WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would not be surprised if China held out until after the U.S. election in 2020 to secure a trade deal in the hope they could negotiate with a different U.S. president.
“I don’t think personally China would sign a deal if I had a 2% chance of losing the election,” Trump told reporters at the White House just days before top U.S. officials head to Shanghai for another round of negotiations.
“I think China would probably say: ‘Let’s wait. Let’s wait. Maybe Trump will lose and we can deal with another dope, or another stiff.’”
Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by Tim Ahmann; Editing by Susan Thomas
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-trump/trump-says-china-could-wait-until-us-election-for-trade-deal-idUSKCN1UL2OD
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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/26/politics/sean-hannity-donald-trump/index.html
The man who created the fake presidential seal that was displayed on a giant screen behind US President Donald Trump at a conference on Tuesday told The Washington Post that he designed it as a “goofy thing” and never thought it would get so much attention.
Charles Leazott, a former Republican who said he can’t stand Trump, told The Post that while he was delighted to see his protest image behind the president, he is now getting abuse online as a result of the seal’s newfound fame.
Trump delivered a speech to thousands of young, cheering supporters at the Turning Point USA conference in Washington, DC. No one in the audience appeared to notice that behind him was a presidential seal that featured a double-headed bald eagle — resembling the Russian national symbol — holding golf clubs instead of the arrows that appear on the actual presidential seal.
Instead of the US’s Latin motto “E pluribus unum,” the seal featured the Spanish words “45 es un titere,” meaning “45 is a puppet.”
The eagle in the altered seal also holds dollar bills instead of a branch, while hammer and sickle imagery — used in the Soviet Union’s flag — replaces the stars in the middle of the real seal.
Here’s the fake seal:
And here’s the real presidential seal:
Leazott, a graphic designer from Virginia, designed the seal in 2016 and sold it on his web store, One Term Donnie, alongside posters, hats, stickers, shirts, and posters critical of Trump’s presidency.
Leazott told The Post that he used to be a Republican and twice voted for George W. Bush but could not support Trump, calling him someone “who I despise.”
He called the seal “the most petty piece of art I have ever created” and said he never expected it to have such a large platform.
“I’m a graphic designer; it’s just something I tossed together,” he told The Post. “This was just a goofy thing for some people I knew. I had no idea it would blow up like this.”
He said he was inundated with messages when he woke up on Thursday.
“It’s been chaos,” he told The Post. “This is not what I expected when I woke up today.”
Leazott told The Post he had seen a lot of support, but also abuse, saying that “the worst has been Facebook.”
“Holy crap at the amount of vile, hateful Facebook messages,” he said. “It’s apparently a personal affront to some people.”
But Leazott has embraced his work’s newfound fame, making the image of Trump with his seal the background on his computer, The Post said. He told the newspaper that that demand for his products had increased so much that he’d started working with a fulfillment center.
Leazott said that whoever put the graphic behind Trump “is my absolute hero.”
It remains unclear who put the seal behind the president and why they did it.
A spokesman for Turning Point USA told The Post that it had identified the person responsible and “let the individual go.”
The spokesman said the incident was a mistake due to a last-minute search for an image of the seal. “I don’t think it was malicious intent, but nevertheless,” he said.
But Leazott told The Post it had to have been deliberate. He described Turning Point USA’s account as “a load of crap,” as his image would be hard to find.
“You have to look for this,” he said. “There’s no way this was an accident is all I’m saying.”
Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-presidential-seal-made-former-republican-dislikes-trump-2019-7
A human smuggling investigation by the military led to the arrest of 16 Marines on Thursday while carrying out a battalion formation at California’s Camp Pendleton, a base about an hour’s drive from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Lenny Ignelzi/AP
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A human smuggling investigation by the military led to the arrest of 16 Marines on Thursday while carrying out a battalion formation at California’s Camp Pendleton, a base about an hour’s drive from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Lenny Ignelzi/AP
The Navy has arrested 16 Marines at a major West Coast military base over their alleged involvement in human smuggling, drug offenses and other crimes.
On Thursday morning, after some 800 Marines gathered in formation at Camp Pendleton north of San Diego, Marine officials working with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service pulled out the 16 people and placed them under arrest, as NPR’s Tom Bowman reported.
The Marine Corps has not provided details about the alleged crimes, saying in a statement that they include “various illegal activities ranging from human smuggling to drug-related offenses.”
It’s rare for such a large group of Marines to be arrested, Bowman said. “Marines I talk with say they don’t recall a number this high being arrested for alleged illegal activity in memory.”
In addition to the very public mass arrest, eight other Marines were pulled out of the formation for questioning about separate possible drug crimes, the Marines said.
The Marines say that none of the accused personnel were involved in the Southwest Border Support mission, where troops are assisting U.S. Customs and Border Protection to secure the U.S. border with Mexico. Camp Pendleton is about 60 miles north of the border.
The military has not specified what formal charges the arrested Marines might face.
Kendra Motz, a spokesperson for the 1st Marine Division, said that all of the Marines arrested and questioned were of relatively low rank – from private first class to corporal. According to Marine Corps Times, they were from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. That regiment “deploys as a Battalion Landing Team,” according to its website.
“1st Marine Division is committed to justice and the rule of law, and we will continue to fully cooperate with NCIS on this matter,” the Marines statement said. “Any Marines found to be in connection with these alleged activities will be questioned and handled accordingly with respect to due process.”
Another human smuggling investigation provided the information that led to the arrests. It’s not clear which investigation that information came from, though as Bowman notes, two Marines who were also from Camp Pendleton were arrested for allegedly helping three migrants enter the U.S. from Mexico earlier this month.
“The two Marines, according to court documents, were caught by a U.S. Border Patrol agent driving on Interstate 8 in San Diego County. Three passengers admitted they were Mexican citizens and planned to pay $8,000 to get into the U.S.,” Bowman reported. Marine Corps Times reports that those Marines also hailed from 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/07/26/745566318/mass-arrest-of-16-marines-over-alleged-human-smuggling-drug-crimes
Hours after former special counsel Robert Mueller testified Wednesday that Russians are still meddling in the U.S. political system, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the advancement of legislation to secure the nation’s election system. Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith also blocked a set of bills on election security Wednesday.
In blocking the legislation crafted by Senate Democrats to provide more funding for election security, McConnell declared the effort partisan and insisted the Trump administration has already done much to secure the nation’s elections.
One bill McConnell objected to would have both required the use of paper ballots and provided funding for the Election Assistance Commission. He also objected to legislation that would have required campaigns and candidates to report offers offers of election-related aid from foreign governments.
McConnell’s blocking of the legislation also comes as the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report identifying significant vulnerabilities — like aging voting equipment, paperless machines without backups and insecurity voter registration basis — exist in the United States’ election system.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized McConnell’s decision to halt additional funding for election security ahead of 2020.
“Mueller’s testimony was a clarion call for election security,” Schumer said. “Mueller’s testimony should be a wake-up call to every American, Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, that the integrity of our elections is at stake.”
Mueller was emphatic that Russians are continuing to interfere in U.S. elections, and that even more foreign countries are developing the capability to do what Russia did in 2016.
“Many more countries are developing the capability to replicate what the Russians have done,” the former special counsel testified.
Mr. Trump often pivots on the question of Russian election interference, and rarely admits it took place, preferring to focus on the “witch hunt” Russia investigation.
“There was no defense for this ridiculous hoax, this witch hunt that’s been going on for a long time, pretty much from the time I came down on the escalator with our first lady. And it’s a disgrace what happened,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday after Mueller’s testimony.
Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway told reporters the White House doesn’t want anyone meddling in U.S. elections, but threw shade at former President Barack Obama.
“We’ll work with everyone and we would have worked with President Obama who damn well knew that the Russians were trying to interfere but didn’t talk up about it because he was convinced the other person would win,” she said Friday.
— CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes contributed to this report
Source Article from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-blocks-election-security-bill/
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Source Article from https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/26/uk/carrie-symonds-boris-johnson-girlfriend-gbr-intl/index.html
LONDON/DUBAI/PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – Somewhere on its journey from the waters off Iran, around Africa’s southern tip and into the Mediterranean, the Grace 1 oil tanker lost the flag under which it sailed and ceased to be registered to Panama. Iran later claimed it as its own.
The ship carrying 2 million barrels of Iranian crude was seized by British Royal Marines off Gibraltar, raising tensions in the Gulf where Iran detained a UK-flagged ship in retaliation.
Grace 1 remains impounded, not because of its flag but because it was suspected of taking oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions, an allegation that Iran denies.
Yet Panama’s move on May 29 to strike it from its register mid-voyage was part of a global squeeze on Iranian shipping.
Nations that register vessels under so-called “flags of convenience” allowing them to sail legally have de-listed dozens of tankers owned by Iran in recent months, tightening the economic noose around it.
In the biggest cull, Panama, the world’s most important flag state, removed 59 tankers linked to Iran and Syria earlier this year, a decision welcomed by the United States which wants to cut off Tehran’s vital oil exports.
Panama and some other key flag states are looking more closely at the thousands of ships on their registers to ensure they comply with U.S. sanctions that were re-imposed against Iran last year and tightened further since.
A Reuters analysis of shipping registry data shows that Panama has de-listed around 55 Iranian tankers since January, Togo has de-listed at least three and Sierra Leone one.
That represents the majority of its operational fleet of tankers, the lifeblood of the oil-dominated economy, although Iran may have re-registered some ships under new flag states.
When a vessel loses its flag, it typically loses insurance cover if it does not immediately find an alternative, and may be barred from calling at ports. Flags of convenience also provide a layer of cover for a vessel’s ultimate owner.
International registries charge fees to ship owners to use their flags and offer tax incentives to attract business.
Iran said it still had plenty of options.
“There are so many shipping companies that we can use. In spite of U.S. pressure, many friendly countries are happy to help us and have offered to help us regarding this issue,” said an Iranian shipping official, when asked about tankers being de-listed.
Some nations have expressed caution, however. The world’s third biggest shipping registry, Liberia, said its database automatically identified vessels with Iranian ownership or other connections to the country.
“Thus, any potential request to register a vessel with Iranian connection triggers an alert and gets carefully vetted by the Registry’s compliance and management personnel,” the registry said.
Liberia said it was working closely with U.S. authorities to prevent what it called “malign activity” in maritime trade.
In many cases Iran has re-listed ships under its own flag, complicating efforts to move oil and other goods to and from the dwindling number of countries willing to do business with it.
Some shipping specialists said the Iranian flag was problematic because individuals working for the registry in Iran could be designated under U.S. sanctions, and so present a risk for anyone dealing with vessels listed by them.
“Most insurance companies or banks will not be able to deal with the Iranian flag as it is in effect dealing with the Iranian state,” said Mike Salthouse, deputy global director with ship insurer the North of England P&I.
Customs officials may also sit up and take notice.
“One of the problems with an Iranian-flagged ship is that there is a 50 percent chance that a customs officer will undertake a search, which means the cargo will be delayed,” said a U.N. sanctions investigator, who declined to be named. “These all add to the costs.”
A former U.S. diplomat said Washington was often in contact with Panama and other flag states to keep vessel registries “clean”.
“We are continuing to disrupt the Qods Force’s illicit shipments of oil, which benefit terrorist groups like Hezbollah as well as the Assad regime (in Syria),” said a spokesman at the U.S. State Department.
Qods Force refers to an elite unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that is in charge of the Guards’ overseas operations, and Hezbollah is an Iran-backed, heavily armed Shi’ite Muslim group that forms part of Lebanon’s coalition government.
“Nearly 80 tankers involved in sanctionable activity have been denied the flags they need to sail,” the spokesman added.
De-flagging Iranian ships is just one way the international community can squeeze Iran.
U.S. sanctions on oil exports aim to reduce Iran’s sales to zero. Iran has vowed to continue exporting.
In the first three weeks of June Iran exported around 300,000 barrels per day (bpd), a fraction of the 2.5 million bpd that Iran shipped before President Donald Trump’s exit in May last year from the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers.
Egypt could also complicate life for Tehran if it denies passage to tankers heading to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. The alternative route around Africa, taken by Grace 1 before its seizure, is far longer.
Refinitiv shipping data showed the Masal, an Iranian-flagged oil tanker, anchored in the Suez Canal’s waiting zone on July 6. It stayed there until July 12, when it began to sail south. It exited the Red Sea on July 17 and docked at Larak Island, Iran on July 23.
Two Egyptian intelligence sources told Reuters that the tanker was halted in the Red Sea in July by authorities “without anyone knowing the reason”.
A second senior Iranian government official involved in shipping declined to comment when asked about the Masal.
The Suez Canal Authority’s spokesman said Egypt did not bar vessels from crossing the canal except in times of war, in accordance with the Constantinople Convention. He declined to comment further.
Britain tightened the screw when it seized the Grace 1 supertanker on July 4, accusing it of violating sanctions against Syria.
Two Iranian-flagged ships have been stranded for weeks at Brazilian ports due to a lack of fuel, which state-run oil firm Petrobras refuses to sell them due to U.S. sanctions. Two more Iranian ships in Brazil could also be left without enough fuel to sail home.
A recent incident off Pakistan’s coast last month points to the lengths Iran has gone to in order to keep trading.
The Iranian cargo carrier Hayan left from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on June 3 and set sail for Karachi on Pakistan’s coast, according to ship tracking data from maritime risk analysts Windward.
On June 7, it changed its name to Mehri II and its flag to that of Samoa, the data showed, as it made its way toward Karachi port.
Six days later, the vessel conducted a ship-to-ship transfer of its unknown cargo further up Pakistan’s coast.
The ship then returned home, changing its flag back to Iran and its name back to Hayan.
Imran Ul Haq, spokesman for the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency, said they had no information, when asked about the Iranian ship’s activity.
Iran has frequently used ship-to-ship transfers to move oil and oil products since U.S. sanctions were reimposed.
Shipping data also show that a separate Iranian-owned cargo ship, the Ya Haydar, has been sailing around the Gulf and reporting its flag as that of Samoa.
Samoa denies allowing Iran to register any ships under its flag.
“The said vessels Hayan or Ya Haydar are not, and have never been listed, nor registered on the Samoa’s registry of vessels,” said Anastacia Amoa-Stowers of the Maritime department at Samoa’s Ministry of Works, Transport & Infrastructure.
“Given there are currently no Iranian ships listed on Samoa’s registry, there is no action to de-list a vessel. Additionally, there has never been any Iranian ships listed on Samoa’s vessel registry – previously and at present.”
Amoa-Stowers said Samoa was a closed registry, meaning that any foreign vessel flying its flag was doing so illegally.
The second senior Iranian government official involved in shipping declined to comment when asked about the two vessels.
A spokeswoman with the International Maritime Organization said the UN’s shipping agency had received information from Samoa which has been circulated to member states.
Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Washington, Syed Raza Hassan in Karachi, Edward McAllister in Dakar, Alphonso Toweh in Monrovia, John Zodzi in Lome, Praveen Menon in Wellington, Yousef Saba and Sami Aboudi in Cairo; Editing by Mike Collett-White
Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-iran-tanker-flags-insight/flags-of-inconvenience-noose-tightens-around-iranian-shipping-idUSKCN1UL0M8
Growth decelerated in the second quarter, but not by as much as Wall Street thought, as tariffs and a global slowdown weighed on the U.S. economy, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
GDP increased 2.1%, down from 3.1% from the first quarter, and the weakest increase since the first quarter of 2017 when President Donald Trump took office. Dow Jones Q2 estimates were for 2% growth.
However, the underlying numbers in the report seemed to take steam out of the recession fears that have been much of the talk among economists and policymakers at the Federal Reserve.
“The recession talk was always overstated,” said Michael Arone, chief investment strategist at State Street Global Advisors. “Those that were doing the Chicken Little, the sky is falling, we’re headed for recession talk were clearly early in that assessment. The economic data continue to suggest that the economy isn’t near recession, at least in the next year or so.”
Consumer and government spending helped propel GDP in the April-to-June period, while a pullback in business investment weighed on the number. Personal consumption expenditures rose 4.3%, the best performance since the fourth quarter of 2017. Government consumption expenditures and gross investment rose 5%, the fastest pace since Q2 of 2009 as the economy was coming out of the Great Recession.
At the same time, gross private domestic investment tumbled 5.5%, the worst since Q4 in 2015 as spending on structures slumped 10.6%. The decline pulled a full percentage point from the final GDP number.
Worries over the back-and-forth tariff battle between the U.S. and China has been a major driver of business sentiment, with executives expressing concern, both in surveys and
The report comes amid growing concern that the weakening growth hitting much of the world’s economy is spilling over into the U.S. While consumer activity has been strong, manufacturing growth has slumped recently and housing remains a weak spot.
“The data clearly shows signs of a bifurcated economy. Weakness in manufacturing has weighed on components like inventories and fixed investment, but the healthy U.S. consumer has helped buoy the economy as seen in the stable reading on personal consumption expenditures,” Michael Reynolds, investment strategy officer at Glenmede, said in a note. “Altogether, robust domestic consumers are more than offsetting the headwinds of a weakening manufacturing economy.”
The rise in consumption will need to continue for an economy that has fallen short of Trump’s promise for 3% growth that was supposed to be carried by the $1.5 trillion tax cut approved in 2017.
In addition to tallying up the most recent progress, Friday’s report also featured revisions for the past five years. The new figures showed that GDP still rose 2.9% in 2018 when comparing total output over the year, though another measure called real GDP, comparing the fourth quarter of 2018 from the same period in 2017, showed an increase of just 2.5%, a decline from 2.8% in 2017.
“We had a big personal consumption number that’s not going to be sustainable going forward,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM. “The brief period of 3% growth is in the rear-view mirror. The economy’s decelerating, but it’s not going to end up in recession.”
Federal Reserve policymakers have been expressing concern about a potential slowdown and are expected to approve a quarter percentage point rate cut at their policy meeting next week. The Fed currently targets its benchmark funds rate in a range between 2.25% and 2.5%, but markets are pricing in a 100% chance of a cut and about a 53% probability of two more reductions before the end of the year, according to the CME.
While central bankers worry over rates, corporate profits have proven more resilient than expected, and analysts believe the economy, though slowing, remains strong enough to support earnings. Also, Goldman Sachs said in a report earlier this week that recent economic data is showing improvement, and the bank’s strategists expect GDP to rebound to around 2% in the second half.
Markets were still expecting the Fed to cut, through the probability of a 50 basis point reduction fell to 19% following the GDP report from about 24% earlier in the morning.
“The net on this is that given the Fed’s global reasons to ease and that market strength and hence consumption are similarly built on the expectation of lower policy rates the Fed has no option other than to cut 25 on Wednesday and see whether the data unfold to create the need for a further cut in September,” said Steve Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/26/us-gdp-second-quarter-2019.html
President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Fox News last night, talking via phone to Hannity host Sean Hannity about Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress.
The President’s conclusion: The Democrats “created this phony crime” with their accusations of obstruction of justice.
“I didn’t do it. They create a phony crime,” Trump said. “And then, they say, ‘he obstructed.’ They said there was no collusion, but ‘he obstructed,’ and there has never been anything like this ever in this country.”
“This should never happen to another president of the United States again,” Trump insisted. “This is an absolute catastrophe for our country. This was a fake witch hunt.”
He concluded that the investigation, which many believe was initiated by the Democrats funding a phony dossier, but was not addressed by Mueller, was the root of the problem.”This was treason. This was high crimes. This was everything as bad a definition you want to come up with,” Trump said.
Watch the interview above.
Source Article from https://deadline.com/2019/07/fox-news-sean-hannity-president-trump-interview-1202654487/
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Relations between the UK and the US are going to be “sensational” now Boris Johnson is in Downing Street, America’s ambassador to the UK has said.
Woody Johnson told the BBC the two had a lot in common in their leadership style and desire to “get things done”.
He played down the PM’s criticism of Mr Trump when he was London mayor, when he called him “stupefyingly ignorant”.
And he said a no-deal Brexit would not affect the UK’s ability to strike a trade deal with the US.
The US president has welcomed Mr Johnson’s rise to power, saying he would do a “great job” and even suggesting he was “Britain Trump”.
A supporter of Brexit, Mr Trump was critical of former Prime Minister Theresa May’s negotiations with the EU.
There have also been tensions over climate change and the US president’s views on race and immigration, while a recent row over the leaking of British diplomatic cables led to the resignation of Sir Kim Darroch, the UK’s ambassador in Washington.
Woody Johnson told Radio 4’s Today his job was to focus on the “things we agree on”.
“We’re going to have bumps in the road, no question, but we are two great countries,” he said.
“If we look forward optimistically between our two countries, we’re going to lift all the people in this country – to independence and all the things you voted for in the referendum.”
“I think that’s what the president wants and what your new prime minister wants too,” he added.
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In 2015, Boris Johnson, as London Mayor, said Mr Trump’s claim that parts of the city were “no-go areas” showed “quite stupefying ignorance” and made him unfit to be president.
But Woody Johnson suggested Mr Trump was not bothered by the comments.
“The new relationship between your new prime minister and our president… it’s going to be sensational,” he said. “Their leadership has a lot in common. Both have their own style but similarities – a clear vision of what they want to accomplish.”
He said the UK would be at the “front of the line” for a trade deal once Brexit had happened and it was “not imperative” for the UK to leave the EU with an agreement to make progress.
“The president is going to try and move the ball forwards – the UK is our most important ally in security and prosperity. He knows that.”
Most experts believe a free trade deal with the US will take years to complete and could be beset by difficulties over issues like food standards, environmental regulations and access to healthcare services for each other’s companies.
And one of the most powerful politicians in the US has said its Congress would not support any trade agreement which undermined the peace settlement in Northern Ireland.
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Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, told the Irish Times there could be no return to physical border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, something Dublin has said would be inevitable if the UK left without a deal.
“We made it clear in our conversations with senior members of the Conservative Party earlier this year that there should be no return to a hard border on the island,” she said.
“That position has not changed. Any trade deal between the US and Great Britain would have to be cognisant of that.”
