The New York Times is said to be cracking down on its reporters appearing on cable news shows it considers to be ‘too partisan,’ according to a new report.
The New York Times is reportedly blocking its reporters from appearing on liberal cable news programs such as MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “CNN Tonight” with Don Lemon because they’re “too partisan,” but critics think the Gray Lady needs to look in the mirror.
Vanity Fair reported that Times’ executive editor Dean Baquet is concerned that his reporters who appear on particular programs would be “perceived as being aligned” with the show’s far-left politics.
Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor mocked the situation, essentially labeling the Times as hypocrites in the process.
“This isn’t a news story, it’s a sitcom plot. The nation’s most liberal paper is suddenly concerned that the wacky network filled on air with its employees might be too far left,” Gainor told Fox News. “The Times is liberal on the opinion and news pages on every major issue facing the nation — from abortion to taxes. Yet, MSNBC is even further left? Does anyone at The Times read their own paper?”
Conservative strategist Chris Barron echoed Gainor’s reaction to the Vanity Fair story.
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this story,” Barron told Fox news. “Has anyone from the New York Times actually read the New York Times? If they want to avoid the appearance of overt partisanship they might try taking a look in the mirror first.”
“Has anyone from the New York Times actually read the New York Times? If they want to avoid the appearance of overt partisanship they might try taking a look in the mirror first.”
— Chris Barron
Fox News’ Sean Hannity said the Times is “scared” and has been “duped by the conspiracy TV media mob.” The “Hannity” namesake sarcastically asked, “Why would the New York Times not go on their favorite programs?”
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck called the report “one of the more peculiar and obviously ironic” media stories possible.
“There’s no denying that the [Times] is right about MSNBC primetime shows, as they are hotbeds for the Resistance, but if MSNBC is that home on TV, The New York Times is without a doubt their paper equivalent,” Houck told Fox News. “So while it’s nice they’re realizing something that a lot of us already know about how biased they are, it would behoove them to take care of matters in their own newsroom first.”
Rewire News editor-in-chief Jodi Jacobson thinks the Times “jumped the entire school of sharks,” while BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis said the report is “bad for the Times, for journalism, for an informed public, and just dumb.”
DePauw University professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall feels differently, telling Fox News that it’s “wise” for the Times to carefully assess where its reporters appear as guests.
“News outlets such as the Times need to protect their more objective reporters from the appearance that they are playing a partisan role for a broadcast outlet’s benefit. The news industry already suffers from public perception that real reporters are agenda-driven, and trotting reporters into opinion shows just fuels that problem,” McCall said. “In a sense, partisan television interview shows want to use real reporters as props to borrow the credibility of direct news reporting to support their opinion angles.”
McCall feels that news organizations should just let their objective news stories speak for themselves without having to “trot out those reporters to engage in chit-chat” with partisan pundits.
The New York Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Donald Trump says he’s not happy about North Korea’s recent military tests. This comes at the same time says the U.S. sent an aircraft carrier group to the Persian Gulf because the Iranians “were threatening.” (May 9) AP, AP
North Korea executed its special nuclear envoy to the United States as part of a purge of senior officials over the failed summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper claimed Friday.
Kim Hyok Chol was executed by firing squad in March along with four other foreign ministry officials, the paper reported, citing an unidentified North Korean source.
North Korea neither confirmed nor denied the report. South Korea’s government was not able to confirm the claim. Previous media reports about the fate of North Korean officials who have fallen afoul of Pyongyang’s leader have proven to be false.
Chosun Ilbo is one of South Korea’s largest daily newspapers. However, it’s notoriously difficult to get information out of North Korea because it closely guards secrets.
Still, Chosun Ilbo reported Kim Hyok Chol and the other senior officials were shot after being accused of spying for the United States. The paper reported Kim Jong Un ordered the purge amid mounting dissatisfaction with the summit in Hanoi – the second time Kim and Trump met for face-to-face talks. In Vietnam, they failed to reach a deal because of conflicts over the White House’s call for complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and North Korean demands for sanctions relief.
Since then, amid a diplomatic standoff between Pyongyang and Washington, North Korea has resumed testing short-range ballistic missiles, ending a pause in launches that began in late 2017. The tests are viewed as a way for Kim to pressure Trump to ease sanctions without actually causing negotiations to collapse.
“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Trump tweeted during a recent trip to Japan.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked about the Chosun Ilbo report during a news conference in Berlin. He said Friday the U.S. was “doing our best to check it out.”
Kim has presided over high-profile purges since taking over as North Korea’s leader in 2011. Kim’s uncle, Jang Song Thaek, at the time North Korea’s second most powerful man, was convicted of treason and executed in late 2013. And Rodong Sinmun, a North Korean newspaper, appeared to indirectly refer to the purge on Thursday.
“Acting like one is revering the leader but dreaming of something else when one turns around, is an anti-party, anti-revolutionary act that has thrown away the moral fidelity towards the leader and such people will not avoid the stern judgment of the revolution,” the paper said. “There are traitors and turncoats who only memorize words of loyalty towards the leader and even change according to the trend of the time.”
Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s sister, who regularly accompanies her brother at big events, has not been seen in public since the Hanoi meeting.
Chosun Ilbo also reported that Kim Yong Chol, Kim’s right-hand man and Pompeo’s counterpart at the Hanoi summit, has been sent to a labor and reeducation camp near the Chinese border. That claim, too, was not been independently verified.
A woman dressed in a traditional gown pays her respects at statues of late North Korean leaders, Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017. Unaware of reports his eldest son – and current leader Kim Jong Uns half-brother – was killed just days ago in what appears to have been a carefully planned assassination, North Koreans marked the birthday of late leader Kim Jong Il on Thursday as they do every year. Eric Talmadge, AP
Azalea, whose Korean name is “Dalle”, a 19-year-old female chimpanzee, smokes a cigarette at the Central Zoo in Pyongyang, North Korea Oct. 19, 2016. According to officials at the newly renovated zoo, which has become a favorite leisure spot in the North Korean capital since it was re-opened in July, the chimpanzee smokes about a pack a day. They insist, however, that she does not inhale. Wong Maye-E, AP
A picture released by the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling North Korean Workers Party, on Sept. 8, 2015, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center front, and Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, second from right, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and first vice-president of the Council of State, watching an art performance by the Moranbong Band and the State Merited Chorus in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Sept. 7, 2015. Bermudez led a Cuban delegation to North Korea to mark the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between North Korea and Cuba. Rodong Sinmun, European Pressphoto Agency
Men and women pump their fists in the air and chant “defend!” as they carry propaganda slogans calling for reunification of their country during the “Pyongyang Mass Rally on the Day of the Struggle Against the U.S.,” attended by approximately 100,000 North Koreans to mark the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War at the Kim Il Sung stadium, Thursday, June 25, 2015, in Pyongyang, North Korea. The month of June in North Korea is known as the “Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism Month” and it’s a time for North Koreans to swarm to war museums, mobilize for gatherings denouncing the evils of the United States and join in a general, nationwide whipping up of the anti-American sentiment. Wong Maye-E, AP
North Koreans gather in front of a portrait of their late leader Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, right, paying respects to their late leader Kim Jong Il, to mark the third anniversary of his death, Wednesday Dec. 17 at Pyong Chon District in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea marked the end of a three-year mourning period for the late leader Kim Jong Il on Wednesday, opening the way for his son, Kim Jong Un, to put a more personal stamp on the way the country is run. Kim Kwang Hyon, AP
South Korea was also sending an 18-member rescue team from its national fire agency to Budapest on Thursday. It will be followed by a team of 15 rescue experts from the South Korean Navy and Coast Guard, Mr. Moon’s office said. The second team will include divers who had participated in rescue operations after the Sewol accident.
