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Warren Buffett doesn’t use an iPhone, despite the fact that the firm he founded and runs, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 5.5% of Apple.

Instead, he uses a $20 flip phone: the Samsung SCH-U320, which is currently selling for between $20 and $30 on Ebay.

Although Apple is Berkshire’s largest investment, its founder and leader lacks hands-on experience with the product that accounts for the majority of the company’s revenue. However, Buffett does use an iPad to check stock prices and do research.

Buffett showed off his vintage technology during a during a talk Thursday at The Gatehouse’s Hands Up for Success luncheon.

“Here’s my phone, incidentally. Alexander Graham Bell lent it to me and I forgot to return it,” Buffett joked.

On Thursday, Buffett said that Apple can “afford a mistake or two” when breaking into new markets, including entertainment. Buffett has previously said that his interest in Apple shares is not because of the company’s short-term finances, but because he believes it has a strong brand and ecosystem.

Buffett’s had his older phone for a while, and he even has an iPhone X — he just hasn’t set it up yet.

“A fellow sent me a ’10’ the other day, but I’m not using it yet,” Buffett said. “Very nice fellow. He even explained it. I think he pretended he was writing to a three-year-old child. He wrote me this very nice letter and explained what to do with it — how it wouldn’t bite me or anything like that. I’m kind of screwing up my courage here and one of these days, I’ll move.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook has said he would fly to Omaha to help Buffett set a new iPhone up.

“I told him I’ll personally come out to Omaha and do tech support for him,” Cook said in an interview last year.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/28/billionaire-warren-buffett-a-major-apple-investor-uses-a-20-flip-phone.html

A newly enforced federal ban on firearm bump stocks will stay in place for the time being, after the Supreme Court again rejected efforts by gun-rights groups to delay its implementation.

The devices allow semi-automatic weapons to fire with greater rapidity, like machine guns.

An order issued Thursday was the second one from the high court. Chief Justice John Roberts turned aside a similar request earlier this week as litigation over the government’s new policy continues in federal court.

President Trump signed an order on Feb. 20, 2018, directing the Justice Department to ban “bump stocks” and other gun modifiers that make semi-automatic firearms fire faster. The Trump administration’s ban went into effect Tuesday, and follows calls for action after the 2017 massacre in Las Vegas, where 58 people were killed by a gunman who modified his weapons with bump stocks.

BUMP-STOCK BAN HAS GUN-RIGHTS ADVOCATES UP IN ARMS

The case — Gun Owners of America, Inc. v. Barr — puts the Trump administration in an unusual position of arguing against gun-rights groups.

“We must move past clichés and tired debates and focus on evidence-based solutions and security measures that actually work,” Trump previously said during a ceremony to honor the 17 victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Semi-automatic rifles with bump stocks could fire hundreds of rounds per minute, according to experts. They were originally created to make it easier for people with disabilities to fire a gun.

The device essentially replaces the gun’s stock and pistol grip and causes the weapon to buck back and forth, repeatedly “bumping” the trigger against the shooter’s finger.

WHAT ARE BUMP STOCKS?

Since the Las Vegas shooting, states and cities increasingly pushed for legislation to ban the devices.

Massachusetts became the first state to pass legislation banning the device after the incident. The state law, which went into effect Feb. 1, 2018, prohibits possession of the device under all circumstances. It also bans the possession of trigger cranks.

CLICK TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The National Rifle Association (NRA) even called for an immediate review of bump stocks after the Vegas shooting.

“The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations,” the NRA said in a statement at the time.

Fox News’ Jennifer Earl and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-refuses-to-block-temporary-ban-on-gun-bump-stocks

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Washington (CNN)US Attorney Jessie Liu has withdrawn herself from consideration for the No. 3 spot at the Justice Department, spokesperson Kerri Kupec said Thursday.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/28/politics/justice-department-jessie-liu/index.html

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on a proposal to eliminate funding for the Special Olympics (all times local):

4:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump says he is backing off a budget request to cut funding for the Special Olympics, after days of criticism.

Trump told reporters at the White House Thursday, “I’ve overridden my people for funding the Special Olympics.”

The Trump administration’s education budget proposal calls for the elimination of $17.6 million in funding for the Special Olympics, roughly 10 percent of the group’s overall revenue.

RELATED: Athletes prepare for the Special Olympics




Democrats pressed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on the topic during a Senate budget hearing Thursday, just days after House Democrats grilled her on the proposal and sparked criticism online.

DeVos said she “wasn’t personally involved” in pushing for elimination of the funding, but she defended it as her agency seeks to cut $7 billion from the 2020 budget.

__

11:50 a.m.

Education Secretary Betsy Devos is facing a new round of scrutiny over a proposal to eliminate funding for the Special Olympics, a cut that lawmakers say is unlikely to be approved.

Senate Democrats are pressing DeVos on the topic during a budget hearing, just after House Democrats grilled her on the proposal and sparked a wave of criticism online.

DeVos says she “wasn’t personally involved” in pushing for elimination of the funding, but she is defending it as her agency seeks to cut $7 billion for the 2020 budget.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin says “someone has to accept responsibility for a bad decision.”

Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/03/28/trump-backs-off-special-olympics-funding-cut/23702114/

MAGNA, Utah — Democrats have mixed feelings about the results of the Mueller investigation.

Attorney General William Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report finding no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election has elicited a range of responses.

Democratic lawmakers in Washington, D.C., are demanding that Barr release the full report and testify before a congressional panel. Meanwhile, in Magna, Utah, a group of Democratic voters gathered early Tuesday at the Brew Monkey Coffee House and Deli to discuss the report.

The general consensus among the men, who asked that their names not be used to speak candidly, was that the Justice Department’s findings were far from the “complete and total exoneration” that President Trump claims.

“I think it’s a cover-up,” one man said. “I’m going to tell you why. We have learned, Trump doesn’t pay his taxes. He doesn’t do anything legal. But yet, they think he’s going to be a legal president? I don’t think so. I disagree with that.”

A group of Democratic voters gathered March 26 in Magna, Utah, to discuss the Mueller report.

Another man said he always knew the report would come to nothing because Mueller is a registered Republican.

“No collusion?” asked another. “First [Trump] stands up and holds up the emails and says, ‘Are you listening, Russia?’ Then he fires [Comey] and doesn’t have the balls to fire him in person because he’d kick [Trump’s] ass.”

I asked the group whether, now that the report has been released, it was time for Democrats to move on. The general feeling was that they should not.

“Let’s see the report and what comes out,” said one of the men.

“What they really need to do is subpoena Mueller,” said another. “I want to hear from him. I don’t trust Barr. How can you go over that many days of testimony and come to a conclusion in a day and a half. Bullshit.”

Shortly after our discussion at the coffee shop ended, Barr announced that the full Mueller report would be publicly released within weeks.

My focus group consisted of eight men, all Democrats in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, including the mayor of Magna. Their friendships with one another stretch back to childhood, and they mixed political talk with reminiscences from high school basketball games and other events from their youth.

A close-knit working class community, Magna is a former copper mining town a few miles west of Salt Lake City. It is represented by Republicans in the U.S. House and state Senate, and by a Democrat in the state House. “Make no mistake,” one man said. “This is a Democratic community, without a doubt.”

Later, two other men joined our discussion, with one questioning Mueller’s impartiality. “He’s a lifelong Republican, don’t forget that,” he said. “And all these Republicans are telling him, ’You’re going to make America look bad if the president of the United States is a crook. We only have another year and a half left. We need to let this go.’ That’s what I think happened.”

The group also offered their opinions on a variety of other topics — from the new tax law (“a scam”), to the strong economy (credit: former President Barack Obama), to the border wall (“a waste of money”) — before turning to Trump’s character and which Democrat has the best chance to beat him in 2020.

