The Serious Side - part 7

annemarie wrote:I wouldn't vote any of the women candidates at this point. Why is there so much interest in reparations ? 

That will never happen in America.

There are some very qualified women running who I would consider voting for. I wouldn't vote for any woman - or man - who smeared other candidates over stupid nothing issues just to get a leg up in the primaries.

I don't know who first brought up the issue of reparations this time around, but Pete Buttigieg has a sensible, logical take on the issue. Dedicate funding to communities of color for economic development, education, etc.. Something like that is do-able. Sending a check to every person of color based on their family history is not.

I think reparations will be a hard sell.  Cynics will say that those Democratic candidates campaigning on the issue are just looking to garner the black vote next year.  Racial wealth inequality is a huge problem in this country and however we attack it has to be through some substantive program.  And realistically no Republican Senate will vote for a reparations policy ... or Medicare for all, free college tuition, universal childcare.  If we ever get a Democratic majority in both Congressional houses AND a Democratic President then we can really do some good things for this country.

As a mere observer, I think Buttigieg is very impressive...

That is how I feel about the reparation talk  is just to garner black votes. I agree Donnamarie it will take a sweep Democrats
to get anything good done.

For some candidates supporting the issue of reparations may be just a way to get votes, but the African American community is smart enough to see through that. If something realistic isn't proposed it won't help anyone get votes. It might even keep some people away from the polls. That's why I think Buttigieg's solution is a move in the right direction.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6906821/Israel-looks-set-shift-right-Netanyahu-wins-election.html

[size=34]Netanyahu 'wins' Israel election and begins task of putting together right-wing coalition as he eyes party that wants to kick Arabs out of the country[/size]

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks set to keep power after election
  
  
• His party drew with rival Benny Gantz but his allies did better than expected, potentially giving him a 65 seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset
  
  
• Talks on the new coalition have now begun, and are expected to last for weeks
  
  
• Key to the talks will be what role, if any, the extreme Otzma Yehudit party, which is part of the Union of Right-Wing Parties, will play in the new government  
  
  

By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 06:13 EDT, 10 April 2019 | UPDATED: 08:09 EDT, 10 April 2019

     



Israel was poised for a shift to the right after Benjamin Netanyahu claimed victory in the country's election, firing the starting gun on tough coalition talks.
At the negotiating table will be the Otzma Yehudit party, whose leader was banned from running in the election over racist remarks and which has called for Arabs to be expelled from Israel.
Also present will be two Ultra-Orthodox parties - Shas and United Torah Judaism, both long-term allies of Netanyahu - who increased their seats at this election.
But the likely king-maker will be the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party which has already started playing hardball by threatening to deny Netanyahu his majority. 

If Netanyahu can successfully navigate the talks, which could last until the end of May, his prize will be becoming the longest-serving Israeli Prime Minister in history.


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Benjamin Netanyahu looked set to become Israel's longest-serving Prime Minister after his Likud party and its right-wing coalition partners secured the most seats in the country's parliament (shown left). Rival Benny Gantz's Blue and White party and his allies fell short of forming a viable government (top right), with Arab parties collecting a total of 10 seats (bottom right)


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Benjamin Netanyahu looked set to become Israel's longest-serving Prime Minister after he claimed victory in the country's general election


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Netanyahu celebrated in front of supporters along with wife Sarah after exit polls showed his right-wing coalition with a clear path to power


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Before Netanyahu can be sworn in, however, he must navigate weeks of tough negotiations with his potential allies to form a government


Under Israel's complex proportional representation voting system, no single party has ever won enough seats to claim a majority, so victory depends on intricate alliances between disparate groups.
Netanyahu's Likud party and their likely allies walked away from the vote with 65 seats, compared to 45 for rival Benny Gantz's Blue and White party and their allies.
Two Arab parties picked up a total of 10 seats.
While the result puts Netanyahu in prime position to form the next government, the vote saw the make-up of his future coalition shift since the last election in 2015. 
Some of the Prime Minister's tradition allies - such as the New Right party - were kicked out of the Knesset and replaced with more extreme alternatives.

Israel election results 

With 98 per cent of ballots counted, the results are...
Likud: - 35 seats 
Blue and White: 35
Shas: 8
United Torah Judaism: 8
Labor: 6
Hadash-Ta'al: 6
Union of Right-Wing Parties: 5
Yisrael Beytenu: 5
Kulanu: 4
Meretz: 4
Ra'am Balad: 4
Likely right-wing alliance: Likud, Shas, UTJ, URWP, Yisrael Beytenu, Kulanu
Likely centre-left alliance: Blue and White, Labor, Meretz
Arab parties: Hadash-Ta'al, Ra'am Balad 



Chief among them is the Union of Right-Wing Parties, itself comprised of three smaller parties - The Jewish Home, Tkuma, and Otzma Yehudit - the latter of which is known for its harsh views towards Israeli Arabs. 
The party's leader, Ben-Ari, was banned from running in the 2019 race for 'incitement to racism' after he branded Israeli Arabs 'enemies'. 
A sticking point during talks will be what role, if any, Otzma Yehudit gets in the new government.
Netanyahu himself lobbied the union to include Otzma in its ranks during the election to avoid splitting the right-wing vote.
He also showed his willingness to compromise to their demands after saying on the campaign trail that he would annex Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Rafi Peretz, leader of the union, demanded two ministerial roles on Wednesday in return for backing Netanyahu and refused to rule out a role in parliament for Otzma. 
Meanwhile the Yisrael Beytenu party began leveraging the five seats it won by refusing to back Netanyahu until 'clear answers' are given over the direction of the new government.
Party leader Avigdor Liberman told the Times of Israel that he would not back Gantz, but would also not commit to backing Netanyahu.
Should Yisrael back out of the talks it would bring Netanyahu's seat-share down to 60, denying him a majority. 
The biggest losers on election night were the New Right party, which contains two former senior ministers, and the 'dark horse' Zehut party, run by a pro-cannabis libertarian, who both failed to garner enough votes to enter parliament.
New Right leader Naftali Bennett was still holding out hope on Wednesday morning that the uncounted 3 per cent of ballots would contain enough votes for his party to squeak into the Knesset, as they were just 4,300 short. 
But even if his party does secure the required votes, it will do little to change the outcome of the election, because he is allied to Netanyahu.


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Key to Netanyahu's talks will be the role of the Otzma Yehudit party, whose leader Ben Ari (pictured) was banned from running in the elections for racist comments about Arabs


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Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beytenu party, began talks by threatening to walk away from the new alliance until 'clear answers' are given over the government's direction


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Benny Gantz had celebrated victory himself on Tuesday night after exit polls put him ahead, but as the night wore on his chances faded


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Gantz raised the prospect of 'a political manoeuvre' on Wednesday morning, but barring a major failure of coalition talks he has little chance of taking power
Gaining ground was Ultra-Orthodox party Shas, which looks set to become the joint-largest party in the new coalition government alongside United Torah Judaism, another Ultra-Orthodox organisation.
The combined powers of both parties will likely pull the new government to the Right, further dimming hopes of a negotiated solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Coalition talks are set to last throughout April and into May as Netanyahu thrashes out deals with his allies, before the new government is sworn in early in June.  
Both Mr Netanyahu and his challenger, former military chief Benny Gantz, leader of the rival Blue and White party, had declared victory in speeches to boisterous gatherings of supporters on Tuesday night.
But as the night went on, there were growing signs that Mr Netanyahu's Likud was pulling ahead.
'It's a night of tremendous victory,' Mr Netanyahu told supporters. 'I was very moved that the nation of Israel once again entrusted me for the fifth time, and with an even greater trust.'
He said he had already begun talking to fellow right-wing and religious parties about forming a new coalition.
He said: 'I want to make it clear, it will be a right-wing government, but I intend to be the prime minister of all Israeli citizens, right or left, Jews and non-Jews alike.'
The 69-year-old prime minister has been the dominant force in Israeli politics for the past two decades and its face to the world. 
His campaign has focused heavily on his friendship with President Donald Trump and his success in cultivating new allies, such as China, India and Brazil.
But the corruption scandals created some voter fatigue. Along with two other former military chiefs on his ticket, Mr Gantz was able to challenge Mr Netanyahu on security issues, normally the prime minister's strong suit, while also taking aim at the prime minister's alleged ethical lapses.
Israel's attorney general has recommended charging Mr Netanyahu with bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
But earlier Mr Gantz also claimed victory in the election and said: 'We won! The Israeli public has had their say!' 
Mr Gantz, who has been vague on key policy issues, has presented himself as a clean, scandal-free alternative to Mr Netanyahu.
By Wednesday morning, with 97 per cent of the votes counted, Likud and Blue and White had won 35 seats each.
But Mr Netanyahu was in a stronger position to form a coalition government with the anticipated support of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, Likud's natural allies.
Such a coalition could rest on 65 votes in the 120-member parliament.
Earlier in the night, with fewer of the votes counted, Blue and White still appeared to be ahead by one seat and Gantz projected optimism.
'Elections have losers and elections have winners. And we are the winners,' Mr Gantz told a victory rally shortly after midnight.
Mr Netanyahu's message of unity was a sharp contrast from his campaign theme in which he accused Mr Gantz of conspiring with Arab parties to topple him.
Arab leaders accused Mr Netanyahu of demonising the country's Arab community, which is about 20 per cent of the population.
His attacks on the Arab sector fuelled calls for a boycott and appeared to result in relatively low turnout by Arab voters.
The final results are subject to change. Some 40 parties took part in the election, and only those that receive at least 3.25 per cent of the votes make it into parliament.


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Benjamin Netanyahu voted in Israel's election on Tuesday as he bids to become the longest-serving Prime Minister in the country's history





Once the final results come in, attention will turn to President Reuven Rivlin.
The president, whose responsibilities are mostly ceremonial, is charged with choosing a prime minister after consulting with party leaders and determining who has the best chance of putting together a majority coalition. That responsibility is usually given to the head of the largest party.
The election included several other surprises. The Labour party, which ruled the country for its first 30 years, tumbled to single digits in the parliament.
If Mr Netanyahu is re-elected, attention will quickly focus on his legal woes.
The attorney general has recommended a series of criminal charges against the prime minister but will only make a decision on indicting him after a legally mandated hearing. Legal experts expect at least some charges to be filed.
Mr Netanyahu will likely focus his efforts on getting guarantees from his coalition partners to continue to back him if he is indicted, and perhaps find a way to grant him immunity from prosecution.
Mr Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and claimed he is the victim of a witch hunt. 


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Rival Benny Gantz (pictured alongside wife Revital) has overtaken Mr Netanyahu in the polls, but the incumbent has a better chance of forming a coalition - giving him the advantage


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Mr Netanyahu urged voters to 'choose well' as he cast his ballot in the country's election alongside wife Sara at a school in Jerusalem 
Palestinian official Saeb Erekat lamented that the Israelis voted to maintain 'the status quo'.
'They want their occupation to be endless,' he said. 

If Netanyahu wins he will become the longest serving Israeli Prime Minister in history, surpassing founding father David Ben-Gurion. 
Casting his vote at a polling station in Jerusalem, Netanyahu urged Israelis to 'choose well', adding: 'This is a sacred act, the essence of democracy, and we should be thankful for that.'
He added: 'You need to choose well, but I can't tell you for whom. Or I can, but I'm not going to. God willing, Israel will win.' 
Gantz, a retired military chief, voted in his hometown of Rosh Haayin in central Israel alongside his wife, Revital, calling on Israelis to vote and 'take responsibility' for their democracy.









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6.4million people were eligible to cast votes and election day is a public holiday in Israel 


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A woman casts her ballot as Israelis vote in the election at a polling station in Tel Aviv, Israel


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An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man stands behind a voting booth before casting his ballot in Israel's general elections
'Go to vote. Choose whoever you believe in. Respect each other and let us all wake up for a new dawn, a new history,' he said.
The election has emerged as a referendum on Netanyahu and his 13 years overall in power, with the existential questions facing Israel rarely being discussed. 

Israel election timeline 

Israelis vote Tuesday in a high-stakes general election, but under the country's complex electoral process it could be weeks before a government emerges. Here is a timeline:
April 10 The Central Elections Committee will release preliminary results after most ballots have been counted.
About 40 parties ran in the election but only a dozen are likely to have garnered enough votes to get a seat in parliament. 
A day or two after the votes are counted President Reuven Rivlin will open consultations with the parties elected and ask them to recommend who is best placed to form a coalition government. 
April 17 The deadline for the elections committee to announce final official results, after ruling on any appeals or legal challenges.
April 23 The elected legislators are sworn in at the opening session of the new Knesset, or parliament.
April 24 The deadline for Rivlin to announce his choice for an attempt to form a coalition.
The candidate has an initial 28 days to do the job, with a further 14-day extension available on demand.
Should the attempt fail, Rivlin can again take soundings among the parties and ask another candidate to try to build a viable alliance.
This time the attempt is limited to 28 days in total.
If that too fails, two more attempts are granted to other candidates on a diminishing time scale and then fresh elections are called.
End of May If all goes well and the initial coalition builder succeeds, they will present the new government, which will be sworn in at the Knesset in early June.



The 69-year-old prime minister has been the dominant force in Israeli politics for the past two decades and its face to the world.
But his various corruption scandals have created some voter fatigue, and in recent days he's vowed to annex Jewish West Bank settlements if re-elected - a prospect that could doom the already slim hopes of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel, which Netanyahu has previously wavered on.
'It's about time for a change,' said Barry Rifkin, a Jerusalem resident.
As many as a half-dozen parties are teetering along the threshold for entering the Knesset, or parliament. 
A failure by any of these parties to get the required 3.25 per cent of total votes cast could have a dramatic impact on who ultimately forms the next coalition. 
The Israeli government needs a parliamentary majority to rule, and since no party has ever earned more than half of the 120 seats in the Knesset, a coalition is required.
Netanyahu and Gantz have ruled out sitting together in government, so the next prime minister will likely come down to how many supporters each candidate can recruit.
Israel's president, Reuven Rivlin, could play an important role. Though largely a ceremonial post, the president is responsible for choosing the candidate with the best chance of building a stable coalition government as prime minister.
Rivlin told voters as he cast his ballot in Jerusalem that 'the only ones that will determine who will be prime minister, and what the next government will be, are you.'
'And in order for you to influence, you must vote,' he said.
In the campaign's final days, Netanyahu has veered to the right and embarked on a media blitz in which he portrays himself as the underdog and frantically warns that 'the right-wing government is in danger.'
His nationalist allies, however, see the move as a repeat of his 2015 election tactic to draw away their voters as he did four years ago when on election day, he warned of Arabs turning out in 'droves.' The scare tactics were seen as helping him seal a come-from-behind victory.