The Danube collision took place at 9:05 p.m., according to Col. Adrian Pal, a police official, and emergency responders arrived at the site shortly before 9:30 p.m.
“Based on our information, there were 35 people on board” the Hableany, he said, using the Hungarian name for the boat. “Two individuals were Hungarian, the captain and a crewman, and 33 were South Korean,” he added. “Of the 33, two were tour guides, and 31 were tourists.”
Survivors said on Thursday that they had been powerless to help others in the swiftly flowing river. “People were floundering in the water in the darkness, shouting for help, but I could do nothing,” a 31-year-old survivor identified only by the family name Chung was quoted as saying by the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
Another survivor, a 32-year-old woman identified only by her last name, Yoon, said the ship had capsized “in a split second” when it was hit by the larger vessel. “Those out on the deck were all thrown into the water, and those who were in the cabin below deck may not have been able to escape,” she said.
Seven people plucked from the river overnight had not been wearing life vests, most likely indicating that no one on the boat had any time to react before plunging into the frigid waters, officials said.
Hungary has seen an explosion in foreign tourism in recent years, with nearly 31 million guest nights recorded in 2018, an increase of more than one million compared with the previous year’s total, according to government statistics. Budapest, a capital known for its grand boulevards, thermal spas and baroque architecture, is one of Central Europe’s treasures and is the country’s biggest draw.
The city is divided by the Danube into the hilly Buda neighborhood on the west — adorned by a castle overlooking the river — and Pest to east, home to the Parliament building. The Margaret Bridge, which was built between 1872 and 1876, stretches more than 2,000 feet and connects the two sides of the city, along with a small island in the middle of the river.
Saudi Arabia‘s king has accused the kingdom’s key rival, Iran, of developing nuclear and ballistic missiles which threaten regional and global stability, telling regional leaders that action is needed to stop Iranian “escalations” following a series of attacks on oil assets in the Gulf.
The comments by King Salman Abdul Aziz came as Saudi Arabia on Thursday hosted in Mecca emergency meetings of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League to counter what it said was Iran’s growing influence.
A Gulf-Arab statement and a separate communique issued after the wider summit both supported the right of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to defend their interests after the attacks on oil pumping stations in the kingdom and tankers off the UAE.
But in a sign of regional tensions, Iraq, which has good ties with neighbouring Iran and the United States, said it objected to the Arab communique, which stated that any cooperation with Tehran should be based on “non-interference in other countries”.
‘Naked aggression’
Addressing Arab and Muslim leaders earlier, King Salman pressed the international community to “use all means to stop Iran from interfering in other countries’ affairs”.
He said Tehran’s actions threatened international maritime trade and global oil supplies in a “glaring violation of UN treaties”.
“This is naked aggression against our stability and international security,” the Saudi ruler told the gathered officials.
Iran’s “recent criminal acts … require that all of us work seriously to preserve the security… of GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries,” the king added.
In his opening remarks, Saudi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Assaf said the alleged sabotage of oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates and drone attacks on a Saudi oil pipeline by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in recent weeks threaten the global economy and endanger regional and international security.
“We should confront it with all means of force and firmness,” he said.
An Iranian official was at the meeting where Assaf spoke.Tehran has denied any involvement in the attacks.
John Bolton, a top US security official, alleged on Wednesday Iranian mines were “almost certainly” used in the tanker operation. He provided no proof, however.
An Iranian official dismissed Bolton’s remarks as “a ludicrous claim”.
Qatar’s blockade
King Salman invited Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, whose country is home to the largest US military base in the region, to the Mecca summit.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani attended the meeting instead, the highest Qatari official to visit the kingdom since Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt imposed a land, sea, and air blockade on the gas-rich nation in June 2017.
Video images of Thursday’s gathering showed Sheikh Abdullah shaking King Salman’s hand.
Thomas Pickering, a former US ambassador the UN, told Al Jazeera the Qatari prime minister’s presence at the summit was an important step.
“The invitation has opened the door more than just a little bit. His [Sheikh Abdullah’s] presence there and the handshake is a sign that Saudi Arabia wants unity in the Gulf Cooperation Council and that unity is spreading,” said Pickering.
Analysts said the emergency summit will be watched closely for whether or not the Saudis will endorse Qatar as a mediator in the dispute with Iran the same way the US has.
Earlier this month, Al Jazeera reported that Qatar’s foreign minister had held talks with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran, aiming to defuse the escalating tensions in the Gulf.
“Washington seems to have bet on Doha to de-escalate by opening back channels with Tehran. The question is whether Saudi and especially UAE can agree on Doha as a mediator,” Andreas Krieg from King’s College London told Al Jazeera.
“The fact that the Saudis contacted the emir of Qatar directly suggests that the tension with Iran is taken very seriously in Riyadh. So, the kingdom is ready to build a broader-than-usual consensus on how to deal with Iran,” Krieg said.
Gulf states have a joint defence force under the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), but the 39-year-old alliance has been fractured by the Qatar blockade.
Tensions with Iran
Animosity has risen between the US and Iran after Washington pulled out of a multinational nuclear deal with Tehran, reimposed sanctions and boosted its military presence in the Gulf.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on a trip to Iraq this month that Tehran wanted balanced ties with their Gulf neighbours and had proposed signing a non-aggression pact with them.
One of the UAE’s main newspapers said in an editorial, which is usually state-approved, the offer was “bizarre”.
“No Mr Zarif. We are not buying your ‘nice neighbour’ routine,” said the front-page editorial in Gulf News daily.
Demonstrators gather during a protest vigil outside of the Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Carol Whitehill Moses Center in January. | Zach Gibson/Getty Images
A drip, drip, drip of state restrictions has made abortion harder to obtain.
Abortion is still legal in the United States, but for women in vast swaths of the country it’s a right in name only.
Six states are down to only one abortion clinic; by the end of this week, Missouri could have zero. Some women seeking abortions have to travel long distances, and face mandatory waiting periods or examinations. On top of that, a new wave of restrictive laws, or outright bans, is rippling across GOP-led states like Alabama and Georgia.
