issue that we need to resolve … and will be an important part of a final deal,” the first official said. He said there was some agreement on enforcement on what he termed the “back end” once a deal was in place: a structure in which both sides could raise grievances and implement tariffs if there were violations to the agreement.
Since July 2018, the United States has imposed duties on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, including $50 billion in technology and industrial goods at 25 percent and $200 billion in other products including furniture and construction materials, at 10 percent.
China has hit back with tariffs on about $110 billion worth of U.S. goods, including soybeans and other commodities.
The first official said the focus of talks had shifted from Chinese purchases of U.S. goods to the trickier structural issues, which he said Trump wanted as part of a “great” deal.
Bipartisan support at home for his tough stance on China as well as from the business community have emboldened Trump as he pushes for a deal that addresses long-standing complaints on trade, the source said.
Some officials have expressed concern that Trump would accept a deal involving big-ticket Chinese purchases of U.S. goods and falling short on structural issues.
He expressed optimism that a deal would be reached.
“I’m still confident, but it takes time,” he said. “Until any deal is finalized, it can always go either way. And the president has made clear, both in word and in action, that he’s going to walk away from deals if they’re not good deals.”
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/28/china-makes-unprecedented-offers-to-us-on-tech-transfer-trade.html
One drugstore in Suffolk County was in the 99th percentile of opioid sales in the state from 2011 through the first quarter of 2018, the complaint said; Cardinal reported an average of 85 suspicious orders a year from the pharmacy. Still, in 2018, the drugstore continued to receive opioids from Cardinal.
The lawsuit amends an earlier suit New York State filed against Purdue Pharma, the company considered primarily responsible for unleashing the current opioid epidemic by misleading doctors about the OxyContin’s dangers and ignoring evidence that the drug was being abused.
The lawsuit adds other opioid manufacturers, including Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson; Mallinckrodt; Endo Pharmaceuticals; Teva Pharmaceuticals; Allergan; and many of their affiliated companies.
New York is one of three dozen states to sue opioid manufacturers, litigation that is separate from the bundle of 1,600 opioid-related federal cases being overseen by a United States District Court judge in Ohio, who hopes to help craft a single comprehensive settlement — an objective that may be out of reach.
With the exception of Alabama, which joined the federal consolidation, these states potentially stand to wrest swifter, bigger paydays for their constituents, as long as the states can prove their cases. This week Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers agreed to pay $270 million to settle a case in Oklahoma that was to go to trial in May.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/health/new-york-lawsuit-opioids-sacklers-distributors.html
When Donald Trump wanted to make a good impression — on a lender, a business partner, or a journalist — he sometimes sent them official-looking documents called “Statements of Financial Condition.”
These documents sometimes ran up to 20 pages. They were full of numbers, laying out Trump’s properties, debts and multibillion-dollar net worth.
But, for someone trying to get a true picture of Trump’s net worth, the documents were deeply flawed. Some simply omitted properties that carried big debts. Some assets were overvalued. And some key numbers were wrong.
For instance, Trump’s financial statement for 2011 said he had 55 home lots to sell at his golf course in Southern California. Those lots would sell for $3 million or more, the statement said.
But Trump had only 31 lots zoned and ready for sale at the course, according to city records. He claimed credit for 24 lots — and at least $72 million in future revenue — he didn’t have.
He also claimed his Virginia vineyard had 2,000 acres, when it really has about 1,200. He said Trump Tower has 68 stories. It has 58.
At that point, only 36 lots were actually approved for sale, and by this point 5 had already been sold. That left 31 – not 55 – available for sale. Since Trump was promising he could sell them for at least $3 million each, there was a $72 million gap between his claims and reality.
Trump Tower only has 58 stories, but Trump re-numbered the floors to make it seem taller.
Now, investigators on Capitol Hill and in New York are homing in on these unusual documents in an apparent attempt to determine whether Trump’s familiar habit of bragging about his wealth ever crossed a line into fraud.
The statements are at the center of at least two of the inquiries that continue to follow Trump, unaffected by the end of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. On Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said it had requested 10 years of these statements from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA.
And earlier this month, the New York state Department of Financial Services subpoenaed records from Trump’s longtime insurer, Aon. A person familiar with that subpoena, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation, said “a key component” was questions about whether Trump had given Aon these documents in an effort to lower his insurance premiums.
Both inquiries stemmed from testimony last month by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who told Congress that Trump had used these statements to inflate his wealth — and then sent them to his lenders and his insurers.
Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to President Trump, testified before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 27 and submitted some of Trump’s financial statements as exhibits. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
“Mr. Trump is a cheat,” Cohen said, in describing what the statements showed.
Cohen told Congress that statements were given to Deutsche Bank, as Trump sought a loan to buy the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. Since then, Deutsche Bank and another Trump lender have also received subpoenas, from the New York State attorney general.
The statements may additionally draw the interest of the House Financial Services Committee, which is scrutinizing Deutsche. A committee spokesman declined to comment.
The White House declined to comment for this report.
The Trump Organization also declined to comment about the statements or answer questions about specific errors the statements contained. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the president’s sons who are running his business, noted on social media that Cohen has provided false testimony about other topics.
Mazars USA, the accounting firm, issued a brief statement Wednesday after the House Oversight letter became public, saying that it “believes strongly in the ethical and professional rules and regulations that govern our industry, our work and our client interactions.” It declined to comment further about Trump.
The Washington Post reviewed copies of these documents for 2002, 2004, 2011, 2012 and 2013 — obtaining them from court files, from people who received them from Trump’s company, and from Cohen. Cohen also provided copies of documents from 2011, 2012 and 2013 to Congress.
Since the 1980s, Trump has defined himself by his wealth, but he has often avoided providing proof to back up his boasts or provided documents that inflated the real values. As president, Trump has declined to release his tax returns, unlike every president since Jimmy Carter.
Trump is far from the first real estate developer to inflate his projects or wealth. But there are laws against defrauding insurers and lenders with false information. Financial and legal experts said it’s unclear at this point whether Trump will face any legal consequences. They said it depends on whether Trump intended to mislead or whether the misstatements caused anyone to give him a financial benefit.
