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Senate Approves Budget Plan That Smooths Path Toward Tax Cut - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...budget-vote-senate.html

Us history senate budget plan republicans democrats politics Trump

shared by millerco on 20 Oct 17 - No Cached
  • The Senate took a significant step toward rewriting the tax code on Thursday night with the passage of a budget blueprint that would protect a $1.5 trillion tax cut from a Democratic filibuster.
  • The budget resolution could also pave the way for opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil exploration by ensuring that drilling legislation can pass with only Republican votes.
  • Despite having full control of the government, Republicans have so far been unable to produce a marquee legislative achievement in the first year of President Trump’s tenure, putting even more pressure on lawmakers to succeed in passing a tax bill.
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  • The budget’s passage could keep Republicans on track to approve a tax package late this year or early in 2018.
  • As early as next week, the House plans to take up the budget blueprint that the Senate approved on Thursday by a 51 to 49 vote. Doing so would allow for the tax overhaul to move ahead quickly.
  • Speaker Paul D. Ryan will need most House Republicans to back the blueprint without changes; in the Senate, Rand Paul of Kentucky was the lone Republican to vote against the measure on Thursday, in protest of what he deemed excessive spending.
  • If House Republicans were to insist on negotiating a compromise that melds the Senate and House budget plans, tax legislation could be delayed.
  • “This is the last, best chance we will have to cut taxes,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a member of the Budget Committee, who warned that the consequences would be ruinous if the party failed.
  • “That will be the end of us as a party,” he said, “because if you’re a Republican and you don’t want to simplify the tax code and cut taxes, what good are you to anybody?”
millerco

Trump Lashes Out at Puerto Rico Mayor Who Criticized Storm Response - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-puerto-rico-mayor.html

Us history Trump politics puerto rico crisis

shared by millerco on 30 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Trump Lashes Out at Puerto Rico Mayor Who Criticized Storm Response
  • President Trump lashed out at the mayor of San Juan on Saturday for criticizing his administration’s efforts to help Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, accusing her of “poor leadership” and implying that the people of the devastated island were not doing enough to help themselves.
  • As emergency workers and troops struggled to restore basic services in a commonwealth with no electricity and limited fuel and water, Mr. Trump spent the day at his New Jersey golf club, blasting out Twitter messages defending his response to the storm and repeatedly assailing the capital’s mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, and the news media.
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  • “The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help.”
  • Mr. Trump said the people of Puerto Rico should not depend entirely on the federal government. “They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort,” he wrote. “10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job. The military and first responders, despite no electric, roads, phones etc., have done an amazing job. Puerto Rico was totally destroyed.”
  • The president’s stream of Twitter bolts appeared repeatedly over the course of 12 hours and touched off a furious day of recriminations that fueled questions about his leadership during the crisis.
  • Although Mr. Trump earned generally high marks for his handling of hurricanes that struck Texas and Florida recently, he has been sharply criticized for being slow to sense the magnitude of the damage in Puerto Rico, an American territory, and project urgency about helping.
  • He has explained that the challenges are different because Puerto Rico is “an island surrounded by water — big water, ocean water,” as he put it on Friday, but in recent days he has stepped up his public statements and dispatched a three-star general to take over the response.
  • In the case of Ms. Cruz, Mr. Trump took her outcry as a personal assault on him.
  • While other presidents generally ignore most of the criticism they invariably attract, Mr. Trump is not one to let anything go unanswered. In one of his books, he titled a chapter “Revenge,” writing that “when someone crosses you, my advice is ‘Get even!’ If you do not get even, you are just a schmuck!”
millerco

Senate Republicans Say They Will Not Vote on Health Bill - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...peal-graham-cassidy-trump.html