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Both sides of the abortion battle are focused on the future of Roe v. Wade, but opponents have already won the ground game over the past decade, chipping away at abortion access.
The Supreme Court’s new conservative majority, about to wrap up its first term, has not yet taken up a case challenging Roe. Just this week it declined to reinstate an Indiana law, signed by Mike Pence when he was governor, that would have banned abortion on the basis of gender, race or fetal disability. But that’s no guarantee the court won’t take another look at the landmark 1973 abortion rights ruling.
But even without the high court, GOP-backed laws have added restrictions and obstacles, whittling away access. Since the start of the Trump administration, hostility to abortion in general and Planned Parenthood in particular has only intensified in statehouses around the country.
“We celebrate freedom in America. But I believe that my choice ends when another life begins,” Louisiana state Rep. Valarie Hodges said just before a fetal “heartbeat” abortion bill passed there.
Years of piecemeal state laws have left their mark. Mandatory waiting periods, travel, missed work and lost wages all make getting an abortion more expensive and more difficult, particularly for low-income women. Doctors and clinic staff have to face protesters, threats, proliferating regulations and draining legal challenges; clinics have closed. In remote parts of the midwest and south, women may have to travel more than 300 miles to end a pregnancy.
“This is a moment of seeing how all of these laws fly in the face of medicine and science and go against what we in the medical profession know, which is that any restriction on medical care by politicians will endanger people’s health,” Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen, a physician herself, said in an interview.
It’s intensified of late. Republicans in Alabama and other states have raced to enact laws that would almost completely ban abortion, sometimes without exceptions for pregnancies that result from rape or incest. Eight states have enacted laws which, if allowed to go into effect, would ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, as early as the sixth week of pregnancy, when many women don’t even know they are pregnant. (Missouri’s variant is eight weeks.) Alabama has gone even further, granting “personhood” and legal rights from conception.
Those laws may eventually reach the Supreme Court and test Roe, the 1973 decision that recognized women’s right to abortion. But those statutes aren’t what’s crimping access nationwide right now. That’s happened through a drip, drip, drip of lower-profile efforts that have created obstacles for pregnant women and led to a dwindling supply of doctors trained and willing to perform abortions.
Many of those laws were promoted as attempts to make abortion safer — though courts often disagreed and threw them out as unconstitutional barriers. Now, abortion opponents are openly talking about ending the practice altogether.
“The strategy used to be death by a thousand cuts,” said Colleen McNicholas, a physician based in St. Louis who also provides abortions in Kansas and Oklahoma. “They’re no longer pretending things are to promote the health and well-being of women, which is what we used to hear all the time. Now they’re being very bold and upfront.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that for many Americans, particularly for women in the middle [of the country] and the South, abortion is inaccessible,” she added.
Data from the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, shows that 788 clinics in the U.S. provided abortion services in 2014 — a drop of 51 clinics over three years. Since 2013about 20 clinics have closed just in Texas.
Further, one in five women would have to travel at least 43 miles to get to a clinic, according to a Guttmacher analysis from October 2017. In North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, at least half of the women between 15 and 44 years old lived more than 90 miles from a clinic.
Six states — Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia — have only one clinic left that performs abortions, according to a recent analysis from Planned Parenthood and Guttmacher. Lawmakers in many of those states have pursued limits in when abortion can be allowed — such as fetal heartbeat laws or 15-week bans, though the laws have been blocked in court. Four of those states have also passed so-called trigger laws that would ban abortion immediately should the Supreme Court overturn Roe.
In Missouri, the sole clinic, which is in St. Louis, could close this week. On the surface, it’s a dispute with the state health department over licensing, safety and regulation, but the showdown comes just days after state lawmakers passed a ban on abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest.
“States have been marching down this path for a number of years. The restrictions that have passed previously have set the stage for the bans this year,” said Elizabeth Nash, Guttmacher’s senior state issues manager. “It’s counseling, it’s waiting periods, it’s abortion coverage in your health plan. It’s limits on abortion providers, such as unnecessary clinic regulations.”
“Missouri is the first and other states could be next,” Planned Parenthood’s Wen said on a recent call with reporters.
The ramifications of the anti-abortion movement’s sustained assault against Planned Parenthood are perhaps no clearer than in Texas, where lawmakers have passed dozens of restrictive laws, including mandatory ultrasounds, waiting periods and state funding restrictions.
The Supreme Court overturned another set of Texas restrictions in 2016 — but not before about 20 clinics shut down, many of which were never able to reopen. Providers retired, staff found other jobs and clinics had to start from scratch to get licensed and staff up. “All of those things take time and a significant amount of money,” said Kari White, an associate professor in Health Care Organization and Policy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an investigator with the Texas Policy Evaluation Project.
Even though Texas permits abortions until 20 weeks — itself a cut-off point that conflicts with Roe v. Wade, although it hasn’t yet come to the Supreme Court — abortion access has sharply declined. That scenario is likely to play out in other conservative states, even if they don’t go as far as Georgia or Alabama.
More than half of Texas’ 41 abortion clinics closed or stopped performing abortions after the state passed legislation in 2013 that bundled several onerous restrictions, according to research from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project. The average distance a woman had to travel one way for an abortion jumped to 35 miles from 15 miles. In rural parts of the state, drives of 100 miles or more to access care are not uncommon, according to the group.
The evaluation project found that while the number of abortions overall declined after the Texas law went into effect, the number of second-trimester abortions rose as women were forced to wait and travel longer distances. Currently only about 22 abortion providers, mostly in urban areas, are operating in Texas, a state with roughly 6.3 million women of reproductive age.
Low-income women are disproportionately affected by abortion restrictions, said Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, which helps women who can’t afford an abortion, which costs between $500 and $10,000 dollars depending on the point in pregnancy. The nonprofit was part of a group that challenged dozens of Texas abortion restrictions in court.
Calls to the group’s hotline have tripled over the past few years to 6,000 in 2018, but it only funded about 1,000 women last year, she said. Some of those women are undocumented immigrants, some are incarcerated and others have children but cannot afford to raise more.
Other costs mount — both in money and time, Conner said. Because Texas has a 24-hour waiting period between an initial consult and the abortion, women miss work and may have to pay for hotel rooms.
“There are fewer clinics to provide the services,” said Conner. “The few clinics that are left are in very high demand.”
Telemedicine could plug some gaps in care for women seeking abortion medication, instead of a surgical abortion. But there too access varies widely by geography. Some states ban telemedicine-facilitated abortions. Elsewhere, providers are using video-chat technology to dispense the medication. Seventeen states require licensed abortion providers to be physically present when administering abortion medication, which effectively is a ban on telemedicine, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Abortion medication is approved for use up to ten weeks into pregnancy, but under current FDA rules can only be dispensed at certain medical facilities, including abortion clinics.