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An Israeli man votes for Israel's parliamentary election at a polling station in Ramat Gan, Israel


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Israeli Bedouin woman votes during general elections in the city of Rahat, Israel


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I
Arab turnout will be a major issue this time as well. Netanyahu's campaign against Arab politicians, together with the new alliance with anti-Arab extremists and the passage of last year's contentious nation-state law, which enshrined Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people alone, have deepened calls for a ballot boycott in Arab communities.
But some hope these blows will have the opposite effect, fueling enough frustration to drive up the Arab participation rate, which is typically lower than that of Israeli Jews. A big Arab turnout could push smaller right-wing parties into the margins and even threaten Netanyahu's long rule.
The leftist Meretz even put out a video urging Arabs to vote. 'Bibi is counting on you. Because if you don't vote, Bibi wins,' it said, referring to Netanyahu by his nickname.
The Palestinian issue has been largely sidelined in the election campaign that has been long on scandal and short on substance. But in a reminder, the military says it imposed a 24-hour closure on the West Bank and Gaza throughout election day, based on its security assessments.


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Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz waves to his supporters after casting vote during Israel's general elections in Rosh Haayin, Israel


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Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu votes during Israel's parliamentary elections in Jerusalem, telling journalists it is a 'sacred process'
Even if he is re-elected, Netanyahu could have a difficult time governing. Some of his allies have indicated they will no longer back him if formal charges are filed.
Israel's attorney general has recommended indicting him on bribery and breach of trust charges in three separate cases. Rivals have also begun to question a deal in which Netanyahu reportedly earned $4 million on a German submarine sale to Egypt by owning shares in one of the German manufacturer's suppliers.
Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing and claims the accusations are part of a liberal media's orchestrated witch hunt against him.
Netanyahu has generated much of his popularity from projecting a tough image in the face of Iran's rising power and for keeping Israel safe and prosperous in a hostile region.
But in Gantz he has encountered the rare opponent who can match his security credentials. Along with two other former military chiefs on his ticket, Gantz has attacked Netanyahu for failing to halt rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. 
The telegenic Gantz, who has been vague on key policy fronts, has presented himself as a clean, scandal-free alternative to Netanyahu and has vowed to heal the rifts the longtime leader has created in Israeli society. 









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A man casts his vote during the Israeli general elections in Tel Aviv, Israel

[size=34]Netanyahu accused of intimidating voters by sending staff to spy at Arab-majority voting hubs with hidden cameras[/size]

 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party has been accused of sending monitors equipped with body cameras to a number of polling stations with Arab constituents on election day.
 Arab politicians condemned the alleged move as voter intimidation
 Israel's elections committee banned hidden cameras at polling stations following an Arab party's complaints that it observed the Likud party deploying staffers. 
Israeli media reported Tuesday that Likud dispatched 1,200 observers in Arab polls. 
The Israeli daily Haaretz published videos showing activists caught with cameras by police, with one confessing Likud had sent him.
Police said they were working to 'maintain public order' after 'a number of suspected irregularities' in northern polls.
Arab parties lambasted the cameras as a ploy to depress their constituents' turnout.
The Likud party declined to comment, but when a reporter asked Netanyahu about the claims as he cast his ballot, he responded, 'There should be cameras everywhere. Not hidden. It's important to ensure a legitimate vote.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6906001/Bernie-Sanders-relaunches-Medicare-All-amid-2020-glare.html

[size=34]Bernie unveils supercharged version of 'Medicare for All' health insurance overhaul that would be the world's biggest government-run system where 'you can't keep your plan'[/size]

• Bernie Sanders will unveil his more aggressive 'Medicare For All' system on Wednesday 
  
  
• Plan would be the most ambitious government-run healthcare plan ever proposed in the United States
  
  
• Republicans are sharpening their knives for a coming fight during the 2020 campaign season
  
  
• 'This ought to be fun,' a Republican Senate aide said Wednesday: 'I can just see the ads now: "If you like your plan, you can't keep your plan"' 
  
  
• Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Tuesday that 
  
  
• Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democratic senator, told reporters that 'we ... have to see the Affordable Care Act as a beginning and not an end'
  
  

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 00:26 EDT, 10 April 2019 | UPDATED: 08:42 EDT, 10 April 2019

     


• 
  

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont will unveil a new version of his 'Medicare for All' plan on Wednesday, shaking up the 2020 presidential election by reopening the debate over his call to eliminate private health insurance.
Republicans are already sharpening their knives. One Capitol Hill aide to a senior senator told DailyMail.com on Wednesday: 'This ought to be fun. I can just see the ads now: "If you like your plan, you can't keep your plan".' 
Four of Sanders' fellow senators and rivals for the Democratic nomination are set to sign onto the updated single-payer health care proposal. The bill's reintroduction promises to shine a bright light on Democratic presidential candidates' disparate visions for the long-term future of American health care.
Under fire from President Donald Trump and Republicans for the astronomical price tag of Medicare for All, some candidates who support the plan tout it as one of several ways to achieve more affordable coverage and lower the number of uninsured. And others who don't back it are instead focusing on safeguarding popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act, such as the one that protects coverage of pre-existing conditions.


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Sen. Bernie Sanders is trying to carve out healthcare reform as his signature 2020 presidential campaign issue, introducing an amped-up version of a Medicare For All  


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Sanders has been pushing for a government-run 'single payer' system for years; he's pictured alongside New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2017 introducing an ill-fated Senate bill on a 'Medicare for All' proposal
'Of course, our No. 1 goal should be to make sure we keep in place those protections so people don't get kicked off their insurance,' Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who isn't signed onto Sanders' bill, told reporters Tuesday. 'Then we also have to see the Affordable Care Act as a beginning and not an end.'

Klobuchar supports a so-called public option, versions of which would allow Americans to buy into Medicare or Medicaid. Four other Democratic senators also running for president - Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand - back Sanders' single-payer plan, which would replace the current mix of private and government health insurance in the U.S. with a new system run by the government. But they have also signed onto at least one version of a public option.
Warren pointed to 'a lot of different pathways' to universal coverage during a televised CNN town hall last month. 'What we're all looking for is the lowest cost way to make sure that everybody gets covered.'
The debate is unfolding in the early stages of a Democratic primary in which some candidates have pointed to their support of Medicare for All to prove their progressive bona fides. But other Democratic contenders, including former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, have criticized Sanders' measure as politically infeasible.
Under Medicare for All, Americans would no longer pay premiums or face insurance deductibles as the government-run system replaced private health insurance offered through employers, the mainstay of coverage for more than 160 million Americans.
Big tax increases would be needed to finance such a system. The transition is likely to be complicated, dismantling the private health insurance industry and making major changes for hospitals, doctors, drug companies and other medical providers.


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[size=10][size=18]T[/size][/size]
'What our system does is get rid of insurance companies and drug companies making billions of dollars in profit every single year,' Sanders told CBS News for an interview set to air Wednesday, adding that private insurance would largely exist solely for elective medical care such as cosmetic surgery.
With Sanders' idea returning to the forefront, Republicans have a fresh opportunity to slam his plan as too costly and unworkable.
'So-called 'Medicare for All' means private insurance for none, kicking 180 million Americans off of their current plans,' said Kayleigh McEnany, spokeswoman for Trump's re-election campaign. ''Medicare for all' is a euphemism for government takeover of healthcare, and it would increase wait times, eliminate choice, and raise taxes.'
She touted Trump's 'free market policies' as a better alternative.
Trump has said he will take up health care after next year's election, essentially making it a central campaign issue. And his administration is arguing in court for the full eradication of the Affordable Cart Act, former President Barack Obama's signature health care law.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., warned in a Tuesday floor speech that the cost of Sanders' proposal 'is so steep that even left-leaning analysts are quietly admitting that the tax burden is virtually certain to land on the shoulders of the middle class.'


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Republicans are sharpening their knives at the prospect of running against a government takeover of medical insurance; 'This ought to be fun,' a Republican Senate aide said Wednesday: 'I can just see the ads now: "If you like your plan, you can't keep your plan"'



Sanders' office released a paper outlining options to pay for his last version of Medicare for All, estimated to cost upwards of $1 trillion per year, although none of those options was included in the legislation itself. He and other supporters of Medicare for All have generally sidestepped the question of how they would pay for their plan. Instead, they say it offers the best chance for the nation to get control over health care costs by eliminating profiteering. His newest edition of the bill would also cover long-term care, an unmet need for most middle-class families.
Several independent studies of Medicare for All have estimated that it would dramatically increase government spending on health care, in the range of about $25 trillion to $35 trillion or more over a 10-year period. But a recent estimate from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst suggests that the cost could be much lower.
Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, noted the emphasis by most Medicare for All supporters on 'multiple pathways' to universal coverage as a potential point of contrast and 'fodder for debate' with Sanders. In the absence of former Vice President Joe Biden, who has yet to launch a candidacy, Sanders is leading the Democratic field in early fundraising and campaigning as a front-runner.
'I think it really matters what you say to voters. That's the most important thing,' Tanden said. Her group has proposed a more robust version of the public option known as 'Medicare for America,' which is supported by former Texas congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke.
Earlier this year, a poll from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found that Americans like the idea of Medicare for All but that support flips to disapproval if it would result in higher taxes or longer waits for care.
The poll found initial support of 56% to 42%. But support fell to 26% when people were told Medicare for All could lead to delays in getting care and to 37% when they were told it could mean higher taxes.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6906417/White-House-wants-make-seeking-asylum-U-S-difficult-credible-fear-test.html

[size=34]'If you're that scared to go home, PROVE it': White House 'wants asylum seekers to pass a more rigid 'fear test' to stay in the US'[/size]

• Currently 90% of immigrants pass 'credible fear' of persecution or torture test
  
  
• Asylum seekers then allowed to live in U.S. while awaiting immigration court
  
  
• Senior advisor Stephen Miller and administration want less people to pass test 
  
  
• Comes as judge blocked plans to make immigrants wait in Mexico before court 
  
  

By DIANNE APEN-SADLER FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 04:20 EDT, 10 April 2019 | UPDATED: 07:33 EDT, 10 April 2019

     





The White House reportedly wants to force immigrants to pass a more difficult credible fear test when seeking asylum so less people make it across the border.
Under current rules, asylum seekers must prove they either fear persecution or torture in their home country before their case is passed to an immigration judge.
Around 90 per cent pass this first test, and are allowed into the country and given a Notice To Appear, but then only 10 per cent of these immigrants will be granted asylum, reports NBC News.
Despite the low success rate, many potential asylum seekers spend months or years living in the U.S. while awaiting their court date. During this time, they are usually held in detention facilities. 

Now Trump's administration, led by anti-immigration ideologue Stephen Miller who acts as senior advisor to the president for policy, are trying to make the process more difficult.


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Trump's administration, led by anti-immigration ideologue Stephen Miller who acts as senior advisor to the president for policy, are trying to make seeking asylum in the U.S. more difficult


Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco granted a request by civil liberties groups to halt the practice while their lawsuit moves forward. 
The lawsuit, on behalf of 11 asylum seekers from Central America and legal advocacy groups, says the Trump administration is violating U.S. law by failing to adequately evaluate the dangers that migrants face in Mexico. 


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The White House reportedly wants to force immigrants to pass a more difficult credible fear test when seeking asylum so less people make it across the border (pictured)
President Donald Trump's administration says the policy responds to a crisis at the southern border that has overwhelmed the ability of immigration officials to detain migrants.   
When Trump took office, Miller helped design a ban on Muslim arrivals - a move that was ruled illegal in courts several times, until it was forcibly recast.
And he provided Trump the arguments for a campaign to lock out the Guatemalans, Hondurans and Salvadorans crossing the southern border - arguing that they are made up of rapists, murderers, human and drug traffickers and gang members.
His sway over his boss was already evident in January 2018, when he persuaded the president to renege on signing bipartisan immigration legislation.
Republicans lashed out at Miller directly for killing a painstakingly-crafted deal.
'As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we are going nowhere. He's been an outlier for years,' Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, has said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6904971/Texas-Tech-medical-school-stop-using-race-admissions.html

[size=34]Texas Tech medical school will NOT use affirmative action in its admissions anymore after a deal with the Trump administration[/size]

• Texas Tech University's medical school won't consider race as a factor in its admissions 
  
  
• The school came to an agreement with the Trump administration over a complaint first filed in 2004 
  
  
• Deal is first of its kind under Trump, who last year scrapped Obama-era guidelines which promoted diversity among students 
  
  

By ASSOCIATED PRESS and REUTERS
PUBLISHED: 17:17 EDT, 9 April 2019 | UPDATED: 00:52 EDT, 10 April 2019

     




Race will no longer be factored into admissions at Texas Tech University's medical school following an agreement with the Trump administration, potentially previewing how other complaints over affirmative action are handled under Education Secretary Betsy Devos.
The resolution resolves a complaint filed in 2004 against Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. 
But notably, the resolution is the first of its kind under the Trump administration, which last year rescinded Obama-era guidelines meant to promote diversity among students.
The civil rights office of the Education Department also has ongoing investigations into policies at Yale and Harvard.