“How much would [the errors] impact an investor?” said Kyle Welch, an assistant professor of accountancy at George Washington University. “If it’s systematic and it’s across the board, and it’s all in one direction, that’s where you have a problem.”
Welch said Trump could be protected by disclaimers that his own accountants added to the statements, warning readers that they weren’t seeing the full picture. And in an odd way, Welch said, Trump could be helped by the sheer scale of the exaggerations. They were so far off from reality, Welch wondered whether any real bank or insurer could have been fooled.
Welch said he’d never seen a document stretch so far past the normal conventions of accounting.
“It’s humorous,” Welch said. “It’s a humorous financial statement.”
Investigators for the New York State Department of Financial Services, which sent subpoenas to Aon, and the New York State attorney general — who subpoenaed Deutsche Bank — declined to comment. Aon and Deutsche Bank also declined to comment, beyond saying they plan to cooperate with investigators.
The story of Trump’s “statements of financial condition” — in essence, sales brochures for Trump the man, given out by Trump the company — goes back to the early 1980s, according to past testimony from Trump’s accountants and staffers.
In 2007, a Trump lawyer named Michelle Lokey said she had sent these statements out to Trump’s lenders, for projects in Chicago and Las Vegas, because Trump had personally guaranteed those loans. That meant that if Trump’s company defaulted on its obligations, the lenders could come after Trump’s personal assets.
Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago was one of the two properties that were not included in some Trump financial statements. Both buildings were carrying mortgages. (Joshua Lott for The Washington Post)
“Therefore they’d want information on his net worth?” an attorney asked Lokey.
“I assume,” she said.
The statements were prepared by Trump’s longtime accountants, a firm now called Mazars. In other contexts — such as when one of Trump’s companies was seeking to secure a federal contract — this firm prepared rigorously audited financial statements.
This was a different sort of job.
When compiling these statements of financial condition, those accountants have said they did not verify or audit the figures in the statements. Instead, when Trump provided them data, they wrote it down without checking to see whether it was accurate.
“In the compilation process, it is not the role of the accountant to assess the values,” said Gerald J. Rosenblum, one of the accountants. “The role is to accept those values and move them forward.”
An attorney asked: Do the values have to be logical?
“The value per se does not have to be logical,” Rosenblum said. He and Lokey were deposed as part of a lawsuit in which Trump sued a New York Times reporter for allegedly lowballing his net worth. Trump’s suit against the reporter was later dismissed.
In 2014, Trump used the same accounting firm to prepare financial information for his most expensive development project in decades, his $200 million transformation of the historic Old Post Office Pavilion in downtown Washington into a Trump International Hotel.
But in that case, Mazars vouched for the accuracy of the information, writing that the firm “is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these financial statements” using industry standard accounting rules. This was a formal audit of finances related just to Trump’s D.C. hotel, rather than a summation of all of his assets based on Trump’s own estimates.
The statements Cohen provided to The Post — and to Congress — begin in 2011. Two of them are 20-page “Statements of Financial Condition” signed by Trump’s accountants.
In his testimony to Congress, Cohen said these statements included Trump’s self-appraisals of his buildings’ value — which aimed to impress, instead of aiming for reality. Cohen said Trump would take real measures of value, such as the amount of money his tenants paid in rent, and simply inflate it until he got a number he liked.
“If you’re going off of your rent roll, you go by the gross rent roll times a multiple,” Cohen said. “And you make up the multiple.”
The documents begin with two-page disclaimers, warning of various ways in which the statements don’t follow normal accounting rules. The accountants note that Trump is the source of many buildings’ valuations — and that, contrary to normal accounting rules, he had inflated them by counting future income that wasn’t guaranteed.
Trump calls this a “statement of financial condition.” But right away, his accounting firm is warning readers that it hasn’t checked anything in this document to be sure it’s accurate.
The accountants also note that Trump had told them to simply omit two of his major hotels, in Chicago and Las Vegas. Both buildings were carrying mortgages. That omission means that some of Trump’s actual debt load was hidden from anyone reading the statement.
“Users of this financial statement should recognize that they might reach different conclusions about the financial condition of Donald J. Trump” if they had more information, the statement concludes.
Legal experts interviewed by The Post said that sort of broad disclaimer might shield Trump from allegations that he misled his lenders and insurers. After all, his own accountants told readers they weren’t getting the full story.
“The transparent disclaimers — even if frustrating — typically wipe out a basis” for bringing charges of fraud, said Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor who is now a private attorney at Dickinson Wright.
In 2012, Trump’s statement said he owned a 2,000-acre vineyard in Virginia. But land records in Virginia show the Trump family owns about 1,200 acres. The Trump winery’s own website says 1,300 acres.
The vineyard sits on a 1,205 acre property, of which only about 227 acres are planted with grapes.
In 2011, the statements said that Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, N.Y., was “zoned for nine luxurious homes.” In the statement, Trump said those homes would yield significant cash flow as he built them and sold them. That led him to value the property at $261 million — far more than the roughly $20 million value assigned by local assessors.
At the time, local officials assessed the land’s value at about $20 million, a fraction of the value Trump assessed.
At the time, Trump had received preliminary “conceptual approval” to build homes on the site. But local officials said he never finished the last step in the approval process to build the homes or sell the lots.
None of the homes was built.
The 2013 statement that Cohen provided — and which he said was also given to Deutsche Bank, in pursuit of a loan to buy the Bills — is different from the other two.
It is just two pages long, with a slightly different title: “Summary of Net Worth.” It does not include the usual disclaimer from Trump’s accountants, so readers aren’t told that the debts from Trump’s Chicago and Las Vegas hotels are missing.
Here, Trump is exaggerating his wealth by leaving two major parts of his portfolio out. His buildings in Las Vegas and Chicago — both of which had loans attached to them — are simply left out of this statement. Without them, readers can’t get a full picture of how much he owes, and to whom.