republicans democrats Us history Trump politics mitch mcconnell healthcare

shared by millerco on 27 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Senate Republicans Say They Will Not Vote on Health Bill
  • Senate Republicans on Tuesday officially abandoned the latest plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, shelving a showdown vote on the measure and effectively admitting defeat in their last-gasp drive to fulfill a core promise of President Trump and Republican lawmakers.
  • The decision came less than 24 hours after a pivotal Republican senator, Susan Collins of Maine, declared her opposition to the repeal proposal, all but ensuring that Republican leaders would be short of the votes they needed.
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  • “We haven’t given up on changing the American health care system,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said after a lunchtime meeting of Republican senators. “We are not going to be able to do that this week, but it still lies ahead of us, and we haven’t given up on that.”
  • Mr. McConnell said Republicans would move on to their next big legislative goal: overhauling the tax code, a feat that has not been accomplished since 1986.
  • Democrats, who have spent all year fighting to protect the Affordable Care Act, a law that is a pillar of President Barack Obama’s legacy, responded by calling for the resumption of bipartisan negotiations to stabilize health insurance markets.
  • “We hope we can move forward and improve health care, not engage in another battle to take it away from people, because they will fail once again if they try,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader.
  • The decision by Senate Republican leaders may prove to be a milestone in the decades-long fight over health insurance in the United States, suggesting that the Affordable Care Act had gained at least a reprieve and perhaps a measure of political acceptance.
  • health care is sure to be an issue in next year’s midterm elections.
  • For their part, Democrats have tried to use health care as a bludgeon against the few Senate Republican targets they have next year, mainly Senators Dean Heller of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona.
  • “We know Republicans like Dean Heller and Jeff Flake won’t stop until they force Americans to pay more for less, and we will make sure voters hold them accountable for it,”
  • The Graham-Cassidy bill would have taken money provided under the Affordable Care Act for insurance subsidies and the expansion of Medicaid and sent it to states in the form of block grants.
millerco

Fueled by Trump's Tweets, Anthem Protests Grow to a Nationwide Rebuke - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-national-anthem-nfl.html

Us history Trump politics NFL eagles nation anthem protests

shared by millerco on 25 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Fueled by Trump’s Tweets, Anthem Protests Grow to a Nationwide Rebuke
  • On three teams, nearly all the football players skipped the national anthem altogether.
  • Dozens of others, from London to Los Angeles, knelt or locked arms on the sidelines, joined by several team owners in a league normally friendly to President Trump.
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  • Some of the sport’s biggest stars joined the kind of demonstration they have steadfastly avoided.
  • It was an unusual, sweeping wave of protest and defiance on the sidelines of the country’s most popular game, generated by Mr. Trump’s stream of calls to fire players who have declined to stand for the national anthem in order to raise awareness of police brutality and racial injustice.
  • What had been a modest round of anthem demonstrations this season led by a handful of African-American players mushroomed and morphed into a nationwide, diverse rebuke to Mr. Trump, with even some of his staunchest supporters in the N.F.L., including several owners, joining in or condemning Mr. Trump for divisiveness.
  • “To have the president trying to intimidate people — I wanted to send a message that I don’t condone that,” Thomas said, echoing the opinion of most N.F.L. players. “I’m not O.K. with somebody trying to prevent someone from standing up for what they think is important.”
  • But the acts of defiance received a far more mixed reception from fans, both in the stadiums and on social media, suggesting that what were promoted as acts of unity might have exacerbated a divide and dragged yet another of the country’s institutions into the turbulent cross currents of race and politics.
  • At Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, videos posted on social media showed some Eagles fans yelling at anti-Trump protesters holding placards.
  • many fans, a majority of them white, said they did not support the anthem protests but also did not agree with the president’s view that players should be fired because of them.
millerco

North Korea Says It Has the Right to Shoot Down U.S. Warplanes - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-north-korea.html

Us history Trump politics north korea kim jong-un

shared by millerco on 25 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • North Korea Says It Has the Right to Shoot Down U.S. Warplanes
  • North Korea’s foreign minister escalated tensions with the United States on Monday, saying that President Trump’s threatening comments about the country and its leadership were “a declaration of war” and that North Korea had the right to shoot down American warplanes, even if they are not in North Korean air space.
  • “The whole world should clearly remember it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country,” the foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, told reporters
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  • “Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to make countermeasures, including the right to shoot down United States strategic bombers even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country,” he said.
  • The North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said last week: “Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy the D.P.R.K. [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea], we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”
  • Mr. Ri, speaking two days after American warplanes flew close to the North’s coast, added that “in light of the declaration of war by Trump, all options will be on the operations table of the supreme leadership” of North Korea.
  • While North Korea has reserved the right to take pre-emptive action against the United States and South Korea, Mr. Ri’s threat to shoot down American planes in international airspace was a new element in the standoff.
  • Referring to Mr. Trump’s assertion that the North Korean leadership may not “be around much longer,” Mr. Ri said that the question of “who would be around much longer will be answered” by North Korea.
  • The Pentagon said on Saturday that the Air Force had sent B-1B bombers and F-15C fighters over waters north of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, in response to what it called the North Korean government’s “reckless behavior.”
  • It was the farthest north “any U.S. fighter or bomber aircraft have flown off North Korea’s coast in the 21st century,”
  • In April 1969, North Korean fighter jets shot down an unarmed United States Lockheed EC-121 spy plane on a North Korean intelligence-gathering mission over the Sea of Japan, with a loss of 31 American lives.
millerco