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Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine will no longer consider race as a factor in its admissions process, it was reported on Tuesday
Under the agreement with Texas Tech's medical school, the admissions department will 'discontinue all consideration of an applicant's race and/or national origin.' 

The resolution was signed in February but first reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal.


The original complaint was filed by Roger Clegg, president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, which opposes affirmative action.
On Tuesday, the group posted to its website a March letter to Clegg from the Education Department, which said that school officials acknowledged in interviews that internal reviews 'does not specifically consider the necessity for continued use of race-conscious admissions policies or whether race-neutral alternatives would be effective in achieving a similar level of diversity.'


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The agreement between the school and the Trump administration is a potential preview of how other complaints over affirmative action are handled under Education Secretary Betsy Devos (seen above on March 28)
It went on to say the department 'has concern' that the medical school's admissions process may not be narrowly tailored.
The Trump administration's Justice Department has signaled concern about the use of race in admissions decisions. 
The department, for instance, sided last year with Asian-American plaintiffs who contend in a lawsuit against Harvard that the school unlawfully limits how many Asian students are admitted.
In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court granted affirmative action policies a victory by permitting race to be among the factors considered in the college admission process.
Conservatives have said such programs can hurt white people and Asian-Americans.
The Justice Department under Trump has been investigating a complaint by more than 60 Asian-American organizations that say Harvard University's policies are discriminatory because they limit the acceptance of Asian-Americans.
The department joined Students for Fair Admissions, the group behind the case, which has urged the disclosure of 'powerful' evidence showing that Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard is violating Title VI of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act. 
Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
Harvard says its admissions policies comply with U.S. laws and that it has worked to boost financial aid to ensure economic, as well as racial, diversity in its classes.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/10/trump-legacy-selfishness-dshonesty-attack-pillar-society


[size=31]Trump will leave a legacy of selfishness and dishonesty

[size=31]Joseph Stiglitz[/size][/size]

The president’s attack on every pillar of society jeopardises the US’s continued prosperity and ability to function as a democracy

Wed 10 Apr 2019 02.00 EDTLast modified on Wed 10 Apr 2019 02.20 EDT

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• [url=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Trump will leave a legacy of selfishness and dishonesty | Joseph stiglitz&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbusiness%2F2019%2Fapr%2F10%2Ftrump-legacy-selfishness-dshonesty-attack-pillar-society%3FCMP%3Dshare_btn_tw][/url]
  
  

 The March for Truth rally on the steps of Los Angeles city hall in 2017. Photograph: UPI/Barcroft
[size=89]Kirstjen Nielsen’s forced resignation as US secretary of homeland security is no reason to celebrate. Yes, she presided over the forced separation of families at the US border, notoriously housing young children in wire cages. But Nielsen’s departure is not likely to bring any improvement, as Donald Trump wants to replace her with someone who will carry out his anti-immigrant policies even more ruthlessly.
The president’s immigration policies are appalling in almost every aspect. And yet they may not be the worst feature of his administration. Indeed, identifying its foullest aspects has become a popular American parlour game. Yes, he has called immigrants criminals, rapists and animals. But what about his deep misogyny or his boundless vulgarity and cruelty? Or his winking support of white supremacists? Or his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty? And, of course, there is his war on the environment, on healthcare, and on the rules-based international system.

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This morbid game never ends, of course, because new contenders for the title emerge almost daily. Trump is a disrupting personality, and after he’s gone, we may well reflect on how such a deranged and morally challenged person could have been elected president of the world’s most powerful country in the first place.

But what concerns me most is Trump’s disruption of the institutions that are necessary for the functioning of society. Trump’s “Maga” (Make America Great Again) agenda is, of course, not about restoring the moral leadership of the United States. It embodies and celebrates unbridled selfishness and self-absorption. Maga is about economics. But that forces us to ask: what is the basis of America’s wealth?
Adam Smith tried to provide an answer in his classic 1776 book The Wealth of Nations. For centuries, Smith noted, standards of living had been stagnant; then, toward the end of the 18th century, incomes start to soar. Why?
Smith himself was a leading light of the great intellectual movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment. The questioning of established authority that followed the earlier Reformation in Europe forced society to ask: how do we know the truth? How can we learn about the world around us? And how can and should we organise our society?
From the search for answers to these questions arose a new epistemology, based on the empiricism and scepticism of science, which came to prevail over the forces of religion, tradition and superstition. Over time, universities and other research institutions were established to help us to judge truth and discover the nature of our world. Much of what we take for granted today – from electricity, transistors and computers to lasers, modern medicine and smartphones – is the result of this new disposition, undergirded by basic scientific research (most of it financed by government).
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The absence of royal or ecclesiastical authority to dictate how society should be organised to ensure that things worked out well, or as well as they could, meant that society had to figure it out for itself. But devising the institutions that would ensure society’s wellbeing was a more complicated matter than discovering the truths of nature. In general, one couldn’t conduct controlled experiments.
A close study of past experience could, however, be informative. One had to rely on reasoning and discourse, recognising that no individual had a monopoly on our understandings of social organisation. Out of this process emerged an appreciation that governance institutions based on the rule of law, due process and checks and balances, and supported by foundational values like individual liberty and justice for all, are more likely to produce good and fair decisions. These institutions may not be perfect, but they have been designed so that it is more likely that flaws will be uncovered and eventually corrected.
That process of experimentation, learning and adaptation, however, requires a commitment to ascertaining the truth. Americans owe much of their economic success to a rich set of truth-telling, truth-discovering and truth-verifying institutions. Central among them are freedom of expression and media independence. Like all people, journalists are fallible; but, as part of a robust system of checks and balances on those in positions of power, they have traditionally provided an essential public good.
Since Smith’s day, it has been shown that a nation’s wealth depends on the creativity and productivity of its people, which can be advanced only by embracing the spirit of scientific discovery and technological innovation. And it depends on steady improvements in social, political and economic organisation, discovered through reasoned public discourse.

The attack by Trump and his administration on every one of the pillars of American society, and his especially aggressive vilification of the country’s truth-seeking institutions, jeopardises its continued prosperity and very ability to function as a democracy. Nor do there appear to be checks on corporate giants’ efforts to capture the institutions – the courts, legislatures, regulatory agencies, and major media outlets – that are supposed to prevent them from exploiting workers and consumers. A dystopia previously imagined only by science fiction writers is emerging before our eyes. It should give us chills to think of who “wins” in this world, and who or what we might become, just in the struggle to survive.
• Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel laureate in economics, university professor at Columbia University and chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute.[/size]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6908761/Trump-says-smugglers-leaving-pregnant-women-die-dehydration-state-Texas.html

[size=34]Trump says human traffickers are leaving pregnant illegal immigrants to die of dehydration 'all over' Texas as his donors claim they must 'always make sure that your guns are around'[/size]

• President visited San Antonio for a donor roundtable at a 5-star dinner club 
  
  
• Says he heard from Texans that they often find dead illegal immigrants on their land and felt the press should know
  
  
• Human smugglers, they say, are regularly dropping illegal immigrants including pregnant women in the desert and telling them to walk to Houston or Dallas
  
  
• 'They give them a little water,' Trump repeated, '"Go out and start walking. Walk to Dallas." And Dallas is 250 miles away. It's really bad'
  
  
• One man warned: 'Always make sure that your guns are around'
  
  
• Another vented about living in a border region 'where your wife, if she doesn't carry [a gun], she doesn't have a chance'
  
  

By FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM IN SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
PUBLISHED: 15:05 EDT, 10 April 2019 | UPDATED: 16:47 EDT, 10 April 2019

     





President Donald Trump said Wednesday that immigrants who cross into the U.S. from the south are dying of dehydration 'all over' the state of Texas because human smugglers drop them in the desert and tell them to walk to Houston or Dallas.
'They're dying on their fields. All over,' the president said. 'They go over, they find bodies lying all over the field, including many pregnant women. Many pregnant women. They give them a little water: "Go out and start walking. Walk to Dallas." And Dallas is 250 miles away. It's really bad. '
Trump was speaking at a  fundraiser in San Antonio when he asked for reporters traveling with him to come in and hear the stories from donors to his 2020 campaign.
Supporters who were not immediately identifiable said drug cartel members wait outside ranches and oil fields with weapons.

'Always make sure that your guns are around, and hope that they don't do anything to you,' one man said.


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President Donald Trump said Wednesday that migrants are dying 'all over' the state of Texas of dehydration after human smugglers drop them in the desert and tell them to walk to Houston or Dallas


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Immigrants crossing illegally (pictured) from Mexico into Texas are terrorizing property owners and their families, a group of donors told the president in San Antonio
Reiterating the danger human and drug traffickers pose to Texans, he said, 'They wait at the gates, and they kill people.'
Another man vented about living in a border region 'where your wife, if she doesn't carry, she doesn't have a chance' and 'where you can't go up to a gate and open the gate without a guy standing there with a rifle, because people want to steal your truck and they'll do it and kill you.'
The president said in response: 'Who the hell can live like this?'
His fundraising event was about 150 miles from Mexico at The Argyle, a 5-star dinner club in San Antonio. It was his first of four — he has two in Houston later in the day.
Trump seemed surprised to learn how big Texas is, compared to his native New York City.
'I said, "Why aren't people around to help these people?"' he said, marveling that 'this is a vast state.'
'I come from New York. You have Fifth Avenue and that connects to Park Avenue and it's not too far away,' Trump said, 'but this is, you know, hundreds of miles between places!'  
The president blasted Democrats in Congress for refusing his immigration reform proposals while he praised Republicans and the donors who back them. 
Yet, he insisted, 'This had nothing to do with politics. This has nothing to with campaigning, or my campaign.'
'It's really – from a humane standpoint, a humanitarian standpoint – it's horrible,' said Trump.




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Trupm convened his donors' roundtable and then called for the media to enter the room and hear their stories; the even was held at a 5-star resort about 150 miles from the nearest patch of Mexican territory


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Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the unwillingness of congressional Democrats to reform U.S. immigration laws, leaving him with little option other than to complain bitterly about the national security crisis he says has reached emergency proportions
A donor said Brooks County, Texas is one of the most common areas for dead illegal immigrants to be found. Another claimed Texans roaming their land on horseback often discover the bodies.
The first rancher said coyotes – human traffickers – often hide in the brush. Police and border agents chasing them often leave when they can't find the smugglers. 
'We've gotten up at three in the morning, and packed up our car, and then driven back to San Antonio, because we just did not feel safe,' the person said.  
Trump chimed in to say, 'They’ll be dropped off, and they start walking, and they’ll say Houston’s right down the road, but it’s actually 300 miles away. And we find dead people from Guatemala, Honduras, from El Salvador, from Mexico – all over the place. 
'I said, “Nobody’s ever said that,” ‘ he said. ‘Many, many dead people. Many. Also, they come in, they raid their houses, and it’s very dangerous. And they’re told never to leave their house at night. And in the day, during the day, always carry a gun and know how to use it.'
The president said the ranchers told him, 'Where they have their fences, because these are big ranches, where they have their fences, never go near a gate, unless you have two people, and especially at night, and make sure both of you are carrying a weapon. A gun. I said, “Nobody’s ever told me this.” This doesn’t get out in the papers.’
He said more people are coming up because of the economic growth in the U.S.
‘And the danger of living here, unless you know exactly what you’re doing is tremendous, where your wife carries a gun, and she’s trained in using it,’ the president said.
The rancher backed Trump up, saying that ‘numerous people’ have been found dead and it has been happening for years in south Texas, ‘because they drop them off and tell them, Houston’s just over the horizon.’
‘So not only do we have a crisis on the border, a humanitarian crisis and a security crisis, we also have these people preying on the people who are trying to come here. And they have no idea geographically where they are, where they’re located. They have a gallon of water, a little money, and maybe a sandwich, and they start to walk, and when it’s hot, in they’re in the sandy country, they very often die.
‘And a lot of people here will tell you that they very often finding bodies on the ranch. So this is not just security, it’s not just us worrying about our properties. It’s worrying about the people who are actually trying to coming here to better themselves who are being preyed on, also,’ he said.
Another Trump supporter said coyotes and MS-13 gang members have murdered oil field workers. The killers 'sit by the gates' the workers use to trek through the fields.
'They all the want the wall,' Trump asserted. 'They start to walk. They think that Houston's half a mile away, but it's 300 hundred miles. And it's desert.'

party animal - not! wrote:As a mere observer, I think Buttigieg is very impressive...

I really like Mayor Pete too. He is so smart and articulate. He is a progressive who could appeal to the middle of the country. At this point I am not leaning towards any of what seems like a hundred candidates running in 2020. I want to see how they behave during the primary debates. Above all else whoever runs against Trump has to be able to stand their ground without sinking to his despicable level of rhetoric.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6911187/Wikileaks-founder-Julian-Assange-arrested-police.html

[size=34]Police drag ranting Wikileaks founder Julian Assange out of Ecuadorian Embassy in London - as his lawyer claims he's been arrested over US extradition request as well as breaching UK bail conditions[/size]

• Wikileaks founder dragged out of Ecuadorian Embassy in handcuffs by a large group of police officers today 
  
  
• Ecuador said its decision came after 'repeated violations to international conventions and daily-life protocols'
  
  
• His lawyer said arrest was 'not just for breach of bail conditions but also in relation to US extradition request' 
  
  
• He has not left embassy since 2012, when he was offered refuge from allegations of sexual assault in Sweden
  
  
• Assange has always feared extradition to the US, where he is wanted for leak of highly-classified documents 
  
  
• Was revealed in 2018 Assange had been secretly indicted by the US Justice Department on unknown charges
  
  
• The 47-year-old currently in custody and set to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court 'as soon as possible'
  
  

By ALEXANDER ROBERTSON FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 05:36 EDT, 11 April 2019 | UPDATED: 07:33 EDT, 11 April 2019

     



Julian Assange has been arrested by British police today after Ecuador dramatically withdrew his political asylum seven years after he was given refuge in the country's London embassy.
The Wikileaks founder, sporting a scruffy beard and unkempt hair, was dragged out of the building head-first in handcuffs by a group of seven men as stunned supporters watched on as he screamed out 'the UK must resist'.  
Ecuador's president Lenin Moreno said the decision to withdraw Assange's asylum status followed his 'discourteous and aggressive behaviour' in continuing to work with WikiLeaks while housed at the embassy.
He went on to accuse Assange of violating the terms of his asylum by 'interfering in internal affairs of other states' as well as 'blocking security cameras' at the embassy and 'confronting and mistreating guards'. 