“I served in the Army and the president is commander in chief,” one guy announced. “And I’m a good Democrat. There’s a lot of presidents I didn’t care for, but they’re still commander in chief. This has been the first one that I am ashamed of. Some of the things he’s done, the things he’s said. I wasn’t a Ronald Reagan fan, but I bet when [Trump] walked into the Oval Office the first time, Ronald Reagan spun in his grave like a windmill.”

“He’s shameless in his lying,” another said of Trump. “They think Reagan was the Teflon president. They should look at Trump. Nothing sticks to him.”

“We’re even loving Mitt Romney at this point,” one man said of the Utah Republican senator who at times has acted as a foil to Trump. “Didn’t think we’d ever say that!”

“But at least he’s civil,” another added. “We’d take George W. Bush in a heartbeat.”

“Didn’t think we’d ever say that!” the first repeated.

“It’s so bad. I think Nixon would be better than Trump,” a third man said.

Some of the men seemed nervous about Democrats’ chances of beating Trump in 2020.

“Who can beat him?” I asked.

California Sen. Kamala Harris and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke were mentioned. But the consensus seemed to be former Vice President Joe Biden, whose name elicited the following responses:

“I like Joe.”

“Joe’s a class act.”

“I like Joe.”

“He’s a damn good person. He’s had disasters in his life. He never goes after people personally.”

“He’s a hell of a contrast to that idiot in there, and he’s the right guy.”

We returned to the Mueller report near the end of our discussion. I asked the group whether they’d support further investigations by Democrats.

“I don’t think so,” one man said. “It’ll hurt them because it’ll look like sour grapes.”

“If they want to call for another report or call another investigation, fine, but don’t focus everything on it,” another man cautioned. “Don’t let everything else go.”

Daniel Allott (@DanielAllott) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner ‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He is the author of Into Trump’s America and former deputy commentary editor at the Washington Examiner .

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/its-a-cover-up-democratic-voters-in-utah-react-to-mueller-findings

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Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/28/health/new-york-attorney-general-opioid-sackler-family-sued/index.html

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court declined Thursday to take up an appeal challenging a federal ban on bump stocks that went into effect Tuesday.

After the Trump administration outlawed the devices — which allow rifles to be fired rapidly — owners, dealers and manufacturers were required to destroy them by midnight Monday or turn them into a local office of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Federal authorities estimated that half a million were sold in the United States.

Bump stocks figured prominently in the 2017 mass shooting at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and wounded 500 others. Of 22 semiautomatic rifles in the hotel room used by the gunman, 14 were equipped with bump stocks, prompting President Donald Trump to push for a ban.

Gun rights groups filed two separate Supreme Court appeals. One, directed to Chief Justice John Roberts, was rejected Tuesday. A second, filed with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, was turned down Thursday after she referred it to the full court. In both decisions, the court gave no explanation, following its usual procedure.

A lawsuit challenging the ban remains before a federal court in Washington. The two Supreme Court appeals sought a temporary halt to the ban while the lower court case was pending.

Once attached to a rifle in place of the normal stock or end piece, bump stocks allow rounds to be fired in quick succession, almost as fast as an automatic weapon. The Trump administration concluded that they violated a federal law banning machine guns, defined as weapons that automatically fire more than one shot “with a single function of the trigger.”

An ATF spokesman declined Thursday to say how many bump stocks were surrendered before the ban went into effect, adding that the agency “does not feel the number turned in is an accurate depiction, because there were alternative methods of disposal.” However, local ATF offices around the country said very few were turned in.

An exception was in the state of Washington, where 1,000 were turned over to the state patrol. Each person surrendering a bump stock received $150 under a state buyback program.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-rejects-effort-stop-trump-s-ban-rapid-fire-n988566

Until Jan. 24th, President Trump led the world in supporting Venezuelan human rights and that nation’s legitimate president, Juan Guaido.

But from the day after he recognized Guaido’s presidency until now, Trump’s policy has been defined by far too much rhetoric and far too little action. As with former President Barack Obama’s policy on Syria, Trump’s Venezuela policy is heading for disaster. Like Syria, it will be a disaster that matches grotesque humanitarian suffering to gutted American credibility.

Trump’s problem became clear again on Wednesday, when he met with Guaido’s wife at the White House. Trump offered vocal support to Guaido, and warned that “Russia has to get out” of Venezuela. But where it matters most, in pledges of major action, Trump once again offered nothing. It’s a big problem.

For a start, empty threats are no good against Vladimir Putin. Trump’s Wednesday threat was empty — hence what we’re seeing in Venezuela right now, where Russian military advance forces are arriving, almost certainly alongside other elements of Russian power. The parallels between Putin’s Venezuela deployment and his Syria deployment are striking.

In 2015, Putin came to understand that Obama’s lofty moral rhetoric on Syria existed in a vacuum of serious action. Obama refused to support the more moderate elements of the Syrian rebellion just at the moment Bashar Assad was weakest. And Putin took notice: He sent his military in to gut the rebellion, Syria’s civilian population, and U.S. interests. In 2019, Putin sees Trump’s lofty rhetoric on Venezuela matched with no action when action is needed most. Thus Russia, which would utterly fail to contest the U.S. in Venezuela were the U.S. acting seriously, is seizing the moment to save its ally, Nicolas Maduro.

Trump, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo have got to wake up. They talk the talk, but they are most certainly not walking the walk.

Guaido’s request for a U.S.-led embargo on Maduro’s oil theft has been ignored. And Trump has rejected severe sanctions against Maduro, his cronies, and his military supporters. Don’t tell me the sanctions that the Treasury Department announces every couple of days are sufficient. They are not.

But in Venezuela, the reality is blinding: The humanitarian catastrophe is set to spiral into a truly nightmarish dystopia. And if Trump thinks his words and Venezuelan suffering will persuade Putin to be tougher on Maduro, he’s delusional. As in Syria, the Russians will do exactly the opposite. As in Aleppo, they will make the humanitarian suffering worse, and they’ll make it clear that the price tag for basic humanitarian relief will be America’s acquiescence to Maduro’s power.

Maduro knows it. Which is why he’s taking increasingly aggressive action against Guaido’s inner circle. On the present track, Guaido is going to end up in the SEBIN gulag, or shot dead by Maduro’s cutouts. Then Trump will have his Syria — as with Obama, his credibility will have been gutted by a lesser power as a despot continues to destroy his people.

It needn’t be this way. Employment of U.S. military force against Maduro is not yet warranted. But Trump has far more means of action against Maduro than he’s currently employing. If Trump chooses to use them, Venezuela’s people will find salvation, Maduro will disappear, democracy will prevail, and American interests will trump Putin’s agenda.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/venezuela-is-becoming-trumps-version-of-obamas-syria

Media captionAndrea Leadsom explains the timetable for Friday’s Brexit vote

MPs will be asked to vote again on Brexit on Friday but only on part of the deal negotiated with the EU.

They will vote on the withdrawal agreement on the Irish “backstop”, divorce bill and citizens’ rights.

But it will not amount to a third “meaningful vote” on the deal, as it will not include a vote on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

Amid anger from MPs, Andrea Leadsom said it was “crucial” if the UK wanted to secure a Brexit delay until 22 May.

MPs will be debating the motion on the day the UK was supposed to leave the European Union – 29 March.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said Theresa May was essentially asking MPs to turn it into a game of two halves – just voting on the first part of the deal which sorts out the UK’s departure and leaving the longer term part for the next few weeks.

But it is still not certain it will get through – both Labour and the Democratic Unionist Party say they will vote against the withdrawal agreement on Friday.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the withdrawal agreement could not be separated from the political declaration “because otherwise you move into a blindfold Brexit”.

