The Trump administration reiterated on Sunday the president’s threat to close the border with Mexico, regardless of potentially severe consequences for the US economy.
Related: Under the bridge: migrants held in El Paso tell of dust, cold and hunger
Continue reading...Fellow players have accused president of cheating, says former Sports Illustrated columnist in book to be published Tuesday
Donald Trump played golf on Saturday and Sunday at his course in Jupiter, Florida. According to custom, once off the fairways the president tweeted angrily on political subjects.
Related: From victory to vengeance: Trump scents blood in 2020 fight
Continue reading...Deep in the deep Rio Grande Valley, plans for president Trump’s wall would cut through towns and communities. In Madero, families fear the loss of their livelihood but vow to resist
Rey Anzaldua walks the path, through a pluvial afternoon on the Rio Grande reach opposite Mexico, towards the little church where he has worshipped “since I was five years old”– the lovely chapel of La Lomita, built in 1865 on a Spanish land grant of 1767. It is a jewel: candle smoke and the musky scent of whitewashed stone wrapping the Virgin of Guadalupe icon and offerings of flowers and corn.
Rey’s family has been here since the 1750s. His extended family “had three Spanish land grants between 16,000 and 18,000 acres along the Rio Grande river and the bridge between,” Rey said. “We don’t have much of that now.”
Continue reading...It is difficult not to marvel at the scale of Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal achievement. Israel’s prime minister celebrates 10 consecutive years in power on 31 March. His country’s youngest-ever leader in 1996, he has been re-elected three times since 2009, matching David Ben-Gurion’s record. As matters stand, he has a good chance of winning again in polls on 9 April.
Netanyahu’s political achievement is altogether less marvellous. Under his grimly negative, fearful tutelage, Israeli society has shifted steadily rightwards. Attitudes to a peace settlement with the Palestinians have perceptibly hardened. Thanks in large part to Netanyahu’s uncompromising stance, the issue no longer occupies centre stage as it once did.
Continue reading...Records obtained by Guardian show Stephen Moore reprimanded by judge for not paying alimony, child support and other debts
Stephen Moore, the economics commentator chosen by Donald Trump for a seat on the Federal Reserve board, was found in contempt of court after failing to pay his ex-wife hundreds of thousands of dollars in alimony, child support and other debts.
Related: Trump’s Federal Reserve pick owes $75,000 in taxes, US government alleges
Continue reading...Lawmakers will receive findings from the Trump-Russia investigation, with no plans for Trump to add his own edits
Congress will be given a redacted version of Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report by mid-April and there are no plans for Donald Trump to add his own edits, the US attorney general, William Barr, said on Friday.
Related: Mueller report release: Barr says Congress will get redacted version by mid-April – live
Continue reading...President wrongly claims special counsel’s report fully exonerated him as he woos voters in Grand Rapids, Michigan
Donald Trump continued his assault on the media and Democrats on Thursday night, wrongly claiming “total exoneration, complete vindication” at his first rally since Robert Mueller submitted his report.
Trump dedicated about half of his approximately 90-minute speech in front of a raucous audience at Grand Rapids to the topic, labeling the accusations and investigation “ridiculous bullshit”. The president bounced between theories about why the special counsel’s investigation happened and attacks on his opponents.
Continue reading...In his first rally since the release of Robert Mueller's report to US attorney general William Barr, Donald Trump has given a 90-minute diatribe against the media and the US Democratic party, claiming he had been 'totally exonerated' after an investigation he described as the 'single greatest hoax in the history of politics in this country'. He also spoke on several other issues critical to his Michiganian audience, including the automobile industry and preservation programs for the Great Lakes.
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The Oklahoma Democratic Party’s headquarters were vandalized with anti-semitic graffiti early on Thursday morning, KFOR.com is reporting.
“Employees of the building on NW 37th and Classen Blvd reported Swastika drawings, neo-Nazi messages, and death threats spray painted in the parking lot and on the door of the property,” KFOR said.
It’s upsetting to the extent that our culture now and our country, it drives people to this type of expression [...] It encourages people to speak out violently. It’s clearly a crime. It’s clearly a hate crime.
Kirsten Gillibrand, senator for New York and Democratic presidential hopeful, released her tax returns yesterday – the first candidate for president to do so.
The return showed that she earned about $218,000 in 2018: $167,634 from her salary and $50,000 from book sales. The New York Times reported that Gillibrand paid $29,170 in federal taxes.
