Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday made his most expansive speech yet on race, calling on the nation to live up to its founding ideals and saying that silence on racism amounts to complicity.
“There can be no realization of the American Dream without grappling with the original sin of slavery,” Biden told churchgoers in Alabama while delivering the keynote address at services marking the 56th anniversary of the deadly bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church.
In what was at times a deeply personal address, Biden spoke of the losses he has faced in life to sympathize with the community in Birmingham as they remember four young girls killed the Birmingham attack. He spoke of how the domestic terror attack here “laid bare the lie that a child could be free in America while oppression’s long shadow darkened our cities and ruled our countryside.”
Biden highlighted prominent hate crimes of the past decade, including the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the 2015 mass shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and the 2018 mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, as proof that “violence does not live in the past.”
“The domestic terrorism of white supremacy has been the antagonist of our highest ideals from before the founding of this country,” Biden said. “Lynch mobs, arsonists, bomb makers, lone gunmen — and as we all now realize, this violence does not live in the past.”
The former vice president said the U.S. has yet to live up to its promise of equality for all, and that any silence in the face of such hatred “is complicity.” He repeated an assertion he made at the onset of his campaign that the country is “in a battle for the soul of America.”
“Now hate is on the rise again, and we’re at a defining moment again in American history,” Biden said.
The former vice president talked about his own journey into public service inspired by the civil rights movement, and how the attack in Birmingham “helped us realize working on the fringes of the movement was not enough.” He said he became a public defender and ultimately ran for office because of it and the response to the assassination of MLK.
Biden said he believed that, as racial violence inspired the civil rights movement that led to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in the mid-1960s, Americans “are ready” to “take another step” in response to recent hate.
He said that while “those of us are white try, but we can never fully, fully understand” the struggle black Americans have faced, “we have to work to bring this country together.”
The vice president, who served alongside the nation’s first black president, enjoys strong support from black voters. But his speech comes as he himself has been scrutinized for his legislative record on busing and criminal justice and his past statements on racial issues.
This summer, Biden has come under criticism for June comments fundraiser about his past work with segregationist senators decades ago and, more recently, for an answer he delivered at Thursday’s presidential debate in response to a question about reparations and the lasting effect of slavery. Biden responded in part that social workers are needed to “help parents deal with how to raise their children” because “they don’t know quite what to do,” suggesting solutions such as keeping a “record player” on at night so that young children can learn more words.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he will buck Democratic legislative leaders by vetoing legislation aimed at stopping the Trump administration from weakening oversight of longstanding federal environmental laws in California.
His announcement Saturday came less than a day after lawmakers approved the bill on the chaotic final day of the year’s legislative session.
Newsom said in a statement he fully supports the aims of the bill but argued it wouldn’t give California new authority to push back on the Trump administration. He also said it would stop California from relying on the best available science. His office further said he’s concerned about a piece of the bill that could require the state to rely on Endangered Species Act opinions written roughly a decade ago.
Despite his pledge to veto the bill, Newsom was quick to praise Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, the bill’s author and an important ally for the freshman governor.
“I look forward to my continued partnership with Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins – who is an extraordinary leader on the environment and for our state at large – to ensure California can continue to protect our environment and our workers against federal rollbacks, and push back against Trump’s anti-environment agenda,” he said in a statement.
Atkins, though, said she’s “strongly disappointed” in Newsom’s decision, and she disputed his characterization of the bill. It allowed state agencies to use the best scientific evidence available and gave the state authority to “backstop baseline standards” if the federal government rolled them back, she said in a statement.
In opposing the bill, Newsom is siding with the state’s water contractors and Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
“We can’t really have a California system and a federal system,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which delivers water to nearly 19 million people. “We’re all in the same country here, so we need to find a way to make this work.”
California has a history of blunting Republican efforts at the federal level to roll back environmental protections. In 2003, shortly after the George W. Bush administration lowered federal Clean Air Act standards, the Legislature passed a law banning California air quality management districts from revising rules and regulations to match.
More recently, after the Trump administration announced plans to roll back auto mileage and emission standards, Newsom used the state’s regulatory authority to broker a deal with four major automakers to toughen the standards anyway.
State lawmakers tried this last year, but a similar proposal failed to pass the state Assembly. But advocates say several recent announcements by the Trump administration – including plans to weaken application of the federal Endangered Species Act – have strengthened support for the bill.
The bill could have played out most prominently in the management of the state’s water, which mostly comes from snowmelt and rain that rushes through a complex system of aqueducts to provide drinking water for nearly 40 million people and irrigation to the state’s $20 billion agricultural industry.
It aimed to make it easier for state regulators to add animals protected under California’s Endangered Species Act – animals that have historically been protected under federal law. It would then apply the state’s Endangered Species Act to the Central Valley Project, a federally operated system of aqueducts and reservoirs that control flooding and supply irrigation to farmers.
But it’s not clear if a state law would apply to a federal project, “which could generate years of litigation and uncertainty over which environmental standards apply,” according to a letter by Feinstein and four members of the state’s Democratic congressional delegation.
Controversial Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota made her first Sunday news show appearance on CBS’s Face The Nation, addressing comments made last week by the son of a 9/11 victim, who accused her of not understanding the outrage caused by her previously dismissive comments on the attack.
Show moderator Margaret Brennan brought up the New York 9/11 memorial service, where a speaker wore a t-shirt inscribed with Omar’s prior controversial remark on 9/11: “Some people did something.”
“Do you understand why people found that offensive?” Brennan asked.
Omar didn’t respond directly, instead bringing up the purported backlash against Muslims after the 9/11 attack.
“So, 9/11 was an attack on all Americans. It was an attack on all of us. And I could certainly not understand the weight of the pain that the victims of the families of 9/11 must feel. But I think it is really important for us that we are not forgetting the aftermath of what happened after 9/11,” Omar said.