The DUP’s deputy leader Nigel Dodds said he was not expecting “any last minute rabbits out of the hat” that would change the party’s position.

The vote, on what was meant to be Brexit Day, is a request to MPs to allow her to keep going, to carry on pursuing her route, with its well-documented flaws.

There’s a challenge there too, not just to her own Brexiteers but to Labour and the other opposition parties, to say “no” to a long delay to our departure from the EU, the last moment when Number 10 believes anything even approaching a timely exit can be guaranteed.

There are signs now of course that many Eurosceptic MPs are ready to say yes – not because they suddenly have realised her deal is perfect but because more of them officially realise that it is the clearest break from the EU they can realistically hope for.

Yet her Northern Irish allies are not persuaded. Labour, even though they have sometimes accepted that what’s on the table tomorrow, the divorce deal, will never be unpicked by the EU, will still, in the main, resist.

Read Laura’s blog

He told the BBC that the DUP was concerned about plans for “a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK and what that would mean in terms of who makes our laws – not Stormont or Westminster”.

The PM’s deal includes a withdrawal agreement – setting out how much money the UK must pay to the EU as a settlement, details of the transition period, and the backstop arrangements – and a political declaration on the way the future EU-UK relationship will work.

Last week the European Council agreed to postpone Brexit beyond the expected date of 29 March – offering an extension until 22 May, if MPs approved the withdrawal agreement by the end of this week.

If not, it offered a shorter delay until 12 April – the date by which the UK would have to indicate whether it would stand candidates in the 2019 European Parliament elections – allowing the UK time to get the deal through or to “indicate a way forward”.

BBC Brussels reporter Adam Fleming said the official conclusions from last week’s summit only mention the need to pass the withdrawal agreement by Friday, not the political declaration.

Leader of the Commons Mrs Leadsom told MPs that the European Council would only agree to the 22 May extension if MPs approved the withdrawal agreement by 23:00 GMT on Friday.

“It’s crucial therefore that we make every effort to give effect to the council’s decision and tomorrow’s motion gives Parliament the opportunity to secure that extension,” she said.

“I think we can all agree that we don’t want to be in the situation of asking for another extension and facing the potential requirement of participating in European Parliament elections.”

But she faced anger from some MPs. Labour’s Mary Creagh described it as an “extraordinary and unprecedented reverse ferret of the commitments that have been made… that we should have our say on both items together”.

Friday’s vote would not allow Parliament to ratify the withdrawal package, because Brexit legislation allows this only after the passage of a “meaningful vote” on both the Withdrawal Agreement and a Political Declaration on the future relationship.

The government would either have to pass part two of the deal – the political declaration on the future relationship – at a later date, or change the law so that it is not needed to ratify the treaty.

Some MPs questioned the government’s motion, with Labour’s Valerie Vaz saying “on the face of it breaks the law”.

“This is no way to run a government,” she told MPs.

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And the Labour chairman of the Brexit select committee, Hilary Benn, asked if Brexit was delayed to 22 May, whether at that point it would “no longer be possible” to apply for a further extension beyond that – because it would be too late to take part in the European Parliamentary elections.

Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said he would address this point on Friday.

Commons Speaker John Bercow said the government’s “new” motion complied with his ruling that he would not allow a third “meaningful vote” on the motion MPs have already rejected twice by large margins.

On Wednesday, the Commons failed to find a majority for a way forward after voting for eight different options to take Brexit forward – including leaving without a deal, creating a customs union and backing a confirmatory referendum on any deal.

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Brexit votes: What happens next?

Mrs May told a meeting of Conservative backbenchers on Wednesday that she would not lead the talks with Brussels over the future relationship between the UK and EU and would resign as party leader after 22 May if her deal was passed, but stay on as PM until a new leader is elected.

While she has won over some, including former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, a number of Brexiteers are still refusing to vote for the deal. She needs to win over 75 rebels to overturn the 149-vote rejection of her deal when it was last voted on, on 13 March.

Meanwhile a petition calling for Brexit to be halted by revoking Article 50, which has attracted nearly six million signatures – is to be debated by MPs on Monday.

They will also debate a petition calling for another EU referendum, which has more than 160,000 signatures, and another – with 165,000 signatures – demanding that “Parliament must honour the referendum result”.

Source Article from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47740158

“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement.

Carlos Osorio/AP


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“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement.

Carlos Osorio/AP

Updated at 2:58 p.m. ET

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is suing social media giant Facebook for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act.

HUD says Facebook does so by “encouraging, enabling and causing housing discrimination” when it allows companies that use their platform to improperly shield who can see certain housing ads.

In the charging document, HUD accuses Facebook of unlawfully discriminating against people based on race, religion, familial status, disability and other characteristics that closely align with the 1968 Fair House Act’s protected classes.

HUD also alleges Facebook allowed advertisers certain tools on their advertising platform that could exclude people who were classified as “non-American-born,” “non-Christian” or “interested in Hispanic culture,” among other things. It also said advertisers could exclude people based on ZIP code, essentially “drawing a red line around those neighborhoods on a map.”

“Facebook is discriminating against people based upon who they are and where they live,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a statement.

“Using a computer to limit a person’s housing choices can be just as discriminatory as slamming a door in someone’s face.”

(Note: Facebook is among NPR’s financial sponsors.)

HUD said that the charges would be heard by a U.S. administrative law judge or in federal district court.

The charges come on the heels of a complaint HUD filed in August, saying “reasonable cause exists” that a violation had occurred.

Facebook appeared caught off guard by the announcement.

“We’re surprised by HUD’s decision, as we’ve been working with them to address their concerns and have taken significant steps to prevent ads discrimination,” Facebook said in a statement.

“While we were eager to find a solution,” Facebook added. “HUD insisted on access to sensitive information — like user data — without adequate safeguards. We’re disappointed by today’s developments, but we’ll continue working with civil rights experts on these issues.”

Housing Department officials say they still see evidence of discrimination on Facebook’s platforms and as result felt compelled to move forward with the charges. There is a period of about three weeks that either Facebook or HUD can move to have the case heard in federal court, according to HUD officials.

An injunction or civil penalties, which could include a payment to those who may have been harmed by Facebook’s ad targeting practices, are all possible outcomes should this case be taken up by the courts.

Last week, Facebook said it would be settling lawsuits for just under $5 million with several civil rights and housing advocates, including the National Fair Housing Alliance.

In that announcement, Facebook said “we can do better” and promised to make changes to its platform, including not allowing housing advertisers to “target by age, gender or ZIP code.”

It also said advertisers that offer housing, employment and credit items “will have a much smaller set” of targeting criteria to choose from.

Facebook has been facing housing discrimination allegations for years.

As part its investigation into Facebook’s ad-targeting practices, ProPublica discovered in 2016, the company allowed advertisers access filters it referred to as “Ethnic Affinities.” After that report, Facebook promised reforms.

But in a follow-up report, also by ProPublica found “a significant lapse” in Facebook’s monitoring of advertisers.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/03/28/707614254/hud-slaps-facebook-with-housing-discrimination-charge

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., doesn’t like William Barr’s tone.

Pelosi on Thursday slammed the attorney general’s four-page letter on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as “condescending” and demanded to see the entire report.

“No thank you Mr. Attorney General,” Pelosi said. “I don’t need your interpretation.”

“Show us the report,” she added. “We have to see the facts.”

TOP DEMS WANT REPORT, NOW SUBMITTED, MADE PUBLIC ASAP

Pelosi called Barr’s decision to write the letter “arrogant.” Congress, she said, doesn’t need Barr “to be our interpreter of something that he should just show us.”