Alternatives are being tested. In one FDA-reviewed study, clinicians can mail abortion medication directly to patients after a video chat. Study participants can go to any clinic for their screening and ultrasound, send the results to a participating abortion provider, and then video chat with that provider. If appropriate, the provider can decide to dispense the medication to the patient’s address, and the patient can take it at home.
Under this system, women don’t have to travel several hours just to pick up the abortion pills, Erica Chong, director of Gynuity Health Projects, told POLITICO. The Gynuity study has enrolled about 360 people across eight states since 2016; it builds on recent research concluding that telemedicine-facilitated medical abortions are just as safe for patients as the ones administered in-person.
Because it’s been reviewed by the FDA, the Gynuity trial is exempt from the dispensation limitation. The study operates in Maine, New York, New Mexico, Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Georgia. Gynuity’s trial in Georgia began a few weeks ago, shortly before the state passed its “fetal heartbeat” law.
“With a lot of these bans, there’s going to be a long legal battle,” Chong said, explaining that she didn’t expect the new Georgia law, which bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected at about six weeks, to affect the study in that state just yet. But she noted that the recent spate of early abortion bans have alarmed patients, who are unsure whether their appointments are still legal.
Gynuity’s goal is to convince the FDA that dispensing abortion medication directly to women’s homes, or even to retail pharmacies, is safe and effective, and that restrictions on its dispensation should be eased, Chong said.
Outside the Gynuity trial, some providers across the country let patients drive to the facility closest to them and video chat a clinician located at another site. Planned Parenthood, for instance, lets patients in 14 states virtually consult with clinicians based elsewhere. Yet in many cases, the clinician must watch the patient ingest the pill on screen to comply with federal restrictions limiting where the medication can be dispensed. Women might still have to travel across state lines to access these services — and many don’t even realize these options exist.
“How’s a woman in Alabama going to know to go to a Georgia clinic to find services?” Chong said.
President Trump’s surprise announcement of an escalating series of new tariffs on all goods imported from Mexico is likely to upend hopes for early congressional action on his proposed North American trade deal and trigger economic upheaval on both sides of the border, according to trade analysts and business executives.
Business leaders reacted with dismay to Trump’s statement Thursday that he would impose a new 5 percent tariff on all goods from Mexico beginning June 10 to force the Mexican government to take more aggressive actions to prevent Central American migrants from crossing its territory en route to the United States.
And a prominent member of the president’s party, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, blasted Trump’s move as “a misuse of presidential tariff authority and contrary to congressional intent.” Implementing the tariffs, he said, would “seriously jeopardize passage” of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
If the administration determines that Mexican authorities have not done enough in response, the tariff would automatically jump to 10 percent on July 1 and then continue rising in 5 point increments at the start of each subsequent month until it reaches 25 percent on Oct. 1, according to a White House statement.
The tariffs could undermine an economic relationship that has been deepening for decades, and throw into chaos corporate and agricultural supply chains that have essentially worked in a system without tariffs since the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexico is on track to become the United States’ largest trading partner, ahead of China and Canada, according to census data through March.
The president’s announcement came after the White House appeared to be making headway with its push for ratification of the USMCA. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador earlier Thursday sent the accord to the Mexican Senate, asking it to convene a special session to pass it before September.
In this April 9 photo, trucks wait to cross the border with the United States in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (Christian Torres/AP)
Trump has been pressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to move forward with congressional approval, with the administration sending a formal statement of its plans to Capitol Hill hours before the abrupt tariff move.
Even by the standards of an unpredictable presidency, the announcement drew startled reactions from those involved in cross-border commerce.
Less than two weeks ago, the president agreed to lift 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico, a move aimed at speeding ratification of the new trade deal by Congress. Senior Republicans, including Grassley, insisted on scrapping the levies before they would vote on the new deal.
Farmers in states such as Iowa had been among those hardest hit by Mexico’s retaliatory tariffs imposed to counter Trump’s metals fees.
The president’s new tariff increases would “essentially blow up USMCA,” said Rufus Yerxa, president of the National Foreign Trade Council. “The economic impact will be devastating on both sides of the border.”
Hardest hit would be Detroit’s automakers, which have spread their supply chains across North America since NAFTA.
Two-thirds of U.S. imports from Mexico are intracompany trade, parts that an American company uses to produce another product, according to Torsten Slok, chief economist at Deutsche Bank Securities.
“Trade with Mexico is basically all about the supply chain, which essentially is all about cars,” Slok said.
At a news conference, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America, Jesús Seade, said the suggested tariffs would be “disastrous” and promised that Mexico would respond “strongly.”
He called the announcement an “ice bath” for U.S.-Mexico relations but did not detail how Mexico might retaliate. Last year, Mexico responded to U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs with a set of retaliatory tariffs on products including pork, potatoes and whiskey.
Trump’s decision came just hours after López Obrador sent the new USMCA trade deal to Mexico’s senate to be ratified, saying it would lead to “more foreign investment.”
Seade said that the tariffs would be “impossible.”
Within 30 minutes of Trump’s tweet, the peso fell about 1.7 percent against the dollar. U.S. bond yields are also plunging, suggesting concerns about the economic impact of the tariffs.
The United States last year exported $265 billion in goods to Mexico, more than to China, Japan and Germany combined. The United States imported $347 billion in goods from Mexico.
Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican diplomat now with McClarty Associates, said the new tariffs would run counter to the existing North American Free Trade Agreement, which provides for mostly duty-free trade among the United States and its two neighbors.
“Why even have a trade agreement if it means nothing?” he said.
Trump said he imposed the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which grants the president sweeping authority to regulate commercial activity in the event of a crisis.
“IEEPA has a very broad scope, so a court challenge to the President’s action here would be tough,” said Simon Lester, a trade law expert at the Cato Institute. “The statute does give Congress the ability to block the president’s action through a joint resolution, but Congress hasn’t shown much willingness to act on these matters.”
The president’s tariff plan threatens to disrupt commerce with the country’s largest trading partner as the economy is slowing, imperiling his goal of steady 3 percent annual economic growth.
Tariffs on goods imported from Mexico would be paid foremost by U.S. companies in need of Mexican goods, and a significant share of those importers would likely pass on the higher costs to consumers.
Trump said the new tariffs would encourage companies in Mexico to “start moving back to the United States to make their products and goods,” leading to a “massive return of jobs back to American cities and towns.”
Others were less certain.
“It’s high risk and I’m having a hard time seeing the reward,” said Dan Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un carried out a deadly purge following a failed February summit with President Trump in Vietnam, executing five people, including the country’s special envoy to the United States, Kim Hyok Chol, a report said Thursday.
“Kim Hyok Chol was investigated and executed at Mirim Airport with four foreign ministry officials in March,” South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported, citing an unnamed North Korean official.
Four other top officials were also put in front of a firing squad in March after they were charged with taking bribes and spying for the United States, according to the report.
A fifth top official, Kim Yong Chol, was sentenced to hard labor after the summit collapsed in late February, according to the report.