“Many Americans found themselves now having their civil rights stripped from them,” Omar said. “So what I was speaking to was, as a Muslim, not only was I suffering as an American who was attacked on that day, but the next day I woke up as my fellow Americans were now treating me as suspect.”
As for her Congressional performance so far and the various firestorms created by her outspokeness, Omar said that it’s a new day in Washington.
“I think it’s really important for us to recognize that it’s a new Congress, it’s a diverse Congress, and we’re not only diverse in our race, in our ethnicity, in our religion, but we are also diverse in our perspective, in our pain, in our struggles, and the hopes and dreams that we have and the kind of America that we want to shape for all of us,” Omar said.
DUBAI — Saudi Arabia’s stock market fell by 2.3% at Sunday’s open as the country grappled with weekend drone attacks on the heart of its oil production facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Reports that the country may take weeks to return to full oil supply capacity is set to send crude futures up by as much as $10 per barrel, analysts say, depending on the scale of the damage. Half the country’s oil production was halted due to fire damage and an assessment of the situation is due on Monday, Saudi energy ministry officials said. They have not yet offered a timeline on full production restoration.
“A small $2-$3 premium would emerge if the damage appears to be an issue that can be resolved quickly, and $10 if the damage to Aramco’s facilities is significant leasing to prolonged supply outages,” Ayham Kamel, practice head for the Middle East and North Africa at Eurasia group, said in a research note Sunday. That’s up to 25 cents higher per gallon of gasoline.
Abqaiq, in the kingdom’s eastern province, is the world’s largest oil processing facility and crude oil stabilization plant with a processing capacity of more than 7 million barrels per day (bpd). Khurais is the second largest oil field in the country with a capacity to pump around 1.5 million bpd.
Saturday’s attack is the biggest on Saudi oil infrastructure since Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when the Iraqi military fired scud missiles into the kingdom.
“Oil prices will surely spike on the news of the attacks when markets open on Sunday,” Joseph McMonigle, an energy analyst at Hedgeye Research and former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Energy, wrote in a client note. “In our view, there is almost no geopolitical risk priced into oil markets that are focused solely on the macro and trade narratives.”
Saudi Aramco President and CEO Amin Nasser said no one was hurt in the attacks and emergency crews have contained the fires and brought the situation under control.
What Riyadh has called a terrorist attack on its state oil giant, Saudi Aramco, is also likely to unsettle future shareholders and market participants ahead of the company’s highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO).
“Very hard to overstate the seriousness of the attacks, especially on Abqaiq. It is the nerve center of the country’s energy infrastructure,” Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told CNBC on Saturday. “Even if exports resume in the next 24 to 48 hours, the image of invulnerability has been erased.”
While Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have been at war with the Saudis since 2015, claimed the attack, numerous officials and analysts point to Tehran. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo via Twitter blamed Iran for the attack, saying “Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply. There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.”
Iran responded by calling the allegations “pointless.”
Security experts say the attack likely came from an Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq. Baghdad on Sunday afternoon denied its territory was involved in any way.
The Houthis have been behind numerous attacks on Saudi infrastructure in recent years, but they were not viewed as serious by the market, McMonigle said. This time, the attacks — regardless of their source — are impossible to ignore.
An Iowa farmer loads corn seeds into the tanks on a planter near Luxemburg, Iowa. Forty percent of the United States’ corn crop goes to ethanol production.
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An Iowa farmer loads corn seeds into the tanks on a planter near Luxemburg, Iowa. Forty percent of the United States’ corn crop goes to ethanol production.
Mark Hirsch/Getty Images
Farmers in the rural Midwest say they are struggling because of President Trump’s ongoing trade war and a recent decision the president made on renewable fuels made from corn and soybeans that benefits the oil industry.
“We’re tightening our belt,” farmer Aaron Lehman says while driving his tractor down a rural road near his farm north of Des Moines, Iowa. “We’re talking to our lenders, our landlords [and] our input suppliers.”
Lehman, the president of the Iowa Farmers Union, says his members say they’re trying to find any way to cut costs just to make ends meet. He says they’re concerned about the escalating trade war.
“Instead we chose to insult our trade allies, pick all sorts of fights with our trade allies,” Lehman says. “And then go to China and make outrageous demands that we knew were not going to be met.”
The Trump administration has doled out billions of dollars in relief to farmers for taking the brunt of the trade war. It’s an economic short-term positive deal to fill a gap, but it doesn’t fix a long-term problem of not having access to foreign markets.
Back in June, Trump came to Council Bluffs, Iowa, with an announcement meant to calm those concerns. His administration cleared the way for higher blends of corn-based ethanol. Forty percent of the United States’ corn crop goes to ethanol production.
“We lifted the restrictions on E-15 just in time to fuel America’s summer vacations,” Trump said to cheers in Council Bluffs. “We just made it.”
President Trump looks at corn samples used in biofuels at Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on June 11.
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Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
President Trump looks at corn samples used in biofuels at Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on June 11.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, as well as Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, joined the president for the ceremony in Council Bluffs.
The president has also granted dozens of waivers to oil refineries exempting them from blending ethanol. That’s leading more than 15 ethanol plants to close their doors. Trump recently tweeted he would be unveiling a “giant package” that would help these farmers.
Bloomberg reported Friday that Trump has agreed to a tentative plan to offset the waivers, but nothing has been announced.
Iowa Democratic Congresswoman Cindy Axne, who faces a tough race for her seat next year, says she’ll believe it when she sees it.
“He said he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to farmers, and literally two months later had his finger on issuing waivers to Exxon and Chevron, multibillion-dollar companies.”
“He said he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to farmers,” says Iowa Democratic Congresswoman Cindy Axne, “and literally two months later had his finger on issuing waivers to Exxon and Chevron, multibillion-dollar companies.”