Assange, 47, has not left Ecuador's diplomatic soil since 2012, when the country offered diplomatic protection from allegations of sexual assault in Sweden.
The case was eventually dropped as investigators were unable to formally notify Assange of the allegations, however Swedish prosecutors revealed today that the case could now be revisited following his arrest.
His lawyer Jennifer Robinson said the WikiLeaks founder 'had been arrested not just for breach of bail conditions but also in relation to a US extradition request'.
Assange has always feared extradition to the US, where his lawyers have claimed he could face the death penalty for the leaking of highly-classified documents.  




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Julian Assange pictured as he is led out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in handcuffs following his sensational arrest by British police today


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The Wikileaks founder was dragged out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in handcuffs by a large group of Metropolian Police officers as stunned supporters and protesters watched on in central London


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Julian Assange (pictured bottom left) as he is arrested by police after being ejected from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London


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Assange is loaded into the back of a police van in central London before being taken away ahead of a court appearance in the near future


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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (pictured in May 2017) came under intense scrutiny after the website began releasing hundreds of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables
Moments after the arrest, during which Assange held on to a Gore Vidal book on the history of the national security state, WikiLeaks said Ecuador had acted illegally and 'in violation of international law'. 
In a statement today, Ecuador's president added that he had asked Britain to guarantee that Assange would not be extradited to any country where he could face torture or the death penalty. 
It was accidentally revealed last year that Assange had been secretly indicted by the US Justice Department, but the exact nature of the charges against the 47-year-old was not disclosed. 
Assange, who has overseen the publication of thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks, is currently in custody and is set to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court 'as soon as possible'.
The news of his arrest was immediately confirmed by Home Secretary Sajid Javid on Twitter, who said that 'no one was above the law'.
He said: 'Nearly seven years after entering the Ecuadorean Embassy, I can confirm Julian Assange is now in police custody and rightly facing justice in the UK.
'I would like to thank Ecuador for its cooperation & for its professionalism. No one is above the law.' 


Shortly after his arrest, vocal supporter and former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson tweeted a black and white photo of Assange along with the caption 'Veritas Valebit', which is Latin for 'the truth will prevail'.
His arrest comes a day after Wikileaks accused the Ecuadorean Government of an 'extensive spying operation' against Assange.
In a press conference on Wednesday, it was alleged that the WikiLeaks founder's meetings with lawyers and a doctor inside the Ecuador embassy in London over the past year had been secretly filmed.
The anti-secrecy organisation said it had been offered all the material from an unnamed person in Spain, if it paid €3million (£2.6million). 
WikiLeaks also told how it assumed the information had been handed over to the administration of US President Donald Trump.embassy over the past year were secretly filmed.
Assange had refused to leave the embassy, claiming he would be extradited to the United States for questioning over the activities of WikiLeaks if he did so.


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A police van sits outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police and taken into custody following the Ecuadorian government's withdrawal of asylum


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Moments after the arrest, WikiLeaks said Ecuador had acted illegally in terminating Assange's political asylum 'in violation of international law'


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British police are pictured arriving at the embassy moments before the WikiLeaks founder was dragged outside in handcuffs


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This graphic shows where Assange was allowed to go within the Ecuadorean Embassy in London during his near seven years living there


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Fidel Narvaez (left), former consul of Ecuador to London, looks at some of the footage, alongside WikiLeaks editor in chief Kristinn Hrafnsson and barrister Jennifer Robinson today


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Mr Narvaez, Mr Hrafnsson and Ms Robinson at Doughty Street Chambers in London today

Ecuador's president slams 'discourteous and aggressive behaviour' of Julian Assange

Lenin Moreno, President of Ecuador, said in a statement on Julian Assange that he had displayed 'discourteous and aggressive behaviour'.
He said: 'Ecuador sovereignly has decided to terminate the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr Assange in 2012. For six years and 10 months, the Ecuadorian people have protected the human rights of Mr Assange and have provided for his everyday needs at the facilities of our Embassy in London. 

Ecuador's President Lenin Moreno speaks in a televised address about Julian Assange
'Ecuador has fulfilled its obligations in the framework of international law. On the other hand, Mr Assange violated, repeatedly, clear cut provisions of the conventions on diplomatic asylum of Havana and Caracas; despite the fact that he was requested on several occasions to respect and abide by these rules.
'He particularly violated the norm of not intervening in the internal affairs of other states. The most recent incident occurred in January 2019, when WikiLeaks leaked Vatican documents. Key members of that organisation visited Mr Assange before and after such illegal acts.
'This and other publications have confirmed the world's suspicion that Mr Assange is still linked to WikiLeaks and therefore involved in interfering in internal affairs of other states.
'The patience of Ecuador has reached its limit on the behaviour of Mr Assange. He installed electronic and distortion equipment not allowed. He blocked the security cameras of the Ecuadorian Mission in London.
'He has confronted and mistreated guards. He had accessed the security files of our Embassy without permission. He claimed to be isolated and rejected the internet connection offered by the Embassy, and yet he had a mobile phone with which he communicated with the outside world.' 




In a statement this morning, Scotland Yard said: 'Julian Assange, 47, has today, Thursday 11 April, been arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) at the Embassy of Ecuador, Hans Crescent, SW1 on a warrant issued by Westminster Magistrates' Court on 29 June 2012, for failing to surrender to the court.
'He has been taken into custody at a central London police station where he will remain, before being presented before Westminster Magistrates' Court as soon as is possible.
'The MPS had a duty to execute the warrant, on behalf of Westminster Magistrates' Court, and was invited into the embassy by the Ambassador, following the Ecuadorian government's withdrawal of asylum.' 
WikiLeaks tweeted: 'URGENT: Ecuador has illigally (sic) terminated Assange political asylum in violation of international law.
'He was arrested by the British police inside the Ecuadorian embassy minutes ago.'
Lenin Moreno, President of Ecuador, said in a statement on Assange: 'Ecuador is a generous country and a nation with open arms.
'Ours is a government respectful of the principles of international law, and of the institution of the right of asylum.
'Granting or withdrawing asylum is a sovereign right of the Ecuadorian state, according to international law.
'Today, I announce that the discourteous and aggressive behaviour of Mr Julian Assange, the hostile and threatening declaration of its allied organisation, against Ecuador, and especially the transgression of international treaties, have led the situation to a point where the asylum of Mr Assange is unsustainable and no longer viable.
'Ecuador sovereignly has decided to terminate the diplomatic asylum granted to Mr Assange in 2012.
'For six years and 10 months, the Ecuadorian people have protected the human rights of Mr Assange and have provided for his everyday needs at the facilities of our Embassy in London.
'When I became the President of Ecuador, I inherited this situation and decided to adopt a protocol to set the daily life rules at the Embassy, which is less than anyone may expect from a guest hosted at his own house.
'Ecuador has fulfilled its obligations in the framework of international law.
'On the other hand, Mr Assange violated, repeatedly, clear cut provisions of the conventions on diplomatic asylum of Havana and Caracas; despite the fact that he was requested on several occasions to respect and abide by these rules.'
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said following the arrest: 'What we have shown today is that nobody is above the law - Julian Assange is no hero. 
'He's hidden from the truth for years and years and it's right that his future should be decided in the British judicial system.'
He added: 'What has happened today is the result of years of careful diplomacy by the Foreign Office.'
Mr Hunt added: '[It's] a very courageous decision by President Moreno in Ecuador to resolve this situation that's been going on for nearly seven years.
'It's not so much that Julian Assange was being held hostage in the Ecuadorian Embassy, it was actually Julian Assange holding the Ecuadorian Embassy hostage. It was a situation that was absolutely intolerable to them.'


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Meetings with lawyers and a doctor inside the Ecuador embassy in London over the past year have been secretly filmed, WikiLeaks said today








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An Assange supporter outside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London's Knightsbridge last week, where protesters have gathered for seven years in support of the WikiLeaks founder

[size=34]Julian Assange's fight for freedom: A timeline of the WikiLeaks founder's time in the Ecuadorian embassy[/size]

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange came under intense scrutiny after the whistle-blowing website began releasing hundreds of thousands classified US diplomatic cables.
Here is a timeline of the key dates in his case:
2010
August: An arrest warrant is issued for Mr Assange for two separate allegations - one of rape and one of molestation - after he visits Sweden for a speaking trip. He is questioned by police in Stockholm and denies the allegations.
November: Stockholm District Court approves a request to detain the WikiLeaks founder for questioning on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. An international arrest warrant is issued by Swedish police through Interpol.
December: Mr Assange presents himself to London police and appears at an extradition hearing where he is remanded in custody. At a later hearing, he is granted conditional bail but is kept behind bars after Swedish authorities challenge the decision.
Mr Assange is granted conditional bail at the High Court in London after his supporters pay £240,000 in cash and sureties.
2011
February: District Judge Howard Riddle rules that Mr Assange should be extradited to Sweden and denies this would breach his human rights. Mr Assange vows to fight the decision.
November: Mr Assange loses a High Court appeal against the decision to extradite him.
2012
May: The UK Supreme Court upholds the High Court decision in the case, ruling that extradition is lawful and can go ahead. The Supreme Court later rejects a move by Mr Assange to reopen his appeal against his extradition, saying it is 'without merit'.
June 19: Mr Assange enters the Ecuadorian embassy in London, requesting political asylum. A day later, Scotland Yard confirms he will be subject to arrest for breaching his bail conditions.
August 16: Mr Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador.
August 19: Mr Assange makes his first public appearance in two months on the Ecuadorian embassy's balcony and calls for the US government to 'renounce its witch-hunt' against WikiLeaks.
November: Ecuador's ambassador to the UK, Ana Alban, says Mr Assange is suffering a chronic lung condition after spending months inside a one-room office at the embassy. The Ecuadorian government later plays down the health fears and says Mr Assange 'does not have an urgent medical condition'.
December: Mr Assange marks the six-month anniversary inside the embassy by making a rare public appearance on balcony to say the 'door is open' for talks to break the deadlock over his campaign to avoid extradition to Sweden.

[size=16]
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The Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge, which has been Assange's home since 2012
2013
June: Mr Assange tells a group of journalists he will not leave the embassy even if sex charges against him are dropped, because he fears moves are already under way to extradite him to the United States.
2014
July: Mr Assange loses a legal bid to have an arrest warrant issued in Sweden against him cancelled. A judge in Stockholm decided to uphold the warrant against him for alleged sexual offences against two women.
August: Mr Assange tells a press conference he will be leaving the embassy soon following speculation that he is seeking hospital treatment for heart and lung problems. He later brushes off reports that he is about to give up his fight against extradition to Sweden.
November: Mr Assange loses a legal move in a Swedish appeal court aimed at revoking his arrest warrant.
December: Mr Assange appears on the embassy's balcony to greet Noam Chomsky, the US philosopher and activist. Hollywood actor John Cusack also visits the WikiLeaks founder later in the month.
2015