The Democratic chairmen of six House committees have demanded that Barr release the Mueller report to Congress by Tuesday.

Pelosi also defended House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who faced calls Thursday from Republicans to resign his chairmanship over comments that there was significant evidence the president and his associates conspired with Russia.

Pelosi said the Republicans are “scaredy cats” afraid of a “patriotic leader.”

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Barr’s letter on the special counsel’s report said that Mueller found no evidence of coordination with Russia, but the report did not make a determination on whether Trump committed obstruction of justice in the Russia probe. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein determined that evidence gathered by Mueller was insufficient on that front.

Trump has maintained since the announcement of the special counsel’s investigation that he never colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign. He has long decried the probe as a “witch hunt” while attacking the FBI figures who launched the original Russia probe that was eventually taken over by Mueller in 2017.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-calls-barrs-letter-on-mueller-probe-as-condescending-calls-for-release-of-full-report

A bump stock, left, is a device that can be added to a gun to increase its firing speed. The devices were banned by the federal government his week.

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A bump stock, left, is a device that can be added to a gun to increase its firing speed. The devices were banned by the federal government his week.

George Frey/Getty Images

The U.S. Supreme Court officially denied an appeal from gun makers seeking to stop a Trump administration ban on bump stocks, the gun add-ons that can dramatically increase their rate of fire. The ban went into effect on Tuesday.

Gun makers had filed separate appeals to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, requesting a temporary hold on the ban. Roberts denied one appeal earlier this week; Sotomayor referred hers to the full court, which denied it on Thursday, allowing the ban to proceed while challenges to it move through the courts.

Bump stocks gained national attention after they were used in the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, where a gunman used bump-stock outfitted rifles to kill 58 people at an outdoor concert.

The ban requires bump stocks to be destroyed — such as by melting, shredding or crushing — or handed over at an office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The ATF recommends making an appointment with the ATF office beforehand.

As NPR’s Bill Chappell reported on Wednesday, the anticipation of a ban spurred sales of the devices:

RW Arms, a prominent bump stock retailer based in Fort Worth, Texas, says its entire remaining inventory of 60,000 bump stocks has now been turned over to the ATF’s custody. The items will be “shredded and recycled under the supervision of ATF agents,” the company said.

In the run-up to the total ban, RW Arms had rushed to sell as many bump stocks as it could, posting a countdown clock on its website to warn customers of the impending change. Its bump stocks were priced at between $179 and $199; the website now says they’re out of stock.

The ATF isn’t saying exactly how many bump stocks have been turned in so far — in large part because there are many ways for gun owners to comply with the law. But the agency’s chief of public affairs, April Langwell, says bump stock owners have turned the accessories in at ATF field offices “all across the country.”

Some states and cities banned the devices more than a year ago.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/03/28/707637489/bump-stock-ban-proceeds-after-supreme-court-denies-gun-makers-request-to-halt-it

House lawmakers introduced legislation Thursday that would make Puerto Rico the 51st state of the United States.

Rep. Darren Soto, D-Fla., who represents a sizable Puerto Rican constituency in his south Orlando district, unveiled the bill dubbed “The Puerto Rico Admission Act of 2019,” which sets the terms for Puerto Rico’s statehood. Under the bill, Puerto Rico’s statehood would be granted within 90 days of getting President Trump’s signature.

Though statehood for Puerto Rico has broad support among Republicans, a potential problem is the president’s public feud with Puerto Rican leaders over the handling of Hurricane Maria federal funds and assistance after the 2017 storm devastated the island. “With the mayor of San Juan as bad as she is and as incompetent as she is, Puerto Rico shouldn’t be talking about statehood until they get some people that really know what they’re doing,” Trump said in a September interview.

[ Related: Trump administration yet to deliver much of the disaster funds it owes Puerto Rico]

The bill is co-sponsored by Jenniffer Gonzalez, a Republican in office representing Puerto Rico since 2017. As a nonvoting member, Gonzalez is not allowed to vote on final legislative measures on the floor, but she is allowed to vote in committees, introduce legislation, and co-sponsor proposals.

In 2017, the Puerto Rican government held a public referendum to guide the official position of the island. Over 97 percent of Puerto Ricans supported statehood.

Florida’s Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, both Republicans, have publicly supported for Puerto Rico statehood.

Since 2012, the Republican Party has included Puerto Rican statehood as an official party position in their platform. The position was ratified again in the 2016 Republican National Convention when Trump was formally chosen as the party’s nominee for the presidency.

“We support the right of the United States citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state,” the official Republican platform reads.”We support the federally sponsored political status referendum authorized and funded by an Act of Congress in 2014 to ascertain the aspirations of the people of Puerto Rico. Once the 2012 local vote for statehood is ratified, Congress should approve an enabling act with terms for Puerto Rico’s future admission as the 51st state of the Union.”

The bill is a reintroduction of the Puerto Rico Admissions Act of 2018 that failed to clear the Natural Resources Committee. The new bill, however, is expected to be more warmly received under the Democratic leadership of the committee.

Source Article from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/bipartisan-group-introduced-puerto-rico-statehood-bill-in-congress

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China has made unprecedented proposals in talks with the United States on a range of issues including forced technology transfer as the two sides work to overcome remaining obstacles to a deal to end their protracted trade war, U.S. officials told Reuters.

U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese imports last year in a move to force China to change the way it does business with the rest of the world and to pry open more of China’s economy to U.S. companies.

Among Trump’s demands are for Beijing to end practices that Washington alleges result in the systematic theft of U.S. intellectual property and the forced transfer of American technology to Chinese companies.

China put proposals on the table in the talks that went further than in the past, including on technology transfer, said one of four senior U.S. administration officials who spoke to Reuters.

Negotiators have made progress on the details of the written agreements that have been hashed out to address U.S. concerns, he said.

“If you looked at the texts a month ago compared to today, we have moved forward in all areas. We aren’t yet where we want to be,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“They’re talking about forced technology transfer in a way that they’ve never wanted to talk about before – both in terms of scope and specifics,” he said, referring to Chinese negotiators. He declined to give further detail.

Reuters reported previously that the two sides were working on written agreements in six areas: forced technology transfer and cyber theft, intellectual property rights, services, currency, agriculture and non-tariff barriers to trade.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrive in Beijing on Thursday for a new round of talks with Chinese officials to work on a deal that would end a months-long trade war that has cost both sides billions of dollars and hurt global economic growth.

The in-person talks, which will be followed by a round in Washington next week, are the first face-to-face meetings the two sides have held in weeks after missing an initial end-of-March goal for a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to sign a pact.

Talks would continue as long as progress is being made on the core issues, the official said.

“It could go to May, June, no one knows. It could happen in April, we don’t know,” another administration official said.

The two sides still have differences over intellectual property and how to enforce a deal, he said.

‘Some tariffs will stay’

China wants the United States to lift its tariffs as part of a deal. Washington, which is cognizant that the tariffs give it leverage to ensure Beijing follows through on any commitments it makes, is wary of lifting them right away.

Trump said last week the United States may leave tariffs on Chinese goods for a “substantial period” to ensure compliance.

“Some tariffs will stay,” the second official said. “There’s going to be some give on that, but we’re not going to get rid of all the tariffs. We can’t.”

The topic will be addressed in upcoming talks.

“Obviously that is an issue that we need to resolve … and will be an important part of a final deal,” the first official said. He said there was some agreement on enforcement on what he termed the “back end” once a deal was in place: a structure in which both sides could raise grievances and implement tariffs if there were violations to the agreement.

Since July 2018, the United States has imposed duties on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, including $50 billion in technology and industrial goods at 25 percent and $200 billion in other products including furniture and construction materials, at 10 percent.

