Trump 40: Donald Trump and the Chamber of Incompetence

[47of74]

Here’s a response to a fuckhead tweet about how the GOO will be the party if great healthcare.

 

 

 

 https://twitter.com/itsjefftiedrich/status/1111353731151478784

 

[CTRLZero]

From the Seattle Times, Anti-Trump "Chick" tracts:

Spreading the anti-Trump gospel - Seattle Times

 

Spoiler

 

Little Dickie Glitz was born rich. His parents gave him lots of stuff, but he was never satisfied and always hollered for more. His parents were lax in the manners department, so Dickie earned a reputation as the loud, spoiled neighborhood brat. The other kids didn’t like to play with Dickie — every time he started losing a game, he stormed away, yelling: “I quit! This game is rigged!”

These habits continued into adulthood, and Dickie became a rich, arrogant loudmouth who made a deal with a devilish-looking guy (who bore a striking resemblance to Vladimir Putin) and somehow got elected President of the United States.

That’s the basic narrative arc of “I’m Rich!,” a roughly 3-by-5-inch comic-book tract printed on cheap, newspaper-grade paper and lightly sprinkled with gallows-humor wit and relevant Bible verses: “You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24), “Everyone who is arrogant is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 16:5), “Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness” (Luke 12:15).

“I’m Rich!” and its companion tract (“Good Morning Amerika”) were created and published by an enigmatic group called Patriotic Christians for a Better America (PCBA), who have been anonymous — until now. (Its national headquarters is in a cozy house in Seattle’s Columbia City neighborhood, but we’ll get to that in a minute.)

These comic booklets, created by Patriotic Christians for a Better America, are parodies of the evangelical Christian Chick tracts left in public areas like bus stops.

Despite their mysterious origins, PCBA tracts have made their way around the country.

Russell Clark, a professional tree climber and trimmer for older, wealthy clients in Florida (most, he says, are Republicans) leaves copies at bus stops, inside newspaper boxes and on bathroom counters in restaurants and bars. Susan Squier, a professor emerita at Penn State University, has been driving around red counties in Pennsylvania, surreptitiously scattering them at gas stations and Home Depot stores. Liz Paz, a retired schoolteacher and principal who is originally from Colombia, but now lives in Arizona, has handed out tracts at community meetings.

“I love the concept,” said Susan Welch, a retired social worker in Minnesota, who’s been leaving them at grocery stores and forwarding them to people in other states. “I feel like our country is in a crisis, but it doesn’t strike me that protests are that effective and I’ve done the ranting and raving to my senators.”

Squier, the Pennsylvania professor, has also cycled through the political-action go-tos: phone banks, donating to campaigns, attending climate-change and women’s marches. “But I like the more guerrilla stuff,” she said. “Which is why I like this so much.”

Squier is one of the few national distributors who has actually met a PCBA member. (They talked at a conference on comics and health care.) The rest just heard about the project, sent their mailing addresses to some stranger in Seattle and waited for their boxes. So far, the PCBA says it’s sent tens of thousands of tracts around the U.S. They’d like to send more.

Inspiration strikes

In January 2017, right around the time of President Trump’s inauguration, a group of Seattle friends (an artist, a doctor, the principal of a private elementary school, a few others — who grew up in a variety of faith backgrounds) got together for a dinner party. Everyone was miserable.

“It was just people sitting around feeling broken,” Barry Wright, the principal, said. The reality of Trump’s new presidency and concern about worst-case scenarios (which could change the lives of their friends, students and patients, of immigrants, Muslims and whomever else was vulnerable to Trump supporters’ most extreme and least charitable impulses) hung over the table like a ghoul. “It was just shock and worry,” Wright said, “asking ourselves: ‘What should we do?'”

“I don’t even like thinking about how I felt then,” said Kathryn Rathke, the artist. “It really was kind of hysterical, the panic.” Among them, everybody in the group felt like they’d exhausted their options to resist the rise of President Trump: volunteering, donating, protesting, networking.

Then inspiration struck: Chick tracts. Why not write and draw a parody of Chick-tract-style cartoons, but with a twist? Instead of the scare-’em-straight evangelical Christianity of the originals, they could make wry but serious cartoons about a different kind of wayward soul, a sorta-kinda Trump-ish character, then circulate them around the country. It would be satire in the classic mold of Jonathan Swift or Stephen Colbert — humorous, with a strong undercurrent of real-life urgency.

“I’m Rich!” is one of the comic booklets created by Kathryn Rathke (artist) and Barry Wright (writer, organizer) of the group Patriotic Christians for a Better America, which has made guerrilla political... (Kathryn Rathke and Barry Wright) More

 

For those unfamiliar with Chick tracts, a quick primer: In the 1960s, an evangelical Christian named Jack Chick started making and circulating pocket-size cartoons for distribution wherever potential sinners lingered: libraries, bus stops, train stations, college campuses. The tracts (which often featured graphic, gruesome tortures in hell and on Earth) took aim at anyone who didn’t fit Chick’s mid-20th-century, fundamentalist Christian mold: gay people, marijuana smokers, teens who played Dungeons & Dragons, kids who went trick-or-treating on Halloween, Muslims, Mormons. (One tract, titled “The Death Cookie,” claims the Catholic sacrament of communion was invented by Satan.)

According to its 2019 sales catalog, Chick Publications has sold more than 900 million tracts since its start in 1961. The No. 1 best-seller, “This Was Your Life” (in which an angel takes a man’s soul to watch a movie version of his life, then tosses him into a lake of fire), has been translated into 119 languages, including Burmese, Low German, and various versions of Sotho and Hmong.

“They’re just sad little tracts,” Wright said. “Insanely negative, no nuance, screaming all the time, a lot of hating others.” Which, he said, made them a fitting inspiration. “The Trump administration feels like a Chick tract. It’s all so loud. When I think back to somebody I disagreed with in the past, President George H.W. Bush, at least there was some nuance. Now it’s all yelling and cartoons.”

“The idea took hold right away,” Rathke said. “Most things the Chick tracts address is so much hyperbole, fire and brimstone — but in this case it seemed to fit: ‘OK guys, we have a real fire-and-brimstone situation. This is serious.'”

PCBA was born.

Targeting swing states

Rathke and Wright (who are married) got to work on “I’m Rich!” while the others found contacts around the country, emailing people affiliated with Indivisible, the national network of left-leaning volunteers who sprung up in the wake of the 2016 election.