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Julian Assange speaking on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy two months after he entered in June 2012
March: Swedish prosecutors ask to question Mr Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
June: Mr Assange claims the Swedish prosecutor has cancelled an appointment to interview him at the embassy.
August 13: Swedish prosecutors drop investigations into some of the sex allegations against Mr Assange due to time restrictions. The investigation into suspected rape remains active.
August 16: Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire said Ecuador's decision to harbour Mr Assange in its embassy had prevented the proper course of justice. He said the UK continued to have a legal obligation to extradite him to Sweden, where he remained suspected of a sexual offence.
October 12: Metropolitan Police end their 24-hour guard outside the Ecuadorian Embassy. It breaks a three-year police operation which is estimated to have cost more than £12 million.
2016
February 5: The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says Mr Assange is being 'arbitrarily detained' in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and calls on authorities to end his 'deprivation of liberty'.
The report is branded 'frankly ridiculous' by then foreign secretary Philip Hammond - a response which Mr Assange described as 'insulting'.
February 9: Swedish prosecutors say they are working on a renewed request to interview Mr Assange at the embassy.
February 22: Lawyers for Mr Assange submit papers to a Swedish court, asking for his arrest warrant to be overturned.
March 24: The Government formally asks a UN Working Group to review its finding that Mr Assange was subject to arbitrary detention, saying the opinion was 'deeply flawed'.
March 25: A Swedish court refuses to drop an arrest warrant against Mr Assange.
June 20: Ecuador reveals it has received a formal request from the Swedish authorities to interview Mr Assange.
August 9: Mr Assange files an appeal at Sweden's Court of Appeal of Svea, arguing the country must comply with the UN working group's findings that his deprivation of liberty was unlawful.
August 11: Ecuador announces that Mr Assange will be questioned by Swedish prosecutors in the embassy in London.
September 16: Sweden's Court of Appeal rejects a bid by Mr Assange to have his sex assault warrant dropped, saying no new information has emerged.
November 14: Mr Assange is questioned over the sex allegation at the Ecuadorian Embassy in the presence of Sweden's assistant prosecutor Ingrid Isgren and police inspector Cecilia Redell. The interview spans two days.
November 30: The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rejects a request by the UK Government to review the case of Mr Assange.
2017
January 17: Barack Obama's decision to free whistleblower Chelsea Manning prompts speculation Mr Assange will end his self-imposed exile. WikiLeaks tweeted prior to the decision: 'If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ (Department of Justice) case.'
January 19: Mr Assange tells a press conference that he stands by his offer to go to the US, provided his rights are respected.
March 9: Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage is spotted leaving the embassy where Mr Assange is being held.
April 21: America's attorney general Jeff Sessions says Mr Assange's arrest is a 'priority' for the United States.
May 19: An investigation into a sex allegation against Mr Assange is suddenly dropped by Sweden's Director of Public Prosecution.
June 16: Mr Assange calls off a pre-planned speech from the embassy balcony to mark the fifth anniversary of his arrival there, following news of an 'imminent meeting' with British authorities.
2018
January 11: The UK Foreign Office turns down a request from the Ecuadorian government to grant Mr Assange diplomatic status.
Ecuador confirms it has granted citizenship to Mr Assange in December after he made a request in September.
January 26: Lawyers for Mr Assange tell a court the UK arrest warrant against him has 'lost its purpose and its function'.
February 6: Westminster Magistrates' Court says that the UK arrest warrant is still valid. Mr Assange vows to continue his legal fight. He later claims a package containing a 'threat' and white substance was sent to him at the Ecuadorian Embassy.
February 7: Visits to Mr Assange from Pamela Anderson and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel are reported.
February 13: Westminster Magistrates' Court upholds the warrant for the arrest of Mr Assange for skipping bail, in a judgment by Senior District Judge Emma Arbuthnot.
She urges him to show the 'courage' to appear in court.
March 28: The Ecuadorian Embassy suspends Mr Assange's internet access.
The Ecuador Government says: 'The measure was adopted due to Assange not complying with a written promise which he made with the government in late 2017, by which he was obliged not to send messages which entailed interference in relation to other states.'
Supporters, including actress Pamela Anderson, musician Brian Eno, fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood and former Greek minister Yanis Varoufaki, urge Ecuador to reverse the ban.
June 7: Mr Assange receives a visit from officials from the Australian High Commission.
June 19: Vigils in several countries mark six years since Mr Assange entered the Ecuadorian Embassy.
July 30: Dame Vivienne Westwood designs a new T-shirt in support of the WikiLeaks founder, with a slogan which reads: 'I fought the law'.
August 9: The United States Senate committee asks to interview Mr Assange as part of their investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.
September 27: Mr Assange steps down as editor of WikiLeaks.
October 19: Mr Assange reveals he is to launch legal action against the government of Ecuador, accusing it of violating his 'fundamental rights and freedoms'.
November 16: The US Department of Justice inadvertently names Mr Assange in a court document which suggests the WikiLeaks founder may have been charged in secret.
December 20: Mr Assange's father calls for the end to his son's 'torment', following a visit to the embassy.
2019
January 10: A legal defence fund is launched for Mr Assange amid fears that the WikiLeaks founder is under 'increasingly serious threat'.
The Courage Foundation, which offers legal support for whistleblowers and journalists, said Mr Assange had become 'isolated' inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, with 'severe restrictions' on his communications and visitors.
January 23: Lawyers for Mr Assange say they are taking action aimed at making President Donald Trump's administration reveal charges 'secretly filed' against the WikiLeaks founder.
April 5: WikiLeaks tweets that a high level source within the Ecuadorian state has told them Mr Assange will be expelled from the embassy within 'hours or days'.
A senior Ecuadorian official says no decision has been made to remove him from the London building.[/size]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6911451/Julian-Assanges-arrest-dark-moment-press-freedom-Edward-Snowden.html

[size=34]Julian Assange's arrest a 'dark moment for press freedom', says fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden[/size]

• Assange was dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London on Thursday 
  
  
• Ecuador suddenly withdrew his political asylum after seven years sheltering him 
  
  
• Snowden is currently in political exile in Russia for leaking classified information
  
  

By GEORGE MARTIN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 07:04 EDT, 11 April 2019 | UPDATED: 07:29 EDT, 11 April 2019

   

US whistleblower Edward Snowden has warned the arrest of Julian Assange is a 'dark moment for press freedom'. 
WikiLeaks founder Assange, 47, was arrested by police in London this morning after Ecuador dramatically withdrew his political asylum seven years after he first entered the embassy.
Soon after his arrest, Snowden tweeted: 'Images of Ecuador's ambassador inviting the UK's secret police into the embassy to drag a publisher of-like it or not-award-winning journalism out of the building are going to end up in the history books.
'Assange's critics may cheer, but this is a dark moment for press freedom.'


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Julian Assange was arrested on Thursday morning at the Ecuadorian embassy in London

[size=10][size=18]Ju[/size][/size]

Snowden is currently living in exile Russia having fled the US after leaking a huge cache of declassified documents back in 2013.
The Former CIA agent has been a longstanding supporter of Assange's cause having allegedly been helped by the WikiLeaks founder in handing over the secret documents to journalists.
Assange, who has overseen the publication of thousands of classified military and diplomatic cables through WikiLeaks, is currently in custody and is set to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court 'as soon as possible'. 
He was filmed being dragged kicking and screaming from the embassy building in Knightsbridge sporting a scruffy beard and unkempt hair. 


Share


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Former National Security Agency systems analyst is himself accused of leaking classified information and is currently in hiding in Russia


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Assange's arrest this morning came as Ecuador suddenly terminated his political asylum
He has not left Ecuador's diplomatic soil since 2012, when the country offered diplomatic protection from allegations of sexual assault in Sweden. 
While the case was eventually dropped, Assange has always feared extradition to the US, where his lawyers have claimed he could face the death penalty for the leaking of highly-classified documents.
In a statement today, Ecuador's president added that he had asked Britain to guarantee that Assange would not be extradited to any country where he could face torture or the death penalty.
The news of his arrest was immediately confirmed by Home Secretary Sajid Javid on Twitter, who said that 'no one was above the law'.


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An armed officer outside the Ecuadorian Embassy today as police were called in to arrest Assange


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Assange has been living in the Ecuadorean embassy for the past seven years. Pictured: The WikiLeaks founder speaking from the building's balcony in 2017
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-6909141/Brooklyn-families-rally-sue-New-York-City-mandatory-measles-vaccination-order.html

[size=34]Brooklyn families are poised to SUE New York City over mandatory measles vaccine order: Lawyer says the move and threat of $1,000 fine is unlawful and targets religious groups[/size]

• Michael Sussam, a civil rights lawyer, says he plans to have a case filed by Friday
  
  
• He says the mandate is not valid and unlawfully targets religious groups
  
  

By MIA DE GRAAF HEALTH EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 19:06 EDT, 10 April 2019 | UPDATED: 00:46 EDT, 11 April 2019

     




A lawyer is poised to sue New York City for ordering mandatory measles vaccinations in the toughest action against the virus in US history. 
Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, which, he said, gave him the power to require vaccinations in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood, where more than 250 measles cases have been reported since September, particularly in the Orthodox Jewish community.
Those who refuse could face fines of up to $1,000 or six months in jail, according to New York Senate emergency laws cited by de Blasio and other city officials at the press conference.
But Michael Sussman, a civil rights lawyer, says there are not enough cases to warrant a state of emergency, and he plans to have a case filed against the city by Friday.

He will argue the case violates state laws and disproportionately targets minority religious groups.


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Normally, New York City allows for people to skip vaccinations if they have a medical reason or a religious reason. But Mayor Bill de Blasio has rescinded religious exemptions for the select area in Brooklyn where measles is spreading among Orthodox Jews
Sussman last week forced a judge in upstate New York's Rockland County to allow unvaccinated kids back at school despite hosting the state's other major measles outbreak, with 168 cases since last fall.
Since de Blasio's announcement on Tuesday, he says, he has been contacted by dozens of families to repeat his performance, this time downstate. 
Drawing comparison's to Donald Trump's extremely tough and unprecedented immigration policies, Sussman accuses de Blasio of 'authoritarianism.'
'The rule of law is critical. We have a country that is already leaning towards authoritarianism, with regards to immigration. De Blasio is pushing for extra-legal measures,' Sussman told DailyMail.com.
He added: 'This does not qualify as an extreme emergency. 
'New York City has a carefully crafted set of public health laws. In the case of an outbreak of a contagious disease, those laws allow for quarantine to stop its spread, they also allow for a school where there is a case of measles to disallow attendances. Those are two measures that are explicitly authorized by legislation. 
'Politicians are now reaching to adopt authoritarian measures which are primarily focused on the broad population and attempting to force those populations to vaccinate where there's no legal warrant for it.' 
Explained: New York City's emergency measles order
Normally, New York City allows for people to skip vaccinations if they have a medical reason or a religious reason.
But Mayor Bill de Blasio has rescinded religious exemptions for the select area in Brooklyn where measles is spreading among Orthodox Jews.
The order states that as of Thursday morning, any adult or child that has not received the MMR (mumps, measles, rubella) vaccine in four Williamsburg ZIP codes (11205, 11206, 11211, 11249) will be forced to do so. 


Flouting that rule could incur a $1,000 fine or a six-month jail sentence, officials said. 
They plan to track unvaccinated people by tracing anyone who may have come into contact with people who have measles. 
New York City health commissioner Dr Oxiris Barbot neglected to elaborate on whether they would fine people twice if they continued to refuse vaccination.
What is the legal framework behind New York City's mandate? 
1. State of emergency 
According to New York state laws, the point of a state of emergency is to 'protect life and property or to bring the emergency situation under control.'
The mayor has the power to declare a state of emergency 'in the event of reasonable apprehension of immediate danger' or 'that the public safety is imperiled.'
The state of emergency can be declared for the entire state, an entire city, or just certain ZIP codes. 
It can last for up to 30 days, or until the chief executive (the mayor) rescinds it. In this case, it will last until April 17, though De Blasio does have the power to extend it. 
The law is broad about what measures the mayor can bring in to bring an emergency situation under control.
During the emergency period, anyone who violates the new rules is guilty of a class B misdemeanor, which carries a fine of up to $1,000 or a six-month jail term, according to New York law.
Other cities have levied the same threats on citizens. For example, New Jersey has issued a state of emergency during snowstorms, warning anyone who drove during the curfew period would be slapped with a $1,000 fine. 
There is some debate about whether New York City's outbreak constitutes a state of emergency. 
It is one of the biggest outbreaks the city has ever seen - with 285 cases up from two last year.  
2. A 100-year-old precedent for forced vaccines in Massachusetts
In 1905, the Supreme Court sided with Massachusetts after the state introduced mandatory smallpox vaccines, with a $5 fine for refusal. 
It had been challenged by Rev Henning Jacobson, who said he and his son had developed allergic reactions to the first vaccine and didn't want to do it again. 
The judge ruled that their concerns were not enough to override the public health risk.  
Is it right? 
Many public health experts say it is a valid move, but others fear it will only drive anti-vaxxers further away from mainstream medicine and health authorities.  
A driving factor behind Brooklyn's measles outbreak is the circulation of a magazine called PEACH (Parents Educating and Advocating for Children's Health), a religious illustrated handbook that demonizes vaccines with alarming drawings and storylines. 
Blima Marcus, an Orthodox Jewish nurse in Williamsburg trying to counteract PEACH with her own magazine (PIE, Parents Informed and Educated), warns the situation is incredibly complex, with layers of cultural beliefs and deep-rooted concerns that could be intensified with a hard-line approach. 
'It's not getting to the root of the problem,' Marcus told Gothamist. 
'The government needs to put their efforts into understanding the root cause of the hesitancy and fears of vaccinating and addressing tha

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6910375/llhan-Omar-hits-double-standards-minority-women-Congress.html

[size=34]'Everyone else's truth is allowed, but mine can never be': llhan Omar appears on Colbert and hits out at 'double standards' that sees her 'called out' for her remarks but not others[/size]

• Omar told Colbert that she believes women of color are held to double standard
  
  
• She spoke of controversy after she called Stephen Miller a white nationalist
  
  
• Said another congressman had said the same thing last year, with no criticism 
  
  
• Omar also touched on a Fox host questioning whether she was 'American first' 
  
  
• She said she expected her colleagues to come out in her defense
  
  

By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 01:51 EDT, 11 April 2019 | UPDATED: 08:11 EDT, 11 April 2019

     





She has been one of the most controversial figures in Congress, but Rep Ilhan Omar made it clear on Wednesday that she had no plans to become 'invisible'. 
The Democratic congresswoman appeared on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night to tackle some of her many recent controversies. 
Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, told Colbert that she believes she is held to a double standard because she is a woman of color. 
The Minnesota congresswoman was specifically referring to her most recent controversy, in which she was attacked by Donald Trump for calling his senior adviser Stephen Miller a white nationalist. 


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Rep Ilhan Omar appeared on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night to tackle some of her many recent controversies


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Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, told Colbert that she believes she is held to a double standard because she is a woman of color

[size=10][size=18]Rep Ilhan Omar on Fox host: I'm as American as everyone else


L[/size][/size]


'Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage,' she tweeted on Monday. 
Her tweet caught the attention of Trump, who claimed that Omar was targeting Jewish people - a claim that has been lobbied by many on the far-right since her term began. 
Colbert noted that he has called Miller a white nationalist multiple times on his own show without ever receiving any criticism of the sort. 
'I think because you're a Muslim, you're a woman, you're a person of color, you're given less latitude then someone like me,' he said. 
Omar then noted how a congressman had called Miller a white supremacist last year and 'no one batted an eye'. 
'And you see this outrage when I speak the truth. Everyone else's truth is allowed, but my truth can never be,' she added. 


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Omar made it clear on Wednesday that she had no plans to become 'invisible' despite her recent controversies 

When Colbert asked Omar why she believed she had become a 'lightning rod' for both right-wing media and some fellow Democrats, the congresswoman said the answer was merely her identity. 
'If you think about historically where our nation is right now, there are many members of our community, their identities are lightning rods,' she said. 
'They're being used as political football - immigrants, refugees, women of color, people of color, minorities, Muslims. I happen to embody all of those identities, so it's easy for this to be kind of self-explanatory.' 
Colbert then asked Omar to explain her recent controversial comments regarding Jewish people, which led to her apologizing on the insistence of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 
Omar came under fire earlier this year for suggesting that supporters of Israel were urging lawmakers to have 'allegiance to a foreign country.'