The Vietnam summit between Trump and Kim was abruptly cut short on Feb. 28 when the two leaders could not come to an agreement on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
Kim is believed to be carrying out a large purge in the aftermath of the failed summit, according to the report.
President Trump renewed his personal attacks against Robert S. Mueller III on Thursday, leveling discredited accusations that the former special counsel had conflicts of interest that made him a biased investigator.
The attacks came a day after Mueller’s first and only public statement since the conclusion of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump sought to obstruct the probe. During a brief news conference, Mueller reiterated his finding that if his team had concluded Trump did not commit a crime, they would have said so — a statement that sparked a new round of calls from Democrats to impeach the president.
Trump, in tweets and in comments to reporters, accused Mueller of being a “true never-Trumper,” who was conflicted due to a past “business dispute” between them. He also alleged that Mueller asked him for a job.
“Look, Robert Mueller should’ve never been chosen because he wanted the FBI job and he didn’t get it,” Trump said. “And the next day, he was picked as special counsel. So you tell somebody, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t have the job.’ And then, after you say that, he’s going to make a ruling on you? It doesn’t work that way. Plus, we had a business dispute. Plus, his relationship with [former FBI Director James B.] Comey was extraordinary.”
But Trump’s conflict claims have been disputed by people familiar with his interactions with Mueller. Further, former White House aides told the special counsel’s office that they informed the president they were baseless when he started making them after then-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein selected Mueller to lead the investigation following Comey’s firing in May 2017.
Former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon “recalled telling the President that the purported conflicts were ‘ridiculous’ and that none of them was real or could come close to justifying precluding Mueller from serving as Special Counsel,” according to the special counsel’s report.
Trump nonetheless has persisted in charging over the past two years that Mueller was conflicted, and the president’s advisers said his anger Thursday was sparked by his view that the special counsel’s appearance Wednesday led to a public perception that Trump had committed a crime. While some advisers, and Trump’s lawyers, tried to play down Mueller’s remarks, Trump was frustrated that they dominated the news and seemed to put more pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to begin impeachment proceedings.
“He’s somebody that dislikes Donald Trump,” the president told reporters, referring to Mueller.
Trump has repeatedly alleged that he and Mueller had a business dispute that led to bad blood between the two after the former FBI director resigned his membership at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. But the special counsel’s report describes a far less contentious parting of ways than the president has described.
In October 2011, Mueller informed Trump’s club that his family was canceling their membership because they lived in Washington and were “unable to make full use of the Club.” He then asked if they would be “entitled” to a refund of a portion of their initial membership fee that was paid in 1994. The club responded that the Mueller family would be put on a list for a potential refund.
“The Muellers have not had further contact with the club,” according to the report.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Trump’s assertion that he had a business dispute with Mueller and other allegations of a conflict of interest.
Trump has sought to portray Mueller and Comey as particularly close — “he loves Comey,” the president claimed Thursday. But associates of the two men have said they had a close professional relationship but did not socialize.
Trump’s contention that Mueller wanted to replace Comey as FBI director and was turned down by the president — “I told him NO,” Trump tweeted Thursday — also has been disputed by people familiar with their meeting.
The two men had a roughly 30-minute meeting at the White House in May 2017.
Mueller was invited to the White House because Trump aides were concerned about the political fallout and controversy over Comey’s firing and believed having the former FBI director meet with the president could have a calming effect, according to a former administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Bannon told investigators the purpose of the meeting was not a job interview but to have Mueller “offer a perspective on the institution of the FBI,” according to the special counsel’s report, and “although the White House thought about beseeching Mueller to become Director again, he did not come in looking for the job.”
The former administration official confirmed that account, saying that Mueller told White House officials he took the meeting only as a courtesy to the president.
Trump was friendly during their talk, the official said, and when the issue came up of whether Mueller might be interested in once again becoming FBI director, he said he could not take the job unless a law was changed. In July 2011, Congress cleared legislation allowing Mueller to serve an additional two years as director beyond his 10-year term. That law effectively prevented him from serving again.
At the meeting, White House officials told Mueller they were willing to push Congress to pass a new law to make his reappointment possible, but Mueller told the president he was probably not the best person for the post, according to the former official.
“He was never offered the job, nor did he seek the job,” the official said. “He had one meeting with the president.”
The next day, Mueller was selected by Rosenstein to lead the Russia investigation, a move that continues to irk Trump.
“A total Conflict of Interest. NICE!” the president tweeted Thursday.
Mueller’s former spokesman at the Justice Department, Peter Carr, said he could not comment because the special counsel’s office is closed, and he instead referred to pages of the final report that dealt with Trump’s claims of a conflict of interest.
Trump’s focus on Mueller’s perceived conflicts plays a central role in the section of the report examining whether Trump illegally obstructed the special counsel’s investigation.
According to investigators, Trump became agitated about the issue of conflicts after Justice Department ethics experts concluded in May 2017 that Mueller could oversee the investigation even though his former law firm represented several people who could be caught up in the matter.
He told then-White House counsel Donald McGahn in June 2017 that Mueller was too conflicted to fairly run the probe. Trump wanted McGahn, according to the report, to tell Rosenstein that Mueller had conflicts that prevented him from serving as special counsel.
McGahn advised Trump that trying to oust Mueller would appear as if he was trying to meddle in the investigation and be used against him to claim obstruction of justice.
Trump continued to push for Mueller’s firing, McGahn told the special counsel, but McGahn and other aides believed “the asserted conflicts were ‘silly’ and ‘not real,’ ” and had said so to the president.
North Korea executed Kim Hyok Chol, its special envoy to the United States, and foreign ministry officials who carried out working-level negotiations for the second U.S.-North Korea summit in February, holding them responsible for its collapse, a South Korean newspaper reported on Friday.
Kim Yong Chol, a senior official who had been U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s counterpart in the run-up to the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, is also said to have been subjected to forced labor and ideological education, the Chosun Ilbo reported.
The North Korean leader is believed to be carrying out a massive purge to divert attention away from internal turmoil and discontent, the newspaper said.
“Kim Hyok Chol was investigated and executed at Mirim Airport with four foreign ministry officials in March,” an unnamed North Korea source said, according to the Chosun Ilbo, adding that they were charged with spying for the United States.
Kim Hyok Chol had been negotiations counterpart to U.S. special representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun before the summit.
Kim Yong Chol was forced to work in Jagang Province after his dismissal, the source said, adding that Kim Song Hye, who carried out working-level negotiations with Kim Hyok Chol, was sent to a political prison camp, Chosun reported.
Shin Hye Yong, the interpreter for Kim Jong Un at the Hanoi meeting, is also said to have been detained in a political prison camp, for undermining the authority of Kim Jong Un by making a critical interpretation mistake, Chosun reported.
Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s sister who aided him in Hanoi, is also said to be lying low, the paper reported, citing an unnamed South Korean government official who said “We are not aware of Kim Yo Jong’s track record since the Hanoi meeting … We understand that Kim Jong Un has made her lie low.”