Trump Attacks Warriors' Curry. LeBron James's Retort: 'U Bum.' - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-nfl-kaepernick.html

Us history Trump politics NBA Lebron James NFL Steph Curry

shared by millerco on 24 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Trump Attacks Warriors’ Curry. LeBron James’s Retort: ‘U Bum.’
  • President Trump took aim at two of the world’s most powerful sports leagues and some of their most popular athletes, directly inserting himself into an already fiery debate over race, social justice and athlete activism and stoking a running battle on social media over his comments.
  • In a speech on Friday and a series of tweets on Saturday, he urged N.F.L. owners to fire players who do not stand for the national anthem, suggested that football is declining because it is not as violent as it once was and seemed to disinvite the N.B.A. champion Golden State Warriors from the traditional White House visit because of their star player Stephen Curry’s public opposition to him.
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  • the president used an expletive to describe players who kneel or sit during the anthem to protest police brutality against black Americans and other forms of social injustice.
  • “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired,’ ” the president said at a rally for Senator Luther Strange, who was appointed to the Senate this year and is facing Roy Moore in a Republican primary runoff.
  • “U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain’t going! So therefore ain’t no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!” Mr. James wrote on Twitter.
  • The Warriors, who play in a league that sometimes promotes social issues and whose owners and players have been known to denounce the president, said in a statement they would use a visit to Washington in February to highlight issues of diversity and inclusiveness.
  • By midafternoon, a spokesman for the University of North Carolina national championship basketball team confirmed the team would not be going to the White House
  • Many athletes have been moved to comment on race and social justice more frequently in the past year after a series of police shootings of unarmed African-Americans and the support Mr. Trump has received from white supremacists.
  • “It’s unfortunate that the president decided to use his immense platform to make divisive and offensive statements about our players and the N.F.L.,’’ said Mark Murphy, the president and chief executive of the Green Bay Packers.
millerco

Kim's Rejoinder to Trump's Rocket Man: 'Mentally Deranged U.S. Dotard' - The New York T... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...im-trump-rocketman-dotard.html

Us history Trump north korea kim jong-un politics

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  • Kim’s Rejoinder to Trump’s Rocket Man: ‘Mentally Deranged U.S. Dotard’
  • Responding directly for the first time to President Trump’s threat at the United Nations to destroy nuclear-armed North Korea, its leader called Mr. Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” on Friday and vowed the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”
  • “A frightened dog barks louder,” Mr. Kim said in a statement, referring to Mr. Trump’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday in which he vowed to annihilate North Korea if the United States were forced to defend itself or its allies against it.
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  • “He is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician,” Mr. Kim said.
  • Mr. Kim’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, who arrived in New York on Wednesday to attend the General Assembly, also called Mr. Trump “a dog barking.”
  • Asked by reporters in New York what Mr. Kim might have meant by the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure,” Mr. Ri said that only Mr. Kim would know, but that he thought the North might be considering the largest test of a hydrogen bomb ever in the Pacific Ocean, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
  • Mr. Trump on Friday responded with some name-calling of his own. On Twitter, the president called Mr. Kim “obviously a madman.”
  • In his United Nations speech on Tuesday, Mr. Trump called North Korea’s autocracy a “band of criminals” and Mr. Kim a “Rocket Man” on “a suicide mission.”
  • “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” he said.
  • Although Mr. Kim is often quoted by official North Korean news media, it is highly unusual for him to issue a statement in his name. In North Korea, the supreme leader’s statement carries a weight that surpasses any other formal document.
  • Mr. Kim, who has been accelerating his country’s development of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles in defiance of the United Nations, Washington and its allies, said Mr. Trump’s remarks had convinced him that “the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last.”
  • “Now that Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy” North Korea, Mr. Kim said, “we will consider with seriousness exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”
millerco

Mueller Seeks White House Documents Related to Trump's Actions as President - The New Y... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...mueller-trump-russia.html