This document also includes a new “asset” that wasn’t there before.
It says that Trump’s brand value — his name, essentially — was worth $4 billion, and that it ought to be counted among his assets as if it were a building or a resort. With his brand included, Trump’s net worth jumped from $4.6 billion to $8.6 billion.
For Trump, the Bills would have been a financial prize far larger than any he had won in the recent past: Bids were expected to be around $1 billion.
In public, Trump had bragged that he was ready to pay $1 billion in cash. But privately, one of his lieutenants told a business contact that they were struggling with the bid.
“We are looking at the Bills but Allen and I are having trouble making the numbers work!!!” wrote Ron Lieberman, an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, in an email to a contact in the New York City parks department. “Allen” likely meant Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime chief financial officer.
Lieberman’s email was released this year in response to a public-records request from a nonprofit group, NYC Park Advocates. Lieberman and Weisselberg did not respond to requests for comment this week.
Whatever Trump sent to Deutsche Bank, it seems to have been enough: The New York Times reported that Deutsche Bank agreed to vouch for Trump’s bid for the Bills, citing an unnamed executive. But Trump lost a bidding war, and somebody else bought the team.
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Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-statements-of-financial-condition/
The British Parliament still can’t agree on what kind of Brexit it wants.
Members of Parliament (MPs) held “indicative votes” on Wednesday, casting ballots for eight different options on how the United Kingdom should break up with the European Union. The goal of the process was to reveal what kind of Brexit plan might win a majority in the House of Commons, after MPs twice rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
There’s just one problem — no option won a clear majority.
A plan for a second referendum, in which any Brexit deal approved by Parliament would go back to the public for a vote, received the most “aye” votes. A customs union arrangement, where the UK would follow the same customs rules as the EU, came in second.
Earlier that day, the prime minister had announced that she would resign if Parliament backed her Brexit plan, which has twice been defeated in Parliament by very large margins. May is still planning to bring her deal for a third vote, possibly Friday, though nothing is decided yet.
The failure of the indicative votes to break the logjam in Parliament could boost her deal somewhat, as May can make the case that Parliament tried and failed to come up with an alternative. But even with May’s promise to sacrifice her premiership, her deal still might not win enough support.
MPs are expected Monday to debate and vote on the options that got the most votes, to see if it’s possible to win a majority for something. There will probably be a few more twists along the way, but here’s a breakdown of the action on Wednesday and what might happen next.
MPs were given a ballot on Wednesday, which contained eight different Brexit options. They could mark “aye” or “no” next to each, and from there, the ballots were collected and tallied. They looked like this:
Here’s a summary of the eight options and the results.
This means crashing out of the EU without any agreement or transition period in place, and is the default option on April 12 if the UK can’t approve a deal. Parliament has already rejected leaving the EU without a deal, so, no surprise, this was defeated 160-400.
Also known as “Norway Plus.” Not to get super in the weeds, but this is a very soft Brexit proposal, meaning the UK and the EU would have very close economic ties. The model for this is Norway, which is not an EU member but has access to the EU single market, which broadly means free movement of goods, capital, services, and people. The “plus” here is because this would also mean joining a customs union. This went down, 188-283.
The same as the plan above — but without the plus, which means no customs arrangement. This lost 65-377.
This would allow for membership in the customs union post-Brexit, which means the UK would follow all the EU customs rules. This plan was actually the most popular — it got 264 yes votes, and only 272 no votes — so it only lost by eight votes.
This is Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal, which focuses on a future relationship that would involve customs union membership, but with the ability for the UK to make its own trade deals. It would also allow for alignment with the single-market rules and close cooperation on issues like security and with certain EU institutions. It’s not clear the EU would go for this plan because it might involve the UK cherry-picking which EU rules it would follow, but it doesn’t matter, for now, because it lost 237 to 307.
This basically called for the prime minister to stop Brexit if the UK doesn’t have a deal two days before the deadline and if Parliament agrees it does not want to leave the EU without a deal. (Article 50 is the mechanism in the EU’s Lisbon Treaty that the UK is using to leave the bloc.) This one lost 184 to 293.
This says that any Brexit deal approved by Parliament has to go back to the public for a vote. This got the most “aye” votes, with 268, but 295 people voted against it, so it was defeated by a greater margin than the customs union.
This is similar to a plan that the EU has already rejected, which would basically involve the UK leaving the EU without a deal. There would still be a transition period whereby the two sides would negotiate some free trade agreements. It was defeated 139 to 422.
Okay, so what does this all mean?
Oliver Letwin, the Conservative MP who put forward the indicative votes motion, insisted that lawmakers should debate again Monday, knocking out the biggest losers (no-deal, etc.) and debating and casting ballots again on Wednesday’s top vote-getters, likely the top four or so, but that’s still unclear. Those still might not secure a majority, but some of these plans such as the second referendum and customs union lost got more votes than May’s deal has — so it might be possible to convert a few MPs to support one of these alternative plans.
Oh, and there’s still May’s deal.
Her announcement that she would resign if Parliament backed her deal on a third vote has convinced a slew of hardliners to support her, but she still doesn’t have the votes to pass it yet. May’s key allies in Northern Island — the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — have said they will still vote against the deal, meaning it’s unlikely that it will pass on a third go-round.
Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow also repeated Wednesday he would not allow a third Brexit deal vote without a substantially changed deal. May’s government is reportedly trying to get around this by bringing forward one part of the Brexit deal — the 585-withdrawal agreement — for a vote on Friday, and leaving off the second part, which is the short political declaration that says the EU and UK will negotiate a future economic partnership. That political declaration would be voted on separately at another time.
The point of this is to lock in a Brexit deadline of May 22. The EU said it would grant the UK an extension until that date if Parliament passed a withdrawal agreement by this week. This would make it less likely that the UK would ask for a longer, indefinite Brexit delay, which would require it to participate in European parliamentary elections, on May 23.