Clay Masters/Iowa Public Radio
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Clay Masters/Iowa Public Radio
“He said he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to farmers,” says Iowa Democratic Congresswoman Cindy Axne, “and literally two months later had his finger on issuing waivers to Exxon and Chevron, multibillion-dollar companies.”
Clay Masters/Iowa Public Radio
While Lehman didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2016, Iowa soybean farmer Dave Walton did.
“We can only talk so much before we have to take action, and he took action,” Walton said. “We really saw this coming. He campaigned on it, so it’s no surprise.”
Walton admits that the negotiations have gone on longer than he thought they would and that soy biodiesel has also been affected by those refinery waivers.
“My vote’s still up for grabs,” Walton says about the 2020 presidential election.
Economist Ernie Goss at Creighton University says his research shows that the president’s trade policies are shrinking the rural economy. Goss oversees a monthly survey of rural bank CEOs in the Midwest and Plains.
Seven out of 10 of the bankers he surveyed support either continuing with the tariffs or in some cases raising the tariffs, Goss said. “Their belief is that the long-term gain will outweigh the short-term pain.”
The agriculture economy was already struggling, and the trade war is insult to injury that won’t be solved overnight, says Iowa State University agriculture economist Chad Hart.
“Trade negotiations, especially in the case of the wide-ranging issues we have with China, take years to get down to a final agreement,” says.
That anxiety is something that Democrats running for president — like Joe Biden — are talking about in Iowa.
Last month he was asked what he’d say to farmers who are hurting from the tariffs but still want to see Trump making these deals.
“Well, if you think that’s a good deal, then vote for Trump then,” Biden told a group of reporters after a campaign stop in Prole, Iowa. “But I don’t think there are that many farmers that are that slow about things.”
Democrats are hoping to peel off some of Trump’s support. Its high hopes in swing states like Iowa, which went to the president by almost 10 points in 2016.
On Tuesday, Jenna Evans was on a high-speed train that was racing down the tracks, her fiancé by her side, when some “bad guys” appeared, she said.
There was only one way to protect her 2.4 carat diamond engagement ring — swallow it. So that’s what Evans did.
“I popped that sucker off, put it in my mouth and swallowed it with a glass of water,” Evans said in a Facebook post.
Then she woke up.
Evans was relieved on Wednesday morning that the whole episode had just been a vivid, bizarre dream. That is, until she realized her engagement ring was no longer on her finger.
Evans — who has a history of sleepwalking — soon realized that while the “bad guys” and the high-speed train had all been her snoozing subconscious, the consumption of her engagement ring was not.
“On Wednesday morning, I realized my ring was not on my hand and had to wake (my fiancé) up and tell him that I swallowed my engagement ring,” Evans wrote. ” … We laughed pretty hard for about an hour and a half, called my mom, laughed until we were crying, googled ‘do other adults swallow rings’ because kids do it all the time, but apparently it’s less common for adults.”
Evans went to an urgent care clinic where doctors decided against letting the ring pass naturally through the 29-year-old’s system, and instead referred her to a gastroenterologist.
A gastroenterologist promptly performed an upper endoscopy, NBC 7 San Diego reported, which is the insertion of a small camera and device down someone’s throat.
Evans wrote that she began to cry as she signed the release forms for the upper endoscopy, fearing she would die during the procedure and not get to fulfill a different dream — marrying her fiancé, Bobby Howell.
“I waited a long time for that damn engagement ring and I WILL marry Bobby Howell DAMNIT,” Evans wrote.
Doctors found the engagement ring in Evans’ intestines, just beyond her stomach, according to NBC 7. Evans said her fiancé returned the ring to her on Thursday.
“Bobby finally gave my ring back this morning – I promised not to swallow it again, we’re still getting married and all is right in the world,” Evans wrote.
Barring any further somnambulist snacking, Evans and Howell plan to get married in May of 2020.
Two dark SUVs, flanked by police cruisers with flashing lights, pulled up to the stairs of the aircraft, and the lead security agent gave me the thumbs-up. It was only when I hit the doorway that I realized we had pulled directly alongside a Boeing 757 emblazoned with the word TRUMP on the fuselage. I had seen this impressive machine before, during trips that brought me through New York’s LaGuardia Airport, and on one occasion I’d even caught a glimpse of Donald Trump himself, barreling out of a Chevrolet Suburban driven by Secret Service agents, his phone pressed to his ear as he climbed the jet’s stairs, no doubt on his way to yet another campaign stop as he attempted to overcome long odds in a vitriolic election cycle. But now, as I stood there staring at a gigantic airplane with the Trump name painted in gold, I couldn’t help but marvel at the showmanship and branding skills of the man who had just been elected leader of the free world. For Comey, it was now time to meet the new boss.
But the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had one additional duty that day, something the chiefs of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence would get a pass on. For months, a series of memos had been privately circulating among members of the media and across government that contained unverified but explosive charges against then candidate Trump. As the world now knows, Christopher Steele, a former officer with the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), had been contracted by a private investigative firm to look into Trump’s background. Steele, a veteran operative, drafted a series of memos describing information about compromising material that Russian intelligence services had purportedly obtained on Trump. In addition to outlining allegations of illegal business practices that might result in Russia having leverage over Trump, the “Steele dossier,” as it would become known, also included tawdry alleged details of Trump’s sexual proclivities and illicit acts conducted while in Moscow. At one point, Steele thought the information so potentially damning that he approached the FBI and provided it with his reporting.
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The New York Times, under its “New York Times Opinion” Twitter banner, issued an apology late Saturday, saying it had deleted an “offensive” Twitter message promoting a Times article that makes allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“We deleted a previous tweet regarding this article,” the Times Opinion message said. “It was offensive, and we apologize.”