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The Minnesota congresswoman most recently came under fire from the far-right for calling Stephen Miller a white nationalist



Her tweet caught the attention of Trump, who claimed that Omar was targeting Jewish people - a claim that has been lobbied by many on the far-right


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Omar issued a swift rebuttal on Twitter, and also noted to Colbert how no one 'batted an eye' when a congressman said the same thing a year prior 

[size=18]Ilhan Omar says Trump 'fuels hate against Muslims'




L[/size]





She also claimed that moneyed Jews buy the support of US lawmakers with a strategy that's 'all about the Benjamins baby.' 
Omar said the whole process has been about 'growth' for her. 
'Often times when you're speaking, you might not understand the historical context of some of the words you might use and the kind of pain it might incite for people,' she told Colbert. 
'So in this process, I'm learning that everything is not as simple as we might want to state it. As I've said to my constituents, to my colleagues, when you tell me you are pained by something I say, I will always listen and acknowledge your pain.' 


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Omar also spoke of a recent Fox News segment in which host Brian Kilmeade questioned if she was 'an American first', saying she expected her colleagues to come out in her defense 
But Omar noted that she expected the same from them when, for example, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade questioned whether she was 'an American first'. 
'I expect my colleagues to also say "That's not okay", they should condone that and call that out,' Omar continued. 
'Or when people call me a terrorist or when people say that because I am Muslim and an immigrant and a refugee that I can't have loyalty to our country.' 
'I took an oath to uphold the Constitution, I am as American as everyone else is. And this kind of double standard is really quite offensive, and it's very much embedded in our culture these days.' 


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'I took an oath to uphold the Constitution, I am as American as everyone else is. And this kind of double standard is really quite offensive,' she told Colbert 



'You will have people come after minorities for things they might have insinuated, but no one goes after people like the folks on Fox and Friends that actually say those words. But I get called out, they don't, they get to keep their show.' 
Colbert concluded the interview by asking Omar what she would say to those who believe she and other outspoken freshmen congresswoman, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, should 'slow down' and 'see how everything words' before they 'start making waves'. 


'Women have been told to go slow and not be seen and not be heard for many years...[that's] certainly the case for minority women,' Omar said. 
'We are not there to be quiet, we are not there to be invisible, we are there to follow the lead of people like congressman like John Lewis and make good trouble.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6909571/Mike-Pence-says-Pete-Buttigieg-playing-party-criticizing-gay-rights.html

[size=34]'He knows me. He knows better.' Mike Pence says openly gay Democratic 2020 candidate Pete Buttigieg is playing to party 'sliding to the left' by criticizing him on gay rights[/size]

• Vice President Mike Pence shot back at Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg and said the mayor 'knows better' than to criticize his faith 
  
  
• 'He said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally. And he knows better. He knows me,' Pence told CNBC
  
  
• Pence was governor of Indiana when the South Bend mayor came out as gay 
  
  
• Pence argued Buttigieg was trying to rally the liberal left to his side in the crowded field for the Democratic presidential nomination 
  
  
• Buttigieg said on Sunday if Pence is mad at people for being gay, it's God he should actually be angry at 
  
  
• Buttigieg is the first openly gay candidate for president 
  
  
• 'If you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator,' he said 
  
  
• Vice President Pence has a long record of opposing gay rights 
  
  

By EMILY GOODIN, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 19:28 EDT, 10 April 2019 | UPDATED: 22:55 EDT, 10 April 2019

     




Vice President Mike Pence shot back at Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday, saying the mayor 'knows better' than to criticize his faith and charging him with trying to win points with progressives.
'He said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally. And he knows better. He knows me,' Pence told CNBC. 
Pence, who has a long history of opposing gay rights, served as Indiana governor when Buttigieg came out as gay during his reelection campaign for mayor of South Bend. 


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Vice President Mike Pence shot back at Democratic presidential contender Pete Buttigieg and said the mayor 'knows better' than to criticize his faith


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Pence was governor of Indiana when South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg came out as gay; Buttigeg is the first openly gay presidential candidate 
Pence argued Buttigieg was trying to rally the liberal left to his side in the crowded field for the Democratic presidential nomination with his criticism. 

'But I get it. You know, it's look, again, 19 people running for president on that side in a party that's sliding off to the left. And they're all competing with one another for how much more liberal they can be,' Pence said.
Buttigieg, a breakout star of the 2020 campaign, said on Sunday if the vice president is mad at people for being gay, it's God he should actually be angry at.
'If me being gay was a choice it was a choice made far, far above my pay grade,' the 37-year-old rising star in the Democratic Party told the LGBTQ Victory Fund event in Washington D.C.
'And that's the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. That if you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator,' he added.
Buttigieg is the first openly gay candidate for president in U.S. history. 
 Pence said that as governor, he 'worked very closely with Mayor Pete' and that they 'had a great working relationship.' 
He pointed out as governor of the state he implemented the Supreme Court's decision that made gay marriage legal. 
Buttigieg wrote a post on Twitter on Tuesday that appeared to be directed toward similar comments Pence has made.





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'People will often be polite to you in person, while advancing policies that harm you and your family. You will be polite to them in turn, but you need not stand for such harms. Instead, you push back, honestly and emphatically. So it goes, in the public square,' he tweeted.   
Buttigieg came out as gay during his June 2015 mayoral re-election campaign, which he went on to win with 78 percent of the vote. 
He has risen rapidly in the crowded field to win the Democratic presidential nomination. He is expected to formally launch his White House bid in South Bend on Sunday. 
The national attention has surrounded him, in part, because of his harsh criticism of President Donald Trump and his administration.
On Sunday, however, he dove into more personal terms about what being gay and his marriage to Chasten, a school teacher, means to him. 
'When I was younger I would do anything to not be gay,' he told the crowd at the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a political PAC dedicated to increasing the number of openly LGBT public officials in the U.S. 
'If you had offered me a pill to make me straight I would have swallowed it before you had time to give me a sip of water,' he said, adding 'It's a hard thing to think about now.'
'It's hard to face the truth there were times in my life when you had shown me exactly what it was inside me that made me gay I would have cut it out with a knife,' he noted.


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South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg said if Vice President Mike Pence is mad at people for being gay, it's God he should actually be angry at


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Mayor Pete Buttigieg with his husband Chasten Buttigieg
But he said out of the pain of those early years became joy in the form of his marriage. 
'The best thing in my life - my marriage – might not never have happened at all,' he said.
'My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man and, yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God,' he added.
Buttigieg was raised Catholic but has become a devout Episcopalian.  
He also slammed evangelical Christians on Sunday for their support of PresidentTrump given his payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels. 
'I can't believe that somebody that was caught writing hush money checks to adult film actresses is somebody they should be lifting up as the kind of person they want to be leading this nation,' he said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'
He said Trump's hypocrisy is 'unbelievable.' 


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Pete Buttigieg, a breakout star of the 2020 campaign, said he can't believe evangelical Christians support President Donald Trump


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Buttigieg said he can't believe evangelical Christians support President Donald Trump (left) given his payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels (right)
'Here, you have somebody who not only acts in a way that is not consistent with anything that I hear in scripture or in church, where it's about lifting up the least among us and taking care of strangers, which is another word for immigrants. And making sure that you're focusing your effort on the poor. But also personally, how you're supposed to conduct yourself. Not chest thumping look-at-me-ism, but humbling yourself before others,' he said.
'We see the diametric opposite of that in this presidency. I think there was perhaps a cynical process where he decided to, for example, begin to pretend to be pro-life and govern accordingly. Which was good enough to bring many Evangelicals over to his side,' Buttigieg added.
The South Bend mayor has seen his long shot presidential campaign experience a boom in recent weeks, thanks to his criticism of Trump, who he's criticized before for his payoffs to Daniels. 
Trump has denied an affair with the actress but his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign violations tied to the $130,000 paid to Daniels in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure form about an affair she said she had with Trump back in 2014.

Holy cow! Where to start?..
   Assange: This really made me laugh. He created an organization that roots around and publicizes other people's business and then complains that his privacy was violated? Boo hoo!

   Measles epidemic: If the communities involved would act responsibly we'd have no problem. Not only won't they vaccinate their children, they won't self-quarantine until the disease peters out, so they expose other people in the general population- babies and the elderly or people whose immune systems are weak.

Those "measles parties" where they throw all their kids in together so they'll all get sick at the same time? That's a throwback to a time when there was no vaccine. They need to come into the 21st century and consider people other than themselves. They'd be the first to sue if the shoe was on the other foot.

   Ilhan Omar: I'm waiting for her to say Palestinians have been as responsible as the Israelis in creating the situation there. Until then I will consider her a mouthpiece for a foreign terrorist group. Is Miller a white-nationalist abomination? Yes. Is she an apologist for terrorists? Seems to be.

Buttigieg/Pence: Buttigieg is right in what he says about Pence, but I'm not sure why he's picking a fight with him - unless he thinks drumpf won't be the candidate in 2020.

That's been a quite interesting day so far- not to forget that the EU allowed the UK to stay in the EU until Halloween. I wonder if the House of Commons will ever find a majority on one of about a dozen different varieties of how to leave the EU...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6908953/AP-Interview-Pelosi-says-Barr-comments-undermine-role.html

[size=34]'I don't trust Barr, I trust Mueller!' Nancy Pelosi launches furious attack on attorney general saying he is acting as Trump's personal lawyer over special counsel report[/size]

• House Speaker says she is 'very concerned' that attorney general Bill Barr is acting as Trump's personal lawyer over the Mueller report 
  
  
• She said his testimony to the Senate Wednesday suggested he was not acting in the interests of the United States
  
  
• Barr said that he thought there had been 'spying' on Trump's campaign in 2016, which the president has claimed formed the basis of Russian collusion claims 
  
  
• Pelosi said the full unredacted report would be made public despite Barr saying it would only be released in redacted form
  
  
• She also refused to close the door on impeachment saying that if Mueller's report has 'impeachable' information in it Democrats could act
  
  

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 15:47 EDT, 10 April 2019 | UPDATED: 04:34 EDT, 11 April 2019

     


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday questioned Attorney General William Barr's independence from President Donald Trump, arguing Barr's pursuit of Trump's claims about 'spying' during the 2016 campaign undermines his position as the nation's top law enforcement officer.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, the California Democrat said she was 'very concerned' about Barr's handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian meddling in the campaign and accused Barr of doing Trump's political bidding in his testimony at a Senate hearing.
'He is not the attorney general of Donald Trump. He is the attorney general of the United States,' Pelosi told AP. 'I don't trust Barr, I trust Mueller.'
Pressure is mounting on the attorney general in the days before his release of a version of Mueller's nearly 400-page report, and Pelosi amplified the demands from Capitol Hill to see the full document. 

Barr said Wednesday he expects to release a redacted version within a week. Pelosi said it's only a 'matter of time' before the full report is made public. 'We will see it,' she said.
During Pelosi's 30-minute interview in her Capitol Hill office, she took stock of the Democrats' first 100 days as the House majority in the new Congress. 
And despite harsh words for Trump and his advisers, she still spoke hopefully of working with him on key issues - including lowering prescription drug prices - where the two share common goals.


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Trashing: Nancy Pelosi said of Bil Barr: 'He is not the attorney general of Donald Trump. He is the attorney general of the United States. I don't trust Barr, I trust Mueller.' 


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Testimony: Bill Barr said as he testified to the Senate Wednesday that he thought there had been 'spying' on Trump's 2016 campaign, echoing one of the president's allegations


At the same time, Pelosi vowed to keep up relentless Democratic oversight of the administration. 
And she did not fully close the door on impeachment proceedings, despite having recently dismissed efforts by liberal colleagues by saying Trump's 'not worth it.'
'My view is that impeachment is very divisive in the country, and when we see what we need to see it may be imperative that he be impeached. But up until then, he's not worth it,' Pelosi said.
Much will hinge on Mueller's findings, putting the attorney general's credibility increasingly on the line.
Barr testified Wednesday before a Senate panel that he believes 'spying did occur' on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, aligning himself more closely with the president's views on the origins of the Russia investigation. 
Trump and other critics of the Russia probe claim that the precursor to Mueller's investigation was launched during the Obama administration by officials abusing their surveillance power. Mueller was appointed special counsel by Trump's Justice Department.
Barr didn't present evidence to support the assertion and later in his testimony appeared to backtrack, saying he wasn't certain that any wrongdoing occurred and was only interested in ensuring proper procedures were followed.
Pelosi said Barr's comments undermine the Constitution and his role in the Justice Department.
Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec declined to comment.


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As House Democrats pursue oversight of the Trump administration beyond the Mueller probe, Trump has complained that Democrats will never be satisfied. He and his allies call it presidential harassment.
Asked what would satisfy Democrats, Pelosi said: 'I'll be satisfied when we have a new president of the United States who is a Democrat.'
As for the Mueller report, Barr's four-page summary of its main conclusions said the president was not exonerated by the special counsel. 
Mueller left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice during the two-year probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Barr and his team at the Justice Department made their own decision to clear the president of criminal wrongdoing.


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Trust: Nancy Pelosi said she believed in the special counsel Robert Mueller as she cast doubt on Bill Barr, the attorney general, and his version of the report
Pelosi said anew on Wednesday, 'Let us see the report.'
'The fact is the president has engaged in activities that are unethical, un-American. ... In every way he is unfit to be the president of the United States,' she said.
'Is that an impeachable offense? Well it depends on what we see in the report. 
'I set a very high bar for impeachment because I think it's very divisive in the country and one of our purposes is to unify, as our founders gave us guidance, e pluribus unum, from many one.'
Republicans say Pelosi is under great pressure from her liberal flank, including young colleagues such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but the speaker who has represented San Francisco for 30 years scoffed.
'I am from the left,' she said. 'I'm a progressive Democrat from San Francisco ... and I'm proud of who I am.'
As the new Congress rounds out its 100-days milestone, the speaker said Democrats are doing far more than conducting oversight of the White House, even though she said that's their constitutional responsibility as an equal branch of government.
Though female candidates and voters helped usher Democrats to the majority, Pelosi said she's not insisting on having a woman -- or two women -- on the party's 2020 presidential ticket.
'Would I like to see one? Yes,' she said. 'But it doesn't mean that if there isn't one ... that it's not a ticket that we should all get behind.'
She said she prefers to keep the House focused on pocketbook issues for everyday Americans -- lowering health care costs and investing in infrastructure - and new ethics rules, not on Trump.
'We are not just focusing on him,' she said. 'We're focused on what we said we would do.'