Continue reading...Meanwhile, key Republican reportedly tells Trump renewed plan to scrap Affordable Care Act ‘makes no sense’
Gabrielle Canon here, taking over for Jessica Glenza
Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe is getting closer to a decision on whether or not to enter the already heavily-saturated Democratic race for the white house in 2020, CNN reports.
While McAuliffe has spent the last week on a spring break vacation with his family, he has also been making calls to donors and longtime friends as he comes closer to making a final decision. One friend described him as ‘almost ready to jump in — he sees no reason not to’”.
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Study suggests Brazil likely to rush to fill China’s sudden soy shortfall by boosting farming
The Amazon rainforest could be the greatest casualty of the trade war between the United States and China, warns a new study showing how deforestation pressures have surged as a result of the geopolitical jolt in global soy markets.
Up to 13m hectares of forest and savannah – an area the size of Greece – would have to be cleared if Brazil and other exporters were to fill the huge shortfall in soy supply to China that has suddenly appeared since Donald Trump imposed hefty tariffs, according to the paper published in Nature.
US exports of the commodity, primarily used to feed livestock, to China plummeted by 50% last year, which the authors say is an unusually sharp level of decline between two trading partners outside wartime.
President opposes additional disaster aid for territory, saying funds were out of proportion to what mainland states got
Donald Trump told a meeting of Republican lawmakers that hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico had gotten too much rebuilding money compared with mainland states like Florida and Texas, hardening his opposition to further disaster aid for the US island territory.
Trump’s ardent opposition to additional Puerto Rico funding sets up a showdown with House Democrats, who insist that a $13bn to $14bn disaster aid package that’s a top priority for southern Republicans won’t advance without further aid for the island.
Continue reading...We wanted Robert Mueller to rescue us. The death of that fantasy means the real work for Democrats can now begin
We should have known better. We should have known better! We should have learned from the time that we believed we were on the verge of the first female president – the derivative T-shirts, the chilling champagne – only to find that our hopes had been dashed by a racist misogynist demagogue. Yet here we are again, a mass of deflated blue balloons, as the Monday morning headlines confirming our worst fears. Robert Mueller has issued his report. And Donald J Trump is still the president, happily golfing our taxes away.
Related: No collusion, plenty of corruption: Trump is not in the clear | Richard Wolffe
Continue reading...Avenatti charged with attempting to extort millions from Nike, and also charged with wire and bank fraud in separate case
The high-profile attorney Michael Avenatti was charged with trying to extort more than $20m from the sports company Nike.
Avenatti, the former lawyer for Stormy Daniels and a prominent critic of Donald Trump, threatened to release damaging information about Nike unless it paid him off, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal authorities in New York.
Continue reading...Findings play into the president’s narrative of ‘no collusion’ as he embraces the role of victim
Donald Trump is set to weaponise the special counsel’s finding of no collusion with Russia in his bid for re-election, turning vindication into vengeance with an assault on Democrats and the media.
Robert Mueller found no evidence Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia to influence the 2016 election and reached no conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice, according to a four-page summary of his findings by the attorney general, William Barr.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has complained of a 'false narrative' promoted by people who have done 'evil ... treasonous things' after the completion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into allegations of collusion with Russia. US attorney general William Barr's summary, released on Sunday, said the report had not established that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government. 'We can never let this happen to another president again,' the US president said, promising to 'look into' those people
What’s in the attorney general’s summary of the Trump-Russia investigation? And will the report be made public?
William Barr: Although my review is ongoing, I believe that it is in the public interest to describe the report and to summarize the principal conclusions reached by the Special Counsel and the results of his investigation.
Continue reading...Bill Barr released a summary of the long-awaited report into allegations the Trump campaign colluded with Russia
The US Attorney general Bill Barr released a summary on Sunday of special counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report into allegations that Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
Here are the main findings of the two-year investigation that the president regularly denounced as a witch hunt, before claiming vindication upon its completion:
Continue reading...Donald Trump is claiming 'complete and total exoneration' following the release of a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's report into collusion with Russia. The president spoke before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington from Florida on Sunday afternoon. The Justice Department said that Mueller's investigation did not find evidence that Trump's campaign 'conspired or coordinated' with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Mueller also investigated whether Trump obstructed justice, but did not come to a definitive answer
Special counsel Robert Mueller found that neither Donald Trump nor any of his aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, according to a letter delivered to Congress on Sunday by the US attorney general.
Related: No collusion, plenty of corruption: Trump is not in the clear | Richard Wolffe
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