China has hit back with tariffs on about $110 billion worth of U.S. goods, including soybeans and other commodities.

The first official said the focus of talks had shifted from Chinese purchases of U.S. goods to the trickier structural issues, which he said Trump wanted as part of a “great” deal.

Bipartisan support at home for his tough stance on China as well as from the business community have emboldened Trump as he pushes for a deal that addresses long-standing complaints on trade, the source said.

Some officials have expressed concern that Trump would accept a deal involving big-ticket Chinese purchases of U.S. goods and falling short on structural issues.

He expressed optimism that a deal would be reached.

“I’m still confident, but it takes time,” he said. “Until any deal is finalized, it can always go either way. And the president has made clear, both in word and in action, that he’s going to walk away from deals if they’re not good deals.”

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/28/china-makes-unprecedented-offers-to-us-on-tech-transfer-trade.html

One drugstore in Suffolk County was in the 99th percentile of opioid sales in the state from 2011 through the first quarter of 2018, the complaint said; Cardinal reported an average of 85 suspicious orders a year from the pharmacy. Still, in 2018, the drugstore continued to receive opioids from Cardinal.

The lawsuit amends an earlier suit New York State filed against Purdue Pharma, the company considered primarily responsible for unleashing the current opioid epidemic by misleading doctors about the OxyContin’s dangers and ignoring evidence that the drug was being abused.

The lawsuit adds other opioid manufacturers, including Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson; Mallinckrodt; Endo Pharmaceuticals; Teva Pharmaceuticals; Allergan; and many of their affiliated companies.

New York is one of three dozen states to sue opioid manufacturers, litigation that is separate from the bundle of 1,600 opioid-related federal cases being overseen by a United States District Court judge in Ohio, who hopes to help craft a single comprehensive settlement — an objective that may be out of reach.

With the exception of Alabama, which joined the federal consolidation, these states potentially stand to wrest swifter, bigger paydays for their constituents, as long as the states can prove their cases. This week Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers agreed to pay $270 million to settle a case in Oklahoma that was to go to trial in May.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/health/new-york-lawsuit-opioids-sacklers-distributors.html

When Donald Trump wanted to make a good impression — on a lender, a business partner, or a journalist — he sometimes sent them official-looking documents called “Statements of Financial Condition.”

These documents sometimes ran up to 20 pages. They were full of numbers, laying out Trump’s properties, debts and multibillion-dollar net worth.

But, for someone trying to get a true picture of Trump’s net worth, the documents were deeply flawed. Some simply omitted properties that carried big debts. Some assets were overvalued. And some key numbers were wrong.

For instance, Trump’s financial statement for 2011 said he had 55 home lots to sell at his golf course in Southern California. Those lots would sell for $3 million or more, the statement said.

But Trump had only 31 lots zoned and ready for sale at the course, according to city records. He claimed credit for 24 lots — and at least $72 million in future revenue — he didn’t have.

He also claimed his Virginia vineyard had 2,000 acres, when it really has about 1,200. He said Trump Tower has 68 stories. It has 58.

Gives incorrect number of home lots in California

At that point, only 36 lots were actually approved for sale, and by this point 5 had already been sold. That left 31 – not 55 – available for sale. Since Trump was promising he could sell them for at least $3 million each, there was a $72 million gap between his claims and reality.

Adds 10 stories to Trump Tower

Trump Tower only has 58 stories, but Trump re-numbered the floors to make it seem taller.

Now, investigators on Capitol Hill and in New York are homing in on these unusual documents in an apparent attempt to determine whether Trump’s familiar habit of bragging about his wealth ever crossed a line into fraud.

The statements are at the center of at least two of the inquiries that continue to follow Trump, unaffected by the end of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. On Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said it had requested 10 years of these statements from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA.

And earlier this month, the New York state Department of Financial Services subpoenaed records from Trump’s longtime insurer, Aon. A person familiar with that subpoena, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation, said “a key component” was questions about whether Trump had given Aon these documents in an effort to lower his insurance premiums.

Both inquiries stemmed from testimony last month by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who told Congress that Trump had used these statements to inflate his wealth — and then sent them to his lenders and his insurers.

Michael Cohen, former personal attorney to President Trump, testified before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 27 and submitted some of Trump’s financial statements as exhibits. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

“Mr. Trump is a cheat,” Cohen said, in describing what the statements showed.

Cohen told Congress that statements were given to Deutsche Bank, as Trump sought a loan to buy the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. Since then, Deutsche Bank and another Trump lender have also received subpoenas, from the New York State attorney general.

The statements may additionally draw the interest of the House Financial Services Committee, which is scrutinizing Deutsche. A committee spokesman declined to comment.

The White House declined to comment for this report.

The Trump Organization also declined to comment about the statements or answer questions about specific errors the statements contained. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the president’s sons who are running his business, noted on social media that Cohen has provided false testimony about other topics.

Mazars USA, the accounting firm, issued a brief statement Wednesday after the House Oversight letter became public, saying that it “believes strongly in the ethical and professional rules and regulations that govern our industry, our work and our client interactions.” It declined to comment further about Trump.

The Washington Post reviewed copies of these documents for 2002, 2004, 2011, 2012 and 2013 — obtaining them from court files, from people who received them from Trump’s company, and from Cohen. Cohen also provided copies of documents from 2011, 2012 and 2013 to Congress.

Since the 1980s, Trump has defined himself by his wealth, but he has often avoided providing proof to back up his boasts or provided documents that inflated the real values. As president, Trump has declined to release his tax returns, unlike every president since Jimmy Carter.

Trump is far from the first real estate developer to inflate his projects or wealth. But there are laws against defrauding insurers and lenders with false information. Financial and legal experts said it’s unclear at this point whether Trump will face any legal consequences. They said it depends on whether Trump intended to mislead or whether the misstatements caused anyone to give him a financial benefit.

“How much would [the errors] impact an investor?” said Kyle Welch, an assistant professor of accountancy at George Washington University. “If it’s systematic and it’s across the board, and it’s all in one direction, that’s where you have a problem.”

Welch said Trump could be protected by disclaimers that his own accountants added to the statements, warning readers that they weren’t seeing the full picture. And in an odd way, Welch said, Trump could be helped by the sheer scale of the exaggerations. They were so far off from reality, Welch wondered whether any real bank or insurer could have been fooled.

Welch said he’d never seen a document stretch so far past the normal conventions of accounting.

“It’s humorous,” Welch said. “It’s a humorous financial statement.”

Investigators for the New York State Department of Financial Services, which sent subpoenas to Aon, and the New York State attorney general — who subpoenaed Deutsche Bank — declined to comment. Aon and Deutsche Bank also declined to comment, beyond saying they plan to cooperate with investigators.

The story of Trump’s “statements of financial condition” — in essence, sales brochures for Trump the man, given out by Trump the company — goes back to the early 1980s, according to past testimony from Trump’s accountants and staffers.

In 2007, a Trump lawyer named Michelle Lokey said she had sent these statements out to Trump’s lenders, for projects in Chicago and Las Vegas, because Trump had personally guaranteed those loans. That meant that if Trump’s company defaulted on its obligations, the lenders could come after Trump’s personal assets.

Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago was one of the two properties that were not included in some Trump financial statements. Both buildings were carrying mortgages. (Joshua Lott for The Washington Post)

“Therefore they’d want information on his net worth?” an attorney asked Lokey.

“I assume,” she said.

The statements were prepared by Trump’s longtime accountants, a firm now called Mazars. In other contexts — such as when one of Trump’s companies was seeking to secure a federal contract — this firm prepared rigorously audited financial statements.

This was a different sort of job.

When compiling these statements of financial condition, those accountants have said they did not verify or audit the figures in the statements. Instead, when Trump provided them data, they wrote it down without checking to see whether it was accurate.

