12 October 19
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12 October 19
Paul Krugman | Luckily, Trump Is an Unstable Non-Genius
Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "The surprising thing about the constitutional crisis we're now facing is that it took so long to happen. It was obvious from early on that the president of the United States is a would-be autocrat who accepts no limits on his power and considers criticism a form of treason."
Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Krugman writes: "The surprising thing about the constitutional crisis we're now facing is that it took so long to happen. It was obvious from early on that the president of the United States is a would-be autocrat who accepts no limits on his power and considers criticism a form of treason."
EXCERPTS:
Trump’s domestic economic policy, however, has been standard Republican top-down class warfare. None of that $300 billion went for social benefits or even his continually promised, never-delivered infrastructure plan. Instead, it went mainly into tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy that have done little to boost investment.
At the same time, Trump has pursued his personal tariff obsession despite mounting evidence that it’s hurting growth. The economy was supposed to be his big political selling point. Instead, polls of his net job approval on economic policy are, on average, barely positive even now — and likely to get worse as tariffs on consumer goods bite and the economy slows.
It says a lot about the modern G.O.P. that the party is still solidly behind a man so obviously, grotesquely, not up to the job (although some rank-and-file Republicans now back an impeachment inquiry). But those of us who want America as we know it to survive should be grateful that Trump is so immature and incompetent. His character flaws are the only thing that gives us a fighting chance.
The Capitol in Washington is seen at dawn on Oct. 3, 2019. (photo: AP)
More Potential Whistleblowers Are Contacting Congress
Spencer Ackerman, Sam Brodey and Sam Stein, The Daily Beast
Excerpt: "New potential whistleblowers are coming forward to the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, two congressional sources tell The Daily Beast."
Spencer Ackerman, Sam Brodey and Sam Stein, The Daily Beast
Excerpt: "New potential whistleblowers are coming forward to the House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, two congressional sources tell The Daily Beast."
EXCERPTS:
One knowledgeable source said that the daily accumulation of revelations about Trump’s willingness to use U.S. foreign relations for his personal political benefit has prompted more people to approach Congress. Two associates of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani have been arrested and charged with campaign-finance violations arising from their Ukraine dirt-digging effort. The Financial Times reported that Trump China adviser Michael Pillsbury said he received “quite a bit of background” on Joe Biden’s son after Trump publicly called for China to aid his domestic political prospects. The Washington Post reported that Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, and Trump attempted to quash a prosecution of a Turkish national—represented by Giuliani and important to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan—for violating Iran sanctions.
The revelations come while Congress interviews the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine the administration removed, Maria Yovanovitch, despite the White House’s announced refusal to cooperate with the House Democratic inquiry. Other cracks in that front have emerged. On Friday, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union implicated in the Ukraine pressure campaign, announced through his lawyers that he will defy State Department instructions against talking to Congress.
Supporters react as U.S. president Donald Trump holds a campaign rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (photo: Leah Millis/Reuters)
Raw, Angry, Uncensored: Welcome to Trump's Impeachment-Era Campaign
Gabby Orr, Politico
Orr writes: "First he claimed the political establishment was rigging the 2016 election against him. Then he accused special counsel Robert Mueller of overseeing an 'attempted takeover of the government.'"
Gabby Orr, Politico
Orr writes: "First he claimed the political establishment was rigging the 2016 election against him. Then he accused special counsel Robert Mueller of overseeing an 'attempted takeover of the government.'"
EXCERPT:
Friday’s rally capped a day filled with more twists in the impeachment drama, as well as several adverse legal rulings for the president and a key departure from his administration.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, defied a directive from the administration not to testify about being recalled from her post, and appeared in a marathon session before the three House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry.
One of the two foreign-born associates of the president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani who were arrested this week while trying to leave the country was reported to have boasted three years ago about his friendship with Trump, even as the president on Friday said he didn’t know either of them.
And in the courts, Trump lost an appeal to keep his financial records from Democrats investigating him, then suffered setbacks on trying to deny green cards to certain immigrants and reappropriate federal money for the construction of his border wall.
Migrants, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, climb down a steep hill near the border wall into the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico. (photo: Leah Millis/Reuters)
Courts Block Trump's Rule to Keep Out Low-Income Immigrants
Nicole Narea, Vox
Excerpt: "Two federal courts on Friday prevented the Trump administration from implementing a rule that would have created new barriers to low-income immigrants seeking to enter the US."
READ MORE
Nicole Narea, Vox
Excerpt: "Two federal courts on Friday prevented the Trump administration from implementing a rule that would have created new barriers to low-income immigrants seeking to enter the US."
READ MORE
Kevin McAleenan. (photo: CBS)
Kevin McAleenan Resigns as Acting Homeland Security Secretary
Franco Ordonez, NPR
Ordonez writes: "Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan is leaving his post, the latest casualty at the department responsible for protecting U.S. borders."
Franco Ordonez, NPR
Ordonez writes: "Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan is leaving his post, the latest casualty at the department responsible for protecting U.S. borders."
EXCERPT:
"President Trump is now completely rid of the team that delayed, undermined, and stalled the 2016 election's mandate," a hard-line immigration enforcement ally of the administration said. "He has what he's never had before: competent personnel to carry out his vision on immigration."
Some are already calling for Trump to move acting Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ken Cuccinelli into the role.
"The president understands that the opposition seeks to stop his efforts to secure the border and restore control over our nation's immigration system through court orders and injunctions," the ally said. "What better force to stop this than the former AG of Virginia and one of the most skilled appellate lawyers in the country?"
Since April, former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, U.S. Secret Service Director Randolph "Tex" Alles and acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Ronald Vitiello have resigned.
In June, Trump also accepted the resignation of acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner John Sanders.
Unarmed protesters face militarized police in Port au Prince, Haiti, as fuel shortages are rampant across the country. (photo: Reuters)
Haiti: Protesters Try to Take President Moise's Home, Demand He Resign
teleSUR
Excerpt: "The Haitian police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of opposition protesters who defended themselves with stones and bottles, upon trying to reach the residence of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, to 'collect his resignation letter.'"
teleSUR
Excerpt: "The Haitian police used tear gas to disperse hundreds of opposition protesters who defended themselves with stones and bottles, upon trying to reach the residence of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, to 'collect his resignation letter.'"
EXCERPT:
Since February, Haiti has been the scene of massive and deadly protests by demonstrators demanding the resignation of Moise and his administration amid major corruption allegations.
When the country was already dealing with a tense economic crisis and high inflation, a report was published accusing the President Moise and dozens of officials of having embezzled US$2 billion from Petrocaribe, the cut-price-oil aid program that Venezuela offered to several Caribbean countries, among them Haiti.
The funds were meant to finance infrastructure development along with health, education and social programs across the impoverished nation. The president has since refused to step down and Congress has been three-times unable to push forward his resignation.
The Carribean country of 11 million people has been struggling for decades to overcome extreme poverty along with widespread corruption. These last ten years were particularly harsh for Haiti, which went through one of the world's deadliest earthquakes in 2010, an epidemic of cholera, brought in accidentally by United Nations peacekeepers, and Hurricane Matthew in October 2016.
Pollution from a factory. (photo: Science Focus)
Google Funds Climate Deniers
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "Google has continued to curry political favor with staunch conservatives by making substantial financial contributions to more than a dozen groups that deny that the climate crisis is real, as The Guardian revealed in a bombshell investigation."
READ MORE
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "Google has continued to curry political favor with staunch conservatives by making substantial financial contributions to more than a dozen groups that deny that the climate crisis is real, as The Guardian revealed in a bombshell investigation."
READ MORE