This gambit by May’s government might also be doomed, as some MPs will not want to take a vote without that political declaration attached. Plus, the holdouts on her deal, specifically some Brexiteers and the DUP, still object to the withdrawal agreement.
So, after a day of high drama, the UK is still deadlocked over Brexit.
Parliament did, at least, officially change the Brexit date from March 29 to April 12 on Wednesday with overwhelming support. The UK has an two extra weeks to come up with a plan — though no one knows what the heck that might be.
Source Article from https://www.vox.com/2019/3/28/18284470/brexit-parliament-indicative-votes-theresa-may-deal
President Trump has called on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to resign in a fiery early morning tweet.
The president sent out his missive Thursday morning, accusing the California Democrat of “knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking”.
Trump’s tweet read: “Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!”
The president made similar comments during an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday night.
TRUMP CALLS SCHIFF A ‘DISGRACE’ FOR PUSHING COLLUSION AGENDA, SAYS DEM MAY HAVE BROKEN LAW
“He should be forced out of office,” Trump told the host.
“He is a disgrace to our country.”
“In one way you could say it’s a crime what he did,” Trump said of the California Democrat, “because … he was making horrible statements that he knew were false.
“He would go on, night after night, talking about collusion — the collusion delusion,” Trump said.
SCHIFF FACES MOUNTING GOP CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OVER COLLUSION CLAIMS
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election found no evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy after a nearly two-year-long investigation that resulted in 37 indictments.
Schiff, a vocal critic of the president, has doubled down on his claim that Trump and his administration colluded with foreign powers despite Mueller’s findings.
“Undoubtedly, there is collusion,” Schiff told the Washington Post after Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s investigation was released Sunday. He told the paper that the question of whether Trump or the people around him were compromised by a hostile foreign power was not in any part of Mueller’s report.
In addition to Trump saying Schiff should leave office, other Republicans – including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. — called for Schiff to step down from his leadership of the intelligence committee.
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“I’ll tell you one thing about Russia,” Trump continued. “If they had anything on me, it would have come out a long time ago.”
Mueller’s report will be made public – with some parts redacted – in the coming weeks, according to Attorney General William Barr.
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-trump-calls-on-adam-schiff-to-resign-accuses-him-of-knowingly-and-unlawfully-lying-and-leaking
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The Trump administration charged Facebook on Thursday with “discrimination” in its advertising practices for housing.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is seeking damages for any person who was harmed by Facebook’s advertising policies, which until recently allowed employers and landlords to limit their audiences on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender. Facebook settled a lawsuit with the ACLU over the practice last week and overhauled its systems as a result.
“[Facebook] holds out its advertising platform as a powerful resource for advertisers in many industries, including housing and housing-related services,” the complaint says. But, “because of the way [Facebook] designed its advertising platform, ads for housing and housing-related services are shown to large audiences that are severely biased.”
HUD is asking for unspecified monetary damages and “the maximum civil penalty” against Facebook for each violation of housing laws.
A Facebook spokesperson said the company is surprised by HUD’s charge.
“While we were eager to find a solution, HUD insisted on access to sensitive information — like user data — without adequate safeguards,” the spokesperson said. “We’re disappointed by today’s developments, but we’ll continue working with civil rights experts on these issues.”
Facebook also pointed to a blog post published last week, in which the company said the advertising overhaul marked an important step for the platform and thanked the civil rights organizations that helped improve the ad tools.
“There is a long history of discrimination in the areas of housing, employment and credit, and this harmful behavior should not happen through Facebook ads,” COO Sheryl Sandberg said at the time. “Our policies already prohibit advertisers from using our tools to discriminate. We’ve removed thousands of categories from targeting related to protected classes such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. But we can do better.”
Facebook has drawn harsh criticism for its ad-based business model in recent months. The service allows advertisers to customize their audience based on specific and often user-supplied criteria for demographics and stated interests. That’s how advertisers were able to target posts to “Jew-haters,” for example.
The self-service portal is also how Russian agents were able to purchase tens of thousands of dollars worth of inflammatory posts around U.S. elections.
Here’s the full complaint from HUD:
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/28/trump-administration-sues-facebook-over-discriminatory-advertising-practices.html
President Trump was spared charges on Sunday that would have led to his impeachment, claimed “total exoneration” and angrily pledged retribution against Democrats and media figures he blames for feeding the Russian collusion story. On Monday his Department of Justice reaffirmed support for a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the Affordable Care Act. For Democrats who can think straight, both of these events can be helpful to their party in the long run.
To start with, they should accept that because Trump has largely been freed from the burden of doubt he has been under during the entirely of his presidency, next year’s election won’t be the referendum they had hoped for, but a choice election that the incumbent now has a far better chance of winning. And because the special counsel did not choose to charge him with obstruction of justice, something many of Trump’s allies and aides feared was likely, impeachment is — for all intents and purposes — now off the table. Without that charge from Bob Mueller or Attorney General Bob Barr, Senate Republicans would never go along with any Democratic impeachment. Democrats should see this as a good thing.
Smart Democrats will start by expressing their relief that a U.S. president has not been charged with conspiracy and was not found to have rigged his election with an adversarial government — something that would have traumatized and likely irreparably damaged our country. Democrats should also thank Mueller for his integrity, and for a fair and lawful process. They are right to call for the full release of Mueller’s findings, as have many Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley. House committees also have more investigations planned or in the pipeline — and oversight of the White House’s security clearance process, Jared Kushner’s potential business dealings with the Saudi Kingdom and Qatar while deciding national security policy, the Trump Organization’s loans from Russians that may have made the president and/or his family members beholden to the Putin government, are all appropriate areas of inquiry. But attempts to keep the prospects of impeachment alive, no matter what Mueller’s findings reveal on potential obstruction of justice, will backfire on Democrats for certain.
House Democratic leaders, starting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has dismissed impeachment for months, affirmed Tuesday they want to focus on policy instead of probes. News of the administration’s support for ending all ACA protections has focused the minds of Democratic leaders, with Majority Whip Jim Clyburn telling CNN Tuesday morning that the Mueller chapter has “closed” and that health care is “the new chapter.” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said health care “was a defining issue of the 2018 midterm elections. We embrace this fight because House Democrats were given the majority in order to defend health care.”