North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary on Thursday that “Acting like one is revering the Leader in front (of others) but dreaming of something else when one turns around, is an anti-Party, anti-revolutionary act that has thrown away the moral fidelity toward the Leader, and such people will not avoid the stern judgment of the revolution.”
“There are traitors and turncoats who only memorize words of loyalty toward the Leader and even change according to the trend of the time,” the commentary said.
It is the first time since the December 2013 execution of Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Un’s uncle, that expressions hinting at purging such as “anti-party, anti-revolutionary” and “stern judgment” appeared in Rodong Sinmun, Chosun Ilbo said.
An official at South Korea’s Unification Ministry declined comment.
The tallest peak above sea level, 29,000-foot Mount Everest has long been the mountain of adventurers. While not as challenging as K2, Everest has inspired generations of climbers for decades.
But unless Nepal, climbing companies, and climbers themselves get a grip, Everest will lose its reputation as the mountain of heroes. Instead, it will become a monument to fools.
It was 66 years ago on Wednesday that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first confirmed human conquerors of Everest. But with at least 11 climbers dying on the evidently overcrowded mountain in May 2019, we see a big problem.
It’s the foolishness of Nepal’s government in providing an excess number of climbing permits to unsuited individuals. Yes, Nepal is a very poor country that desperately needs foreign revenue. But the country also needs to cultivate credibility as a land that will take care of its visitors and its natural beauty. The permits undercut that perception.
It’s the foolishness of mountain guide companies. Motivated by greed — individual climbers can expect to pay around $70,000 for a guided ascent of Everest — and apparently unconcerned with physical fitness, these companies are helping flood Everest with crowded queues and at-risk individuals.
Of course, the ultimate foolishness is that of the unsuited climbers. Because of the human reliance on oxygen at the final stages of Everest ascents, it is exhausting even to stay idle towards the top of the great peak. So when you try to climb Everest without being adequately prepared, you aren’t just endangering yourself and ignoring your family; you’re endangering everyone else. The testaments to this fact are the photos and videos of the absurd queues that now blotch Everest’s slopes. Those lines are the markers of idiocy.
Until Nepal reduces its permits, climbing companies improve their standards, and climbers think more carefully about what they are actually doing, Everest will continue turning into a monument to fools.
Trump gave a roughly 30-minute speech in Colorado Springs, Colo., where he spoke of innovation in the military, including the development of his long-desired Space Force, and expressed confidence the cadets in attendance would uphold the Air Force’s legacy as a premiere fighting force.
“To dominate the future, America must rule the skies,” Trump said. “And that is what your time at this great academy has been all about: Preparing you to do whatever it takes to learn to adapt and to win, win, win.
“You’re going win so much you’re going to get so tired of winning — but not really,” he added to laughter.
The president has made increased investment in the armed services a key part of his administration’s agenda. He repeatedly emphasized the importance of American military might in maintaining order.
Trump, who also campaigned against U.S. entanglement in foreign conflicts, added that he was hopeful the strength of the Air Force would help act as a deterrent against adversaries. His remarks come amid heightened tensions with Iran, though Trump has said he does not want a war with the Middle Eastern nation.
“Nothing will ever strike fear in the hearts of our enemies, or inspire more confidence in our friends than the roaring engines of American fighter jets, flown by the greatest pilots on the planet earth by far: You,” Trump said Thursday.
Amid the tough talk of military readiness were a few more light-hearted moments.
Trump cited his role as commander in chief to absolve cadets on restriction for bad behavior, and called multiple graduates up to the stage to recognize their achievements.
The president acknowledged one student who had been diagnosed with cancer, and another who won last year’s college baseball home run derby.
“I wanna feel this guy’s muscles,” Trump said as baseball player Nic Ready made his way to the front.
As Ready approached Trump, the president reached out to grab his biceps before shaking his hand.
“It’s real,” Trump said to laughter. “That’s real.”
Thursday marked the first time Trump addressed Air Force Academy graduates as president. He delivered the commencement address at the Naval Academy last year, and spoke at Liberty University’s graduation ceremony in 2017.
Trump was introduced by Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who is stepping down at the end of the month to become president of the University of Texas at El Paso. Trump plans to nominate Barbara Barrett as Wilson’s successor.
The president stuck around following his speech to shake the hands of each of the nearly 1,000 graduates.
Comparing her class of lawmakers to Democrats elected to Congress following Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974, Tlaib said it was her duty and responsibility to uphold the Constitution through impeachment.
“It’s very important for people to know we cannot separate the fact that we’re out there fighting to lower prescription drugs, that we’re fighting to deal with the crisis at the border,” Tlaib told MSNBC host Chris Matthews. “We can’t sit there and separate that from the fact that the president, the most important position in this country, is not upholding the United States Constitution. Thus, thus impacting and directly impacting, endangering this institution and the American people. It is our job and our duty and responsibility, just like the Watergate class when they came in.”
Her comments were a response to Matthews’ question about the reluctance of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi D-Calif., to begin impeachment proceedings. Tlaib answered that voters gave Democrats a mandate to impeach Trump.
“If you see us taking on the majority, it’s because more people like myself and others, that really want to hold this president accountable, came out to vote,” she told Matthews. “To me, it was a referendum. If you look at the numbers across this nation, it was very clear that many people came out because they wanted the elected jury that would impeach this president.”
Meanwhile, Omar tweeted Wednesday that Mueller’s public statement on his investigation was “a call to action.”
A slew of Democrats called for impeachment proceedings on Wednesday after Mueller held a press briefing in which he discussed the findings from his report on the Russia investigation.
Tlaib’s comments echoed those of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who defended her impeachment call by arguing the issue was “bigger than politics.”
At an event in California Wednesday, Pelosi insisted that “nothing was off the table” in terms of impeachment, but added that she wanted to build “such a compelling case, such an ironclad case that even the Republican Senate, which at the time seems to be not an objective jury, will be convinced [to remove Trump from office].”
When asked about support for impeachment among her caucus, Pelosi said: “I think it’s like 35 of them out of 238, maybe its 38 out of 238, have said they wanted to be outspoken on impeachment and many of them are reflecting their views as well as those of their constituents. Yes, there are some, and the press makes more of a fuss about the 38 than the 200, who are over half of the Congress.”
Powerful Chicago Ald. Edward Burke was meeting with a fellow alderman in October 2017 when he allegedly expressed his displeasure over the way developers of the old main Chicago post office had so far failed to throw any business to Burke’s private law firm.
“As far as I’m concerned, they can go f— themselves,” Burke told Ald. Daniel Solis, who was working undercover for the FBI and secretly recording the conversation, according to a sweeping federal racketeering indictment filed Thursday against Burke.
When Solis noted the developers would soon be before Burke’s Finance Committee requesting $100 million in tax increment financing for the massive project, Burke responded, “Well, good luck getting it on the agenda,” the indictment alleges.