“In the compilation process, it is not the role of the accountant to assess the values,” said Gerald J. Rosenblum, one of the accountants. “The role is to accept those values and move them forward.”

An attorney asked: Do the values have to be logical?

“The value per se does not have to be logical,” Rosenblum said. He and Lokey were deposed as part of a lawsuit in which Trump sued a New York Times reporter for allegedly lowballing his net worth. Trump’s suit against the reporter was later dismissed.

In 2014, Trump used the same accounting firm to prepare financial information for his most expensive development project in decades, his $200 million transformation of the historic Old Post Office Pavilion in downtown Washington into a Trump International Hotel.

But in that case, Mazars vouched for the accuracy of the information, writing that the firm “is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these financial statements” using industry standard accounting rules. This was a formal audit of finances related just to Trump’s D.C. hotel, rather than a summation of all of his assets based on Trump’s own estimates.

The statements Cohen provided to The Post — and to Congress — begin in 2011. Two of them are 20-page “Statements of Financial Condition” signed by Trump’s accountants.

In his testimony to Congress, Cohen said these statements included Trump’s self-appraisals of his buildings’ value — which aimed to impress, instead of aiming for reality. Cohen said Trump would take real measures of value, such as the amount of money his tenants paid in rent, and simply inflate it until he got a number he liked.

“If you’re going off of your rent roll, you go by the gross rent roll times a multiple,” Cohen said. “And you make up the multiple.”

The documents begin with two-page disclaimers, warning of various ways in which the statements don’t follow normal accounting rules. The accountants note that Trump is the source of many buildings’ valuations — and that, contrary to normal accounting rules, he had inflated them by counting future income that wasn’t guaranteed.

Accountant’s warning

Trump calls this a “statement of financial condition.” But right away, his accounting firm is warning readers that it hasn’t checked anything in this document to be sure it’s accurate.

The accountants also note that Trump had told them to simply omit two of his major hotels, in Chicago and Las Vegas. Both buildings were carrying mortgages. That omission means that some of Trump’s actual debt load was hidden from anyone reading the statement.

“Users of this financial statement should recognize that they might reach different conclusions about the financial condition of Donald J. Trump” if they had more information, the statement concludes.

Legal experts interviewed by The Post said that sort of broad disclaimer might shield Trump from allegations that he misled his lenders and insurers. After all, his own accountants told readers they weren’t getting the full story.

“The transparent disclaimers — even if frustrating — typically wipe out a basis” for bringing charges of fraud, said Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor who is now a private attorney at Dickinson Wright.

In 2012, Trump’s statement said he owned a 2,000-acre vineyard in Virginia. But land records in Virginia show the Trump family owns about 1,200 acres. The Trump winery’s own website says 1,300 acres.

Exaggerates size of vineyard

The vineyard sits on a 1,205 acre property, of which only about 227 acres are planted with grapes.

In 2011, the statements said that Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, N.Y., was “zoned for nine luxurious homes.” In the statement, Trump said those homes would yield significant cash flow as he built them and sold them. That led him to value the property at $261 million — far more than the roughly $20 million value assigned by local assessors.

Exaggerates value of Westchester County estate

At the time, local officials assessed the land’s value at about $20 million, a fraction of the value Trump assessed.

At the time, Trump had received preliminary “conceptual approval” to build homes on the site. But local officials said he never finished the last step in the approval process to build the homes or sell the lots.

None of the homes was built.

The 2013 statement that Cohen provided — and which he said was also given to Deutsche Bank, in pursuit of a loan to buy the Bills — is different from the other two.

It is just two pages long, with a slightly different title: “Summary of Net Worth.” It does not include the usual disclaimer from Trump’s accountants, so readers aren’t told that the debts from Trump’s Chicago and Las Vegas hotels are missing.

Two buildings are missing

Here, Trump is exaggerating his wealth by leaving two major parts of his portfolio out. His buildings in Las Vegas and Chicago — both of which had loans attached to them — are simply left out of this statement. Without them, readers can’t get a full picture of how much he owes, and to whom.

This document also includes a new “asset” that wasn’t there before.

It says that Trump’s brand value — his name, essentially — was worth $4 billion, and that it ought to be counted among his assets as if it were a building or a resort. With his brand included, Trump’s net worth jumped from $4.6 billion to $8.6 billion.


Trump’s $4 billion asset

Trump added “brand value” as an asset in 2013, valued at $4 billion, doubling his net worth from previous years.

Total assets in 2013:

$9.2B

$9B

Brand

value

$6B

Total assets

in 2011:

$4.6B

Properties

under

development

Club facilities and

related real estate

$3B

Commercial

properties

Residential

properties

Real estate

licensing

Joint ventures

Other assets

0

Cash/

securities

2011

2012

2013

Trump’s $4 billion asset

Trump added “brand value” as an asset in 2013, valued at $4 billion, doubling his net worth from previous years.

Total assets in 2013:

$9.2B

$9B

Brand

value

$6B

Total assets

in 2011:

$4.6B

Properties

under

development

Club facilities and

related real estate

$3B

Commercial

properties

Residential

properties

Real estate

licensing

Joint ventures

Other assets

0

Cash/

securities

2011

2012

2013

Trump’s $4 billion asset

Trump added “brand value” as an asset in 2013, valued at $4 billion, doubling his net worth from previous years.

Total assets in 2013:

$9.2B

$9B

Brand value

$6B

Total assets

in 2011:

$4.6B

Properties under

development

Club facilities and

related real estate

$3B

Commercial

properties

Residential

properties

Joint

ventures

Real estate

licensing

Other assets

Cash/securities

0

2011

2012

2013

For Trump, the Bills would have been a financial prize far larger than any he had won in the recent past: Bids were expected to be around $1 billion.

In public, Trump had bragged that he was ready to pay $1 billion in cash. But privately, one of his lieutenants told a business contact that they were struggling with the bid.

“We are looking at the Bills but Allen and I are having trouble making the numbers work!!!” wrote Ron Lieberman, an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, in an email to a contact in the New York City parks department. “Allen” likely meant Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime chief financial officer.

Lieberman’s email was released this year in response to a public-records request from a nonprofit group, NYC Park Advocates. Lieberman and Weisselberg did not respond to requests for comment this week.

Whatever Trump sent to Deutsche Bank, it seems to have been enough: The New York Times reported that Deutsche Bank agreed to vouch for Trump’s bid for the Bills, citing an unnamed executive. But Trump lost a bidding war, and somebody else bought the team.

<!– david.fahrenthold@washpost.com
–>

<!– jonathan.oconnell@washpost.com
–>

Jonathan O’Connell

Jonathan O’Connell is a reporter focused on economic development, corporate accountability and the Trump Organization.

David A. Fahrenthold

David A. Fahrenthold is a reporter covering the Trump family and its business interests. He has been at The Washington Post since 2000, and previously covered Congress, the federal bureaucracy, the environment and the D.C. police.

Credits

Graphics by Leslie Shapiro and Reuben Fischer-Baum; Design by Jason Bernert and Joanne Lee

<!–

–>

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/trump-statements-of-financial-condition/

The British Parliament still can’t agree on what kind of Brexit it wants.

Members of Parliament (MPs) held “indicative votes” on Wednesday, casting ballots for eight different options on how the United Kingdom should break up with the European Union. The goal of the process was to reveal what kind of Brexit plan might win a majority in the House of Commons, after MPs twice rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

There’s just one problem — no option won a clear majority.

A plan for a second referendum, in which any Brexit deal approved by Parliament would go back to the public for a vote, received the most “aye” votes. A customs union arrangement, where the UK would follow the same customs rules as the EU, came in second.