Us history Trump politics hillary clinton comey FBI spicer mueller investigation

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  • Mueller Seeks White House Documents Related to Trump’s Actions as President
  • In recent weeks, Mr. Mueller’s office sent a document to the White House that detailed 13 areas in which investigators are seeking information.
  • Mr. Mueller is also interested in an Oval Office meeting Mr. Trump had with Russian officials in which he said the dismissal of the F.B.I. director had relieved “great pressure” on him.
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  • The document requests provide the most details to date about the breadth of Mr. Mueller’s investigation, and show that several aspects of his inquiry are focused squarely on Mr. Trump’s behavior in the White House.
  • Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has asked the White House for documents about some of President Trump’s most scrutinized actions since taking office, including the firing of his national security adviser and F.B.I. director, according to White House officials.
  • Since then, administration lawyers have been scouring White House emails and asking officials whether they have other documents or notes that may pertain to Mr. Mueller’s requests.
  • One of the requests is about a meeting Mr. Trump had in May with Russian officials in the Oval Office the day after James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was fired.
  • That day, Mr. Trump met with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak, along with other Russian officials.
  • Mr. Trump had tweeted that Mr. Comey “was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!”
millerco

Trump Threatens to 'Totally Destroy' North Korea - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-nations-general-assembly.html

korea north Us history Trump UN United nations politics

shared by millerco on 19 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Leaders from around the globe take the lectern at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. It’s a particularly big moment for President Trump, who addressed the world gathering for the first time.
  • Mr. Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea and called Iran a “rogue nation.”
  • In his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Mr. Trump denounced North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong-un, saying the nation “threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of life” as a result of its nuclear weapons program.
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  • If the United States is forced to defend itself or its allies, “we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” President Trump told the gathering.
  • Mr. Trump emphasized that it was against the interest of the entire world for North Korea — which he called a “band of criminals” — to obtain missiles and nuclear weapons.
  • “Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself,” he said of Mr. Kim.
  • Mr. Trump accused Mr. Kim of overseeing a regime that has starved its people, brutalized an imprisoned American college student who was returned home in a coma, and assassinated Mr. Kim’s older brother, a potential rival, with poison chemicals.
  • “If this is not twisted enough, now North Korea’s reckless pursuit of missiles and nuclear weapons threatens the entire world,” Mr. Trump said.
  • While he thanked Russia and China for supporting recent United Nations sanctions on North Korea, Mr. Trump also took an indirect swipe at them for continuing to do business with Mr. Kim.
  • “It is an outrage that some nations would not only trade with such a regime, but would arm, supply and financially support a country that imperils the world,” Mr. Trump said.
  • “As president, I will always put America first, just like you as the leaders of your countries will always — and should always — put your countries first,” he said.
millerco

The Big Question as the U.N. Gathers: What to Make of Trump? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ers-what-to-make-of-trump.html

Us history Trump UN United nations politics

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  • The Big Question as the U.N. Gathers: What to Make of Trump?
  • Every year, the president heads to New York to welcome world leaders to the United Nations General Assembly
  • He gives a speech and meets with an endless string of foreign potentates to discuss a dizzying array of complicated, often intractable issues
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  • The days are “kind of like speed dating from hell,” as one analyst put it, and the evenings are “the world’s most tedious cocktail party.”
  • But when Mr. Trump attends the first United Nations session of his presidency this coming week, all eyes will be on him as counterparts from around the globe crane their necks and slide through the crowd to snatch a handshake — and, in the process, try to figure out this most unusual of American leaders.
  • “For a number of leaders, this is going to be their first chance to see him, to judge him, to try to get on his good side.”
  • In some places, there has been an instinct to dismiss Mr. Trump as a bombastic, Twitter-obsessed political and diplomatic neophyte. “But the fact is you can’t write off the American president,” Mr. Alterman said.
  • One of Mr. Trump’s primary tasks will be to define how his America First approach — which has led him to pull out of international agreements on free trade and climate change — fits into the world-first mission of the United Nations.
  • Mr. Trump arrives in New York at a time of crackling tension over North Korea’s provocative actions and deep uncertainty about what he will do with President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.
  • Mr. Trump is settling into a somewhat more conventional foreign policy than many had anticipated, analysts said.
  • The president has not launched an all-out trade war with China, ripped up the Iran deal or the North American Free Trade Agreement, or moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, at least not yet.
millerco

