Monthly Archives: October 2019

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Good morning, Im Tim Walker with todays essential stories.

Donald Trump has been accused of incitement to violence after a day in which he appeared to unravel over the impeachment inquiry: again accusing the congressman Adam Schiff of treason at a bizarre press conference with the visiting Finnish president, while denouncing the inquiry as BULLSHIT on Twitter. Schiff, the chair of the House intelligence committee, said on Wednesday that Congress was not fooling around, and insisted the inquiry would not be slowed by presidential stonewalling.

The brother of Botham Jean, an innocent black man murdered in his apartment by a former Dallas police officer, made an extraordinary show of forgiveness after the 26-year-old accountants killer was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday. With permission from the judge, Brandt Jean hugged Amber Guyger in the courtroom, telling her: I love you just like anyone else, Im not going to say I hope you rot and die just like my brother did, but I personally want the best for you.

The Trump administration is manipulating research findings and targeting scientists for political gain while handing improper influence to special interests, according to a nonpartisan taskforce of former government officials who warn that the White Houses war on science is at a crisis point. In a report published on Thursday, the National Task Force on Rule of Law and Democracy said the administration was trying, at times, to undermine the value of objective facts themselves.

EPA cites SF. The EPA has made good on a threat by the Trump administration, issuing an environmental notice of violation to San Francisco over an inaccurate claim linking water pollution to the citys homeless crisis.

Boris Johnson will outline his plan for the Northern Irish border in the House of Commons on Thursday, giving MPs a final chance to challenge his Brexit proposals before a crucial European council summit on 17 October. The UK prime minister has said he wants a deal in place to present at the summit, but the EUs chief negotiator Michel Barnier has already privately described the proposal as a trap, while the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said Johnsons plans do not fully meet the agreed objectives of the backstop.

Close friend. Jennifer Arcuri, the American businesswoman facing scrutiny over her close friendship with Johnson and grants her firm received while he was mayor of London, has insisted all the allegations are false.

World markets fell on Thursday as the US opened a new front in its trade wars by announcing $7.5bn of tariffs on European exports including whisky, wine and aircraft, in retaliation for subsidies awarded to the Airbus group by a WTO ruling.

The Trump administration intends to expand the collection of DNA from migrants at US borders, and to pass that information to the FBI for inclusion in a national criminal database.

Senator Bernie Sanders is recovering and in good spirits following a heart procedure for an artery blockage, his presidential campaign has said. He has nonetheless cancelled all his campaign events and appearances until further notice.

Officials say at least five people have been killed after a second world war B-17 bomber crashed in an aborted takeoff at Bradley international airport in Connecticut on Wednesday. According to reports, there were 13 people onboard the plane.

Prada Marfa artists return to their capitalist parody

Fifteen years ago, when Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset erected Prada Marfa, a non-functioning replica of a Prada boutique on a remote Texas highway, they thought news of its existence might spread quietly, like a rumour. But that was before Instagram and the rise of selfie culture, they tell Janelle Zara.

The years most personal look at immigration

Coverage of Trumps immigration crackdown has rarely focussed on those most affected. A new Netflix documentary series, executive produced by Selena Gomez, aims to change that, writes Adrian Horton. Living Undocumented focuses on eight families living outside the skyscraping walls of American citizenship.

How the alt-right co-opted the OK hand sign

The once-innocuous OK hand sign has now been officially recognised as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League, just like Pepe the Frog and the milk emoji. Co-opting such mundane icons as emblems of fear is all part of the alt-rights hunt for attention, explains Poppy Noor.

What their pop culture tastes say about the 2020 Democrats

In a recent interview, Pete Buttigieg revealed a fondness for Rick & Morty and Rebel Wilsons new Netflix movie. Stuart Heritage rounds up the pop culture preferences of the Democratic presidential candidates, including Elizabeth Warrens surprising affection for Ballers.

Young activists are right when they say global leaders have failed to meet the challenge of climate change, says the UN secretary general, Antnio Guterres. The recent climate summit in New York was designed to jolt countries into taking action and to shine a light on those that refuse.

Our planet needs action on a truly planetary scale. That cannot be achieved overnight, and it cannot happen without the full engagement of those contributing most to the crisis.

Liverpool and Chelsea both claimed hard-won Champions League victories on Wednesday night, over Salzburg and Lille respectively, while two goals from Luis Suarz helped Barcelona overcome an early scare against Inter.