Previously, the Times posted and then deleted a tweet without the word “apology,” but saying that the original tweet had been deleted because it was “poorly phrased.”
The original Times tweet graphically described an obscene act that Kavanaugh is accused of having done during his college years. The tweet then said the act “may seem like harmless fun.”
Regardless of whether the claim against Kavanaugh is true or not, critics on social media were simply furious that the Times would describe the alleged behavior as “harmless fun.”
‘Profound lapse in judgment’
“This is…. Such a profound lapse in judgment and common sense. Sexual assault isn’t harmless fun,” one Twitter user wrote. “What the hell is going on at the NYT?”
But others also argued that the allegations against Kavanaugh in the article weren’t true.
‘What are they thinking?’
“What are they thinking at the New York Times?,” Fox News contributor Byron York of the Washington Examiner wrote. “1) It’s a discredited allegation. 2) If it happened, such things are ‘harmless fun’?”
‘Smearing a distinguished jurist’
“You may think that smearing a distinguished jurist based on the testimony of a woman who said last year she wasn’t even certain about her story is harmless fun…” wrote theater critic Kyle Smith.
The new Times story gives the account of a male Yale classmate of Kavanaugh named Max Stier, who alleges that Kavanaugh, at the urging of some friends, performed an obscene act while mistreating a woman at a party.
The Times reported Saturday that Stier told the FBI about the alleged incident during Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation process but the FBI did not investigate further.
Stier’s story appears to align with allegations that Kavanaugh accuser Deborah Ramirez made last year in an article in The New Yorker magazine. But that magazine noted at the time that Ramiriez “was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident.”
The magazine later noted that Ramirez agreed to speak only after “six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney.”
During his confirmation process, Kavanagh denied numerous allegations about his personal conduct.
Earlier this year, an attorney for Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford said her client was motivated to testify against Kavanaugh in part to attach an “asterisk” next to his name in the event of Supreme Court rulings on abortion.
The Senate ultimately approved President Trump’s nomination of Kavanaugh in a 50-48 vote last October.
LONDON — Former prime minister David Cameron has broken his long silence on Brexit, confessing in new memoirs that he is “truly sorry” for the chaos and rancor that has engulfed Britain after it voted to leave the European Union three years ago.
The memoirs are artfully revealing. Cameron both covers his posterior and concedes some mistakes — of strategy and timing, mostly. He admits he is today “depressed” about Brexit; he charges that the current prime minister, Boris Johnson, was a major misleader; and he confesses he smoked a lot of dope during his Eton school days — sneaking off to an island in the River Thames to get “off my head” on marijuana.
It was Cameron who confidently called for the June 2016 Brexit referendum — and it was Cameron who led the muddled, muted campaign for Britain to remain in the European Union.
After Brexit won 52 percent to 48 percent, Cameron quickly resigned, notably caught on a hot mic humming a tune as he strode away from the podium in front of 10 Downing Street.
Many Britons blame Cameron for today’s Brexit quagmire, branding the former prime minister as “the man who broke Britain.”
Cameron’s critics say the British public was never really clamoring for the 2016 referendum and that Cameron called it only to quell internal squabbles in his fractious Conservative Party and to quiet the rabid Tory tabloids.
Cameron confesses the whole thing quickly devolved into a “terrible Tory psychodrama.”
In an interview with the Times newspaper, as a part of the book’s pre-publication publicity campaign, Cameron labeled Prime Minister Johnson’s possible “no-deal” Brexit “a bad outcome.”
He also warned that the country might be forced to stage a second referendum on whether to leave the European Union.
“I don’t think you can rule it out, because we’re stuck,” said Cameron, who served as prime minister from 2010 to 2016.
In his memoir and interview, Cameron charges that his former political chums — Johnson and his sidekick, the current government minister in charge of carrying out Brexit, Michael Gove — misled voters in 2016 about the swell benefits of leaving Europe.
Cameron calls his former friend Gove “mendacious” and says Gove and Johnson behaved “appallingly” during the 2016 referendum.
Cameron points to their false pro-Brexit claims that Turkey was about to join the European Union (it wasn’t) and their suggestions that soon Britain would be flooded by millions of Turkish Muslim immigrants (never happened).
Although he does not call Johnson or Gove liars, Cameron said the pair “left the truth at home” when they claimed, for example, that leaving Europe would produce a $440 million a week windfall to fund the country’s beloved National Health Service.
“Boris had never argued for leaving the EU, right? Michael was a very strong Eurosceptic, but someone whom I’d known as this liberal, compassionate, rational Conservative ended up making arguments about Turkey and being swamped and what have you. They were trashing the government of which they were a part, effectively,” Cameron told the newspaper.
In a bit of a side-dish, Cameron remembers Johnson’s current special adviser, Dominic Cummings, who ran the leave campaign in 2016 and came up with the slogan “take back control,” for spreading “poison” and turning Tory against Tory.
Cameron said his Brexit defeat three years ago has left him “hugely depressed.”
“Every single day I think about it, the referendum and the fact that we lost and the consequences and the things that could have been done differently, and I worry desperately about what is going to happen next,” Cameron said.
And yet. The former leader still argues that Britain was never really comfortable in the European Union and that a referendum was “inevitable” and the “right approach.”
Essentially, Cameron wants it both ways. He failed. But it was the right thing to do.
In his interview, Cameron criticizes Johnson’s move recently to suspend Parliament and accuses him of “sharp practices” in stripping 21 Conservative lawmakers of their party membership for rebelling against him.
In other excerpts, Cameron recalls with some shame his membership in the elite University of Oxford drinking society, the Bullingdon Club. At his initiation into the posh ranks, he remembers how he awoke hung over, with wine bottles piled outside his door, to find a group of his new Bullingdon buddies — which probably included Boris Johnson, Cameron admits he cannot quite recall — “with one of them standing on the legs of an upended table, using a golf club to smash bottles as they were thrown at him.”