The leadership will, no matter the contents of the special counsel’s report, struggle to keep everyone in line. There are those who have been around forever — such as impeachment advocate Rep. Al Green, who on Twitter promoted his lunch Tuesday with Tom Steyer in the members dining room of the House — and those who are new to the House, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who decided to call for a commission on the question as soon as Trump was cleared. In a letter to her colleagues, Tlaib wrote: “I, firmly, believe that the House Committee on Judiciary should seek out whether President Trump has committed ‘High crimes and Misdemeanors’ as designated by the U.S. Constitution and if the facts support those findings, that Congress begin impeachment proceedings.”
Democrats didn’t run on Trump’s troubles or the Mueller investigation in the midterms and little has changed out on the campaign trail where Democratic candidates running to be the party’s nominee in 2020 are being asked by voters about health care, climate change, gun control, college loan reform, immigration, taxes and jobs. Not only was health care the top issue in the midterms for Democrats, it was for most voters, and the candidates who championed coverage for pre-existing conditions and other Obamacare protections won those voters by a 75 percent-23 percent margin. During the midterms, Democrats cited, to great effect, a provision from one of the GOP replacement plans that never passed, an “age tax” that would allow insurers to charge patients age 50 and over five times more for coverage.
Health care remains the Republicans’ and Trump’s worst political liability, having failed since 2011 as a party to repeal and replace it, which Trump promised in 2016 and 2017 that they would finally do. After that failure, Trump and GOP candidates also promised voters in the 2018 election they would not allow insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions, after they eliminated the ACA’s individual mandate to purchase health care as part of their tax reform law. But that will occur should a court ultimately overturn the law.
Health care coverage, and other pocketbook issues, are likely the reason Republicans saw an erosion of support from white women without a college degree, a key to Trump’s 2016 voting base, in the midterms. Writing for CNN, political analyst Ron Brownstein identified non-evangelical working-class white women as a key target bloc for Democrats next year “in pivotal Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where relatively fewer blue-collar whites are also evangelical Christians,” adding that nationwide nearly three-fifths of these women voted for Democrats last November and told exit pollsters they disapproved of Trump’s performance in office.
Those women may not have benefited from the tax cut, may see their communities suffering from Trump’s trade wars, may have not seen any factories moving back into town, and aren’t likely to see Trump fulfill his broken promise on health care, no matter how many times he rebrands the GOP as “the party of health care,” as he has this week. President Trump is likely to spend a lot of time talking about the Mueller probe and collusion in his campaign next year, according to aides and advisers, and his allies are seeking an “investigation of the investigators.” If Democrats talk about Trump, or Mueller or Barr, these very same voters may sit 2020 out, but if the Democratic nominee talks about their challenges and the policy prescriptions that could alleviate their problems, the party is in the running to win them over and beat Trump.
Source Article from https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/27/two_gifts_for_democrats_if_they_will_take_them_139866.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Thursday it had sent “specialists” to Venezuela under a military cooperation deal but said they posed no threat to regional stability, brushing aside a call from U.S. President Donald Trump to remove all military personnel from the country.
Trump said on Wednesday that “all options” were open to make Russia pull troops out of Venezuela after two Russian air force planes landed outside Caracas on Saturday carrying nearly 100 Russian troops, according to media reports.
As Venezuela has descended into political turmoil this year, Russia has emerged as a staunch backer of President Nicolas Maduro while the United States backs the country’s opposition and has imposed sanctions.
Venezuela’s military attache in Moscow said on Thursday Russia had sent “servicemen” to Venezuela, but that they would not take part in military operations, Interfax news agency reported.
“The presence of Russian servicemen in Venezuela is linked to the discussion of cooperation in the military-technical sphere,” Jose Rafael Torrealba Perez was quoted as saying.
Speaking at a weekly news briefing on Thursday, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the arrivals only as “Russian specialists”.
“Russia is not changing the balance of power in the region, Russia is not threatening anyone, unlike (officials) in Washington,” she told a weekly news briefing.
“Russian specialists have arrived in Venezuela in line with the provisions of a bilateral inter-government agreement on military-technical cooperation. No one canceled this document,” Zakharova said.
Russia and China have backed Maduro, while the United States and most other Western countries support opposition leader Juan Guaido.
In January, Guaido invoked the constitution to assume Venezuela’s interim presidency, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate.
Maduro, who retains control of state functions and the country’s military, has said Guaido is a puppet of the United States.
Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Gareth Jones
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-usa-russia-defence/russian-military-team-arrived-in-caracas-venezuela-military-attache-idUSKCN1R910T
The chances of President Trump listening to or acting upon any re-election advice that I offer is slim to none. However, a course of action I’m about to suggest is actually more about presidential leadership and less about 2020 politics. But, since everything is about 2020 politics, let’s first dive into a Politico piece from Tuesday that chronicled Trump’s reaction to the Mueller report during a private Capitol Hill luncheon with Senate Republicans. The piece was headlined, “‘He’s doing a victory lap’: Rejuvenated Trump pushes aggressive agenda post-Mueller.”
The “victory lap” quote was from Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, but here is what I consider most significant:
“I look at this as sort of a new election. A fresh start,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally. He said Trump put it this way: “I’ve got this behind me now. It’s a fresh start. So let’s see what we can do — starting with health care.”
Whether the president has been offered a “fresh start” on his road to re-election is still legally and politically debatable, given that the entire Mueller report has yet to be released and other investigations continue. But, if Trump thinks and acts like he has been granted a fresh start, then, by golly, it is a fresh start.
Proof of his new attitude was seen Wednesday in the Drudge Report headline “Unshackled Trump May Attend White House Correspondents Dinner.” If true, that is tantamount to the action of a conquering king.
And, one can only imagine the exuberant sound bites that will emanate from his mouth during the first post-Mueller report rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Thursday night.