A former collegiate cheerleader who suffered multiple brain injuries during her time on the cheer squad at the University of California, Berkeley, is suing the school, the sports national governing body and her former coaches for failing to implement concussion protocols.

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US briefing: impeachment tantrum, Trump's 'war on science' and Brexit - The Guardian

President Donald Trump speaks at the Hispanic Heritage Month reception at the White House in Washington, September 27, 2019.

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

President Donald Trump again attacked the Federal Reserve on Tuesday after the weakest U.S. manufacturing reading in 10 years.

In a tweet, the president wrote Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the central bank "have allowed the Dollar to get so strong, especially relative to ALL other currencies, that our manufacturers are being negatively affected." He contended the Fed has set interest rates "too high."

"They are their own worst enemies, they don't have a clue," he wrote. "Pathetic!"

As his trade war with China rages on, Trump has repeatedly blamed the Fed's interest rate policy for concerns about a slowing U.S. economy. He has contended the central bank has not moved quickly enough to ease monetary policy though the Fed has cut its benchmark funds rate twice this year.

The Fed did not immediately respond to a request to comment.

Trump's tweet comes after the Institute for Supply Management's manufacturing reading fell to 47.8 in September, down from 49.1 in August. A reading below 50 shows a manufacturing contraction.

The poor economic data contributed to major U.S. stock indexes sliding Tuesday.

The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against a basket of global currencies, has climbed more than 3% this year and sits near its highest level since mid-2017. A stronger dollar relative to global currencies is generally expected to reduce exports and increase imports,hurting manufacturers because it makes their products more expensive overseas.

While exchange rates may have contributed to the drag on manufacturing in September, trade also did, according to ISM.

"Global trade remains the most significant issue as demonstrated by the contraction in new export orders that began in July 2019. Overall, sentiment this month remains cautious regarding near-term growth," Timothy Fiore, chair of the ISM Manufacturing Business Survey Committee, said in a release announcing the data.

Trump has repeatedly downplayed any concerns about a looming American recession. He has also contended his trade conflict with the second-largest economy in the world will not harm businesses or consumers despite indications that it has already started to hurt some companies and worry Americans.

Seeing concerns about a flagging economy as a ploy to discredit him before the 2020 election, Trump has claimed the central bank bears the blame for any slowdown rather than his own policies.

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Trump targets 'pathetic' Federal Reserve after worst manufacturing reading in a decade - CNBC

As the historian Rick Perlstein, author of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, pointed out to me, in the weeks and months after the Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973, prominent members of Congress from both parties called on President Nixon to resign, including Senator Walter Mondale, a Minnesota Democrat, and Senator Edward Brooke, a Massachusetts Republican. Time magazine made the same demand in its first-ever editorial.

After the release of the smoking gun tape that showed Nixon had participated in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, Republican senators, led by Barry Goldwater, solemnly trekked to the White House to tell Nixon he must relinquish the presidency.

In 1998, when the Starr Report was released with its exhaustive tale of President Bill Clintons affair with Monica Lewinsky, 115 newspapers penned editorials calling on Clinton to resign. This week, just a couple of editorial boards have made a similar demand of Trump.

The summary of Trumps phone conversation with Zelensky suggests a malfeasance thats arguably worse than Nixons. Yet, not only have Republicans failed to call for resignation, few are even willing to acknowledge that what the president did was wrong. Democrats have been equally reluctant to use the r word.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand infamously helped to push Al Franken out of the Senate by calling for him to resign. Not long after, she was among a group of Democrats who called on Trump to step down over a series of sexual assault allegations in what looked like an attempt to show consistency after the Franken imbroglio.

Earlier this year, when pictures emerged of Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia in blackface, Democrats fell over each other making similar calls. Same with the states lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, after allegations of sexual assault were made against him. Neither man resigned and considering that Frankens decision to leave the Senate is now viewed by many Democrats as a mistake, perhaps the new normal is simply to weather the storm.

But with Trump, the lack of resignation calls almost certainly has more to do with the fact that everyone knows hed never do it. Why bother making an ask that will just be cited by Republican as evidence of partisan intent and ignored?

Heres one reason: A call for resignation is a statement of principle that Trumps actions so clearly violate the public trust that his position in office has become untenable. Its an acknowledgment that the president has lost his moral standing and must do the right thing and surrender power. Perhaps above all, its drawing a line in the sand and saying that this behavior is egregious and theres only one right course of action for the president.

A call for resignation is as much about the moral and ethical standards of the person making the demand as the target himself or herself.