It is a stunning image of the two men who would come to define the Brexit age.
“To have gone from where people didn’t know much about us to where people actively hate us, it’s difficult,” said Chris Harris, who was an agent for 21 years and a Border Patrol union official until he retired in June 2018. “There’s no doubt morale has been poor in the past, and it’s abysmal now. I know a lot of guys just want to leave.”
EDUARDO JACOBO, AN AGENT IN CALIFORNIA’S EL CENTRO SECTOR:
The difference between doing the job now and when I started is like night and day. Before, it was a rush of adrenaline when you caught people with drugs. You were doing more police stuff. Now it’s humanitarian work. If you ask anybody about being in Border Patrol, they’re playing a movie scene in their head, jumping into a burning building and saving people. Now, it means taking care of kids and giving them baby formula.
By and large, the agency has been a willing enforcer of the Trump administration’s harshest immigration policies. In videos released last year, Border Patrol agents could be seen destroying water jugs left in a section of the Arizona desert where large numbers of migrants have been found dead.
Some of those who worked at the agency in earlier years said that it had changed over the past decade, and that an attitude of contempt toward migrants — the view that they are opportunists who brought on their own troubles and are undeserving of a warm welcome — is now the rule, not the exception.
“The intense criticism that is being directed at the Border Patrol is necessary and important because I do think that there’s a culture of cruelty or callousness,” said Francisco Cantú, a former agent who is the author of “The Line Becomes a River,” a memoir about his time in the agency from 2008 to 2012. “There’s a lack of oversight. There is a lot of impunity.”
The Border Patrol was established in 1924. Early agents were recruited from the Texas Rangers and local sheriff’s offices. They focused largely on Prohibition-era whiskey bootleggers, often supplying their own horses and saddles. Though horseback units still exist, the culture of the agency bears little resemblance to its past.
It has become a sprawling arm of Customs and Border Protection, the country’s largest federal law enforcement agency, which is responsible for 7,000 miles of America’s northern and southern borders, 95,000 miles of shoreline and 328 ports of entry. On a practical level, the Border Patrol’s hubs along the Mexican border, known as sectors, operate in some ways as fiefs.
In border cities, sector chiefs become household names, delivering annual State of the Border speeches. In the 1990s, an El Paso sector chief, Silvestre Reyes, used his popularity to win a seat in Congress.
An Iowa farmer loads corn seeds into the tanks on a planter near Luxemburg, Iowa. Forty percent of the United States’ corn crop goes to ethanol production.
Mark Hirsch/Getty Images
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Mark Hirsch/Getty Images
An Iowa farmer loads corn seeds into the tanks on a planter near Luxemburg, Iowa. Forty percent of the United States’ corn crop goes to ethanol production.
Mark Hirsch/Getty Images
Farmers in the rural Midwest say they are struggling because of President Trump’s ongoing trade war and a recent decision the president made on renewable fuels made from corn and soybeans that benefits the oil industry.
“We’re tightening our belt,” farmer Aaron Lehman says while driving his tractor down a rural road near his farm north of Des Moines. “We’re talking to our lenders, our landlords [and] our input suppliers.”
Lehman, the president of the Iowa Farmers Union, says his members say they’re trying to find any way to cut costs just to make ends meet. He says they’re concerned about the escalating trade war.
“Instead we chose to insult our trade allies, pick all sorts of fights with our trade allies,” Lehman says. “And then go to China and make outrageous demands that we knew were not going to be met.”
The Trump administration has doled out billions of dollars in relief to farmers for taking the brunt of the trade war. It’s an economic short-term positive deal to fill in a gap but it doesn’t fix a long-term problem of not having access to foreign markets.
Back in June, President Trump came to Council Bluffs, Iowa with an announcement meant to calm those concerns. His administration cleared the way for higher blends of corn-based ethanol. Forty percent of the United States’ corn crop goes to ethanol production.
“We lifted the restrictions on E-15 just in time to fuel America’s summer vacations,” President Trump said to cheers in Council Bluffs. “We just made it.”
President Trump looks at corn samples used in biofuels at Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy in Council Bluffs, Iowa on June 11.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
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Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
President Trump looks at corn samples used in biofuels at Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy in Council Bluffs, Iowa on June 11.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Iowa’s U.S. Senator Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds; as well as Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer and Gov. Pete Rickets joined the president for this ceremony in Council Bluffs.
The president has also granted dozens of waivers to oil refineries exempting them from blending ethanol. That’s leading more than 15 ethanol plants to close their doors. Trump recently tweeted he would be unveiling a “giant package” that would help these farmers.
Bloomberg reported Friday that President Trump has agreed to a tentative plan to offset the waivers, but nothing has been announced.
Iowa Democratic Congresswoman Cindy Axne, who faces a tough race for her seat next year, says she’ll believe it when she sees it.
“He said he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to farmers. And literally two months later had his finger on issuing waivers to Exxon and Chevron, multi-billion dollar companies.”
“He said he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to farmers,” says Iowa Democratic Congresswoman Cindy Axne, “and literally two months later had his finger on issuing waivers to Exxon and Chevron, multi-billion dollar companies.”
Clay Masters/Iowa Public Radio
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Clay Masters/Iowa Public Radio
“He said he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to farmers,” says Iowa Democratic Congresswoman Cindy Axne, “and literally two months later had his finger on issuing waivers to Exxon and Chevron, multi-billion dollar companies.”
Clay Masters/Iowa Public Radio
While Aaron Lehman didn’t vote for Donald Trump in 2016, Iowa soybean farmer Dave Walton did.
“We can only talk so much before we have to take action and he took action,” Walton said. “We really saw this coming. He campaigned on it so, it’s no surprise.”