Their target audience: people in swing states who voted for Obama in 2012, then Trump in 2016. According to data analysis from American National Election Studies, roughly 13 percent of Obama 2012 voters went for Trump; the political firm Global Strategy Group estimates those voters, concentrated in swing states, were 70 percent of the reason Hillary Clinton lost Obama’s vote total.

When someone responded, PCBA sent boxes of tracts with a letter explaining the mission and places to drop them: laundromats, bowling alleys, public restrooms, anywhere undecided voters might be idling.

Wright and Rathke also took tracts when they traveled, leaving them at the usual spots, plus airport boarding gates for flights bound toward swing states. “Distributing them is a gas,” Rathke said. “The trick is to not look suspicious, like ‘of course I belong here,’ but it takes a certain amount of gumption.”

Wright gets a particular kick out of dropping them at gun shops: “When you’re in Trump country and putting these out, it feels a little punk rock … just stacks of these things interspersed with the ammo.”

PCBA started anonymously (Rathke, who specializes in portraits with highly expressive lines and flourishes, even dulled down her drawing style to make it more generic) for two reasons. First, the group wanted to emulate the mystery of Chick tracts in the pre-internet era, when the messages seemed to have been dropped from heaven. But fear was a factor, too. Some members of PCBA work with vulnerable populations; others have kids. “We were worried about being attacked and worried about being harassed,” said the doctor who, like some other members of the group, still declines to use his name. “We don’t want any trouble.”

So why go public now? “If that spoils the surprise for some people to some small degree, that’s fine,” Rathke said. “There’s more to be said for throwing out a bigger net.” And, Wright added, knowing about PCBA might inspire others.

Because PCBA didn’t have an email address, the group doesn’t have a good idea of what happened to all those 3-by-5-inch cartoons. (It finally got one: betteramericanow@gmail.com.)

“It’s still weird that heavy boxes of those things went into the ether,” Rathke said. “I hope they’ve gotten to some honest-to-God Christians who were OK with this guy [Trump], but might be grappling with that in some way. I honestly don’t know how they could reconcile it. Hopefully, these tracts could be something to help them think through that conundrum — or maybe make them feel a little squirmy.”

Down in Florida, Clark says he’s watched tract readers look delighted, or disgusted, or thoughtful.

“Personally, I think they’re a riot,” he said. “It’s sad. But at the same time it’s amusing.”

In the final image of “I’m Rich!,” Dickie Glitz stands on the White House roof, waving a bullwhip, yelling: “Mine! ALL MINE! Ha ha! I AM THE BEST!” while the Putin-ish devil grins in a corner.

The last page is blank except for the words: “… Jesus wept.”

 

 

This story has been updated with the correct year of President Trump’s inauguration.

Brendan Kiley: bkiley@seattletimes.com. Brendan Kiley is an arts and culture reporter at The Seattle Times

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"How Donald Trump inflated his net worth to lenders and investors"

Spoiler

When Donald Trump wanted to make a good impression — on a lender, a business partner, or a journalist — he sometimes sent them official-looking documents called “Statements of Financial Condition.”

These documents sometimes ran up to 20 pages. They were full of numbers, laying out Trump’s properties, debts and multibillion-dollar net worth.

But, for someone trying to get a true picture of Trump’s net worth, the documents were deeply flawed. Some simply omitted properties that carried big debts. Some assets were overvalued. And some key numbers were wrong.

For instance, Trump’s financial statement for 2011 said he had 55 home lots to sell at his golf course in Southern California. Those lots would sell for $3 million or more, the statement said.

But Trump had only 31 lots zoned and ready for sale at the course, according to city records. He claimed credit for 24 lots — and at least $72 million in future revenue — he didn’t have.

He also claimed his Virginia vineyard had 2,000 acres, when it really has about 1,200. He said Trump Tower has 68 stories. It has 58.

Now, investigators on Capitol Hill and in New York are homing in on these unusual documents in an apparent attempt to determine whether Trump’s familiar habit of bragging about his wealth ever crossed a line into fraud.

The statements are at the center of at least two of the inquiries that continue to follow Trump, unaffected by the end of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. On Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said it had requested 10 years of these statements from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA.

And earlier this month, the New York state Department of Financial Services subpoenaed records from Trump’s longtime insurer, Aon. A person familiar with that subpoena, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation, said “a key component” was questions about whether Trump had given Aon these documents in an effort to lower his insurance premiums.

Both inquiries stemmed from testimony last month by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, who told Congress that Trump had used these statements to inflate his wealth — and then sent them to his lenders and his insurers.

“Mr. Trump is a cheat,” Cohen said, in describing what the statements showed.

Cohen told Congress that statements were given to Deutsche Bank, as Trump sought a loan to buy the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. Since then, Deutsche Bank and another Trump lender have also received subpoenas, from the New York State attorney general.

The statements may additionally draw the interest of the House Financial Services Committee, which is scrutinizing Deutsche. A committee spokesman declined to comment.

The White House declined to comment for this report.

The Trump Organization also declined to comment about the statements or answer questions about specific errors the statements contained. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the president’s sons who are running his business, noted on social media that Cohen has provided false testimony about other topics.

Mazars USA, the accounting firm, issued a brief statement Wednesday after the House Oversight letter became public, saying that it “believes strongly in the ethical and professional rules and regulations that govern our industry, our work and our client interactions.” It declined to comment further about Trump.

The Washington Post reviewed copies of these documents for 2002, 2004, 2011, 2012 and 2013 — obtaining them from court files, from people who received them from Trump’s company, and from Cohen. Cohen also provided copies of documents from 2011, 2012 and 2013 to Congress.

Since the 1980s, Trump has defined himself by his wealth, but he has often avoided providing proof to back up his boasts or provided documents that inflated the real values. As president, Trump has declined to release his tax returns, unlike every president since Jimmy Carter.

Trump is far from the first real estate developer to inflate his projects or wealth. But there are laws against defrauding insurers and lenders with false information. Financial and legal experts said it’s unclear at this point whether Trump will face any legal consequences. They said it depends on whether Trump intended to mislead or whether the misstatements caused anyone to give him a financial benefit.

“How much would [the errors] impact an investor?” said Kyle Welch, an assistant professor of accountancy at George Washington University. “If it’s systematic and it’s across the board, and it’s all in one direction, that’s where you have a problem.”

Welch said Trump could be protected by disclaimers that his own accountants added to the statements, warning readers that they weren’t seeing the full picture. And in an odd way, Welch said, Trump could be helped by the sheer scale of the exaggerations. They were so far off from reality, Welch wondered whether any real bank or insurer could have been fooled.