Hence, Trump’s perception of triumphing over his enemies is the foundational basis for the advice that I now offer him and his re-election campaign:
Give an Oval Office prime-time speech expressing his willingness to help heal a divided nation. Trump should ask all Americans to move beyond the Mueller report, leave the 2016 election in the rear-view mirror, and have a new attitude of working together to solve our nation’s most pressing problems.
This is a golden opportunity to show presidential leadership. Just imagine the benefits of a speech that was at once contrite, humble and authentic in tone. The president has everything to gain by asking the American people for a new opportunity to be president of all Americans, not just his base.
The speech should be billed as “State of the Union 2.0” with a message that Trump is willing to mend fences with the media, the intelligence community, Democrats, and his enemies at large, for the good of the nation.
Furthermore, he could offer to “smoke the peace pipe” with his “enemies” in the press by proposing a White House meeting with media leaders to reset their relationship, again, for the good of the nation. I would bet that media outlets whose credibility was damaged by Mueller’s findings would be receptive to the offer.
Imagine if a new “unshackled” Trump gave such a speech, showing that he was capable of more even-tempered traditional presidential leadership? The ratings would be record-breaking and Trump would love that.
Perhaps it would even increase his job approval rating. It currently stands at a static sub-44 percent with 51.9 disapproving, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average — even after Trump tweeted on Sunday, “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”
Unfortunately, less than 24 hours later, that elation translated into troubling overreach when Tim Murtaugh — the communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign — sent a memo asking networks to ban well-known guests from the airwaves. Among the names listed were House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
With memos like that, the president risks turning his new-found victory into defeat. After all, haven’t the American people had enough White House drama?
Therefore, a “fresh start” backed with a “healing” speech — while standing on a strong economy and his record of accomplishment — offers the president the opportunity to begin a new phase in his relationship with the American people, Congress, and the media.
Hey, Tim Murtaugh — please consider my suggestion (a “wild” rally speech does not begin to qualify). But most important, and under no circumstances, should you use Trump’s “victory lap” as a justification for revenge. Such behavior is beneath the office of the president.
Source Article from https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/28/how_trump_can_help_the_nation_and_his_2020_prospects_139881.html
A historical marker commemorates the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island — the most serious in U.S. history. To the left are the cooling towers for the mothballed Unit 2 reactor, which partially melted down.
Joanne Cassaro/WITF
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Joanne Cassaro/WITF
A historical marker commemorates the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island — the most serious in U.S. history. To the left are the cooling towers for the mothballed Unit 2 reactor, which partially melted down.
Joanne Cassaro/WITF
Forty years ago, the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history sparked a backlash against the industry and halted its growth for decades. Today, the remaining working reactor at Three Mile Island, Unit 1, faces new challenges, including cheaper competition in a rapidly shifting energy grid. Unit 1 at the plant, near Harrisburg, Penn., is slated to close later this year.
But mounting concerns about climate change, and the need for zero-carbon power, are also driving a new push to keep Three Mile Island and other nuclear reactors open. It’s a turnaround few would have foreseen in the chaotic days after the accident.
Confusion and fear
On March 28, 1979, Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 reactor suffered a partial meltdown after a pump stopped sending water to the steam generators that removed heat from the reactor core. The accident was a combination of human error, design deficiencies, and equipment failures.
The incident happened around 4 a.m. on a Wednesday, but it took several days before people understood the severity of the problem, as public officials struggled to explain what was happening. By Friday, then-Governor Dick Thornburgh recommended pregnant women and young children evacuate.
Jack Herbein, then vice president of generation for Metropolitan Edison, the company that operated Three Mile Island in 1979, takes questions from reporters outside the plant’s visitors center the afternoon of the accident.
Courtesy of the Historical Society of Dauphin County
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Courtesy of the Historical Society of Dauphin County
Many more people chose to leave. At the end of the weekend, an estimated 80,000 people had fled south-central Pennsylvania. Schools and businesses closed. Local banks started running out of cash.
Joyce Corradi was a young mother of four, running a daycare out of her home in Middletown, a few miles from the plant. Her most vivid memory is pulling out of her driveway, wondering if her life would ever be the same.
“I took our marriage certificate and I took our children’s birth certificates,” Corradi says. “I was concerned that, if in the confusion things really got bad, that I could prove those were my children and that we could at least be together.”
Reporters gathered outside the Three Mile Island Observation Center, across the street from the plant, waiting for the latest updates. The accident quickly became global news.
Courtesy of The Historical Society of Dauphin County
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Courtesy of The Historical Society of Dauphin County
Reporters gathered outside the Three Mile Island Observation Center, across the street from the plant, waiting for the latest updates. The accident quickly became global news.
Courtesy of The Historical Society of Dauphin County
She would return 10 days later. A small amount of radiation was released, but in the end, it wasn’t a disaster. In 1985 Three Mile Island reopened, minus the one damaged reactor. Although some of her friends moved away, Corradi still lives in the same house, but feels the plant always looming in the background.
“It’s kind of like living with a giant in your neighborhood,” she says. “You know it’s there. You know it could cause you problems, but you live in an uneasy compromise.”
A new challenge to the nuclear industry
That compromise is being tested, as the nuclear industry faces new challenges, including high operating costs, stagnant demand for electricity, and competition from cheaper natural gas and renewable energy.
Chicago-based Exelon, the current owner of Three Mile Island’s still-functional Unit 1 reactor, says the plant has been losing money for years. The company plans to close it this fall, 15 years before its operating license expires.
David Fein, Exelon’s senior vice president of state governmental and regulatory affairs, says the company is still hoping the state government can step in to keep it open. He argues losing so much carbon-free electricity would be a major blow to efforts to combat climate change.
“It’s something that, if we hope to do anything about it, then we have to preserve all the nation’s nuclear power stations,” says Fein.
Nuclear power provides about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. Yet across the country, nearly a third of existing nuclear plants are either unprofitable or scheduled to close.