Walton admits the negotiations have gone on longer than he thought they would and soy-biodiesel has also been affected by those refinery waivers.
“My vote’s still up for grabs,” Walton says about the 2020 presidential election.
Economist Ernie Goss at Creighton University says his research shows the president’s trade policies are shrinking the rural economy. Goss oversees a monthly survey of rural bank CEOs in the Midwest and Plains.
Seven out of 10 of the bankers he surveyed support either continuing with the tariffs or in some cases raising the tariffs, Goss said. “Their belief is that the long-term gain will outweigh the short-term pain.”
The agriculture economy was already struggling and the trade war is insult to injury that won’t be solved overnight, says Iowa State University Agriculture Economist Chad Hart.
“Trade negotiations, especially in the case of the wide-ranging issues we have with China, take years to get down to a final agreement,” says.
That anxiety is something Democrats running for president – like Joe Biden – are talking about in Iowa.
When asked last month what he’d say to farmers that are hurting from the tariffs but still want to see Trump making these deals.
“Well, if you think that’s a good deal then vote for Trump then,” Biden told a group of reporters after a campaign stop in Prole, Iowa. “But I don’t think there are that many farmers that are that slow about things.”
Democrats are hoping to peel off some of Trump’s support. Its high hopes in swing states like Iowa, which went to the president by almost 10 points in 2016.
DAVID AXELROD, CNN: Do you think Congress should proceed? That’s a different matter than whether they could, whether they have an inquiry. Is impeachment a wise thing to do at this point, and would they be shirking their responsibilities if they didn’t proceed?
FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: I think that they should proceed with an impeachment inquiry, an impeachment investigation. That doesn’t necessarily commit you to actually impeaching the president. I think that’s what people have to understand. I think if you go through a whole proceeding and then make the determination that we’re not going to impeach him, you’re perhaps going to censure him. There’s going to be a sense in the House of Representatives, in that sense that the House of Representatives to lay out all of the things that you have found during the inquiry and not send it to the Senate where I think the Republicans are likely to acquit him – deny him that, but actually lay out to the American people – have witnesses in front of the American people. I want to see Don McGahn testify. I want to see Sessions testify.
AXELROD: Do you think he will, by the way?
I mean look, every administration has its differences with Congress over executive privilege. Your administration and the one that I served in did as well, but they’ve taken a very tough line on this issue of executive privilege.
Do you think that ultimately the courts will compel these people to testify?
HOLDER: Yes. I don’t think that the executive privilege that might have existed still is in existence. The fact that McGahn actually spoke to Bob Mueller waives the privilege that might have otherwise existed and as a result I think as a result will have to go through a court process. But I think ultimately he and others will have to testify.
AXELROD: If there is no impeachment, do you believe that he subject to prosecution after he leaves office?
HOLDER: Well I don’t think there’s any question about that. We already have an indictment in the Southern District of New York where Michael Cohen.
AXELROD: relative to the payoffs
HOLDER: Relative to the payoffs. Michael Cohen’s already in jail regards to his role there.
Individual one is the president. And it would seem to me that the next attorney general, the next president is going to have to make a determination.
AXELROD: You know, that’s an interesting question. You came here at — in the post Watergate period, President Ford, made a decision to pardon President Nixon because he thought it would be bad for the country to go through a trial of a former president. Would there be a cost to that?
HOLDER: Yes, I think there is a potential cost to the nation by putting on trial the former president, and that ought to at least be a part of the calculus that goes into the determination that has to be made by the next attorney general.
I think we all should understand what a trial former president would do the nation. I think that saved the determination that Gerald Ford made with –
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: Cost him — it may have cost him his election in 1976.
HOLDER: Yes, it might have, but you know I think looking back, I tend to think that that was probably the right thing to do.
On Tuesday, Israelis will vote in a new election. The opinion polls suggest that the race for Israel’s next prime minister is between incumbent Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and Benny Gantz.
This election is a rerun following an April election which failed to give Netanyahu a stable coalition. Once again, opinion polls show a near dead heat. The final pre-election polls released by Israeli channels 12 and 13 on Friday suggest that Netanyahu’s Likud party and Benny Gantz-Yair Lapid’s center-left Blue-White coalition will each win 32 seats. With 61 seats needed to command a majority in the Knesset, coalition-building will be critical. That’s where things start to get very interesting.
For a start, it’s not at all clear that Netanyahu will be able to forge a majority government, even if he comes out ahead. But to win, Netanyahu will need the support of the far-right Yamina alliance (projected to win 8-9 seats) and the Orthodox religious parties Shas (projected to win 6-7 seats) and the United Torah Judaism alliance (projected to win 7-8 seats). But even if the projections hold true, those parties would give Netanyahu just 21-24 additional seats. At best, he would be be six seats short of a majority. What does he do then?
Ideally, he would form a coalition with the Otzma Yehudit party, projected to win four seats. Except for two problems: first, that only gets Netanyahu to 60 seats. Second, Otzma Yehudit is a citadel of racist vitriol against Arabs, including Israeli Arabs.
Netanyahu has already aligned himself with extremists in the form of the ultra-Orthodox parties — which prevent the provision of adequate transport services, believe they’re entitled to generous welfare payments, and won’t help their fellow citizens defend Israel — Otzma Yehudit is an unmitigated disgrace. Were Netanyahu to form a coalition with them, he would be inviting a snake into the heart of a great democracy. He would burn his own legacy.
Netanyahu knows this and his increasing desperation is showing. The prime minister endorsed a crazed conspiracy theory on Friday, blaming the Blue-White coalition for Netanyahu’s own Mossad operation to scatter signal intercept devices near the White House.
Okay, so that’s Netanyahu. How about Blue-White?