Welch said he’d never seen a document stretch so far past the normal conventions of accounting.

“It’s humorous,” Welch said. “It’s a humorous financial statement.”

Investigators for the New York State Department of Financial Services, which sent subpoenas to Aon, and the New York State attorney general — who subpoenaed Deutsche Bank — declined to comment. Aon and Deutsche Bank also declined to comment, beyond saying they plan to cooperate with investigators.

The story of Trump’s “statements of financial condition” — in essence, sales brochures for Trump the man, given out by Trump the company — goes back to the early 1980s, according to past testimony from Trump’s accountants and staffers.

In 2007, a Trump lawyer named Michelle Lokey said she had sent these statements out to Trump’s lenders, for projects in Chicago and Las Vegas, because Trump had personally guaranteed those loans. That meant that if Trump’s company defaulted on its obligations, the lenders could come after Trump’s personal assets.

“Therefore they’d want information on his net worth?” an attorney asked Lokey.

“I assume,” she said.

The statements were prepared by Trump’s longtime accountants, a firm now called Mazars. In other contexts — such as when one of Trump’s companies was seeking to secure a federal contract — this firm prepared rigorously audited financial statements.

This was a different sort of job.

When compiling these statements of financial condition, those accountants have said they did not verify or audit the figures in the statements. Instead, when Trump provided them data, they wrote it down without checking to see whether it was accurate.

“In the compilation process, it is not the role of the accountant to assess the values,” said Gerald J. Rosenblum, one of the accountants. “The role is to accept those values and move them forward.”

An attorney asked: Do the values have to be logical?

“The value per se does not have to be logical,” Rosenblum said. He and Lokey were deposed as part of a lawsuit in which Trump sued a New York Times reporter for allegedly lowballing his net worth. Trump’s suit against the reporter was later dismissed.

In 2014, Trump used the same accounting firm to prepare financial information for his most expensive development project in decades, his $200 million transformation of the historic Old Post Office Pavilion in downtown Washington into a Trump International Hotel.

But in that case, Mazars vouched for the accuracy of the information, writing that the firm “is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these financial statements” using industry standard accounting rules. This was a formal audit of finances related just to Trump’s D.C. hotel, rather than a summation of all of his assets based on Trump’s own estimates.

The statements Cohen provided to The Post — and to Congress — begin in 2011. Two of them are 20-page “Statements of Financial Condition” signed by Trump’s accountants.

In his testimony to Congress, Cohen said these statements included Trump’s self-appraisals of his buildings’ value — which aimed to impress, instead of aiming for reality. Cohen said Trump would take real measures of value, such as the amount of money his tenants paid in rent, and simply inflate it until he got a number he liked.

“If you’re going off of your rent roll, you go by the gross rent roll times a multiple,” Cohen said. “And you make up the multiple.”

The documents begin with two-page disclaimers, warning of various ways in which the statements don’t follow normal accounting rules. The accountants note that Trump is the source of many buildings’ valuations — and that, contrary to normal accounting rules, he had inflated them by counting future income that wasn’t guaranteed.

The accountants also note that Trump had told them to simply omit two of his major hotels, in Chicago and Las Vegas. Both buildings were carrying mortgages. That omission means that some of Trump’s actual debt load was hidden from anyone reading the statement.

“Users of this financial statement should recognize that they might reach different conclusions about the financial condition of Donald J. Trump” if they had more information, the statement concludes.

Legal experts interviewed by The Post said that sort of broad disclaimer might shield Trump from allegations that he misled his lenders and insurers. After all, his own accountants told readers they weren’t getting the full story.

“The transparent disclaimers — even if frustrating — typically wipe out a basis” for bringing charges of fraud, said Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor who is now a private attorney at Dickinson Wright.

In 2012, Trump’s statement said he owned a 2,000-acre vineyard in Virginia. But land records in Virginia show the Trump family owns about 1,200 acres. The Trump winery’s own website says 1,300 acres.

In 2011, the statements said that Trump’s Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, N.Y., was “zoned for nine luxurious homes.” In the statement, Trump said those homes would yield significant cash flow as he built them and sold them. That led him to value the property at $261 million — far more than the roughly $20 million value assigned by local assessors.

At the time, Trump had received preliminary “conceptual approval” to build homes on the site. But local officials said he never finished the last step in the approval process to build the homes or sell the lots.

None of the homes was built.

The 2013 statement that Cohen provided — and which he said was also given to Deutsche Bank, in pursuit of a loan to buy the Bills — is different from the other two.

It is just two pages long, with a slightly different title: “Summary of Net Worth.” It does not include the usual disclaimer from Trump’s accountants, so readers aren’t told that the debts from Trump’s Chicago and Las Vegas hotels are missing.

This document also includes a new “asset” that wasn’t there before.

It says that Trump’s brand value — his name, essentially — was worth $4 billion, and that it ought to be counted among his assets as if it were a building or a resort. With his brand included, Trump’s net worth jumped from $4.6 billion to $8.6 billion.

For Trump, the Bills would have been a financial prize far larger than any he had won in the recent past: Bids were expected to be around $1 billion.

In public, Trump had bragged that he was ready to pay $1 billion in cash. But privately, one of his lieutenants told a business contact that they were struggling with the bid.

“We are looking at the Bills but Allen and I are having trouble making the numbers work!!!” wrote Ron Lieberman, an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, in an email to a contact in the New York City parks department. “Allen” likely meant Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s longtime chief financial officer.

Lieberman’s email was released this year in response to a public-records request from a nonprofit group, NYC Park Advocates. Lieberman and Weisselberg did not respond to requests for comment this week.

Whatever Trump sent to Deutsche Bank, it seems to have been enough: The New York Times reported that Deutsche Bank agreed to vouch for Trump’s bid for the Bills, citing an unnamed executive. But Trump lost a bidding war, and somebody else bought the team.

 

[AnywhereButHere]

This is my new water bottle. I'm hoping it's subtle enough for my office. I'm giving it a shot to see how long I can get away with it...

[Ozlsn]

On 3/29/2019 at 1:46 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

This week, a mild-mannered Utah Republican, Mike Lee, gave a speech on the Senate floor about Ronald Reagan riding a velociraptor.

I honestly don't know what I want more, artwork of this or artwork of Trump as Queen Esther. Actually if someone could do Trump and Pence in all the suggested Biblical figures I'd be happy!