A Potent Fuel Flows to North Korea. It May Be Too Late to Halt It. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...orea-rocket-fuel-missiles.html

history Us Trump north korea politics missile

shared by millerco on 18 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • A Potent Fuel Flows to North Korea
  • When North Korea launched long-range missiles this summer, and again on Friday, demonstrating its ability to strike Guam and perhaps the United States mainland, it powered the weapons with a rare, potent rocket fuel that American intelligence agencies believe initially came from China and Russia.
  • The United States government is scrambling to determine whether those two countries are still providing the ingredients for the highly volatile fuel and, if so, whether North Korea’s supply can be interrupted, either through sanctions or sabotage.
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  • there is a growing belief that the United States should focus on the fuel, either to halt it, if possible, or to take advantage of its volatile properties to slow the North’s program
  • Intelligence officials believe that the North’s program has advanced to the point where it is no longer as reliant on outside suppliers, and that it may itself be making the deadly fuel
  • Despite a long record of intelligence warnings that the North was acquiring both forceful missile engines and the fuel to power them, there is no evidence that Washington has ever moved with urgency to cut off Pyongyang’s access to the rare propellant
  • “based on North Korea’s demonstrated science and technological capabilities — coupled with the priority Pyongyang places on missile programs — North Korea probably is capable of producing UDMH domestically.” UDMH is short for unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine
  • Some experts are skeptical that the North has succeeded in domestic production, given the great difficulty of making and using the highly poisonous fuel, which in far more technically advanced nations has led to giant explosions of missiles and factories.
  • the Trump administration has been far more focused on ordinary fuels — the oil and gas used to heat homes and power vehicles. The United States has pushed to cut off those supplies to the North, but it settled last week for modest cutbacks under a United Nations resolution.
  • “If North Korea does not have UDMH, it cannot threaten the United States, it’s as simple as that,” said Senator Edward J.
millerco

'Bucket Bomb' Strikes London's Vulnerable Underground - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nderground-tube-explosion.html

history london bomb terrorist terrorism crisis

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  • ‘Bucket Bomb’ Strikes London’s Vulnerable Underground
  • The bomb, wrapped in a plastic grocery bag concealed in a bucket, exploded at 8:20 a.m. Friday at the height of the morning rush. The explosion and panic left 29 people injured, but none were killed.
  • The Islamic State asserted responsibility for the bucket bomb
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  • It was the fifth terrorist attack in Britain this year and the first to hit London at its most vulnerable point — mass transit — since the 2005 bombings that killed 52
  • Prime Minister Theresa May, calling the blast a “cowardly attack,” said the national threat level had been raised a notch to “critical,” the highest.
  • The bomb exploded just after the train drew into Parsons Green, an elevated station in a quiet and affluent part of West London. It burned at least one passenger, who was carried away on a stretcher, and led to a stampede that injured others.
  • The head of security on the Underground at the time of the 2005 attacks, Geoff Dunlop, said it was unsurprising that terrorism had returned to the Underground.
  • “You can do an awful lot to make it safer but you can never totally secure it because of the very nature of it,” said Mr. Dunlop, who left the Underground in 2013 and now works as a private security consultant. “It has to be open.”
  • “The train was packed, and I was down the other side of the carriage standing up, looking at my phone and then I heard a big boom and felt this heat on my face,”
millerco

Trump's Support for Law to Protect 'Dreamers' Lifts Its Chances - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-daca-dreamers.html

Us history politics democrats republicans Trump policy DACA dreamer

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  • Trump’s Support for Law to Protect ‘Dreamers’ Lifts Its Chances
  • An unexpected meeting of the minds between President Trump and Democratic leaders on Thursday made real a possible deal in Congress to pair enhanced border security with legislation to protect young, undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children.
  • the president said he could support legislation to protect the young immigrants known as “Dreamers” from deportation if it were accompanied by a “massive” border security upgrade
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  • It was the second time this month that a tentative agreement announced by Democrats left Republican leaders in Congress scrambling to adjust a legislative agenda that appears increasingly set by the party out of power in the House, Senate and White House.
  • “We’re not going to bring a solution to the floor that does not have the support of President Trump,” Speaker Paul D. Ryan
  • “The president understands he has to work with the congressional majorities to get any kind of legislative solution,” Mr. Ryan said
  • Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, issued a curt statement saying he and his colleagues ‘‘look forward to receiving the Trump administration’s legislative proposal,’’ while Mr. Ryan called Wednesday night’s talks ‘‘a discussion, not an agreement or a negotiation.’’
  • “I think President Trump has a chance to be on immigration what President Nixon was on China; he has a lot of credibility on the issue,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee. “I think if the president recommended a solution to Congress and the American people, they might very well accept it.”
millerco