Well, Gantz’s coalition doesn’t appear to have it much better. Assuming it wins 32 seats, Blue-White will hope to form a coalition with the Democratic Union party (projected to win 5-6 seats), Labor-Gesher (projected to win 4-5 seats), and Yisrael Beiteinu (projected to win 8-9 seats). Again, however, a familiar problem arises. Because that would only get Blue-White to a total of between 49 and 52 seats. Blue-White does have one outside-the-box option: include the Arab Joint List (projected to win 10-12 seats) in its coalition. But while that would possibly give Gantz his majority, it would invite popular concern over the inclusion of some overt anti-Zionists in government. Gantz is thus resisting Joint List’s flirtations here.
That leaves us with Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beinteinu party.
While right-wing and ideologically closer to Likud than Blue-White (the party is a former partner to Netanyahu’s coalition), Lieberman has shifted his support towards Blue-White in disdain for Netanyahu’s engagement with the ultra-Orthodox parties. That said, if Lieberman performs well enough, he may be able to persuade Netanyahu to abandon the ultra-Orthodox partners in return for his support of a new government.
We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next. As with the last election, Tuesday’s will be very exciting.
But one thing is certain: If Netanyahu is able to form a coalition, Trump’s unpublished peace plan will be dead on arrival.
DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi stocks plunged 2.3% as the market opened on Sunday, after attacks on two plants at the heart of the kingdom’s oil industry a day earlier knocked out more than half of Saudi crude output.
Sunday’s decline extended a losing spree for Saudi stocks, which in recent weeks have been hit by expensive valuations, weak oil prices and concerns about the economic outlook.
The drone attacks were carried out by Yemen’s Houthi group, its military spokesman said on Al Masirah TV.
The index has lost all its gains this year and is down about 18% from its 2019 high of 9,403 points seen in early May.
On Sunday, the index was down 1.8% year-to-date.
The index’s earlier gains were fueled by Saudi Arabia’s entry into the MSCI and FTSE Russell’s emerging market indices.
“There is no real positive news on the horizon with the index inclusion story over,” said Muhammad Faisal Potrik, head of research at Riyad Capital.
“The market was expensive versus the region and other emerging markets, plus second-quarter earnings were not good.”
Other Gulf markets also reacted negatively to the attacks, with Kuwait’s premier index down 1.1% and Dubai stocks falling 0.8%.
“Sentiment is negative because of yesterday’s attacks on Aramco facilities. But this is temporary and the market will pick up towards the end of the day,” said a trader in Riyadh, who asked not to be identified.
Saudi Basic Industries, the kingdom’s biggest petrochemicals firm, was down 3.3% after it said it had curtailed feedback supplies by about 49% following the attack.
Other petrochemical companies such as Yanbu National Petrochemicals Co and Kayan also announced significant reductions in feedstock supplies.
The attacks come at a bad time for Saudi Arabia, which is preparing for the listing of oil giant Saudi Aramco on the Tadawul bourse in Riyadh later this year.
The attacks are unlikely to change plans for Aramco’s long-awaited initial public offering but may affect the valuation, risk consultancy Eurasia Group said in a note.
“The latest attack on Aramco facilities will have only a limited impact on interest in Aramco shares as the first stage of the IPO will be local. The international component of the sale would be more sensitive to geopolitical risks,” it said.
Aramco has hired nine banks as joint global coordinators to lead its IPO, slated to be the world’s largest, Reuters reported, citing two sources.
Additional reporting by Marwa Rashad in Riyadh and Dmitry Zhdannikov in London; Editing by Dale Hudson
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is facing a new sexual misconduct allegation that appears to echo a previous accusation lobbed against him.
A New York Times exposé published on Saturday revealed the account of one of Kavanaugh’s male classmates at Yale University, who says he witnessed the justice make inappropriate sexual contact with a female student. Max Stier told the outlet he “saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”
Stier notified the FBI and senators about the incident, but the FBI did not investigate it. Stier has not otherwise discussed it publicly, but two officials who have communicated with him corroborated the story to the Times.
As noted by the Times, Stier’s account echoes that of Deborah Ramirez, who previously accused Kavanaugh of thrusting his penis into her face at a drunken dormitory party, prompting her to swat it away and accidentally touch it in the process.
During his contentious confirmation process, Kavanaugh denied the allegation, saying it would have been the “talk of campus” if it were true. The Times, however, noted that “least seven people” heard about the incident long before Kavanaugh was a federal judge.
The latest accusation follows not only Ramirez’s account, but also several other sexual misconduct allegations against the Supreme Court justice, including that of Christine Blasey Ford, who testified during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings that he had attempted to force himself on her at a high school party in the 1980s.
Ford’s father reportedly privately expressed his support for Kavanaugh despite his daughter’s allegation.
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Boris Johnson and David Cameron campaigned together ahead of the 2015 general election
Boris Johnson did not believe in Brexit during the referendum campaign and backed Leave “because it would help his political career”, says David Cameron.
The pair were “ambassadors for the expert-trashing, truth-twisting age of populism”, Mr Cameron writes.
And he also accuses Mr Gove of being disloyal to himself and Mr Johnson.
Of his former colleague, Mr Cameron writes: “One quality shone through: disloyalty. Disloyalty to me – and, later, disloyalty to Boris.”
The latest revelations come after another extract published on Saturday accused the pair of behaving “appallingly” during the 2016 referendum campaign.
Mr Cameron called the poll after promising it in the Conservative Party’s election manifesto.
He campaigned for Remain, but lost the vote by 52% to 48%, and resigned as prime minister shortly after.
Mr Cameron writes that when deciding whether to back Leave or Remain in the campaign, Mr Johnson was concerned what the “best outcome” would be for him.
“Whichever senior Tory politician took the lead on the Brexit side – so loaded with images of patriotism, independence and romance – would become the darling of the party,” he says.