Of course, the standard of doing whats best for the country is a quaint nostrum in Trumps America.

When you have a president so completely immune from shame; and when he is enabled by a political party so infected by partisanship that winning is more important than acknowledging wrongdoing and holding leaders accountable, the idea of a selfless political act has become almost laughably antiquated.

Perhaps the most dispiriting element of the whistle-blowers complaint is that multiple individuals around the president all of whom swore an oath to uphold the Constitution appear to have understood he committed a grave abuse of power, and then went to great lengths to cover it up. The heroism of the whistle-blower is sadly matched by the cowardice of Trumps enablers.

Democrats are, of course, right to call for Trumps impeachment. Same goes for the nations editorial boards. But are they so inured to the presidents unending malfeasance, corruption, and law-breaking that they cant make the obvious call for resignation?

Trump should of course step down. He should have done it a long time ago. Its not a close call. Stating that publicly is not an example of partisan bomb-throwing, rather its the precise opposite: a principled recognition that some things are more important than politics.

Michael A. Cohens column appears regularly in the Globe. Follow him on Twitter @speechboy71.

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Forget impeachment. Donald Trump needs to resign - The Boston Globe

The University of Florida will pay $50,000 for Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is a senior adviser for President Donald Trumps 2020 campaign, to speak on campus next week.

The duo will speak in the University Auditorium on Oct. 10 at 7 p.m., according to a Facebook page for the event.

Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle will give a keynote presentation that concludes with a 15-minute question and answer session, according to ACCENT Speakers Bureau, the student organization thats hosting the event.

After receiving immense pushback online, the University of Florida defended ACCENTs choice in choosing Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle to speak.

The University, in its statement on freedom of expression, has committed itself to ensuring that a wide variety of viewpoints are heard on campus as well as to protecting the First Amendment rights of all those in attendance, UF said in a statement Wednesday. The University believes it is an essential component of its academic mission to foster an environment where divergent ideas, opinions and philosophies, new and old, can be rigorously discussed and critically evaluated.

ACCENT is run by UFs student government and pays speakers using students activity fees, which are $19.06 per credit hour. The organization says Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle, who are dating, will be the first speakers of the fall semester.

UF students will be allotted one ticket per person. If any tickets remain on the day of the talk, the general public may get free tickets from the University Auditorium box office after 5 p.m., ACCENT says. (Students can find more details on how to claim their ticket here.)

Gainesville isnt the first university-stop this year for Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle. They joined Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk at Penn State University in April for a talk that drew a crowd of roughly 700, according to PennState Comm Media.

Video from the event showed a variety of topics were discussed ranging from President Trumps presidency to the potential struggle for conservatives on college campuses, as well as a bashing of the Mueller report, Green New Deal and countless chants of USA, USA, USA.'

The vast majority of those in attendance in April were supporters, with only a half dozen protestors being vocal during the talk. Those protestors and hecklers were then escorted out by police, according to the Centre Daily Times, with no arrests.

The $50,000 price tag for Trump Jr., who is the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, is relatively modest in comparison to recent speakers hosted by ACCENT. Kevin OLeary, a former panelist of the ABC show Shark Tank, was paid $95,000 to speak at the university, while Pitbull took home $130,000 last October in a talk.

The immediate reaction on social media to ACCENTs announcement of Trump Jr. and Guilfoyleon on Tuesday was near-completely negative.

This is an embarrassment to UF, wrote Kaylin Bailey, a student.

Dozens of others shared the same sentiment.

Please tell me this is some early April fool? wrote Jennifer Donelan, another Twitter user. Wow. You have terrible judgment, said another.

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Donald Trump Jr. and senior Trump campaign advisor to speak at UF - Tampa Bay Times

Just about every day Donald Trump busts a norma norm of politics, a norm of governance, a norm of decency. Thisnever-ending fusillade makes it is easy to lose sight of his individual acts of lowering (or demolishing) standards. Yet on Thursday morning, Trumps top intelligence official presented a stunning reminder that Trump has violated what ought to be an important principle: A president should not brazenly lie and make shit up.