[GreyhoundFan]

7 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

I honestly don't know what I want more, artwork of this or artwork of Trump as Queen Esther. Actually if someone could do Trump and Pence in all the suggested Biblical figures I'd be happy!

Couldn't find anything with Dumpy as Esther.

[Ozlsn]

23 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

It’s humorous,” Welch said. “It’s a humorous financial statement.”

So if a small business provided a "humorous" financial statement to investors what are the odds they would not be charged with fraud? This is one of the things that pisses me off - farmers going bankrupt and being held to pay out a $2000 debt in full while Alan Bond discharges bankruptcy for under 10 cents/dollar, Trump (and this firm) coming up with 'humorous' financial statements that are basically fraudulent. The disclaimer should only protect the firm, not the person giving the fraudulent information.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Oh, if only this were true...

Trump aides fear ‘tired’ president is wearing down and may not have the energy for 2020 campaign: report

Quote

Buried deep within a New York Times report on plans being made for Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election effort, some aides to the president are worried the 72-year-old president is showing signs of his age and may not campaign as hard as he did in 2016.

Of immediate concern to the campaign staffers is the possible uphill battle they will face in securing the electoral votes in the Midwestern battleground states that — surprisingly — went for Trump in 2016.

The Times reports, “Democrats and Republicans see an electoral map that will be far more challenging for Mr. Trump, whose support in three key states has sagged, and who faced an invigorated and organic level of Democratic turnout.”

Additionally, Trump’s people fear an internal revolt that might disrupt his path of the nomination.

“Mr. Trump’s experience at the 2016 convention, when a group of “Never Trump” Republicans that included high-profile delegates like Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was a searing experience for him, aides say, and his team is looking to avoid a repeat,” the Times reports.

Then there is the matter of Trump’s age and his refusal, as of late, to schedule multiple rallies — including ones that involve substantial travel.

“After two years in office, Mr. Trump, 72, is tired, aides said. The unstoppable campaigner, so far, will commit to participating in only one campaign event a day, and recently balked at a possible rally out West during a fund-raising swing,” the report claims. “The rally may still happen, people familiar with the plans said, but only because campaign officials insisted on it.”

 

[47of74]

Fornicate Face cheats at golf.  Of course.

Quote

Sixteen of the last 19 US presidents have played golf — and now, in Donald John Trump, the nation can finally boast the very best of them all.

Well, that’s what he’d like you to believe.

“To say ‘Donald Trump cheats’ is like saying ‘Michael Phelps swims,'” writes Rick Reilly in the new book “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump” (Hachette Book Group), out Tuesday. “He cheats at the highest level. He cheats when people are watching and he cheats when they aren’t. He cheats whether you like it or not. He cheats because that’s how he plays golf … if you’re playing golf with him, he’s going to cheat.”

In a game where etiquette is everything, Reilly reports that Trump never takes his cap off for the end-of-round handshake, nor does he remove it in the clubhouse afterward, presumably for fear of what damage a sweaty round might have done to that hairstyle.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I guess we know one of the topics that will be covered in tomorrow's twitter meltdown: "Federal judge declares Trump’s push to open up Arctic and Atlantic oceans to oil and gas drilling illegal"

Spoiler

A federal judge in Alaska declared late Friday that President Trump’s order revoking a sweeping ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans is illegal, putting 128 million acres of federal waters off limits to energy exploration.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason is the third legal setback this week to Trump’s energy and environmental policies. The judge, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2012, also blocked on Friday a land swap the Interior Department arranged that would pave the way for constructing a road through wilderness in a major National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, ruled that Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service illegally approved two gas drilling plans in western Colorado. The judge said officials did not adequately analyze wildlife and climate impacts in their plans — which were challenged by a coalition of environmental groups — to drill 171 wells in North Fork Valley, which provides key habitat for elk and mule deer.

Trump’s rollbacks of Obama-era conservation policies have suffered nearly two dozen setbacks in federal court, largely on procedural grounds. While the administration is appealing many of these decisions and holds an advantage if the cases reach the Supreme Court, the rulings have slowed the president’s drive to expand fossil fuel production in the United States.

Earlier this month, for example, a federal judge halted drilling on more than 300,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Wyoming. Friday’s decision on offshore drilling could affect a five-year leasing plan the administration plans to issue in the summer, as well as block the six offshore lease sales it proposed to schedule in the Arctic Ocean starting as early as this year. Friday’s decision applies to 98 percent of the Arctic Ocean, as well as undersea canyons in the Atlantic spanning a total of 3.8 million acres, stretching from the Chesapeake Bay to New England.

“President Trump’s lawlessness is catching up with him,” Erik Grafe, the lead attorney from the environmental law organization Earthjustice who argued to reinstate Obama’s leasing withdrawals in the Arctic and Atlantic, said in an interview Saturday. “The judge’s ruling today shows that the president can not just trample on the constitution to do the bidding of his cronies in the fossil fuel industry at the expense of our oceans, wildlife, and climate.”

Industry officials, however, said the administration could forge ahead with its offshore drilling process as litigation continued. They also noted that the withdrawals did not cover the entire Eastern Seaboard.

“While we disagree with the decision, our nation still has a significant opportunity before us in the development of the next offshore leasing plan to truly embrace our nation’s energy potential and ensure American consumers and businesses continue to benefit from U.S. energy leadership,” said Erik Milito, vice president of upstream and industry operations for the American Petroleum Institute.

But Grafe noted that the five-year plan the administration plans to issue this year sets a schedule for lease sales, which is now barred in the areas designated by Obama.

“I think they’d have a hard time scheduling a lease sale in a place that’s now permanently off limits,” he said. “The law of the land of the land today is no drilling in most of the Arctic Ocean, and in these important areas in the Atlantic.

The Interior Department declined to comment Saturday.

In her Friday ruling, Gleason wrote that the law in which Congress gave the president authority over offshore drilling — the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act — expressly allows for leasing withdrawals but does not state that a subsequent president can revoke those withdrawals without congressional approval.

“As a result, the previous three withdrawals issued on January 27, 2015 and December 20, 2016 will remain in full force and effect unless and until revoked by Congress,” she wrote.

Rebecca Logan, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, said in an email that members of her oil and gas trade group did not see the decision as the final word.

“Anything done by administrative action can be undone by administrative action,” Logan said. “This question will work its way through the courts, and eventually I expect Judge Gleason’s decision will be reversed.”

In a separate decision earlier in the day, Gleason found that then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did not provide sufficient justification for reversing the government’s stance on whether to allow a small, remote Alaska town to construct a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge.