The new prime minister has not yet revealed when he will hold his first face-to-face leaders’ meeting with Mr Trump.
No 10 confirmed that Mr Johnson had spoken to the French President Emmanuel Macron over the phone on Thursday and they had discussed Brexit.
A German government spokesperson also said the PM had discussed Brexit with Chancellor Angela Merkel during a phone call on Friday.
“The chancellor has invited the prime minister to visit Berlin for an early first visit,” they added.
Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-49125925
The integrity of American elections was compromised long before Donald Trump’s shocking victory in 2016, but former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress on Wednesday made clear that one political party is actively subverting attempts to protect our democracy.
Hours after Mueller testified about foreign election interference before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday afternoon, the Republican-controlled Senate moved to block four separate bills to defend the U.S. democratic process.
“Over the course of my career, I’ve seen a number of challenges to our democracy,” Mueller said in his opening remarks. “The Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious. As I said on May 29, this deserves the attention of every American.”
Muller told the committee that the Russian effort “wasn’t a single attempt. They’re doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign.”
He later told lawmakers that “much more needs to be done in order to protect against these intrusions — not just by the Russians, but others as well.” Researchers have already reported suspected Iranian disinformation campaigns on most major social media platforms this year.
What Mueller said, coupled with his report — which found that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election in “sweeping and systematic fashion” — is breathtaking. Russia’s disinformation campaign in 2016 spent more than $1 million a month, as Mueller reported in an indictment last year. When given an opportunity to question Mueller, however, some Republicans on the Intelligence Committee actually challenged him on his findings, complaining that he was baselessly defaming the Kremlin.
Even beyond their evident lack of interest in preventing election interference from happening again, Republicans seem to be defending it. This is no surprise when you recall that President Trump said as recently as last month that he’d be fine with accepting damaging information on an opponent from a foreign government.
“I think you might want to listen,” Trump said in an interview with ABC News. “There isn’t anything wrong with listening.” The next presidential election is less than 16 months away.
“The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
The next day, only hours after Mueller testified to the same effect, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, a Republican, blocked two election-security bills and a measure regarding cybersecurity for Senate staff.
Democrats had hoped to pass a pair of bills requiring campaigns to alert the FBI and the Federal Election Commission if they received offers of assistance from abroad. Another bill would allow the sergeant-at-arms to offer voluntary assistance to help secure the personal devices and accounts of senators and their staff.
Hyde-Smith blocked all the bills without offering any explanation for her action or stating whether she made the motion by herself or on behalf of her party. Her move is generally in keeping with Republican arguments that Congress has already responded to election security issues, which primarily fall on state officials. Under Senate rules, any one senator can ask for consent to pass a bill but any individual senator is able to object.
Hyde-Smith then tweeted about election security Wednesday night.
That tweet is empty theater, as her actions prove. She talks of “moving on,” as if the alarm bells Mueller has raised were solved merely by being rung, and mentions “Russian meddling” to cast an apolitical scrim over a nakedly partisan effort.
Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., condemned Hyde-Smith’s motion: “Mueller’s testimony should serve as a warning to every member of this body about what could happen in 2020, literally in our next elections.” But the committee’s chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., defended Hyde-Smith on Wednesday, saying he did not think Congress needed to take further action to mitigate the threat of foreign interference.
Last month, another freshman senator, Republican Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, blocked similar legislation. The Secure Elections Act, co-sponsored by Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma and backed by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, all Republicans, would streamline cybersecurity information-sharing between federal intelligence agencies and state election authorities and provide security clearances to state election officials. It would also make relevant grants eligible to local jurisdictions.
When Republicans controlled the House last summer, they eliminated new funding for states to strengthen election security. After years of unsuccessfully trying to defund the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Republicans defeated a bill to extend funding for a state grant program meant to ensure that the voting process is secure.
The EAC is the sole federal agency that exclusively works to secure the integrity of the democratic process. It has worked with the FBI to examine an attack on the agency’s computer systems by a Russian-speaking hacker after Trump’s election.
Late last month, the Democratic House majority passed an election security measure that authorized an additional $600 million to states as well as $175 million every other year to bolster election infrastructure. The bill would also require voting systems to use paper ballots as a backup to electronic systems, and would require that all 50 states conduct audits after elections. A recent analysis by the Associated Press found that many of the 10,000 election jurisdictions nationwide use old or outmoded operating systems to create their ballots, program voting machines, tally votes and report counts.
All but one Republican in the House opposed the bill. The day after Mueller’s testimony, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the bill in the Senate.
“Clearly something so partisan that it only received one single solitary Republican vote in the House is not going to travel through the Senate by unanimous consent,” McConnell said on Thursday.
McConnell is suggesting that Democrats are seeking a political advantage by trying to stop foreign election interference. He also blocked the Duty To Report Act, which would require candidates, campaign officials and their family members to notify the FBI of any offers of assistance from foreign governments.
By blocking these bill McConnell’s giving the Republicans, who face a generic seven-point disadvantage in polls of voter preference, a political benefit. Recall that when Barack Obama raised concerns about possible foreign meddling in 2016, McConnell threatened that if the then-president went public, the Senate leader would claim that Democrats were merely playing politics.
At least a dozen Republican congressional campaigns used materials stolen from Democrats by Russian hackers during the 2016 election. Several other Republican campaigns received millions in contributions from an oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2018, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called on the National Republican Congressional Committee to make a bipartisan pledge not to use stolen or hacked information in House campaigns. After months of negotiations, last September Republicans backed out, refusing to sign the pledge.
In the last few months, we have seen Republican voter fraud in North Carolina so severe that it invalidated a House election, a GOP staffer arrested for election fraud in Virginia, a Republican Texas mayor arrested for rigging an election, and Texas’ Republican secretary of state forced to resign after his botched attempt to purge voter rolls.
The Senate’s rejection of election protection efforts this week suggests that the GOP’s frequent complaints about “voter fraud” were a farce. As Salon’s Heather Digby Parton has written, “when the history of this bizarre era is written, it may very well be said that McConnell was the man behind the curtain who made it all happen.” If and when the Democrats win control of the Senate again, this issue will suddenly leap back to prominence, under the amorphous and amoral set of Republican rules.
Source Article from https://www.salon.com/2019/07/26/mueller-made-one-thing-clear-republicans-are-a-national-security-threat/
President Donald Trump gave a speech at a student activist conference in front of an altered presidential seal.
USA TODAY
The graphic artist who created a fake presidential seal that mocked President Donald Trump went from anonymity to anti-Trump folk hero this week after the president stood before the seal during a gathering of conservative teens on Tuesday.
Turning Point USA, the organization that hosted Trump at its Teen Action Summit in Washington, say “a last-minute A/V mistake” caused the doctored seal to flank a gleaming Trump while he was onstage at the Washington Marriott Marquis.
But the man who created it, Charles Leazott, according to multiple media reports, explains it this way.
“There are only two options here,” Leazott told Forbes. “This really was an accident and their incompetence knows no bounds (or) someone did this on purpose and they’re lying to cover that fact up.”
Breaking down the symbolism: Golf clubs, double-headed eagle are in the doctored image
The Washington Post reported that Leazott, 46, is a former Republican from Richmond, Virginia, who twice voted for George W. Bush.
The Post first reported on the altered seal the day after Trump’s onstage appearance. As Trump walked onstage to a cheering audience on Tuesday, two presidential seals flashed on screen. The seal directly behind Trump was the authentic presidential seal. One of the seals, however, was not like the others.