Trump Contradicts Democrats, Says No Deal on 'Dreamers' Has Been Made - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...on-dreamers-has-been-made.html

Us history politics democrats republicans Trump policy DACA dreamer

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  • Trump Contradicts Democrats, Says No Deal on ‘Dreamers’ Has Been Made
  • President Trump said in a Twitter post on Thursday morning that no deal had been struck with Democrats on protections for young undocumented immigrants, contradicting what Democratic leaders had said after a dinner with the president
  • “No deal was made last night on DACA,” Mr. Trump said.
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  • The president said that there would need to be a larger deal on securing the United States’ border in order for any agreement on protections for the immigrants, known as Dreamers, to be completed
  • Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, tweeted that there was no agreement out of the dinner about “excluding” the wall.
  • the communications director for Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, tweeted that the wall was not part of the agreement, but that Mr. Trump made clear he would continue to push for it.
  • Democrats framed the recent deal with the president as a win for their agenda, but Republicans in Congress control the pace and scope of any new legislation.
  • Mr. Trump questioned whether anyone actually wanted to deport these young immigrants, raising more questions about the president’s intentions for this program.
  • The program benefits about 800,000 immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. It allows them to remain in the country and gives them the right to work legally without fear of immediate deportation.
  • He has said he would end it, then he gave Congress time to come up with a legislative solution after he was widely criticized in the media for his decision to end DACA.
millerco

Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change? For Some, a Very 'Insensitive' Question - The ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...icane-irma-climate-change.html

hurricane irma Us history politics

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  • Hurricane Irma Linked to Climate Change?
  • Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, says it is insensitive to discuss climate change in the midst of deadly storms.
  • Republican mayor of Miami whose citizens raced to evacuate before Hurricane Irma, says if not now, when?
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  • “This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the E.P.A. and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change,” Mr. Regalado told the Miami Herald. “If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is. This is a truly, truly poster child for what is to come.”
  • For scientists, drawing links between warming global temperatures and the ferocity of hurricanes is about as controversial as talking about geology after an earthquake. But in Washington, where science is increasingly political, the fact that oceans and atmosphere are warming and that the heat is propelling storms into superstorms has become as sensitive as talking about gun control in the wake of a mass shooting.
  • “To use time and effort to address it at this point is very, very insensitive to this people in Florida,”
  • “It’s precisely the conversation that we should be having right now. I’m not sure what’s insensitive about that,”
  • “It’s really important to direct resources and funds to the crisis on the ground at the moment, of course. But I don’t see why what’s causing these storms and what’s contributing to making it worse is necessarily mutually exclusive.”
  • “Immediately afterward we’ve got to say ‘Come on guys, let’s really see if this is a harbinger of the future.’ And it clearly is to those of us who have looked even generally at the issue,” he said. “One should be sensitive, but not stupid.”
millerco

South Korea Plans 'Decapitation Unit' to Try to Scare North's Leaders - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...south-korea-decapitation-.html

Us history Trump politics north korea

shared by millerco on 13 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • South Korea Plans ‘Decapitation Unit’ to Try to Scare North’s Leaders
  • The last time South Korea is known to have plotted to assassinate the North Korean leadership, nothing went as planned.
  • In the late 1960s, after North Korean commandoes tried to ransack the presidential palace in Seoul, South Korea secretly trained misfits plucked from prison or off the streets to sneak into North Korea and slit the throat of its leader, Kim Il-sung
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • They killed their trainers and fought their way into Seoul before blowing themselves up
  • South Korea is again targeting the North’s leadership
  • the South Korean defense minister, Song Young-moo, told lawmakers in Seoul that a special forces brigade he described as a “decapitation unit” would be established by the end of the year
  • The unit, officially known as the Spartan 3000, has not been assigned to literally decapitate North Korean leaders. But that is clearly the menacing message South Korea is trying to send.
  • Rarely does a government announce a strategy to assassinate a head of state, but South Korea wants to keep the North on edge and nervous about the consequences of further developing its nuclear arsenal
  • meant to help push North Korea into accepting President Moon Jae-in’s offer of talks
  • How can a country without nuclear weapons deter a dictator who has them?
  • “The best deterrence we can have, next to having our own nukes, is to make Kim Jong-un fear for his life,”
millerco