Residents of King Cove have argued for years that they need to bisect the refuge, which has been protected for decades and provides a critical rest stop for migratory waterfowl, for medical evacuations under rough weather.

In a statement Friday, local leaders there vowed to continue their fight.

“The people of King Cove deserve to have access to a higher level of care, especially when the unforgiving weather prevents them from traveling from their isolated community by air or boat,” said Aleutians East Borough Mayor Alvin D. Osterback. “This land exchange would have accomplished that.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also promised to continue pushing for building the road, which otherwise would be prohibited in a wilderness area. “I will never stop until this road is a reality and the nearly 1,000 residents of this isolated community have a lifeline for emergency medical care,” she said.

Opponents counter that the federal government has provided millions in funding to give town residents alternative forms of transport and warn that a road would fragment critical habitat. They also cite expert testimony that any road through the refuge would be impassable during snowstorms.

“Here, the Secretary’s failure to acknowledge the change in agency policy and his failure to provide a reasoned explanation for that change in policy are serious errors,” Gleason wrote.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump plans U.S. aid cut to 3 Central American countries as fight widens over U.S.-bound migrants"

Spoiler

MEXICO CITY —  President Trump plans to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to three Central American countries in retaliation for what he called their lack of help in reducing the flow of migrants to the U.S. border.

The move was one of Trump’s harshest yet as he escalates a confrontation with Mexico and Central America over a surge in irregular migration, largely involving children and families seeking asylum. 

Trump has already warned that he could close the U.S.-Mexico border — or at least large stretches of it — next week unless Mexico takes further steps to halt migrants heading north.

The State Department said in a statement Saturday that it would be “ending . . . foreign assistance programs for the Northern Triangle” — a region representing El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — for the past two years. The aid affects nearly $500 million in 2018 funds and millions more left over from the prior fiscal year. The money was destined for Central America but hadn’t yet been spent.

Trump’s action was the culmination of a months-long battle in the U.S. government over the aid program, which grew substantially under the Obama administration and was intended to address the root causes of migration — violence, a lack of jobs and poverty.

Some Trump administration officials felt the program had failed to achieve enough results and in recent months have been looking into alternatives. But the president’s decision to cut off the remaining funds appeared to take many people by surprise. It came just a day after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen signed what the department called a “historic” memorandum of cooperation on border security in Central America. 

One former U.S. official said there was “chaos” in the State Department and embassies overseas as officials tried to figure out whether they had to cancel existing contracts, or simply not renew them. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities. 

The number of apprehensions along the U.S.-Mexico border has been soaring, with more than 76,000 migrants taken into custody in February, most from Central America. On Friday night, during a trip to Florida, Trump faulted governments in the region for the increase. 

“I’ve ended payments to Guatemala, to Honduras and El Salvador. No more money is going there anymore,” Trump told reporters. “We were giving them $500 million. We were paying them tremendous amounts of money, and we’re not paying them anymore because they haven’t done a thing for us.”

Democratic officials, aid groups and former officials said Trump’s action could boomerang, by shrinking or eliminating some of the very programs keeping would-be migrants in Central America. 

“Ironically, our goals of having people stay and thrive in El Salvador are very similar to the current administration’s,” said Ken Baker, chief executive of at Glasswing International [glasswing.org], which runs education, health and entrepreneurship programs in El Salvador and receives USAID funding. “Through our programs we’ve been able to provide opportunities and the belief that they [would-be migrants] can thrive here.”

“The key is to get them to before” they leave for the United States, he said. “When you’re talking about the problem at the border in the U.S., it’s already too late.”

Jim Nealon, a former U.S. ambassador to Honduras, said that Trump didn’t seem to understand the way the Central American aid program worked. The U.S. government doesn’t give the money to foreign governments, but rather “to programs designed and implemented by the U.S., with the cooperation of governments and civil society,” he said. Much of them are administered by nonprofit groups. 

He also said Central American governments aren’t seeking to send their citizens to the United States. “To the contrary, they already cooperate with us in trying to deter migration. But they can’t prevent their citizens from leaving the country.” 

Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are among the poorest countries in the hemisphere, and among the most violent in the world. 

Over the past year, Trump has seized on the formation of giant caravans of U.S.-bound migrants as evidence that Mexico and Central America are doing little to discourage migration. On Saturday, he warned in a tweet that he would close the border unless Mexico used “its very strong immigration laws to stop the many thousands of people trying to get into the USA.”

Authorities in the region have said they are taking what measures they can under their laws. Mexico, for example, has offered thousands of temporary humanitarian visas to migrants permitting them to stay and work in the country. 

Raul Lopez, vice minister of justice in El Salvador, said in an interview Friday that the flow of migrants from his country was actually slowing.

“We see that as proof that our investment — and the investment of the international community — in social issues is working,” he said. “U.S. assistance has had a positive impact in reducing migration from El Salvador, but we need more help to continue this fight.”

It was unclear whether Congress would try to block Trump’s decision to shift the Central American aid elsewhere. A delegation of congressional Democrats visiting El Salvador on Saturday called the administration’s move “counterproductive” and said they would “do everything in our power to push back on the president’s misguided approach to Central America.” The group included Rep. Eliot L. Engel (N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. 

While Congress appropriates the money spent by the U.S. government, the president has some wiggle room to reprogram funds, according to congressional staffers.

Adam Isaacson, a senior official at the Washington Office on Latin America, a research and advocacy group, said presidents have shied away from reprogramming money because it irritates lawmakers, who can retaliate by declining to fund key administration projects. “It’s just a strong, strong custom” in Congress, he said. “If you go against our will on this, we will get you in the next appropriations bill.”

Unauthorized crossings of the U.S. border have hit their highest level in a decade, although they are still well below the peak of 1.6 million in 2000. But the migrant flow has changed in character. While most migrants used to be Mexican men who could be easily deported, now they are asylum-seeking families who are entitled to protections under federal law. 

Border Patrol agents have been overwhelmed in recent weeks by the arrival of large numbers of Central American families and children, many of whom are being quickly released into local communities because of a lack of detention space. 

The announcement of the aid cutoff comes as a new caravan of about 2,000 Central Americans and Cubans is crossing Mexico. Trump has threatened to close the border next week because of the rising flows of migrants.