[size=34]Mueller - the final tally: Eight convictions, a jailed attorney and 25 Russians accused[/size]

GUILTY: MICHAEL FLYNN 
Pleaded guilty to making false statements in December 2017. Awaiting sentence
Flynn was President Trump's former National Security Advisor and Robert Mueller's most senior scalp to date. He previously served when he was a three star general as President Obama's director of the Defense Intelligence Agency but was fired. 
He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his conversations with a Russian ambassador in December 2016. He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

GUILTY: MICHAEL COHEN
Pleaded guilty to eight counts including fraud and two campaign finance violations in August 2018. Pleaded guilty to further count of lying to Congress in November 2018. Sentenced to three years in prison and $2 million in fines and forfeitures in December 2018
Cohen was Trump's longtime personal attorney, starting working for him and the Trump Organization in 2007. He is the longest-serving member of Trump's inner circle to be implicated by Mueller. Cohen professed unswerving devotion to Trump - and organized payments to silence two women who alleged they had sex with the-then candidate: porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. He admitted that payments to both women were felony campaign finance violations - and admitted that he acted at the 'direction' of 'Candidate-1': Donald Trump. 
He also admitted tax fraud by lying about his income from loans he made, money from  taxi medallions he owned, and other sources of income, at a cost to the Treasury of $1.3 million.
And he admitted lying to Congress in a rare use of the offense. The judge in his case let him report for prison on March 6 and  recommended he serve it in a medium-security facility close to New York City.


GUILTY AND JAILED: PAUL MANAFORT
Found guilty of eight charges of bank and tax fraud in August 2018. Sentenced to 47 months in March 2019. Pleaded guilty to two further charges - witness tampering and conspiracy against the United States. Jailed for total of seven and a half years in two separate sentences. Additionally indicted for mortgage fraud by Manhattan District Attorney, using evidence previously presented by Mueller
 Manafort worked for Trump's campaign from March 2016 and chaired it from June to August 2016, overseeing Trump being adopted as Republican candidate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He is the most senior campaign official to be implicated by Mueller. Manafort was one of Washington D.C.'s longest-term and most influential lobbyists but in 2015, his money dried up and the next year he turned to Trump for help, offering to be his campaign chairman for free - in the hope of making more money afterwards. But Mueller unwound his previous finances and discovered years of tax and bank fraud as he coined in cash from pro-Russia political parties and oligarchs in Ukraine.
Manafort pleaded not guilty to 18 charges of tax and bank fraud but was convicted of eight counts in August 2018. The jury was deadlocked on the other 10 charges. A second trial on charges of failing to register as a foreign agent due in September did not happen when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and witness tampering in a plea bargain. He was supposed to co-operate with Mueller but failed to. 
Minutes after his second sentencing hearing in March 2019, he was indicted on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., using evidence which included documents previously presented at his first federal trial. The president has no pardon power over charges by district and state attorneys.

GUILTY: RICK GATES 
Pleaded guilty to conspiracy against the United States and making false statements in February 2018. Awaiting sentence
Gates was Manafort's former deputy at political consulting firm DMP International. He admitted to conspiring to defraud the U.S. government on financial activity, and to lying to investigators about a meeting Manafort had with a member of congress in 2013. As a result of his guilty plea and promise of cooperation, prosecutors vacated charges against Gates on bank fraud, bank fraud conspiracy, failure to disclose foreign bank accounts, filing false tax returns, helping prepare false tax filings, and falsely amending tax returns.

GUILTY AND JAILED: GEORGE PAPADOPOLOUS
Pleaded guilty to making false statements in October 2017. Sentenced to 14 days in September 2018, and reported to prison in November. Served 12 days and released on December 7, 2018
 Papadopoulos was a member of Donald Trump's campaign foreign policy advisory committee. He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about his contacts with London professor Josef Mifsud and Ivan Timofeev, the director of a Russian government-funded think tank. 
He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

GUILTY AND JAILED: RICHARD PINEDO
Pleaded guilty to identity fraud in February 2018. Sentenced to a year in prison
Pinedo is a 28-year-old computer specialist from Santa Paula, California. He admitted to selling bank account numbers to Russian nationals over the internet that he had obtained using stolen identities. 
He has agreed to cooperate with the special counsel investigation.

GUILTY AND JAILED: ALEX VAN DER ZWAAN
Pleaded guilty to making false statements in February 2018. He served a 30-day prison sentence and was deported to the Netherlands on his release
Van der Zwaan was a Dutch attorney for Skadden Arps who worked on a Ukrainian political analysis report for Paul Manafort in 2012. 
He admitted to lying to special counsel investigators about when he last spoke with Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik. His law firm say he was fired.

GUILTY:  W. SAMUEL PATTEN
Pleaded guilty in August 2018 to failing to register as a lobbyist while doing work for a Ukrainian political party. Awaiting sentence
Patten, a long-time D.C. lobbyist was a business partner of Paul Manafort. He pleaded guilty to admitting to arranging an illegal $50,000 donation to Trump's inauguration.
He arranged for an American 'straw donor' to pay $50,000 to the inaugural committee, knowing that it was actually for a Ukrainian businessman.
Neither the American or the Ukrainian have been named.   

CHARGED: KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK
Indicted for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. At large, probably in Russia
Kilimnik is a former employee of Manafort's political consulting firm and helped him with lobbying work in Ukraine. He is accused of witness tampering, after he allegedly contacted individuals who had worked with Manafort to remind them that Manafort only performed lobbying work for them outside of the U.S.
He has been linked to  Russian intelligence and is currently thought to be in Russia - effectively beyond the reach of extradition by Mueller's team.
INDICTED: THE RUSSIANS 
Twenty-five Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted for conspiracy to defraud the United States. They remain at large in Russia
Two of these Russian nationals were also indicted for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 were indicted for conspiracy to launder money. Fifteen of them were also indicted for identity fraud. 
Vladimir Putin has ridiculed the charges. Russia effectively bars extradition of its nationals. The only prospect Mueller has of bringing any in front of a U.S. jury is if Interpol has their names on an international stop list - which is not made public - and they set foot in a territory which extradites to the U.S. 
INDICTED: MICHAEL FLYNN'S BUSINESS PARTNERS

Bijan Kian (left), number two in now disgraced former national security adviser Mike Flynn's lobbying company, and the two's business partner Ekim Alptekin (right) were indicted for conspiracy to lobby illegally. Kian is awaiting trial, Alptekin is still to appear in court
Kian, an Iranian-American was arrested and appeared in court charged with a conspiracy to illegally lobby the U.S government without registering as a foreign agent. Their co-conspirator was Flynn, who is called 'Person A' in the indictment and is not charged, offering some insight into what charges he escaped with his plea deal.
Kian, vice-president of Flynn's former lobbying firm, is alleged to have plotted with Alptekin to try to change U.S. policy on an exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania and who is accused by Turkey's strongman president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of trying to depose him.
Erdogan's government wanted him extradited from the U.S. and paid Flynn's firm through Alptekin for lobbying, including an op-ed in The Hill calling for Gulen to be ejected. Flynn and Kian both lied that the op-ed was not paid for by the Turkish government. 
The indictment is a sign of how Mueller is taking an interest in more than just Russian involvement in the 2016 election.

INDICTED: ROGER STONE 
Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign official and longtime informal advisor to Trump, was indited on seven counts including obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and lying to Congress about his communications with WikiLeaks in January 2019. Awaiting trial
Stone was a person of interest to Mueller's investigators long before his January indictment, thanks in part due to his public pronouncements as well as internal emails about his contacts with WikiLeks.
In campaign texts and emails, many of which had already been publicly revealed before showing up in Mueller's indictment, Stone communicated with associates about WikiLeaks following reports the organization had obtained a cache of Clinton-related emails.
Stone, a former Nixon campaign adviser who has the disgraced former president's face permanently tattooed on his back, has long been portrayed as a central figure in the election interference scandal, but as recently as January 4 told Dailymail.com that he doesn't expect to be indicted.
'They got nothing,' he said of the special counsel's investigation.
According to the federal indictment, Stone gave 'false and misleading' testimony about his requests for information from WikiLeaks. He then pressured a witness, comedian Randy Credico, to take the Fifth Amendment rather than testify, and pressured him in a series of emails. Following a prolonged dispute over testimony, he called him a 'rat' and threatened to 'take that dog away from you', in reference to Credico's pet, Bianca. Stone warned him: 'Let's get it on. Prepare to die.'  

On top of all of these newsy stories I just read that Omar al-Bashir has been ousted as President of Sudan by a military coup headed by his Vice President. George may be cautiously pleased by this ...

Pence is at the very least a complete and utter hypocrite when he responds to attacks by Pete Buttigieg. Mayor Pete has Pence’s number!

Congresswoman Omar is right that there is hypocrisy and double standards being thrown at her by politicians and some media. She has made good points about how many of our U.S. politicians fall in line when comes to Israel. We are not critical enough of their far right policies. But she does need to balance what she says by also calling out the Palestinians for decades of the violence that they have perpetrated on Israel and to their contribution to the turmoil in the Middle East. Israel and Palestine ... neither is innocent.

Omar al-Bashir:

Cautiously is a very good word, Donnamarie. Very vague picture there - he's apparently in a 'safe space'. I would read this as meaning the army 'coup' may well have been orchestrated so that they can beat up a few people on the streets - and he can come back when it's all calmed down a bit. Meanwhile it would be nice to think that the ICC might try to move forward on his arrest for mass genocide - but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Brexit - it all looks bonkers doesn't it but it's definitely democratic - so a positive could be that at least we are not in an already populist country. Some of the 27 in the EU are. Footnote: Article 50 takes four years to get through - and we're only two years down the road!

Assange: Here is an interview with his lawyers. Recognise the blonde?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB5vCRwA4mI

Seems to me there's a difference between whistle-blowing, journalistic freedom and espionage. Maybe the line needs to be defined clearly and publicly so anyone who crosses it knows what to expect.

So true. But then you'd have to decide who would define it, I guess - and according to one Geoffrey Robertson, Doughty Street, Ecuador have broken international law with his arrest...

Mayor Pete - um, well I think he's talking about him because he was the former Governor of Indiana

Mayor Pete said he got along fairly well with Pence when they worked together. He also said that you can work well with someone on a professional level and still not agree with their policies/beliefs. That's basically the way this country used to run until the religious right decided it was their way or the highway.

Personally, I don't care what anyone else does in the privacy of their own home (and I'm not just talking about sex) as long as it's consensual and no one gets hurt.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6912465/Trumps-sister-quit-federal-judge-probe-possible-role-family-tax-scam-opened.html

[size=34]Trump's sister quits as a federal judge just 10 days after formal probe is launched into whether she and her family ran tax fraud scheme[/size]

• Trump's older sister resigned in February as an appellate court judge shortly after a probe opened into her involvement in a family tax scheme
  
  
• The case was closed after Barry resigned because retired judges are not subject to judicial conduct rules 
  
  
• Barry had not heard a case in two years after transitioning to inactive shortly after Trump's inauguration 
  
  
• The Trump siblings were probed after an investigation found they were involved in a tax scheme related to the transfer of their father's real estate empire 
  
  

By KATELYN CARALLE, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 13:00 EDT, 11 April 2019 | UPDATED: 16:20 EDT, 11 April 2019

     




 President Donald Trump's sister has retired as a federal appellate judge in Philadelphia, ending a civil misconduct inquiry launched after a report that she participated in Trump family schemes to dodge taxes.
The retirement of Maryanne Trump Barry was revealed in an April 1 order signed by a top court official in New York, where the misconduct case was assigned to prevent conflicts of interest for judges who knew Barry.
A judicial panel began the review in response to four citizen complaints filed in October after The New York Times published a story alleging the president and his siblings evaded inheritance taxes.
The April 1 order said Barry's voluntary Feb. 11 retirement ends the review stemming from claims based on the news article alleging that Barry may have committed misconduct relating to tax and financial transactions that occurred mostly in the 1980s and 1990s.

The order said the complaint process was meant to correct conditions interfering with the "effective and expeditious" administration of court business. It said the resignation meant that Barry can no longer perform any judicial duties and thus can no longer be investigated.
Barry, 82, was not identified by name in the order, but the facts matched her circumstances, and a copy of the order was sent to Scott Shuchart, an attorney who filed one of the complaints and had been promised by the court to be kept updated on its progress.