Earlier that day, the prime minister had announced that she would resign if Parliament backed her Brexit plan, which has twice been defeated in Parliament by very large margins. May is still planning to bring her deal for a third vote, possibly Friday, though nothing is decided yet.

The failure of the indicative votes to break the logjam in Parliament could boost her deal somewhat, as May can make the case that Parliament tried and failed to come up with an alternative. But even with May’s promise to sacrifice her premiership, her deal still might not win enough support.

MPs are expected Monday to debate and vote on the options that got the most votes, to see if it’s possible to win a majority for something. There will probably be a few more twists along the way, but here’s a breakdown of the action on Wednesday and what might happen next.

A customs union and people’s vote got the most votes

MPs were given a ballot on Wednesday, which contained eight different Brexit options. They could mark “aye” or “no” next to each, and from there, the ballots were collected and tallied. They looked like this:

Here’s a summary of the eight options and the results.

  • No-deal Brexit

This means crashing out of the EU without any agreement or transition period in place, and is the default option on April 12 if the UK can’t approve a deal. Parliament has already rejected leaving the EU without a deal, so, no surprise, this was defeated 160-400.

  • Common Market 2.0

Also known as “Norway Plus.” Not to get super in the weeds, but this is a very soft Brexit proposal, meaning the UK and the EU would have very close economic ties. The model for this is Norway, which is not an EU member but has access to the EU single market, which broadly means free movement of goods, capital, services, and people. The “plus” here is because this would also mean joining a customs union. This went down, 188-283.

  • Norway option

The same as the plan above — but without the plus, which means no customs arrangement. This lost 65-377.

  • Customs union

This would allow for membership in the customs union post-Brexit, which means the UK would follow all the EU customs rules. This plan was actually the most popular — it got 264 yes votes, and only 272 no votes — so it only lost by eight votes.

  • Labour plan

This is Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal, which focuses on a future relationship that would involve customs union membership, but with the ability for the UK to make its own trade deals. It would also allow for alignment with the single-market rules and close cooperation on issues like security and with certain EU institutions. It’s not clear the EU would go for this plan because it might involve the UK cherry-picking which EU rules it would follow, but it doesn’t matter, for now, because it lost 237 to 307.

  • Revoke Article 50, sort of

This basically called for the prime minister to stop Brexit if the UK doesn’t have a deal two days before the deadline and if Parliament agrees it does not want to leave the EU without a deal. (Article 50 is the mechanism in the EU’s Lisbon Treaty that the UK is using to leave the bloc.) This one lost 184 to 293.

  • Second referendum

This says that any Brexit deal approved by Parliament has to go back to the public for a vote. This got the most “aye” votes, with 268, but 295 people voted against it, so it was defeated by a greater margin than the customs union.

  • A “managed no-deal”

This is similar to a plan that the EU has already rejected, which would basically involve the UK leaving the EU without a deal. There would still be a transition period whereby the two sides would negotiate some free trade agreements. It was defeated 139 to 422.

Okay, so what does this all mean?

Oliver Letwin, the Conservative MP who put forward the indicative votes motion, insisted that lawmakers should debate again Monday, knocking out the biggest losers (no-deal, etc.) and debating and casting ballots again on Wednesday’s top vote-getters, likely the top four or so, but that’s still unclear. Those still might not secure a majority, but some of these plans such as the second referendum and customs union lost got more votes than May’s deal has — so it might be possible to convert a few MPs to support one of these alternative plans.

Oh, and there’s still May’s deal.

Her announcement that she would resign if Parliament backed her deal on a third vote has convinced a slew of hardliners to support her, but she still doesn’t have the votes to pass it yet. May’s key allies in Northern Island — the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — have said they will still vote against the deal, meaning it’s unlikely that it will pass on a third go-round.

Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow also repeated Wednesday he would not allow a third Brexit deal vote without a substantially changed deal. May’s government is reportedly trying to get around this by bringing forward one part of the Brexit deal — the 585-withdrawal agreement — for a vote on Friday, and leaving off the second part, which is the short political declaration that says the EU and UK will negotiate a future economic partnership. That political declaration would be voted on separately at another time.

The point of this is to lock in a Brexit deadline of May 22. The EU said it would grant the UK an extension until that date if Parliament passed a withdrawal agreement by this week. This would make it less likely that the UK would ask for a longer, indefinite Brexit delay, which would require it to participate in European parliamentary elections, on May 23.

This gambit by May’s government might also be doomed, as some MPs will not want to take a vote without that political declaration attached. Plus, the holdouts on her deal, specifically some Brexiteers and the DUP, still object to the withdrawal agreement.

So, after a day of high drama, the UK is still deadlocked over Brexit.

Parliament did, at least, officially change the Brexit date from March 29 to April 12 on Wednesday with overwhelming support. The UK has an two extra weeks to come up with a plan — though no one knows what the heck that might be.

Source Article from https://www.vox.com/2019/3/28/18284470/brexit-parliament-indicative-votes-theresa-may-deal

President Trump has called on House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to resign in a fiery early morning tweet.

The president sent out his missive Thursday morning, accusing the California Democrat of “knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking”.

Trump’s tweet read: “Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!”

The president made similar comments during an exclusive interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday night.

TRUMP CALLS SCHIFF A ‘DISGRACE’ FOR PUSHING COLLUSION AGENDA, SAYS DEM MAY HAVE BROKEN LAW

“He should be forced out of office,” Trump told the host.

“He is a disgrace to our country.”

“In one way you could say it’s a crime what he did,” Trump said of the California Democrat, “because … he was making horrible statements that he knew were false.

“He would go on, night after night, talking about collusion — the collusion delusion,” Trump said.

SCHIFF FACES MOUNTING GOP CALLS FOR RESIGNATION OVER COLLUSION CLAIMS

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election found no evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy after a nearly two-year-long investigation that resulted in 37 indictments.

Schiff, a vocal critic of the president, has doubled down on his claim that Trump and his administration colluded with foreign powers despite Mueller’s findings.

“Undoubtedly, there is collusion,” Schiff told the Washington Post after Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary of Mueller’s investigation was released Sunday. He told the paper that the question of whether Trump or the people around him were compromised by a hostile foreign power was not in any part of Mueller’s report.

In addition to Trump saying Schiff should leave office, other Republicans – including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. — called for Schiff to step down from his leadership of the intelligence committee.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

“I’ll tell you one thing about Russia,” Trump continued. “If they had anything on me, it would have come out a long time ago.”

Mueller’s report will be made public – with some parts redacted – in the coming weeks, according to Attorney General William Barr.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/president-trump-calls-on-adam-schiff-to-resign-accuses-him-of-knowingly-and-unlawfully-lying-and-leaking

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The Trump administration charged Facebook on Thursday with “discrimination” in its advertising practices for housing.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is seeking damages for any person who was harmed by Facebook’s advertising policies, which until recently allowed employers and landlords to limit their audiences on the basis of race, ethnicity or gender. Facebook settled a lawsuit with the ACLU over the practice last week and overhauled its systems as a result.

“[Facebook] holds out its advertising platform as a powerful resource for advertisers in many industries, including housing and housing-related services,” the complaint says. But, “because of the way [Facebook] designed its advertising platform, ads for housing and housing-related services are shown to large audiences that are severely biased.”

HUD is asking for unspecified monetary damages and “the maximum civil penalty” against Facebook for each violation of housing laws.

A Facebook spokesperson said the company is surprised by HUD’s charge.

“While we were eager to find a solution, HUD insisted on access to sensitive information — like user data — without adequate safeguards,” the spokesperson said. “We’re disappointed by today’s developments, but we’ll continue working with civil rights experts on these issues.”