Trump has also declared a national emergency to divert funds for construction of a giant border wall, but he is facing court challenges. Immigration analysts say a wall would do little to stop the flow of asylum seekers, who typically surrender to U.S. officials as soon as they cross the border to petition for relief. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[formergothardite]

4 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Trump tends to say stuff and then expects that people will make it happen. He said the GOP has a better health care plan so in his mind they will just create one. The concept that they can't come up with a better plan doesn't enter his mind. He will rant and rave at them when they can't create the magical health care plan he has demanded they create.  But the GOP absolutely does not want to go into the next election having snacked health care away from America. I doubt they even want to discuss health care at all. They know there is no better plan then what Obama started creating. 

[Howl]

Nobody seems to remember that Trump promised this amazing health care plan during the campaign and had two glorious years of a Republican majority in the House and Senate to bring it to fruition.  They came up with shit to improve health care for Americans.  Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. 

It's just one aspect of the cognitive dissonance afflicting the GOP and Trump's base. Like, he promised X, Y, Z and delivered nothing, and everything IS worse (I just lost my farm!) but, because Trump + MAGA, it's GREAT! 

 

Edited March 31, 2019 by Howl

[Drala]

On 3/31/2019 at 8:10 AM, formergothardite said:

Trump tends to say stuff and then expects that people will make it happen. He said the GOP has a better health care plan so in his mind they will just create one. The concept that they can't come up with a better plan doesn't enter his mind. He will rant and rave at them when they can't create the magical health care plan he has demanded they create.  But the GOP absolutely does not want to go into the next election having snacked health care away from America. I doubt they even want to discuss health care at all. They know there is no better plan then what Obama started creating. 

Problem is, large portions of the Affordable Care Act is a Republican health care plan.  The individual mandate, creation of purchasing pools, standardized benefits, vouchers to subsidize insurance, and a ban on denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition were introduced by Repug senators in 1993 as an alternative to Clinton's single-payer proposal.  Repugs have their heads up their asses when it comes to health care policy.  

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"President Trump has made 9,451 false or misleading claims over 801 days"

Spoiler

It was only 200 days ago, on his 601st day in office, that President Trump exceeded 5,000 false or misleading claims.

Now, on his 801st day, the count stands at 9,451, according to The Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement the president utters. That’s a pace of 22 fishy claims a day over the past 200 days, a steep climb from the average of nearly 5.9 false or misleading claims a day in Trump’s first year in office.

Of course, not every day yields 22 claims. The president’s tally expands when he’s giving a speech, usually at a campaign rally. At such events, he runs through many of his favorite lines, such as that he passed the biggest tax cut in history, that his U.S.-Mexico border wall is already being built and that the U.S. economy today is the best in history. All three of those claims are on The Fact Checker’s list of Bottomless Pinocchios.

At a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on March 28, for instance, Trump made 64 claims that ended up in the database. Many have been previously covered in our fact checks, but here are some fresh statements that are worthy of attention.

“They [Hillary Clinton] had a tiny, little crowd, and I had I’d like to say more, but I can’t have more than this because every seat is gone, and outside you have 25,000 people. And I remember leaving, and I said so she’s got 500 people, and I had 32,000 people including the people outside. So she’s here at prime time 7:30, I’m here at 1 in the morning. She has 500 or 600 people, I have 32,000.”

As usual, Trump inflates the number of people attending one of his rallies. The Detroit Free Press reported that night that DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids, where Trump held a midnight rally, has a capacity of 4,200, far less than the 32,000 he claimed. Clinton held her rally the same day at nearby Grand Valley State University; it was described as a “capacity crowd” at a venue that holds 4,100 people.

“I support the Great Lakes. Always have. … And I’m going to get, in honor of my friends, full funding of $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which you have been trying to get for over 30 years. So we will get it done. It’s time. It’s time. It’s time.”

Trump is being very misleading here. His administration has continually tried to eliminate or reduce funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a program for restoring the ecosystem of the Great Lakes that started under the Obama administration in 2010. Federal funding ranged from nearly $300 million to $450 million a year under Obama. Trump’s 2018 budget request would have zeroed out all funding — the administration wanted “responsibility for funding local environmental efforts and programs to state and local entities” — and his 2020 budget would have cut it by 90 percent. Notwithstanding Trump’s proposed cuts, Congress appropriated nearly $300 million in 2019.

“They [Great Lakes] are beautiful. They are big, very deep, record deepness, right?”

Lake Superior is 1,332 feet deep, but it is not even the deepest freshwater lake in the United States. The deepest is Crater Lake, a volcanic crater in southern Oregon, with the deepest measured depth at 1,949 feet. Lake Tahoe and Lake Chelan are also deeper than Lake Superior, so it ranks fourth in the United States. Lake Baikal in southern Russia is the world’s deepest lake. It is an estimated 5,387 feet deep. Lake Baikal is also the world’s largest freshwater lake in terms of volume. Worldwide, Crater Lake ranks ninth, and Lake Superior does not even make the top 20; it is the 37th-deepest lake in the world.

“In the last two years, we’ve embarked on an unprecedented economic revival. Unprecedented.”

By just about every metric, Trump inherited a thriving economy that was doing far better than he claimed on the campaign trail. He frequently said the unemployment rate was 42 percent, when it was actually 5 percent — a number he embraced once he took the oath of office.

“In Texas, you heard we won the case [on the Affordable Care Act]; now it has to be appealed, and then we will go to the United States Supreme Court.”

The Trump administration originally did not seek a sweeping repeal of the Affordable Care Act. It simply asked that the court nullify provisions that protected people with preexisting health conditions. So the court ruled beyond the administration’s position. But Trump now declares that is a win. The refusal to defend the law was a flip-flop from Trump’s pledge to retain protections for people with preexisting health conditions. Few legal experts think the ruling will survive the appeal process.

“The deductibles and Obamacare are so high, on average $7,000. You don’t get to use it unless a really great tragedy hits, and then you don’t really want it because you don’t give a damn about your deductible, right?”

Deductibles vary according to the type of plan people buy. Trump appears to be referring to “Bronze plan” deductibles, which are $6,258 when prescription drugs and medical spending are in the deductible; the deductibles for Silver, Gold and Platinum plans are much lower. Silver plans are the most common choice in the marketplace and have equivalent deductibles of $4,375. The Affordable Care Act included subsidies that helped keep premiums low for most people on the exchanges. Trump eliminated cost-sharing reduction payments that compensate insurance companies for offering mandatory discounts on out-of-pocket spending to lower-income customers. Ironically, that led to even bigger premium subsidies as companies increased premiums to make up for the loss of income.

“Remember this because it’s very important, and I’m speaking now for the Republican Party: We will always protect patients with preexisting conditions, always.”