Upon closer examination, the seal on Trump’s right includes a double-headed eagle, unlike the single head of the traditional presidential seal, and seems to resemble the Russian coat of arms. The seal has a complex history, notes the Victoria and Albert Museum, but one of the more common interpretations is that the two heads represent east and west, “an allegory sometimes for unity, and sometimes for absolute monarchy.” It could be a reference to Trump’s sometimes-controversial relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Presidential seal: Trump appears in front of altered presidential seal saying ’45 is a puppet’
Leazott told Forbes he made the fake seal in 2016 amid Trump’s run-up to the presidency as a way to amuse friends and family. He even started an online store where people could buy posters and T-shirts of the image.
However, widespread enthusiasm for the seal didn’t appear to take off until Thursday, after the seal’s appearance made news. That’s when, according to the Washington Post, Leazott noticed news coverage of the seal while drinking morning coffee.
“It’s been chaos,” he told the Post. “This is not what I expected when I woke up today.”
In preceding years, reports Forbes, Leazott had let his website fall by the wayside. “Cut to today,” he told the magazine, “and I put the site back up.”
The Post reported Leazott sold out of shirts Thursday afternoon.
‘Bobblehead’: Book describes Mike Pence’s evolution into Trump’s bootlicking `Bobblehead’
While people celebrated Leazott online (“Charles Leazott is my hero!”) there was fallout at Turning Point USA, which told CNN an audiovisual aide was fired over the mishap. The organization also apologized to the president, claiming “zero malicious intent.”
Contributing: Nicholas Wu
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/26/fake-presidential-seal-trump-turning-point-event-charles-leazott/1835339001/
The Internal Revenue Service turned President Richard Nixon’s tax returns over to a congressional committee the same day in 1973 that the panel requested them for a review, according to letters released by House Democrats on Thursday.
The newly released documents appear to contradict the Trump administration’s claims that House Democrats’ demands for the president’s tax returns are “unprecedented,” and suggest a split between this administration and past IRS officials over the interpretation of the law.
Congressional Republicans denied any similarity between the two episodes, pointing out that Nixon requested the investigation into his returns while Trump has not.
On Dec. 13, 1973, Laurence N. Woodworth of the Joint Committee on Taxation asked the IRS commissioner to review Nixon’s tax returns from 1969 through 1972, according to the documents. Nixon had asked the congressional committee to review the documents amid the widening Watergate scandal.
In a letter to the committee also dated Dec. 13, 1973, IRS Commissioner Donald C. Alexander said that enclosed in his response were attachments of “true copies of the original joint federal income tax returns filed by Richard M. and Patricia R. Nixon” for the years requested.
House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) has requested six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns, from 2013 to 2018, a period that includes several years before Trump became president.
Neal recently sued the Trump administration in federal court to obtain the records, after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin argued in a May letter that Neal’s “unprecedented request” should be denied.
The Ways and Means Committee voted in executive session to make the documents public. In a memo sent Thursday to other members of the committee, Neal said the letters confirm his interpretation of U.S. Code Section 6103, which pertains to congressional requests for private taxpayer information.
“Section 6103 has been used to obtain the tax returns and return information of a sitting President,” Neal said in the letter. “Where records were available, the IRS complied with JCT’s requests without delay or objection.”
An IRS spokesman did not immediately return a request for comment. Congressional Republicans immediately slammed “unprecedented Democrat overreach” in releasing the documents, also arguing they were not similar to the fight over Trump’s returns. GOP lawmakers also noted that, unlike Trump, Nixon voluntarily requested that the JCT look into his tax returns.
[A century-old feud between millionaires is now key to getting Trump’s tax returns]
“This is a travesty,” Rep. Kevin Brady (Tex.), the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement. “[The documents] shed no light and have no comparison to Democrats’ illegitimate and unprecedented request.”
But Joe Thorndike, a historian and policy analyst for Tax Notes, said the documents undermine one argument Mnuchin has made for denying the request for the documents. A Joint Committee on Taxation memo that had already been made public suggested the committee had reviewed Nixon’s taxes, but the new letters erase any doubt, Thorndike said.
“The Trump administration has made claims about [Neal’s request] being unprecedented. It is not unprecedented,” Thondike said. “We can argue about [Neal’s request] on the merits, but now we have established that this has been done before.”
Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/25/irs-turned-over-nixons-tax-returns-same-day-that-congressional-panel-asked-them/
On Thursday, Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) filed a federal lawsuit alleging that tech giant Google infringed on her free speech when it paused her campaign’s advertising account for six hours after the Democratic presidential debate on June 28.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Los Angeles. It is believed to be the first time a presidential candidate has sued a major technology company.
“Google’s discriminatory actions against my campaign are reflective of how dangerous their complete dominance over internet search is, and how the increasing dominance of big tech companies over our public discourse threatens our core American values,” Gabbard said in a statement. “This is a threat to free speech, fair elections and to our democracy, and I intend to fight back on behalf of all Americans.”
After the June debate, Gabbard was one of the top searches on Google. According to Politico, Gabbard’s campaign decided it was an optimal time to take advantage of her popularity on Google and buy search ads.
Gabbard’s attorney Brian Dunne explained via Politico: “Just as her Google traffic was spiking, her Google ad account was taken offline.”
Google told the campaign the account was suspended for a billing violation. In a statement, via Politico, a spokesperson said the suspension was automatic.
“We have automated systems that flag unusual activity on all advertiser accounts — including large spending changes — in order to prevent fraud and protect our customers,” Riva Sciuto said. “In this case, our system triggered a suspension and the account was reinstated shortly thereafter. We are proud to offer ad products that help campaigns connect directly with voters, and we do so without bias toward any party or political ideology.”
Dunne said though the suspension prevented the Gabbard campaign from really speaking to the people because it “had no possibility of putting up Google ads.”
“They had no ability to really speak to the people who wanted to hear from her,’’ he said.
In the lawsuit, Gabbard’s campaign says Google “has not provided a straight answer” regarding what happened. Gabbard is seeking $50 million in damages and an injunction to keep Google from “further intermeddling in the 2020 United States Presidential Election.”
Gabbard has been a critic of the tech oligopolies since she announced her presidency. Gabbard previously warned that “big tech companies who take away our civil liberties and freedoms in the name of national security and corporate greed.”
Source Article from https://www.salon.com/2019/07/25/tulsi-gabbard-sues-google-for-50-million/
Flustered, the host quickly cut away to a separate segment of the programme.
Not long after, however, the President did manage to connect to them and was welcomed with an apology “on behalf of the whole Fox News channel”.
Following the blunder, the pair then spoke of the recent hearing of special counsel, Robert Mueller.
Trump has recently claimed that he was “totally exonerated” by the report by Mr Mueller.
READ MORE: Imran Khan: ‘We could be sandwiched between India and Afghanistan!’
Source Article from https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1158012/Fox-news-Donald-Trump-interview-Sean-Hannity-presidential-election-2020-latest-US-update
Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.
Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/25/politics/republican-senators-block-election-security-legislation/index.html
Brussels has roundly rebuffed Boris Johnson after he laid down tough conditions for the new Brexit deal he hopes to strike over the summer.
Speaking to the House of Commons for the first time as prime minister on Thursday, Johnson reiterated his campaign pledge of ditching the Irish backstop and promised to ramp up preparations for a no-deal Brexit immediately.
“I would prefer us to leave the EU with a deal,” he said. “I would much prefer it. I believe that it is possible even at this late stage, and I will work flat-out to make it happen.