Explore more coverage of the 40th anniversary of the Three Mile Island accident from WITF, PennLive/The Patriot-News, and PA Post.
There is only one nuclear plant under construction in the country, in Georgia, but it’s years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited the construction site last week to announce $3.7 billion in federal loan guarantees for the project.
The working cooling towers of Exelon Generation Unit 1 in the foreground are emitting water vapor. The dormant cooling towers are from Unit 2, which was permanently damaged in the 1979 accident.
Courtesy Exelon
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Courtesy Exelon
The working cooling towers of Exelon Generation Unit 1 in the foreground are emitting water vapor. The dormant cooling towers are from Unit 2, which was permanently damaged in the 1979 accident.
Courtesy Exelon
Pennsylvania’s five existing nuclear plants account for about 93 percent of the state’s carbon-free power. Mark Szybist, a senior attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council, says without new policies, nuclear plant closures could lead to more greenhouse gas emissions.
“We’re at a point where if nuclear retires immediately, we would probably replace it with natural gas generation because we haven’t sufficiently planned to replace it with something cleaner,” he says.
Climate change and the push for zero carbon energy
All this has led to a big lobbying effort to keep nuclear plants online. In recent years other states, including New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Connecticut, have given billions of dollars in subsidies to keep their nuclear plants open. Ohio is considering doing the same.
Christina Simeone, a senior fellow with the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, thinks governments should step in.
“Once you close a nuclear plant, that’s a permanent result,” she says. “We’re going to lose a significant amount of zero carbon power.”
In addition to Three Mile Island, FirstEnergy’s Beaver Valley plant near Pittsburgh is also slated for an early retirement in 2021. Republican state representative Thomas Mehaffie recently introduced a bill to try to keep the Pennsylvania plants open.
“If we lose one or more of these plants we might as well forget about all the time and money we’ve invested in wind and solar,” says Mehaffie.
But his bill faces major opposition, from groups like the growing natural gas industry, which stands to gain if nuclear plants close, and the AARP, which says the move would hurt ratepayers.
Carbon pricing
A report published last year by Pennsylvania’s bipartisan Nuclear Energy Caucus called carbon pricing the best “long-term” solution for the state to address the economic woes of nuclear plants.
The regional grid operator for the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest, PJM, has also said putting a price on carbon is the best way for state governments to address the climate change concerns that have emerged amid their nuclear debates.
As someone who lived through the Three Mile Island accident, Joyce Corradi would be happier to see the plant close. But because the U.S. still has no real plan to deal with its radioactive nuclear waste, it will still be stored at the plant, sitting in her town indefinitely.
Even today, she avoids driving by the plant’s large, gray cooling towers.
“I find that really, forty years down the road,” she says, “I’m still sitting on top of a plant that has all the waste, a plant that cannot sell its electricity, and there’s still no real answers.”
Watch this documentary from WITF on Three Mile Island: The New Nuclear Dilemma
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Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/03/28/707000226/40-years-after-a-partial-nuclear-meltdown-a-new-push-to-keep-three-mile-island-o
None of MPs’ eight proposed Brexit options have secured clear backing in a series of votes in the Commons.
The options – which included a customs union with the EU and a referendum on any deal – were supposed to help find a consensus over how to leave the EU.
Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay said the results strengthened ministers’ view their deal was “the best option”.
The results capped a dramatic Wednesday in which Theresa May promised to stand down as PM if her deal was passed.
The prime minister told a meeting of Tory MPs she would leave office earlier than planned if it guaranteed Parliament’s backing for her withdrawal agreement with the EU.
Her announcement prompted a number of Tory opponents of her deal to signal their backing but the Democratic Unionists suggested they would continue to oppose the agreement.
MPs hoped Wednesday’s unprecedented series of “indicative votes” would help break the parliamentary deadlock over Brexit.
The failure to identify a clear way forward led to angry exchanges in the Commons with critics of the process saying it had been “an abject failure”.
The proposal which came closest to commanding majority support was a cross-party plan – tabled by former Conservative chancellor Ken Clarke – for the whole of the UK to join a new customs union with the EU to ensure tariff-free trade after the UK’s exit.
Its supporters included five Conservative ministers: Mark Field, Stephen Hammond, Margot James, Anne Milton and Rory Stewart.
All Conservative MPs – excluding cabinet ministers – were given a free vote, meaning they were not ordered to vote in a certain way.
Eight Conservatives voted for a referendum to endorse the deal, the proposal which secured the most affirmative votes. Labour controversially whipped its MPs to back the proposal but 10 shadow ministers abstained and Melanie Onn quit her job to vote against.
Labour’s own alternative plan for Brexit – including “close alignment” with the single market and protections for workers’ rights – was defeated by 307 votes to 237.
Five other propositions – including backing for a no-deal exit, the so-called Common Market 2.0 plan, a separate proposal to remain in the European Economic Area and one to stop the Brexit process by revoking Article 50 – all failed to secure the backing of a majority of MPs.
Brexiteer Mark Francois said “this attempt to seize the order paper” by MPs had failed and the public would be looking on “with amazement”.
But Conservative MP Sir Oliver Letwin, who oversaw the unprecedented process of indicative votes, said the lack of a majority for any proposition was “disappointing”.
While he said he believed MPs should be allowed to have another go at reaching a consensus on Monday, he said this would not be needed if the PM’s deal was approved before then.
Independent Group MP Anna Soubry said more people had voted for the idea of another referendum than voted for Mrs May’s deal on the two times it had been put to Parliament.
And Labour MP Dame Margaret Beckett, who put forward the motion for a confirmatory referendum, said the objective had not been to identify a single proposition at this stage but to get a sense of where a compromise may lie by, in her words, “letting a thousand flowers bloom”.
The prime minister offered to pay the ultimate price, and leave office – the grandest of gestures any leader ever really has.
For a moment it seemed it might work and line up the support she so desperately needs.
But within a couple of hours her allies in Northern Ireland were refusing to unblock the progress of Theresa May’s main mission.