The House and Senate GOP plans backed by Trump probably would have resulted in higher costs for people with preexisting conditions in some states, according to the Congressional Budget Office. As noted above, the Trump administration did not defend the Affordable Care Act against a lawsuit that would end protection for preexisting conditions.

“The Democrats are now advancing an extreme $100 trillion government takeover called the Green New Deal.”

The estimate Trump is citing comes from a Republican-aligned think tank; it’s actually $93 trillion, and it factors in things that are not in the resolution, such as building high-speed rail at a scale at which air travel becomes unnecessary.

“I love campaigning against the Green New Deal. I want [Democrats] to make that a big part of their platform. No more airplanes, no more cows. One car per family. … And we had a problem because when they didn’t want the airplanes, they were saying, ‘Well, how do you get to Europe?’ ”

In reality, the Green New Deal resolution has no teeth and wouldn’t become law if it passed. So these claims are based on a retracted FAQ about a nonbinding resolution. In these documents, proponents of the Green New Deal mused about ending air travel. As problematic as those lines were, none made it into the resolution. High-speed rail would become an airplane alternative for some travelers under the terms of the Green New Deal, but it wouldn’t end commercial air travel. Travelers who prefer flights over high-speed rail would still have a choice. As for cows, Trump is referring to a line in the FAQ intended to be an ironic reference to the effect of cow emissions.

“We lost 1 in 4 auto manufacturing jobs over the last few decades.”

This statement lacks context. The auto and auto parts manufacturing sectors reached a peak of 1.3 million jobs in June 2000. The number of jobs decreased by more than half, to 623,000, in June 2009, the end of the Great Recession. The number of jobs now tops 1 million, but much of that growth predates Trump. Only about 55,000 auto and auto parts jobs have been created since he took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We lost over the last six, seven years with Mexico $100 million. Before NAFTA, we made $40 [billion] to $50 billion.”

Trump frequently exaggerates the size of trade deficits — with Mexico, it was $78 billion in 2018, $69 billion in 2017 and $62 billion in 2016. Countries do not “lose” money on trade deficits. A trade deficit simply means that people in one country are buying more goods from another country than people in the second country are buying from the first country. Trade deficits are also affected by macroeconomic factors, such as currencies, economic growth, and savings and investment rates.

As for the trade deficit with Mexico before the North American Free Trade Agreement, the United States ran trade deficits in goods (Trump’s preferred metric) with Mexico five out of the 10 years before the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, according to the Census Bureau. In the years when the United States ran a goods surplus, it was never more than $5 billion and usually about $1 billion to $2 billion. But what matters is not the deficit or surplus but rather the level of trade between the two countries. Cross-border trade in goods was about $100 billion in 1994, compared with more than $500 billion in 2018. According to the Commerce Department, U.S. exports of goods and services to Mexico supported an estimated 1.2 million jobs in 2015 (the latest data available).

“Last month alone, more than 76,000 illegal immigrants arrived at our borders to be apprehended. We have to apprehend them. Do you know what a great job — I mean seriously think of that, 76,000 people, many of which are rough people.”

Trump says there are 76,000 “illegal immigrants,” but almost 53,000 of the total are family units, unaccompanied children or “inadmissibles” who present themselves at the border seeking asylum. It’s a different situation from that of the mostly single men who tried to cross the border in large numbers in the early 2000s. Under Trump, the Customs and Border Protection agency has been releasing a combined total, but the “inadmissibles” — who numbered 9,653 in February — are not part of the apprehensions. Inadmissibles include “individuals encountered at ports of entry who are seeking lawful admission into the United States but are determined to be inadmissible, individuals presenting themselves to seek humanitarian protection under our laws, and individuals who withdraw an application for admission and return to their countries of origin within a short timeframe.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[47of74]

I was thinking this morning this should’ve been the chamber pot of incompetence. Maybe chamber pot could be a title for a future fuckhead thread. After all the executive branch is one giant chamber pot now.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump hits out at ‘crazed and incompetent’ Puerto Rican leaders after disaster bill fails"

Spoiler

Hours after the Senate voted down a disaster relief package that Democrats argued didn’t include enough money to help storm-ravaged Puerto Rico, President Trump took to Twitter on Monday night to lash out at the opposition party and the island’s leaders.

Trump, who has reportedly said in private that he doesn’t want “another single dollar” going to Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, again complained about funding for the island and called San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, a frequent critic, “crazed and incompetent.”

“The Democrats today killed a Bill that would have provided great relief to Farmers and yet more money to Puerto Rico despite the fact that Puerto Rico has already been scheduled to receive more hurricane relief funding than any ‘place’ in history,” Trump tweeted around 11 p.m. “The people of Puerto Rico are GREAT, but the politicians are incompetent or corrupt.”

Trump’s late-night outburst suggests there won’t be an easy resolution to the political dispute holding up federal money for those deluged in Midwestern floods and hit by other recent natural calamities. Although disaster relief is traditionally bipartisan, Trump’s reluctance to pay more toward Puerto Rico’s recovery has opened a gulf between the parties.

On Monday, Democratic leaders balked at the $600 million for Puerto Rican food stamps in the $13.45 billion package, arguing it wasn’t enough. But Republicans refused to back a Democratic House bill that failed to account for the historic Midwestern flooding, as it passed before that catastrophe. Democrats have said they support paying for flood relief and attempted Monday to amend their House bill with that money, a move the GOP blocked.

In his tweets, Trump raised a familiar, contested figure for disaster relief in Puerto Rico. Although the president has repeatedly claimed that $91 billion has been spent there, that figure actually reflects a high-end, long-term estimate for recovery costs; a fraction of that has so far been budgeted, and even less has been spent.

The president also took aim at Cruz, San Juan’s outspoken mayor who has often taken Trump to task over a botched federal response to Hurricane Maria, which killed an estimated 2,975 people on the island.

“FEMA & the Military worked emergency miracles, but politicians like the crazed and incompetent Mayor of San Juan have done such a poor job of bringing the Island back to health,” he tweeted. “91 Billion Dollars to Puerto Rico, and now the Dems want to give them more, taking dollars away from our Farmers and so many others. Disgraceful!”

Cruz quickly hit back, arguing that Trump was using inaccurate data.

“Pres Trump continues to embarrass himself & the Office he holds. He is unhinged & thus lies about the $ received by PR. HE KNOWS HIS RESPONSE was innefficient at best,” she tweeted. “He can huff & puff all he wants but he cannot escape the death of 3,000 on his watch. SHAME ON YOU!”

Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, who has lately taken a more aggressive tone toward Trump, also pushed back and argued that the president was neglecting American citizens on the island.

“Mr. President, this ‘place’ you refer to, #PuertoRico, is home to over three million proud Americans that are still recovering from the storm and in need of federal assistance,” he tweeted. “We are not your adversaries, we are your citizens.”

As The Washington Post’s Erica Werner and Jeff Stein reported, there’s no clear path forward for the disaster relief package after Monday’s impasse. Trump seems unlikely to back more money for the island beyond the $600 million in food stamp aid, while Democrats are insistent that the bill include greater relief.

“American children and families reeling from natural disasters deserve a Congress and a president who will ensure they have every resource needed to fully recover and rebuild their lives and communities,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued in the New York Daily News over the weekend.

Trump returned to Twitter on Tuesday morning to continue taking aim at leaders of Puerto Rico and also asserted that “the best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AmazonGrace]

Devin Nunes should dive into the oranges of the Mueller investigation.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump shows alarming ignorance when it comes to foreign aid"

Spoiler

There are times when President Trump manages to be so wrong — so empirically groundless, so logically fallacious, so stridently uninformed — that it seems like a form of parody. But more often than not, this reflects an authentic and alarming ignorance. The mask of a barroom political crank turns out to be the face of the president of the United States.

Such appears to be the case in Trump’s recent threat to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras — countries known as the Northern Triangle of Central America — as punishment for their failure to stem migrant flows to the United States.

To make this action a rational one, Trump must imagine that foreign aid is nothing more than cash loaded onto cargo planes and dropped on the presidential compounds of corrupt rulers as reward for subservience to U.S. interests. So he wants to cancel the deliveries until they do what we wish.

The reality of foreign assistance is very different. It is seldom given directly to foreign governments. The work is often contracted to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that work in partnership with locals. And it is generally designed to improve conditions within foreign countries that can give rise to global threats.

This role is obvious, say, in fighting infectious diseases. It is better to deal with an Ebola outbreak as close as possible to the source, rather than waiting for the threat to arrive in Georgia or Kansas. But this is equally true when it comes to a flow of refugees.

Consider an example in Guatemala. More than a decade ago, a remarkable institution called International Justice Mission (IJM) — an NGO dedicated to the fight against modern forms of slavery — began working with local authorities to improve the prosecution of child sexual assault. This partnership improved the capacities of police, prosecutors and courts, while making the whole system less traumatizing for survivors. As a result of the initiative — supported by a grant from the State Department — successful prosecutions in Guatemala have increased by 300 percent, imposing real consequences on predators.

Imagine you had a child and lived in a country where children were raped with impunity. Wouldn’t a dangerous trek north to the United States make more sense? But this program and others like it are threatened by the president’s aid cutoff. In the real world of U.S. interests, we need more of these efforts to reduce the supply side of illegal migration. And the supply side of sexual trafficking. And of criminal gangs. And of the drug trade. And of illegal arms dealing. And of radicalism and terrorism.

One of the main drivers of illegal migration has been the collapse of criminal-justice systems in Central America. And it reflects a global problem. Gary Haugen, the founder of IJM, speaks of a three-tiered global system. Roughly a third of people in the world live in relatively just and stable criminal-justice systems. Another third live under the protection of private security forces — a system that turns security into a luxury good. (In Guatemala, for example, there are seven times more people involved in providing private security than public security.) And a third of people live without the effective protection of the law, experiencing what Haugen calls “everyday violence” from corrupt and exploitative officials.

If U.S. policy does not address the functional collapse of criminal-justice systems in places such as the Northern Triangle, it is not seriously addressing the problem of illegal migration. Yet the IJM program in Guatemala and similar efforts are the kind of spending now being threatened by the president’s announcement. This means that U.S. policy has become self-destructive to U.S. interests.

Aid focused on strengthening police forces got a bad name during the Cold War, when such training was sometimes employed by authoritarian regimes for their own purposes. The United States’ lead aid agency, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), was generally forbidden from promoting this type of training. But now, the lack of justice leading to everyday violence has become a global problem, with consequences that spill up on many shores, including our own. It is a matter deserving policy creativity rather than Trump’s public threats.

It would make far more sense to double assistance for these programs — designed to support local reformers, not to impose American solutions — than to end them. But an absence of vision is one cost of ignorance.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Chinese woman carrying thumb drive with malware arrested at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort"

Spoiler

Secret Service agents arrested a woman at President Trump’s Florida resort this past weekend after she was found carrying two Chinese passports and a thumb drive with malicious software on it, according to court documents.

Prosecutors allege the woman, Yujing Zhang, first approached a Mar-a-Lago security checkpoint on Saturday shortly after noon and told security officials she was there to go to the swimming pool.

“Zhang was asked if the true member . . . was her father, but she did not give a definitive answer,” according to the criminal complaint filed by Secret Service special agent Samuel Ivanovich. “Zhang additionally did not give a definitive answer when asked if she was there to meet with anyone. Due to a potential language barrier issue, Mar-a-Lago believed her to be the relative of member Zhang and allowed her access onto the property.”

Once inside the grounds, Zhang was approached by a receptionist and asked why she was there.

“After being asked several times, Zhang finally responded that she was there for a United Nations Chinese American Association event later in the evening,” the complaint said. “The Receptionist knew this event did not exist” but when the agent, Ivanovich, followed up with further questions, Zhang allegedly said she had arrived early for the event so she could “familiarize herself with the property and take pictures.”

At that point, Zhang presented documentation that she said was her invitation to the event, but it was in Chinese and the agent could not read it.

Agents then took Zhang to a different location to interview her, at which point she became “verbally aggressive,” according to the charging document.

“During the second interview of Zhang, she claimed her Chinese friend ‘Charles’ told her to travel from Shanghai, China to Palm Beach, Florida, to attend this event and attempt to speak with a member of the President’s family about Chinese and American foreign economic relations. Agents were unable to obtain any information more specifically identifying Zhang’s purported contact, ‘Charles’,” the complaint said.

Zhang also told the agents that she had never claimed she was going to the pool.

After Zhang was stopped and questioned, a search of her belongings turned up four cell phones, a laptop, a hard drive, and a thumb drive which contained “malicious malware,” according to the criminal complaint. Authorities said that despite her initial claim to be headed for the pool, she was not carrying a swimsuit.

She is charged with making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and entering a restricted area.

A Secret Service spokeswoman said it was an “ongoing investigation” and declined further comment.