Facebook also pointed to a blog post published last week, in which the company said the advertising overhaul marked an important step for the platform and thanked the civil rights organizations that helped improve the ad tools.

“There is a long history of discrimination in the areas of housing, employment and credit, and this harmful behavior should not happen through Facebook ads,” COO Sheryl Sandberg said at the time. “Our policies already prohibit advertisers from using our tools to discriminate. We’ve removed thousands of categories from targeting related to protected classes such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. But we can do better.”

Facebook has drawn harsh criticism for its ad-based business model in recent months. The service allows advertisers to customize their audience based on specific and often user-supplied criteria for demographics and stated interests. That’s how advertisers were able to target posts to “Jew-haters,” for example.

The self-service portal is also how Russian agents were able to purchase tens of thousands of dollars worth of inflammatory posts around U.S. elections.

Here’s the full complaint from HUD:

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/28/trump-administration-sues-facebook-over-discriminatory-advertising-practices.html

President Trump was spared charges on Sunday that would have led to his impeachment, claimed “total exoneration” and angrily pledged retribution against Democrats and media figures he blames for feeding the Russian collusion story. On Monday his Department of Justice reaffirmed support for a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate the Affordable Care Act. For Democrats who can think straight, both of these events can be helpful to their party in the long run.  

To start with, they should accept that because Trump has largely been freed from the burden of doubt he has been under during the entirely of his presidency, next year’s election won’t be the referendum they had hoped for, but a choice election that the incumbent now has a far better chance of winning. And because the special counsel did not choose to charge him with obstruction of justice, something many of Trump’s allies and aides feared was likely, impeachment is — for all intents and purposes — now off the table. Without that charge from Bob Mueller or Attorney General Bob Barr, Senate Republicans would never go along with any Democratic impeachment. Democrats should see this as a good thing.

Smart Democrats will start by expressing their relief that a U.S. president has not been charged with conspiracy and was not found to have rigged his election with an adversarial government — something that would have traumatized and likely irreparably damaged our country. Democrats should also thank Mueller for his integrity, and for a fair and lawful process. They are right to call for the full release of Mueller’s findings, as have many Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley. House committees also have more investigations planned or in the pipeline — and oversight of the White House’s security clearance process, Jared Kushner’s potential business dealings with the Saudi Kingdom and Qatar while deciding national security policy, the Trump Organization’s loans from Russians that may have made the president and/or his family members beholden to the Putin government, are all appropriate areas of inquiry. But attempts to keep the prospects of impeachment alive, no matter what Mueller’s findings reveal on potential obstruction of justice, will backfire on Democrats for certain.

House Democratic leaders, starting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has dismissed impeachment for months, affirmed Tuesday they want to focus on policy instead of probes. News of the administration’s support for ending all ACA protections has focused the minds of Democratic leaders, with Majority Whip Jim Clyburn telling CNN Tuesday morning that the Mueller chapter has “closed” and that health care is “the new chapter.” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said health care “was a defining issue of the 2018 midterm elections. We embrace this fight because House Democrats were given the majority in order to defend health care.”

The leadership will, no matter the contents of the special counsel’s report, struggle to keep everyone in line. There are those who have been around forever — such as impeachment advocate Rep. Al Green, who on Twitter promoted his lunch Tuesday with Tom Steyer in the members dining room of the House — and those who are new to the House, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who decided to call for a commission on the question as soon as Trump was cleared. In a letter to her colleagues, Tlaib wrote: “I, firmly, believe that the House Committee on Judiciary should seek out whether President Trump has committed ‘High crimes and Misdemeanors’ as designated by the U.S. Constitution and if the facts support those findings, that Congress begin impeachment proceedings.”

Democrats didn’t run on Trump’s troubles or the Mueller investigation in the midterms and little has changed out on the campaign trail where Democratic candidates running to be the party’s nominee in 2020 are being asked by voters about health care, climate change, gun control, college loan reform, immigration, taxes and jobs. Not only was health care the top issue in the midterms for Democrats, it was for most voters, and the candidates who championed coverage for pre-existing conditions and other Obamacare protections won those voters by a 75 percent-23 percent margin. During the midterms, Democrats cited, to great effect, a provision from one of the GOP replacement plans that never passed, an “age tax” that would allow insurers to charge patients age 50 and over five times more for coverage.

Health care remains the Republicans’ and Trump’s worst political liability, having failed since 2011 as a party to repeal and replace it, which Trump promised in 2016 and 2017 that they would finally do. After that failure, Trump and GOP candidates also promised voters in the 2018 election they would not allow insurers to deny coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions, after they eliminated the ACA’s individual mandate to purchase health care as part of their tax reform law. But that will occur should a court ultimately overturn the law.  

Health care coverage, and other pocketbook issues, are likely the reason Republicans saw an erosion of support from white women without a college degree, a key to Trump’s 2016 voting base, in the midterms. Writing for CNN, political analyst Ron Brownstein identified non-evangelical working-class white women as a key target bloc for Democrats next year “in pivotal Rust Belt states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where relatively fewer blue-collar whites are also evangelical Christians,” adding that nationwide nearly three-fifths of these women voted for Democrats last November and told exit pollsters they disapproved of Trump’s performance in office.

Those women may not have benefited from the tax cut, may see their communities suffering from Trump’s trade wars, may have not seen any factories moving back into town, and aren’t likely to see Trump fulfill his broken promise on health care, no matter how many times he rebrands the GOP as “the party of health care,” as he has this week.  President Trump is likely to spend a lot of time talking about the Mueller probe and collusion in his campaign next year, according to aides and advisers, and his allies are seeking an “investigation of the investigators.” If Democrats talk about Trump, or Mueller or Barr, these very same voters may sit 2020 out, but if the Democratic nominee talks about their challenges and the policy prescriptions that could alleviate their problems, the party is in the running to win them over and beat Trump.

A.B. Stoddard is associate editor of RealClearPolitics and a columnist. 

Source Article from https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/27/two_gifts_for_democrats_if_they_will_take_them_139866.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Thursday it had sent “specialists” to Venezuela under a military cooperation deal but said they posed no threat to regional stability, brushing aside a call from U.S. President Donald Trump to remove all military personnel from the country.

Trump said on Wednesday that “all options” were open to make Russia pull troops out of Venezuela after two Russian air force planes landed outside Caracas on Saturday carrying nearly 100 Russian troops, according to media reports.

As Venezuela has descended into political turmoil this year, Russia has emerged as a staunch backer of President Nicolas Maduro while the United States backs the country’s opposition and has imposed sanctions.

Venezuela’s military attache in Moscow said on Thursday Russia had sent “servicemen” to Venezuela, but that they would not take part in military operations, Interfax news agency reported.

“The presence of Russian servicemen in Venezuela is linked to the discussion of cooperation in the military-technical sphere,” Jose Rafael Torrealba Perez was quoted as saying.

Speaking at a weekly news briefing on Thursday, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova described the arrivals only as “Russian specialists”.

“Russia is not changing the balance of power in the region, Russia is not threatening anyone, unlike (officials) in Washington,” she told a weekly news briefing.

“Russian specialists have arrived in Venezuela in line with the provisions of a bilateral inter-government agreement on military-technical cooperation. No one canceled this document,” Zakharova said.

Russia and China have backed Maduro, while the United States and most other Western countries support opposition leader Juan Guaido.

In January, Guaido invoked the constitution to assume Venezuela’s interim presidency, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 re-election was illegitimate.

Maduro, who retains control of state functions and the country’s military, has said Guaido is a puppet of the United States.

Reporting by Maxim Rodionov; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Gareth Jones

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-usa-russia-defence/russian-military-team-arrived-in-caracas-venezuela-military-attache-idUSKCN1R910T