That might not be terminal – one cabinet minister told me the PM may yet have another go at pushing her deal through Parliament against the odds on Friday.
But if Plan A fails, Parliament is not ready with a clear Plan B that could yet succeed.
For our politics, for businesses trying to make decisions, for all of us, divisions and tensions between and inside our government – and our Parliament – are too profound to bring this limbo to an end.
Commons Speaker John Bercow said the process agreed by the House allowed for a second stage of debate on Monday and there was no reason this should not continue.
While it was up to MPs, he said there was an understanding Wednesday’s objective was to “shortlist” a number of options before moving on to consider the “most popular”.
Mr Barclay appealed to MPs to back the PM’s deal “in the national interest” when it returns to the House for a third time – which could happen as soon as Friday.
“The House has considered a wide variety of options as a way forward,” he said.
“And it demonstrates there are no easy options here. There is no simple way forward. The deal the government has negotiated is a compromise…That is the nature of complex negotiations.
“The results of the process this House has gone through today strengthens our view that the deal the government has negotiated is the best option.”
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47728333
President Trump said on Fox News’ “Hannity” on Wednesday night that the Russian government preferred Hillary Clinton as the president because she wouldn’t have stood up to Russia’s energy industry.
“I will tell you this about Russia, if they had anything on me, it would have come out a long time ago, probably a long time before I ran because they would have been much better off,” Trump said in his first interview since the end of Robert Mueller’s investigation.
“I hope we really get along well with them but they would have been a lot better off with Hillary Clinton as president,” he continued.
TRUMP VOWS TO RELEASE FISA DOCS NOW THAT MUELLER PROBE IS CONCLUDED, SLAMS ‘TREASONOUS’ FBI
The president went on to claim that the Kremlin had more reason to back Clinton, who would have only helped Russia’s energy industry as the Democratic candidate opposed American oil and gas drilling.
“In terms of energy, in terms of oil and gas. Look at what we’re going with the energy, it’s incredible in our country. That’s tremendous competition for Russia. Hillary wouldn’t let you drill: there’d be no oil, there’d be no gas, there’d be no anything to compete,” Trump said.
Russia much rather have Hillary than Donald Trump. I can tell you that right now.”
“Russia much rather have Hillary than Donald Trump. I can tell you that right now,” he added.
The comments from Trump came amidst the end of the Mueller investigation into the collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia – finding no evidence of a conspiracy to coordinate the efforts to get elected, according to the letter written by Attorney General William Barr.
While the Russia probe didn’t find evidence of collusion, it’s likely to take weeks before the Mueller report could be seen by the Congress.
TRUMP CALLS SCHIFF A ‘DISGRACE’ FOR PUSHING COLLUSION AGENDA, SAYS DEM MAY HAVE BROKEN LAW
In the same interview, Trump vowed to release the full and unredacted Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants and related documents used by the FBI to probe his campaign, saying he wants to “get to the bottom” of how the long-running Russia collusion narrative began.
Trump said that his lawyers previously had advised him not to take that dramatic step out of fear that it could be considered obstruction of justice.
“I do, I have plans to declassify and release. I have plans to absolutely release,” Trump said. “I have some very talented people working for me, lawyers, and they really didn’t want me to do it early on. … A lot of people wanted me to do it a long time ago. I’m glad I didn’t do it. We got a great result without having to do it, but we will. One of the reasons that my lawyers didn’t want me to do it, is they said, if I do it, they’ll call it a form of obstruction.”
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Trump added: “Frankly, thought it would be better if we held it to the end. But at the right time, we will be absolutely releasing.”
Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-russia-rather-have-president-hillary-clinton-as-she-wouldnt-have-stand-up-to-kremlins-energy-interests
One million dollars can sure buy a lot of furniture.
Thirty workers from Jordan’s Furniture in Nashua, N.H., hit it big over the weekend, winning a $1 million prize on a Powerball ticket in Saturday’s drawing. Each person will walk away with about $33,000, according to the New Hampshire State Lottery.
“We each have our individual story of why it’s important to us, but there’s a couple in our group that — I’m not gonna discuss the personal issues, but it’s really a meaningful impact for them. So it’s made it even happier all around,” Sandrea Lutkevich of Dunstable, one of the winners, said at a press conference Wednesday morning. “It’s a big impact on us all.”
According to the state lottery, winners receive $1 million if they get the five white-ball numbers but not the final Powerball number. The odds of getting the five numbers is 1 in 11,688,054. The winning numbers Saturday night were 24-25-52-60-66, with a Powerball of 5 and a Power Play of 3.
“We are all really excited to win this $1 million Powerball prize together,” Litchfield resident Julia Crema, one of the members of the winning pool, said in a statement. “We have been playing Powerball together off and on for years and we always dreamed we’d land a big winner. Today is our lucky day!”
The winning group, dubbed “The Lucky 30,” joined in a pool and “at $2 each, they happened to hit for a million dollars,” N.H. Lottery Executive Director Charlie McIntyre said at the press conference Wednesday morning, when the winning group was presented with their giant $1 million check.
The “J-Team,” as they referred to themselves, had bought the ticket from the Cumberland Farms just across the street from their store. However, they didn’t see that they had the winning ticket until the next day.
As for who can join their lottery pool, the group said it’s open to anyone at their store. When asked about the feelings of those who were asked but didn’t join, the winners immediately talked about how supportive they are.
“They’re very gracious,” one said. Another person added, “They’re happy for us.”
The jackpot for Wednesday night’s drawing is set at $750 million, the fourth highest it has ever been, according to the state lottery.
And as the group smiled with the giant check, surrounded by others saying “million-dollar smile,” Carrie Perry of Lowell, one of the winners, was sure to correct them, saying instead, “$750 million smile.”
Breanne Kovatch can be reached at breanne.kovatch@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @breannekovatch.Source Article from https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/03/27/furniture-store-workers-new-hampshire-share-million-prize-powerball-ticket/Pm3HbzyjjpGNfJff1yzo3L/story.html