“But certain things need to be clear: the withdrawal agreement negotiated by my predecessor has been three times rejected by this house; its terms are unacceptable to this parliament and to this country.”
In a phone call later in the day, the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, signalled the EU27’s determination to stick with the deal negotiated with Theresa May’s government – which includes the backstop.
“President Juncker listened to what Prime Minister Johnson had to say, reiterating the EU’s position that the withdrawal agreement is the best and only agreement possible – in line with the European council guidelines,” a commission spokesperson said.
Juncker told Johnson the EU was willing to “add language” to the political declaration – the non-binding document that covers the future relationship – but would only consider any other proposals “providing they are compatible with the withdrawal agreement”. The spokesperson added that the two men had swapped mobile numbers.
Earlier, Johnson outlined to a noisy Commons his vision of a post-Brexit UK in 2050 as “the greatest and most prosperous economy in Europe at the centre of a new network of trade deals”.
In a speech that was loudly cheered by many Conservative MPs, he said all members of his new cabinet were committed to leaving the EU on 31 October “whatever the circumstances – and to do otherwise would cause a catastrophic loss of confidence in our political system”.
He also said he would ramp up no-deal preparations, which his official spokesman later confirmed was likely to include additional spending, and a significant public information campaign. Michael Gove will coordinate no-deal planning across the government.
The Irish government expressed concern at Johnson’s approach to Brexit as tension began to mount over the increased risk of no deal. Michael Creed, Ireland’s agriculture minister, described the new government’s stance, and the composition of Johnson’s top team, as “alarming”.
“The makeup of this government seems to be a mirror image of [Johnson’s] own viewpoint substantially and obviously that would be of concern to us,” he told RTÉ radio.
“What the [Irish] government is concerned about now is the approach of new administration in the UK to the withdrawal agreement,” he said, adding: “Obviously what we are hearing from the [UK] government is quite alarming.”
The following people are in Boris Johnson’s first cabinet:
Sajid Javid, Chancellor
Dominic Raab, Foreign secretary
Priti Patel, Home secretary
Michael Gove, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Robert Buckland QC, Lord Chancellor and Justice secretary
Stephen Barclay, Brexit secretary
Ben Wallace, Defence secretary
Matthew Hancock, Health secretary
Andrea Leadsom, Business secretary
Liz Truss, International trade secretary
Amber Rudd, Work and pensions secretary
Gavin Williamson, Education secretary
Theresa Villiers, Environment secretary
Robert Jenrick, Housing secretary
Grant Shapps, Transport secretary
Julian Smith, Northern Ireland secretary
Alister Jack, Scotland secretary
Alun Cairns, Wales secretary
Baroness Evans, Leader of the House of Lords
Nicky Morgan, DCMS secretary
Alok Sharma, International development secretary
James Cleverly, Party chair and minister without portfolio
These people also attend full cabinet meetings:
Rishi Sunak, Chief secretary to the Treasury
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the House of Commons
Mark Spencer, Chief whip
Geoffrey Cox QC, Attorney General
Kwasai Kwarteng, Energy minister
Oliver Dowden, Paymaster general and minister for the Cabinet office
Jake Berry, Minister of State at the Cabinet Office
Esther McVey, Housing minister
Jo Johnson, Universities minister
Brandon Lewis, Security minister
In Brussels, meanwhile, Michel Barnier warned that such “combative” rhetoric was an attempt to crack the EU’s unity. In a note sent to diplomats, the bloc’s chief negotiator counselled the EU27 to stick to its principles in the face of the prime minister’s no-deal threats.
“PM Johnson has stated that if an agreement is to be reached it goes by way of eliminating the backstop. This is of course unacceptable and not within the mandate of the European council,” he warned.
In comments that signalled the growing belief in Brussels that the UK is heading towards a general election, Barnier wrote: “I note also the many strong reactions to the speech in the House of Commons. In this context we must follow carefully the further political and economic reactions and developments in the UK following this speech.
“In any case, what remains essential on our side is to remain calm, stick to our principles and guidelines and show solidarity and unity of the 27.”
Many MPs on both sides of the House of Commons believe Johnson’s bid to negotiate a new Brexit deal are merely the prelude to a general election, given the high bar he has set for success and the Tories’ slim majority.
Johnson is announcing that the recruitment of 20,000 additional police officers will start within weeks – an eye-catching promise first made during his leadership campaign, that could sit comfortably in a Tory manifesto.
“As I said on the steps of Downing Street this week, my job as prime minister is to make our streets safer. People want to see more officers in their neighbourhoods, protecting the public and cutting crime,” he said.
Increasing the number of officers by 20,000 will only partially reverse the deep cuts made since 2010.
The new government is also announcing the creation of a new “national policing board”, chaired by the home secretary, Priti Patel, in what she described as “the start of a new relationship between the government and the police”.
Other election-ready pledges made in Johnson’s first 48 hours in Downing Street included upgrading 20 hospitals, fixing the broken social care system, cutting GP waiting times and rolling out full-fibre broadband across the country.
The presence of the Vote Leave campaign mastermind Dominic Cummings in No 10 has also fuelled speculation about an autumn poll.
Cost: £9bn. Only 12% of people in the UK earn more than £50,000 a year, so this pledge to move the 40% threshold up to £80,000 would help those on the highest incomes.
Cost: £11bn. At present people pay NICs when they earn £166 a week and income tax when they earn £12,500 a year. Johnson wants to gradually align the two systems by raising the NICs ceiling to an annual £12,500.
Cost: £4.6bn. Theresa May’s successor says he will raise education spending to £5,000 for every secondary school pupil and £4,000 for each primary school pupil.
Cost: £1.1bn. Johnson has promised an extra 20,000 officers.
Cost: £250m. This would reverse the BBC – and George Osborne’s -decisions over this perk for pensioners.
Cost: £3.8bn. There have been reports that the incoming prime minister would like all house sales under £500,000 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to be exempt from stamp duty.
Cost: unknown. Industry experts say this is not feasible in the time available, given coverage is currently less than 10%.
Cost: unknown. One of Johnson’s big early decisions will be whether to scrap HS2 and spend the money on alternative rail infrastructure such as linking the big cities of the north through HS3. Any savings generated by scrapping HS2 will almost certainly be recycled into other transport projects.
Cost: unknown. The government employs one in six of the people working in the UK, so it would be affected by Johnson’s promise to raise the national living wage.
Larry Elliott Economics editor
Johnson will make a series of campaign-style visits in the coming days – including to Scotland, where the Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, has expressed some concerns about his approach.
Outlining his Brexit stance to MPs on Thursday, Johnson said he was ready to “negotiate in good faith” to find an alternative to the Irish backstop.
“I do not accept the argument that says that these issues can only be solved by all or part of the UK remaining in the customs union or in the single market,” he said. “The evidence is that other arrangements are perfectly possible, and are also perfectly compatible with the Belfast or Good Friday agreement, to which we are of course steadfastly committed.”
Challenged by Labour’s Hilary Benn about comments from the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, ruling out a new withdrawal agreement, Johnson said the question was “redolent of the kind of defeatism and negativity that we’ve had over the last three years”.
“Why begin by assuming that our EU friends will not wish to compromise?” he asked.
Similarly, when another Labour backbencher, Yvette Cooper, asked Johnson about what practical solutions could be used for the Irish border in the absence of a trade deal or backstop, he replied that there were “abundant facilitations already available”.