The conversation is at the center of the 59-page indictment outlining a series of alleged schemes in which prosecutors say Burke abused his City Hall clout to extort private legal work from companies and individuals doing business with the city.
In addition to the attempted extortion of the old post office developers, the 14-count indictment accuses Burke — the city’s longest-serving alderman and a vestige of the old Democratic machine — of trying to muscle developers of two smaller projects into hiring his law firm as well.
The charges also allege that Burke threatened to oppose an increase in the admission fee for a Chicago museum after the museum failed to respond to the alderman’s inquiry about an internship there for a child of a friend. The indictment does not name the museum, but details included in the charges make clear it was the Field Museum.
Sources confirmed Thursday that the friend was former Ald. Terry Gabinski — a protege of the late U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski who was sworn in as alderman on the same day in 1969 as Burke.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune hours after the indictment was announced, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, in her second week in office, called on Burke to resign, saying that in her opinion as a former federal prosecutor, the case against him is strong.
“He used the levers of government (to enrich himself),” Lightfoot said. “As you can see in reading the indictment, he was essentially calling up and muscling commissioners, line people and everything in between to get his way in order to ingratiate himself with a potential paying client for his legal business.”
In an emailed statement, Burke’s lawyers said that “any suggestion (he) abused his position as a public official for personal gain is simply not true.”
“The charges are unfounded and not based on actual evidence,” the statement read. “We welcome the opportunity to present the complete picture and all the facts to a jury. We are confident that when that happens, Ed Burke will be vindicated.”
The indictment revealed for the first time some of the secret recordings made by Solis, a longtime Burke ally who began cooperating with federal investigators in 2016 after he was himself secretly recorded in a series of alleged shakedown schemes.
In one conversation included in the indictment, Burke allegedly told Solis he wasn’t going to help the chief developer on the post office project, New York-based Harry Skydell’s 601W Cos., until Skydell agreed to hire Burke’s firm for tax work.
“The cash register has not rung yet,” Burke allegedly told Solis in the January 2017 conversation.
Four months later, Burke was again recorded asking Solis about the developers. “So did we land the, uh, the tuna?” he said to Solis in May 2017, according to the indictment. He also lamented that the post office developers would “only work with Jewish lawyers” to appeal their property taxes unless he could offer special assistance, the indictment alleges.
The indictment charged Burke with one count of racketeering, two counts of federal program bribery, two counts of attempted extortion, one count of conspiracy to commit extortion and eight counts of using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity.
Also charged for the first time was Peter J. Andrews, a longtime political operative in Burke’s 14th Ward office who is accused of assisting the alderman in attempting to shake down two businessmen seeking to renovate a Burger King restaurant in the ward.
The indictment also names Charles Cui, who was first charged in April on allegations he hired Burke’s law firm in exchange for the alderman’s help with a sign permit and financing deal for a project in the Portage Park neighborhood.
Burke, 75, and Andrews, 69, were scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Robert Dow, records show.
Cui previously pleaded not guilty.
Burke, who for decades has had his hands on many of the city’s levers of power, had first been charged in January with one count of attempted extortion stemming from the alleged shakedown of the Burger King businessmen.
A wiretap on Burke’s cellphone allegedly captured Burke leaning on the Texas-based executives to hire his private law firm in exchange for help with permits needed to renovate the restaurant.
When the businessmen didn’t seem to be cooperating, Burke plotted with a ward staffer on how to play “hardball,” holding up permits and sending a city worker to the site to harass them with unwarranted citations, according to the criminal complaint in January.
The FBI listened in as at least 9,475 wiretapped calls were made or received on Burke’s phone over at least an eight-month period, authorities revealed at the time.
The complaint also alleged that Burke pressured one of the company’s executives in December 2017 to contribute to the campaign of an unnamed local politician. Sources identified the politician as Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who lost her bid for Chicago mayor earlier this year by a wide margin to Lightfoot, in part because of the controversy.
The indictment essentially starts the legal clock ticking toward a potential trial. In the meantime, court proceedings in Burke’s criminal case have essentially been on hold as prosecutors twice sought extensions, citing the “complex nature of this public corruption case, and the fact that the investigation is ongoing.”
Burke, who won re-election to a record 13th full term in February despite the cloud of charges hanging over his campaign, is free on a $10,000 unsecured bond while the case is pending.
Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the newest political figure everyone loves or loves to hate. From her ‘Green New Deal’ proposal to combat climate change to her clapbacks against Trump and her critics, here’s how AOC danced her way into the spotlight. USA TODAY
A new, unlikely bipartisan duo agreed Thursday to introduce legislation in the House and the Senate to ban former lawmakers from becoming lobbyists.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said she would “co-lead” a bill with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, if they “can agree on a bill with no partisan snuck-in clauses, no poison pills, etc – just a straight, clean ban on members of Congress becoming paid lobbyists.”
The exchange came after Cruz, a vocal conservative lawmaker, found himself agreeing with Ocasio-Cortez’s stance that it should be illegal for lawmakers to become lobbyists once they retire from Congress.
“Here’s something I don’t say often: on this point, I AGREE with @AOC Indeed, I have long called for a LIFETIME BAN on former Members of Congress becoming lobbyists,” Cruz tweeted. “The Swamp would hate it, but perhaps a chance for some bipartisan cooperation?”
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Thursday afternoon that former lawmakers shouldn’t join lobbying firms following an analysis claiming that nearly 60% of former lawmakers have joined a variety of lobbying jobs.
“If you are a member of Congress + leave, you shouldn’t be allowed to turn right around&leverage your service for a lobbyist check,” she tweeted. “I don’t think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you’ve served in Congress.
“At minimum there should be a long wait period,” she added.
Of lawmakers who were part of the 115th Congress from 2017 to Jan. 3 who are working outside of politics, 59% now work for “lobbying firms, consulting firms, trade groups or business groups working to influence federal government activities,” according to an analysis by Public Citizen, a progressive think tank and advocacy group.
Currently, House members are banned for one year from joining a lobbying firm after leaving office, while senators are barred for two years.
President Donald Trump has previously promised on the campaign trail to “drain the swamp.” However, a number of former Trump officials have joined lobbying firms, including former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
Cruz and Ocasio-Cortez, however, are not the only lawmakers to share the same sentiment.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is running for president, has forcefully chided a former lawmaker for joining a lobbying firm. Warren called out on Twitter ex-Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., after she became senior adviser in Baker Donelson’s Government Relations and Public Policy Group, asking whether she was going to register as a lobbyist or “bob & weave around the rules?”
The Massachusetts Democrat has also introduced a bill that would put a lifetime ban on lobbying for former lawmakers, presidents and top executive branch appointees.
In addition, similar legislation has also been introduced in the House. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth, R-Indiana, introduced a bill in the fall of 2017 that would impose a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress.
President Trump delivered the commencement address to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs Thursday, and stayed to shake the hand of every single graduating cadet.