Yes, I know, Trump does this All The Time. And everyonethe media, Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and citizens throughout the landhave become inured to his audacious prevarications. Often, his false claims are directly contradicted by his own hirelings. (Case in point: Virtually all of Trumps top national security appointees have stated they accept the intelligence communitys assessment that Russia covertly intervened in the 2016 election to help Trump, though Trump has repeatedly discounted or dismissed this finding.) Yet it still is important to push the pause button when one of Trumps senior advisers publicly undermines Trumps demagoguery and offers evidence that Trump is a doesnt-give-a-damn-about-the-truth deceiver-in-chief. And thats what happened when acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire appeared before the House Intelligence Committee for a fiery hearing focused on Trumps latest scandal: the presidents alleged attempt to muscle the Ukrainian president to produce dirt he could use to undermine special counsel Robert Muellers investigation and to harm Joe Biden.

The subject, of course, was Maguires handling of a complaint sent by an unidentified intelligence official to the inspector general for the intelligence community that accused the president of abusing his office for political purposes and that claimed White House officials tried to bury evidence of this misconduct. Its this controversy that has finally pushed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to declare that House Democrats were transforming their multiple investigations of Trump into an impeachment inquiry. Since this story emerged days ago, Trump has been fighting back in his usual manner of denying reality and disseminating false narratives and chargesthat is, gaslighting. And a key component of his counter-attack has been denigrating the anonymous whistleblower.

Trump has brutally gone after the whistleblower in a series of tweets. He questioned his or her loyalty, asking, Is he on our Countrys side? He called this member of the intelligence community highly partisan and suggested this person was part of a conspiracy mounted against Trump by Democrats and the media. In a tweet citing a Fox News analyst, Trump accused the whistleblower of spying on him by secretly listening to his conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Trump was suggesting the whistleblower had committed a criminal act.) In another tweet citing another right-wing commentator, Trump essentially said the whistleblower was part of a cabal mounting a malicious and seditious effort against him. And Trump retweeted a conservative activist who claimed that the intelligence communitys inspector general had concluded the whistleblower had a political bias against Trump. (The IG found some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the Complainant in favor of a rival political candidate but nevertheless determined that the whistleblower was credible.)

That is, before the whistleblowers complaint was released on Thursday morning, Trump had mounted a robust smear campaign against this unknown person, pronouncing him or her a rat-fink and a traitor who was out to get Trumpa person whose complaint could not be taken seriously.

At the Maguire hearing, the acting DNI was asked about the whistleblowerwhose identity remained a secret. Is the whistleblower a political hack, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the committee queried. Maguire replied, I believer the whistleblower is acting in good faith. Schiff followed up: You dont have any reason to accuse them of disloyalty to our country? Maguire provided an unequivocal response: Absolutely notI think the whistleblower did the right thing.

In other words, there was no basis for Trumps denunciations of the whistleblower.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) returned to this subject. She asked Maguire, Do you believe the whistleblower was spyingon the president? Maguire answered, I believe the whistleblower complied with the law and did everything they thought, he or she thought was responsible under the Intelligence Community Whistleblowers Protection Act. Referring to one of Trumps tweets, Speier continued: Do you believe the whistleblower is on our countrys side? Maguire replied, I believe that the whistleblower and all employees who come forward to the [intelligence community] IG to raise concerns of fraud, waste, and abuse are doing what they perceive to be the right thing. That was a careful answer, but surely no endorsement of Trumps claim that the whistleblower was engaged in treasonous action.

Speier then asked Maguire if Trump had asked him to share the identity of the whistleblower. I can tell you emphatically no, he said. And had anyone else in the White House or Justice Department done so? No, he said.

So if Trump and the White House did not know the whistleblowers identity, how could Trump question this persons loyalty, blast him or her as a partisan plotter, and accuse the whistleblower of spying? You know the answer: Trump doesnt need facts to mount a smear campaign. (Did Roy Cohn?) Trump concocts phony conspiracies and misleading narratives all the time. (Remember birtherism?) When caught in a misdeed, his first instinct is to attack and vilify, the truth be damned. After all, when has Trump been held accountable for such malfeasance?

The Ukraine scandal is yet another indication that Trump places his private interests over public service and recognizes few restraints when it comes to abusing the power of his office. And this instance of his lies being revealed by the man who runs the intelligence community for Trump signals yet again that Trump is a serial fabulist. In days past, a president caught in such blatant lying might actual suffer consequencesat least, a few pokes in the media and perhaps even within his own party for besmirching a US government official. These days, this Trump lie is just another piece of straw in one huge haystack. Trumps intelligence chief tells us that Trump is a liarand though the contradiction has drawn media attention, Trumps action is hardly covered as outrageous.Thats a sign of Trumps victory in his war against the norm of honesty.

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Trump's Intelligence Chief Offers a Timely Reminder: Trump Is a Liar - Mother Jones