Source Article from https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/25/brussels-throws-out-boris-johnsons-plans-to-alter-brexit-deal
A Ford Lincoln Aviator rolls off the assembly line at a Chicago Assembly Plant. California agreed to a deal with four automakers, including Ford, to produce fuel-efficient cars.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
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A Ford Lincoln Aviator rolls off the assembly line at a Chicago Assembly Plant. California agreed to a deal with four automakers, including Ford, to produce fuel-efficient cars.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
The state of California has formed a deal with four automakers to produce fuel-efficient cars. The agreement is different from plans the Trump administration is expected to put in place which would relax national emissions standards.
Four of the world’s largest automakers, including Ford, BMW, Honda and Volkswagen, signed the deal with the California Air Resources Board.
In a conference call with reporters, California Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “Clean air emissions standards … are perhaps the most significant thing this state can do, and this nation can do, to advance those goals,” Newsom said. “The Trump administration is hell bent on rolling them back. They are in complete denialism about climate change.”
Later this summer the Trump administration is expected to announce a regulatory rollback, eliminating a rule implemented by the Obama administration requiring passenger vehicles to have an average mileage of about 51 miles per gallon by 2025. The administration is also expected to try to take away California’s right to set more stringent rules under the Clean Air Act.
In a statement given to NPR, Michael Abboud, spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, said, “The Trump Administration is pursuing one national standard and certainty for the entire auto market that will provide safe, affordable vehicles for consumers while also improving environmental outcomes.”
He called California’s announcement of a deal with automakers “a PR stunt that does nothing to further the one national standard that will provide certainty and relief for American consumers.”
Under the California agreement, the four automakers have agreed to reach a standard of about 50 miles per gallon by 2026. The deal also allows for the companies to receive credits toward meeting their annual targets by adopting climate-friendly technologies.
Dan Beckner is director of the Safe Climate Campaign at the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington-based nonprofit group, says the deal between California and automakers should be more stringent. “If these standards allow all of these loopholes, it isn’t clear that California will create the tough standards that we need to protect the climate and Californians’ health,” Beckner told NPR.
Beckner also says the emissions standards put in place under the Obama administration, which are slightly more restrictive than the California agreement, should be maintained. “The standards the Trump administration is trying to roll back are the biggest single step that any nation has taken to tackle global warming. They would save 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide, if not weakened. So this is an enormous threat to the planet if the president’s rollback goes forward,” Beckner said.
The Trump administration’s pending rollback, California’s deal, and the potential for this all to go to court is creating regulatory uncertainty for automakers.
Last month NPR’s Camila Domonoske reported that while automakers were critical of the tightening of emissions standards under the Obama administration, the battle between states and the Trump administration could make manufacturing more difficult.
“If you know what the regulations are going to be in five years, you can make decisions about what kinds of cars you want to bring to market,” Domonoske reported. “So even some carmakers who, again, were kind of skeptical about the original rules are really adamant now that they definitely don’t want this feud, this back-and-forth, to continue.”
Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/07/25/745389326/california-signs-deal-with-automakers-to-produce-fuel-efficient-cars
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A day after two North Korean missile launches rattled Asia, the nation announced Friday that its leader Kim Jong Un supervised a test of a new-type tactical guided weapon that was meant to be a “solemn warning” about South Korean weapons introduction and its rival’s plans to hold military exercises with the United States.
The message in the country’s state media quoted Kim and was directed at “South Korean military warmongers.” It comes as U.S. and North Korean officials struggle to set up talks after a recent meeting on the Korean border between Kim and President Donald Trump seemed to provide a step forward in stalled nuclear negotiations.
Although the North had harsh words for South Korea, the statement stayed away from the kind of belligerent attacks on the United States that have marked past announcements, a possible signal that it’s interested in keeping diplomacy alive.
It made clear, however, that North Korea is infuriated over Seoul’s purchase of U.S.-made high-tech fighter jets and U.S.-South Korean plans to hold military drills this summer that the North says are rehearsals for an invasion and proof of the allies’ hostility to Pyongyang.
After watching the weapons’ launches, Kim said they are “hard to intercept” because of the “low-altitude gliding and leaping flight orbit of the tactical guided missile,” according to the Korean Central News Agency. He was quoted as saying the possession of “such a state-of-the-art weaponry system” is of “huge eventful significance” in bolstering his country’s armed forces and guaranteeing national security.
South Korean officials said Thursday the weapons North Korea fired were a new type of a short-range ballistic missile and that a detailed analysis is necessary to find out more about the missiles. But many civilian experts say the weapons are likely a North Korean version of the Russian-made Iskander, a short-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile that has been in the Russian arsenal for more than a decade.
That missile is designed to fly at a flattened-out altitude of around 40 kilometers (25 miles) and make in-flight guidance adjustments. Both capabilities exploit weaknesses in the U.S. and South Korean missile defenses that are now in place, primarily Patriot missile batteries and the THAAD anti-missile defense system. The Iskander is also quicker to launch and harder to destroy on the ground, because of its solid fuel engine. It advanced guidance system also makes it more accurate.
The launches were the first known weapons tests by North Korea in more than two months. When North Korea fired three missiles into the sea in early May, many outside experts also said at the time those weapons strongly resembled the Iskander.
The North Korean message Friday was gloating at times, saying the test “must have given uneasiness and agony to some targeted forces enough as it intended.”
KCNA accused South Korea of “running high fever in their moves to introduce the ultramodern offensive weapons.”
North Korea likely referred to South Korea’s purchase and ongoing deployment of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets. Earlier this month, North Korea said it would develop and test “special weapons” to destroy the aircraft. Under its biggest weapons purchase, South Korea is to buy 40 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin by 2021. The first two arrived in March and two others are to be delivered in coming weeks.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry on Friday described the launches as “acts of provocation” that are “not helpful to an efforts to alleviate military tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus urged “no more provocations,” saying the U.S. is committed to diplomatic engagement with North Korea. “We continue to press and hope for these working-level negotiations to move forward,” she said.
North Korea is banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions from engaging in any launch using ballistic technology. While the North could face international condemnation over the latest launches, it’s unlikely that the nation, already under 11 rounds of U.N. sanctions, will be hit with fresh punitive measures. The U.N. council has typically imposed new sanctions only when the North conducted long-range ballistic launches.
North Korea has been urging the U.S. and South Korea to scrap their military drills. Last week, it said it may lift its 20-month suspension of nuclear and long-range missile tests in response. Seoul said Wednesday that North Korea was protesting the drills by refusing to accept its offer to send 50,000 tons of rice through an international agency.
North Korea also may be trying to get an upper hand ahead of a possible resumption of nuclear talks. Pyongyang wants widespread sanctions relief so it can revive its dilapidated economy. U.S. officials demand North Korea first take significant steps toward disarmament before they will relinquish the leverage provided by the sanctions.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the swift resumption of talks between the United States and North Korea following the new missile launches.
China, the North’s last major ally and biggest aid provider, said both Washington and Pyongyang should restart their nuclear diplomacy as soon as possible.
“North Korea appears to be thinking its diplomacy with the U.S. isn’t proceeding in a way that they want. So they’ve fired missiles to get the table to turn in their favor,” said analyst Kim Dae-young at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.
Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/07/25/n-korea-says-missile-test-was-solemn-warning-to-s-korea/23778776/
Lety Perez fell to her haunches, a clenched hand covering her face as she wept, an arm clutching her small 6-year-old son, who glared defiantly at the Mexican National Guard soldier blocking them from crossing into the United States.