“Most of all to the nearly 1,000 cadets, who I have agreed to shake every single hand,” the president told the crowd. “They gave me a choice. They said, ‘Sir you don’t have to shake any hands, some people do that.’ Those are the smart ones — they’re out of here. ‘You can shake one hand, to the one person, top of the class. You could shake 10, 50 or 100. And you could also stay for 1,000.’ And I’m staying for 1,000, OK?”
The president praised their work and accomplishments, and announced he’s exonerating all graduates with restrictions on their records for pulling pranks and generally misbehaving so they can all enter active duty on even footing. Mr. Trump explained that “even the best cadets can sometimes get a little bit carried away.”
“Lieutenant General Silveria has informed me that a few cadets are still on restriction for pranks and other fairly bad mischief. You know what I’m talking about, right?” the president said. “And you all know who you are. So keeping with tradition and as your commander in chief I hereby absolve and pardon all cadets serving restrictions and confinements. And that you earned. You earned it. So you’re all on even footing, is that nice?”
“That is what your time at this great Academy has been all about — preparing you to do whatever it takes to learn, to adapt and to win, win, win,” the president said.
Mr. Trump said he intends to continue to pursue the “overwhelming” strength that’s necessary to keep the U.S. secure.
The president’s Colorado visit was his first since he campaigned there ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Before leaving for Colorado, the president insisted he did not know that officers were told to keep a warship named for the late Sen. John McCain out of President Trump’s view during his Memorial Day trip to Japan.
Mr. Trump also reiterated his claims that there was no collusion or obstruction, despite special counsel Robert Mueller Mueller not reaching those conclusions in his report. Mueller spoke out publicly Wednesday for the first time since he became special counsel two years ago, claiming that if he and his investigators found the president committed no crime, they would have said so, and Justice Department policy prohibits him from charging a sitting president.
As he left the White House this morning, he had an exchange with CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid about Mueller’s remarks. Reid pointed out that Mueller did not exonerate him. “He couldn’t clear you,” she pointed out.
“That means you’re innocent. That means you’re innocent,” Mr. Trump said.
“He said he couldn’t say you were innocent,” Reid countered.
“Then he should have said, ‘You’re guilty,'” Mr. Trump responded.
Reid reminded him that Mueller had said he wouldn’t make that pronouncement because it would be unfair.
“He said essentially, ‘You’re innocent,'” Mr. Trump said. He added, “There was no crime, there was no collusion there was no nothing. And this is from a group of people that hate me. If they only found anything, they would have had it and he knows it better than anybody.”
Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax,” the president tweeted Thursday morning. “And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media … say he fought back against this phony crime that didn’t exist, this horrendous false accusation, and he shouldn’t fight back, he should just sit back and take it. Could this be Obstruction? No, Mueller didn’t find Obstruction either. Presidential Harassment!”
Moments later, the president told reporters Russia didn’t help him get elected, and Russia instead helped the other side — Hillary Clinton.
Conchise County, Arizona sheriff Mark Daniels on the president’s immigration plan and the border crisis.
The president’s proposal for a more “merit-based” immigration system has some liberal critics crying “racism,” but experts say Democrats who dig deeper may discover they are fans of the latest White House plan.
President Trump laid out a new proposal for the U.S. immigration system earlier this month that focused heavily on the idea of increasing the number of visas granted based on skill or merit.
“Only 12 percent of legal immigrants [to the U.S.] are selected based on skill or based on merit,” Trump said in his May 16 Rose Garden remarks. “In countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand,” he added, “that number is closer to 60 and even 70 and 75 percent, in some cases.”
Figures released by the White House suggest just 12 percent of visas granted to legal immigrants in the U.S. are based on merit or skills. The administration is using immigration systems in countries like Canada to argue that the U.S. needs to start granting more visas to skilled workers, and less to families.
Earlier this week, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., suggested in a Tweet (that was subsequently deleted) that “A ‘merit based’ immigration policy is fueled by racism towards the Latinx community.”
The congresswoman was quickly rebuffed on social media, but some experts say this kind of response is to be expected from the president’s most die-hard critics on the left, even if this new proposal proves the administration is taking a step in the right direction.
“Short of a no-strings-attached mass amnesty, it is difficult to envision Democrats in the House endorsing any legislative proposal from the Trump White House on an issue that has proved so divisive, and so richly resonant to left-of-center activists and donors [as immigration],” writes Reihan Salam, author of “Melting Pot or Civil War?: A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders.”
Salam, who is also president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, calls the president’s proposal a step in the right direction. “Rather than reducing the number of green cards the U.S. grants every year,” he argues, “Trump is now calling for rebalancing admissions to ensure that a higher proportion of new immigrants are poised to achieve labor-market success.”
The president’s plan “promotes our common language,” according to the White House, and would create something called “the ‘Build America Visa,’ which will select immigrants based on a point system and features three high-skill categories: Extraordinary talent, Professional and specialized vocations, Exceptional academic track records.”
Canada’s immigration system similarly uses factors like skills, education, language ability and work experience to determine visa eligibility via a points-based system. There is even an online portal to help calculate your points before applying.
Experts argue comments like those from Omar suggest some of the president’s critics would do well to look closer at the president’s proposal.
“I think it might surprise them because it doesn’t go out of its way to cut legal immigration,” according to Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. “It shows the president and his advisors know cutting legal immigration is a bad tactic, both politically and for the future of our country.”
Nowrasteh also takes issues with the statistics being touted by the White House regarding skilled-worker visas in other countries. According to the White House, skilled workers account for 63 percent of legal immigration in Canada, and just 12 percent in the U.S. Even if those numbers were correct, Nowrasteh says, “as a percentage of Canada’s population they let in about twice as many immigrants annually as the U.S. does compared with our population.”
“So if we really want to copy the Canadian system,” Nowrasteh says, “we have to increase legal immigration across the board… including refugees.”
Salam seems to believe that the president may have inadvertantly invited the criticism with a plan that is chock full of lofty and level-headed goals, but lacking on specifics. “The vagueness of the proposal has allowed the president’s critics to paint it in the darkest possible light,” Salam says. “But it is easy to see how a more refined proposal would prove broadly popular among conservatives and moderates, which is why the Trump White House would be wise to stay the course.”
White House adviser Jared Kushner, seen above during a proclamation signing with President Trump in March, is said to have been a driving force behind the latest White House immigration proposal. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Nowrasteh agrees that the plan, which was largely influenced by Trump’s advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, could use a few tweaks. And he thinks Kushner’s role on the president’s thinking, as evidenced by this particular proposal, is positive and hopefully prolonged.
“We don’t need to cut green cards in one area to add to another,” Nowrasteh told Fox News. “If the Kushner plan kept in the family-based system but then increased immigration for skilled workers,” he adds, “I think that would have a very good shot at passing and that would produce a much more balanced, merit-based immigration system.”
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