“He [Mr Johnson] didn’t want to risk allowing someone else with a high profile – Michael Gove in particular – to win that crown.”
The former Tory leader adds: “The conclusion I am left with is that he [Boris Johnson] risked an outcome he didn’t believe in because it would help his political career.”
He also says during the Leave campaign Mr Johnson, who has repeatedly said the UK must exit the EU on 31 October, privately raised the possibility of holding another referendum after fresh negotiations with the EU.
He criticises Mr Johnson’s use of the Vote Leave campaign bus emblazoned by the much-criticised claim that leaving would mean £350m a week extra for the NHS.
“Boris rode the bus round the country, he left the truth at home,” writes the former prime minister.
Image copyright Carl Court
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Leave-supporting politicians and footballer Sol Campbell with a Vote Leave poster in 2016
And of Mr Gove – a cabinet minister both now and then – he said: “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“Gove, the liberal-minded, carefully-considered Conservative intellectual, had become a foam-flecked Faragist warning that the entire Turkish population was about to come to Britain.”
However, it was the behaviour of his then employment minister and current Home Secretary Priti Patel that “shocked” him the most, he says.
“She used every announcement, interview and speech to hammer the government on immigration, even though she was part of that government,” he writes.
“I was stuck though: unable to fire her, because that would make her a Brexit martyr.”
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption
Mr Cameron said the behaviour of Priti Patel, his former education minister, shocked him the most
The prime minister, Mr Gove and Ms Patel are yet to respond to the criticisms of them contained in Mr Cameron’s book.
In an interview with the Times published on Saturday, Mr Cameron said he was “hugely depressed” about the 2016 referendum result and he knew “some people will never forgive me”.
But he defended his decision to call the poll, arguing the issue of the EU “needed to be addressed”.
Image copyright Red Sky Shepherds Huts via PA Media
Image caption
The former PM famously wrote his memoirs in a shed – which allegedly cost £25,000
The prime minister is due to meet European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Luxembourg this week as negotiations aimed at securing a deal continue.
In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, Mr Johnson said he was still hopeful a new deal with the EU could be reached in time for the crucial EU summit on 17 October.
It would take a lot of work, he said, adding: “I think that we will get there.”
He said there was a “real sign of movement” in Berlin, Paris and “most interestingly” in Dublin.
However, if he cannot negotiate a deal, the UK would break out of its “manacles” like cartoon character The Incredible Hulk on Halloween, he said.
“Hulk always escaped, no matter how tightly bound in he seemed to be – and that is the case for this country,” he said. “We will come out on 31 October and we will get it done.”
In the interview, Mr Johnson also repeated his opposition to an election pact with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, saying the Conservative party was a “great” and “old” party that did not form electoral pacts with other parties.
Earlier this month, Mr Johnson expelled 21 MPs from the party after they rebelled against him in a bid to prevent a no-deal Brexit.
Asked if any would be allowed to stand as a Conservative at the next election, he did not rule it out but urged people not to underestimate the gravity of what they had done.
“They were effectively handing the initiative to our opponents,” he said. “I just want people to understand why it was necessary to be so strict.”
David Cameron as PM
Image copyright Getty Images
Mr Cameron became the Conservative Party leader in 2005. Five years later he was voted into Downing Street as the UK’s youngest prime minister in almost 200 years – aged 43.
His six-year tenure – firstly in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and latterly with a majority government – was dominated by his desire to reduce the deficit, and the introduction of austerity measures with his Chancellor George Osborne.
But when he pledged in his party’s 2015 manifesto to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, the focus shifted.
Mr Cameron backed Remain during the 2016 campaign and, on the morning of the result after discovering he had lost, he announced he would be stepping down, saying: “I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination.”
The former PM had remained silent until this weekend about both of his successors at the helm of the Tory Party – Theresa May and Boris Johnson.
But his allegedly fractious relationship with Mr Johnson has been well documented since their days together at Oxford University – most notably as members of the infamous Bullingdon Club.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder expressed concern over recent criticisms many Democrats have made of President Barack Obama’s immigration policies and warned 2020 candidates about embracing calls to decriminalize border crossings.
Several progressive Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates have condemned the Obama administration recently for deporting scores of illegal immigrants. Holder, who served in Obama’s Cabinet during most of his time in office, defended the policy of deportation saying, “The emphasis … was on people who had criminal records, people who posed … a public safety risk.”
Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden also came under fire by debate moderator Jorge Ramos on Thursday for the Obama-era deportations.
“You served as vice president in an administration that deported 3 million people, the most ever in U.S. history,” Ramos said. “Did you do anything to prevent those deportations? … You’ve been asked this question before and refused to answer, so let me try once again: are you prepared to say tonight that you and President Obama made a mistake about deportations? Why should Latinos trust you?”
Biden defended the record and shifted accusation to the Trump administration by suggesting that Obama didn’t “lock people up in cages.” Biden was later interrupted during his closing remarks by protesters chanting, “Three million deportations.” One protester was seen wearing a shirt that said, “No human being is illegal on stolen land.”
Holder rejected the idea that there should be no deportations. “Democrats have to understand that … borders do mean something,” he said in an interview that aired on Saturday.
He was also asked about whether or not he supported the notion floated by some Democrats to decriminalize unauthorized border crossings. “No, I don’t think that’s right … It might send the wrong signal,” he said. Reiterating his point, Holder said that decriminalization would “certainly take a tool away from the Justice Department.”
Holder also addressed that some Democrats’ progressive policy proposals do not offer a realistic possibility for the future of the country, saying, “We need to look for solutions to the problems that we confront that are consistent with who we are as a party … but also the kinds of things that we are going to be able to deliver.”
Holder concluded by saying he hoped the field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates would be “realistic” in their proposed policies.
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