The plight of this mother and son who had traveled some 1,500 miles (2,410 km) from their home country of Guatemala to the border city of Ciudad Juarez, only to be stopped mere feet from the U.S., was captured by Reuters photographer Jose Luis Gonzalez as twilight approached on Monday.
“The woman begged and pleaded with the National Guard to let them cross … she wanted to cross to give a better future” to her young son Anthony Diaz, Gonzalez said. The soldier, dressed in desert fatigues, an assault rifle slung over his shoulder, said he was only following orders, according to Gonzalez.
The soldier did not disclose his name.
One of several images Reuters published of the scene, the photo was picked up widely on social media. It has thrown into the spotlight the role Mexico‘s militarized National Guard police force is playing in containing migration, mostly from Central America.
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador created the National Guard to bring down record homicide rates, but almost a third of its members are now assigned to patrolling the border to placate President Donald Trump’s demands of stemming the flow of U.S.-bound migrants.
The soldier displayed no overt aggression during the nine-minute encounter with Perez and her son. Still, the power dynamics apparent in the image resonated with criticism of the treatment migrants are receiving during the clampdown by Mexico.
Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who retweeted the picture after it was posted by former Mexican ambassador to the United States Arturo Sarukhan, wrote “what a pity, Mexico should never have accepted this.”
The National Guard and Lopez Obrador’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In June, Lopez Obrador said the National Guard did not have orders to detain migrants crossing the U.S. border. He regularly emphasizes that the clampdown must not violate rights.
Migrant apprehensions on the U.S. southern border fell in June by roughly a third to about 100,000 people, according to U.S. data, after Mexico deployed to its borders some 21,000 National Guard troops, largely drawn from the ranks of the military.
Trump said on Wednesday that Mexico will “probably put up more” troops to its U.S. border. Mexico’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The National Guard troops in Ciudad Juarez, including the soldier in the photo, are equipped with ballistic helmets, body armor and rifles. They are identifiable by small armbands emblazoned with the letters GN, for the Spanish words for “National Guard.”
Gonzalez said he was making his daily round alongside the dry riverbed of the Rio Grande that separates his native Ciudad Juarez from El Paso, Texas, when the guards apprehended a handful of migrants, including the mother and son duo, on a dusty, dirt road overlooking the river.
That is where she made her tearful plea.
“Her face, that’s a small reflection of all migrants’ suffering,” said Gonzalez. “A lot of people judge migrants, ask why don’t they stay in their country, why do they come here or why are they crossing into the United States. … Every migrant has a story.”
All of a sudden, seizing the opportunity when the battle-ready soldier glanced away, Perez lunged into the shrubs growing on the side of the river bank, pulling her son with her. They quickly ran across to the other side of the river and out of the guardsmen’s jurisdiction where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents took them into custody.
In response to a request for information, a spokesman said U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not have the resources needed to track the current whereabouts of Perez and her son based on the details Reuters was able to provide.
Depending on the particulars of the case, the two would typically be processed at a Border Patrol station and then handed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or put into a program that returns some migrants to Mexico to await U.S. court hearings, said the spokesman, who asked not to be named.
Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/International/guatemalan-mother-begs-soldier-enter-us/story?id=64570713
‘MediaBuzz’ host Howard Kurtz weighs in on the mainstream media’s reluctance to report that Robert Mueller seemingly wasn’t as much of a leader of the Russia investigation as previously believed.
Maybe we now know the real reason that Bob Mueller was so reluctant to testify.
With even liberal commentators conceding that Mueller was a shaky witness during two House hearings, questions are swirling about his mental acuity and his ability to handle the job of special counsel.
Let me say at the outset that I have great respect for Mueller as a decorated Vietnam War veteran and an FBI director so widely admired that Barack Obama asked the George W. Bush appointee to serve a second term.
Let me also say that the hearings shouldn’t be graded only on optics, although they were, like most hearings, designed as political theater. But even on substance, Mueller offered almost nothing that was new, and for all the media hype, that was very much by design.
Still, Mueller’s struggles on the Hill were a real head-scratcher, especially for those who have worked with him.
The New York Times reported on the front page yesterday that, as the prosecutor in charge of a two-year investigation of President Trump and Russian interference, he was not the Mueller of old:
“Soon after the special counsel’s office opened in 2017, some aides noticed that Robert S. Mueller III kept noticeably shorter hours than he had as F.B.I. director, when he showed up at the bureau daily at 6 a.m. and often worked nights.
He seemed to cede substantial responsibility to his top deputies, including Aaron Zebley, who managed day-to-day operations and often reported on the investigation’s progress up the chain in the Justice Department. As negotiations with President Trump’s lawyers about interviewing him dragged on, for example, Mr. Mueller took part less and less, according to people familiar with how the office worked.
That hands-off style was on display on Wednesday when Mr. Mueller testified for about seven hours before two House committees. Once famous for his laserlike focus, Mr. Mueller, who will turn 75 next month, seemed hesitant about the facts in his own 448-page report. He struggled at one point to come up with the word ‘conspiracy.’”
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Mueller, who asked for questions to be repeated more than a dozen times, even botched one about which president appointed him as a top prosecutor in 1986.
So if Times reporters (and presumably other reporters) knew that Mueller was a hands-off leader with dwindling stamina who increasingly relied on his deputies, how did that remain such a closely guarded secret?
I don’t want to cast aspersions on journalists who have doggedly covered the investigation, but the temptation not to jeopardize their access, and the possibility of future leaks, must have been considerable. Now that Mueller is no longer special counsel, and his shortcomings were so glaringly on public display, it’s “safe” to publish the story.
David Axelrod, who knows him from his time in the Obama White House, tweeted: “This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years. And he does not appear as sharp as he was then.”
Now I don’t think it’s fair to expect Mueller to know every detail of a sprawling investigation or every sentence in the report. He was under tremendous pressure not to get anything wrong, and self-imposed pressure not to break any new ground.
And I don’t think it’s fair for commentators to speculate or insinuate that he might have some kind of medical condition.
But in describing his “painful” testimony, the Times said Mueller’s “halting delivery stood out all the more given his towering reputation for a command of facts and physical stamina — the stuff of lore among his former aides and colleagues. Nonetheless, he was unmistakably shaky.”
And the paper reported that calendars show one of the top prosecutors, Andrew Weissman, met infrequently with Mueller, except for a daily 5 p.m. staff meeting. But the calendars say his aide Zebley was the team leader at these meetings 111 times.
As for the fallout, the Washington Post’s Dan Balz said Mueller was supposed to be the Democrats’ savior but the hearings “probably shattered those illusions once and for all. If Democrats hope to end the Trump presidency, they will have to do so by defeating him at the ballot box in November 2020.”
Some liberals, such as pro-impeachment Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, were candid about what happened. He said the hearings were “a disaster. Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it.”
But some MSNBC opinion hosts seized on a few words here or there, as if Mueller hadn’t said in his report four months ago that the report didn’t “exonerate” Trump.
When Mueller told House Intel chairman Adam Schiff that knowingly accepting foreign help in a presidential campaign is “a crime in certain circumstances,” that’s hardly the same as saying the Trump team was guilty of such a crime, which his report did not find.
Another sound bite popular at MSNBC was this brief exchange with Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu, who said “you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?”
“That is correct,” Mueller said.
Despite the fact that Mueller started the second hearing by saying he had to “correct” something—“We did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime”—some at the cable network seemed to place more weight on the first answer.
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What the bobbled response also showed was a witness who was not quite up to the task, something we’re now learning was an open secret in at least some Washington circles.
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