It's Not Just America Losing Patience With North Korea - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...539355

Us history Trump politics north korea

shared by millerco on 12 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • It's Not Just America Losing Patience With North Korea
  • The United Nations Security Council has unanimously passed a new round of sanctions on the country following its most recent nuclear test.
  • The outcome reflects the difficulty of securing international backing for punitive measures against Pyongyang, as well as the level of international concern about the country’s nuclear and missile programs.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • the U.S. had to drop its more stringent demands, the news agency reported, including an oil embargo on North Korea—which would dramatically weaken the Kim Jong Un regime
  • a financial and travel ban on the North Korean leader, and the ability to inspect any ships suspected of carrying illicit goods to or from North Korea.
  • Those demands were unacceptable to China and Russia, both veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council
  • At issue was Pyongyang’s claim on September 3 that  it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb that could be fitted onto a long-range missile
  • China and Russia have their own preferred approaches to the crisis, and they’re not always compatible with what the United States wants
  • China, which fears a destabilized North Korea, is Pyongyang’s main political and economic benefactor
millerco

Bannon's 'epic' defense of Trump doesn't extend to all his moves, or all his aides and ... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...7-b569-3360011663b4_story.html

Us history Trump republicans politics steve bannon

shared by millerco on 12 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Bannon’s ‘epic’ defense of Trump doesn’t extend to all his moves, or all his aides and allies
  • Bannon did offer forceful praise — and, indeed, an epic defense — of Trump and much of his agenda
  • he also called Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey the biggest mistake “maybe in modern political history”
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • accused Republican congressional leaders of “trying to nullify the 2016 election”
  • warned that the president’s decision to give Congress six months to come up with a solution for “dreamer” immigrants brought to the country illegally as children could cause a “civil war” within the Republican Party
  • Sanders said that “the president was right in firing Director Comey,” and pushed back on some of Bannon’s other assertions. “I think that Steve always likes to speak in, kind of, the most extreme measures,”
  • Bannon has at times also treated Trump as an imperfect vehicle for his own nationalist agenda
  • “It’s difficult to make the case that you’re helping the president if you’re in the position where you’re actively opposing either him or his political agenda,”
millerco

What Republicans should have learned (other than not to trust Trump) - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...-other-than-not-to-trust-trump

Us history Trump republicans democrats politics economics

shared by millerco on 10 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Republicans learned the hard way this week that the tactic of using the debt ceiling to extract further spending cuts is a losing one.
  • as long as there are enough moderate Republicans and Democrats (in other words the Freedom Caucus is not a majority of the House) the tactic will not work.
  • There will always be a majority willing to do the responsible thing, vote to raise the debt limit.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • the debt ceiling game now works to disadvantage the Freedom Caucus
  • if they don’t want to raise the debt ceiling they shouldn’t vote for more debt-creating tax plans
  • The idea that we should spend less each year until we arrive back in the pre-New Deal-sized government doesn’t comport with reality.
  • the entire GOP economic philosophy is dependent on a never-ending stream of tax cuts for the rich
millerco

'Dreamers' Put Their Trust in DACA. What Now? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...can-dreamers-trust-anyone.html

US history Trump DACA dreamer

shared by millerco on 10 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • “I don’t know if we should trust the government,”
  • It wasn’t your choice to come to America. But once you realize you’re here illegally, it becomes your choice to figure out who gets to know that.
  • Can you tell your classmates that you can’t join the overseas choir trip because you don’t have a valid passport? Can you tell your coach that you have to stay in the area and can’t be recruited by an out-of-state college? Can you tell a human resources manager that you can’t get a driver’s license because you don’t have a Social Security number?
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • In 2002, Pat Foote, a recruiter at The Seattle Times, told me that she couldn’t offer me a summer internship because I am in the United States illegally
  • The scariest stranger of all is the United States government. It could deport you from the place you call home.
  • The landscape of trust shifted dramatically in 2012, when President Barack Obama issued a directive to establish the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
  • In addition to protecting immigrants who were brought to the United States before the age of 16 from deportation for a renewable two-year period, it granted a work permit to qualified immigrants who were under age 31 on June 15, 2012, the date of its announcement.
  • In effect, the Obama administration said, “Trust us.”
  • Who can we trust now?
  • Can we trust President Trump, whose conflicting messages illustrate his ignorance of how DACA works?
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