+1




Maryanne Trump Barry, was a senior inactive judge, which is the step taken usually before full retirement, and had not heard a case in over two years. But she changed her status to retired just 10 days after a formal disciplinary investigation was opened into her
 
Shuchart said he was "absolutely disappointed" that Barry was able to end scrutiny of her actions by retiring.
"If the Times story is correct, then she participated in a decades-long multimillion-dollar tax fraud. That should be an impeachable offense. She gets her full salary," he said.
"I think it's appalling that we're continuing to pay this criminal and that she now has completely avoided consequence," Shuchart added. "It's ridiculous."
Barry didn't respond to an email seeking comment.
Chief Judge D. Brooks Smith of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia released a statement calling Barry a "judicial giant" whose 36 years as a judge in the Philadelphia federal courts were "beyond exemplary."
"Judge Barry was a very hard working jurist with a sharp mind, keen instincts, and a quick wit. She was a role model for women in the law, and she took that responsibility seriously," Smith said.
Judge Theodore McKee, another of Barry's 3rd Circuit's colleagues, told The Associated Press that Barry was a meticulous judge who protected the court's reputation, and to the extent the complaints "may have cast aspersions on that, I know she would have been very concerned."
The 15,000-word Times report last year said that Trump's father, Fred, transferred ownership of most of his real estate empire to his four living children before he died in the late 1990s.
The Times investigation, based in part on more than 100,000 pages of financial documents including confidential tax returns from the father and his companies, concluded that the value of the properties was vastly understated when they were reported as $41.4 million. It said the properties were later sold over the next decade for over 16 times that amount.
The Times reported Trump's parents transferred over $1 billion to their children. It said that the transfer should have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million, but that the children paid only about $52.2 million.
Trump has called the Times expose a false "hit piece."
If members of the family did break any laws, the expiration of a statute of limitations makes a criminal prosecution unlikely, though lawsuits might be possible.
With a recently approved retroactive pay raise for federal appellate judges, Barry will receive $223,700 annually in retirement.
After her brother's election, Barry gave up her court staff and took inactive status in early 2017.
A Republican, she was nominated for a judgeship by President Ronald Reagan and was elevated to the circuit court by President Bill Clinton.

party animal - not! wrote:

Brexit - it all looks bonkers doesn't it but it's definitely democratic - so a positive could be that at least we are not in an already populist country. Some of the 27 in the EU are. Footnote: Article 50 takes four years to get through - and we're only two years down the road!

PAN,

that's Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union:

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3)[12]of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council [of the European Union], acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.
A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

So according to Paragraph 3, it's two years, not four.
But anyway, there was no need for Theresa May to notify UKs withdrawal on March 29th, 2017 - maybe apart of pressure from her own party.
But I've watched several debates and found it really interesting and sometimes entertaining. John Bercow sometimes made my day: "Order! Ooorder!" "Ayes to the right, Noes tk the left!"

But apart of the entertainment, I'm quite relieved that my group will be able to travel to the UK in August like before...

PAN - Does this extension just mean that they'll have more time to come up with a workable plan, or do you think they'll call for another referendum?

Yep,  you're right about the time Article 50 takes on it's own, Carol, but alongside it go all the complications of Northern Ireland, Gibraltar etc - uniquely our problems and independent trade treaties that take at least 4 years minimum.

Pretty sure half of the population had no idea of the implications when they voted. Most people thought they were voting to gain back control of their own country. I have many intelligent friends who joined them. And many who didn't.











Have to say I didn't vote to leave because I researched it and thought it was too difficult. Pragmatic stuff

 The irony is that the Eurozone economy really isn't great at the moment, further integration looms, China is helping out, and Macron has huge domestic problems.

But when there is a hung Parliament here there are likely to be many close votes
and arguments.  

Still think I might be better off than living with the Trump presidency!

And for all those folks I know in Italy who were really envious and wished they could leave the EU too (namely in Lombardy) I'm pretty sure they'll be reluctantly thinking twice.

Lizzy, that's what's up for debate in Parliament now.

Personally I'm not sure that another referendum would make any difference. People would probably think the same and you could end up having referendums for absolutely everything.

Undoubtedly it is what the EU Parliament and what people call the left wing elite think might be a good idea. You might also have Russia trying to influence separation because of course that is what they want.

People forget that at the time of the last referendum, Turkey was trying to join the EU (they are already part of NATO) and that would definitely have influenced the vote. Let's not forget they are good friends of Russia too who will never now leave the Mediterranean base they have in Syria!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6914395/White-House-considered-releasing-detained-migrants-sanctuary-cities-Washington-Post.html

[size=34]White House 'wanted to release immigrant detainees onto the streets of sanctuary cities such as San Francisco to get back at Trump's political foes'[/size]

• The Washington Post reported Thursday that the White House proposed the measure at least twice in the past six months 
  
  
• The outlet quoted a White House official as saying the proposal was 'just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion' 
  
  
• Sanctuary cities are those where local officials decline to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation 
  
  

By REUTERS
PUBLISHED: 21:40 EDT, 11 April 2019 | UPDATED: 01:56 EDT, 12 April 2019

     



White House officials have tried to pressure US immigration authorities to release migrants detained at the border into so-called sanctuary cities such as San Francisco to retaliate against President Donald Trump's political adversaries, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
The Post, which reviewed emails on the issue and spoke to unnamed officials at the Department of Homeland Security, said the White House proposed the measure at least twice in the past six months. 
Sanctuary cities are those where local officials decline to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation.
The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.

But the Post quoted a White House official as saying the proposal was no longer under consideration, calling it 'just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion.'


+1


White House officials have tried to pressure US immigration authorities to release migrants detained at the border into so-called sanctuary cities such as San Francisco to retaliate against President Donald Trump's political adversaries, the Washington Post reported on Thursday 
Trump administration officials proposed the measure in November as a caravan traveled through Mexico with mostly migrants from Central American countries toward the southern US border. 
The proposal emerged again in February during a standoff with Democrats over funding the president sought to build a wall on the border, one of the signature issues of his 2016 election campaign and presidency.

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The Post said a November 16 email broached the proposal, asking officials at different agencies whether members of the migrant caravan could be detained at the border, then bused to 'small- and mid-sized sanctuary cities,' where local officials refuse to hand over illegal immigrants for deportation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district in San Francisco was one of those the White House considered targeting, the Post cited the DHS officials as saying.
Ashley Etienne, a spokeswoman for Pelosi, denounced the administration for its 'cynicism and cruelty' over the plan.
'Using human beings - including little children - as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable, and in some cases, criminal,' she said, adding that Americans had 'resoundingly rejected this administration's toxic anti-immigrant policies.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6913105/Ohio-governor-sign-ban-abortion-1st-heartbeat.html

[size=34]Ohio governor signs ban on abortion after first heartbeat as smiling staff bring their children to watch historic moment - as opponents plan immediate constitutional challenge[/size]

• Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine on Thursday signed bill banning abortions after a detectable heartbeat which can be as early as five weeks into pregnancy
  
  
• He said 'it is the right thing to do' and the government's job to protect vulnerable
  
  
• DeWine said it was protecting pregnant women as well as the babies they carry 
  
  
• The law makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest 
  
  
• Staff smiled as they clutched children while witnessing him write his signature
  
  
• Lt. Governor Jon A. Husted took chief of staff Alisha Nelson's two-year-old daughter Faye Zaffini for the picture moment
  
  
• Predecessor, Republican John Kasich, had vetoed the measure twice on grounds that it was unconstitutional 
  
  
• They hope to provoke legal challenge that could lead to overturning 1973 US ruling that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks
  
  

By ASSOCIATED PRESS and DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 14:17 EDT, 11 April 2019 | UPDATED: 02:38 EDT, 12 April 2019

     



A bill imposing one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the nation was signed into law in Ohio on Thursday, banning abortions after a detectable heartbeat in a long-sought victory for abortion opponents that drew an immediate constitutional challenge.
In signing the heartbeat bill, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine broke with his predecessor, Republican John Kasich, who had vetoed the measure twice on grounds that it was unconstitutional.
But DeWine defended Ohio Republicans' decision to push the boundaries of the law, because 'it is the right thing to do.'
Staff including Lt. Governor Jon A. Husted - who stood holding two-year-old Faye Zaffini, the daughter of his chief of staff Alisha Nelson - smiled while watching him write his signature.


+9


Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill imposing one of the nation's toughest abortion restrictions, Thursday in Columbus, Ohio


+9


Lt. Governor Jon A. Husted stands at right holding Faye Zaffini, two, the daughter of his chief of staff
'Taking this action really is a kind of a time-honored tradition, the constitutional tradition of making a good faith argument for modification or reversal of existing legal precedents,' he said. 'So that is what this is.'

He said it's the government's job to protect the vulnerable. The bill outlaws abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which doctors say can be as early as five weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.
Ohio's closely divided politics had slowed the progress of the bill as it has caught momentum elsewhere, forcing years of debate in the state where the movement originated. 
Of five previous states that have passed heartbeat bills, three have seen their laws struck down or blocked by the courts, another faces a legal injunction and the fifth is awaiting governor's action.
DeWine's action came a day after the latest version of the bill cleared the Republican-controlled Legislature.


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Kimberly Inez McGuire shouts 'Shame' while members of the Ohio House of Representatives exit their meeting at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio on Wednesday


+9


Cynthia Vermillion chants back while protesting during the Ohio House of Representatives meeting


+9


Ohio Representative Michele Lepore-Hagan wipes tears from her face during a hearing to propose amendments to the bill on Tuesday. DeWine's signature makes Ohio the fifth state to ban abortions after the first detectable fetal heartbeat. That can come as early as five or six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they're pregnant
Even before the bill was signed, the ACLU of Ohio said it was preparing a constitutional challenge to the law on behalf of Pre-Term Cleveland and three other Ohio abortion clinics.
The legal challenge is what the bill's backers have always wanted. They hope to provoke a legal challenge with the potential to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks.
'The heartbeat bill is the next incremental step in our strategy to overturn Roe v. Wade,' said Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis. 'While other states embrace radical legislation to legalize abortion on demand through the ninth month of pregnancy, Ohio has drawn a line and continues to advance protections for unborn babies.'


Kellie Copeland, director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said lawmakers and the governor have plunged the state into 'a dystopian nightmare where people are forced to continue pregnancies regardless of the harm that may come to them or their family.'
The law makes no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.
EMILY's List, a national group that supports candidates who favor abortion rights, also decried the Ohio bill, as did the Democratic National Committee.


+9


Ohio Rep. Allison Russo speaks to support an amendment preceding a vote on the Heartbeat Bill at the Ohio Statehouse


+9


Ohio Rep. Derek Merrin stands while he advocates a yes vote on the Heartbeat Bill at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio on Wednesday
DNC CEO Seema Nanda called it 'the latest example of how the Trump administration's extremist, anti-women policies have emboldened legislators across the country to attack women's access to health care.'
DeWine said his administration is committed to supporting pregnant women.
'I just want to make it very, very clear, our concern is not just for the unborn, our concern is for all individuals who need protection,' he said. 'It is our duty, I believe, and an essential function of government, to protect those who cannot protect themselves.'


+9


Members seated on the Republican side of the Ohio House of Representatives listen to Democratic speakers at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio on Wednesday


+9


Some members of the Ohio House applaud following their vote while others photograph protesters who unfurled banners reading 'This is not a House of Worship' and 'This is not a Doctor's office' 

https://people.com/health/black-maternal-health-week-alliance/

[size=48]Meet the Women Fighting to Save Black Mothers: 'There's a Lot of Work to Do'

The second annual Black Maternal Health Week began on Thursday, with organizations across the country participating in the campaign
By Char Adams 
April 11, 2019 04:35 PM
FB[url=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Meet the Women Fighting to Save Black Mothers%3A %27There%27s a Lot of Work to Do%27 https://people.com/health/black-maternal-health-week-alliance/%3futm_source=twitter.com%26utm_medium=social%26utm_campaign=social-share-article%26utm_term=7010806]Twitter[/url]
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Black Mamas Matter Alliance
 
BLACK MAMAS MATTER ALLIANCE
In recent years, birth stories from stars like Serena Williams and Beyoncéhave served to highlight the state of Black maternal health in the United States — Williams, 37, underwent an emergency c-section and endured a a pulmonary embolism and Beyoncé, 37, suffered from preeclampsia and also had an emergency c-section.
The stars’ experiences brought attention to the dire state of medical care for pregnant Black women in the U.S., particularly in poorer communities. Black babies in the country are twice as likely to die in their first year of life than white babies, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C.-based research group. Additionally, Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to suffer pregnancy-related deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Black women are also more likely to have a stillbirth, give birth prematurely, have low birth-weight infants, have a miscarriage even. There are a lot of challenges that folks are dealing with,” Black Mamas Matter Alliance co-director Elizabeth Dawes Gay tells PEOPLE. “It boils down to toxic stress, racism in society, in the healthcare setting, disparities in access to care. There’s a lot of work to do. I think we will see a change but it is going to take a long time.”
That’s why Black maternal health advocates are trying to raise more consistent awareness about birth outcomes and establish policy changes to close what is known as the Black-white gap. One example is Black Mamas Matter Alliance’s Black Maternal Health Week, an effort to shed light on the challenges and opportunities in the fight for Black women’s maternal and reproductive justice.

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Starting Thursday, April 11, healthcare providers, public health professionals, reproductive justice advocates, doulas, midwives and more will participate in events — including workshops, trainings, conversations, webinars and video chats — in more than a dozen states including the District of Columbia.
RELATED LINK: Serena Williams Survived Her Risky Childbirth But Many Don’t: Why Maternal Mortality Is Soaring
“Our motto is listen to Black women, trust Black women and invest in Black women,” Gay tells PEOPLE. “We want people to walk away more empowered to have these conversations with folks interested in changing Black maternal health — and more empowered to change it themselves!”

[size=36]‘Black Women are at Higher Risk’[/size]

Studies show that the gap between Black and white infant death rates in the country has widened over the last 30 years. Although some past studies point to genetics as the cause, recent research suggests that it may be chronic stress brought on by societal oppression, including “experiences of racism,” according to a study published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine in 2008.

“It’s been established that Black women are at higher risk for this and, at the same time, that’s not something the medical community is always aware of or responding to,” Priska Neely, a senior reporter covering early childhood for public radio station KPCC, tells PEOPLE. “There’s a lack of awareness about how this is connected to larger societal issues.”
Gay recalls being shocked when she first learned of the statistics, noting that the Alliance — formed in 2016 — is now determined to “shift the culture.”

[size=36]‘It Doesn’t Really Matter How Much Money You Have’[/size]

Erica Chidi Cohen, author, doula and co-founder of LOOM, a Los Angeles-based organization that provides education and resources to help people “navigate their sexual, reproductive and parenting experience,” partnered with the Alliance. To her, the most startling aspect of poor Black maternal mortality rates is the fact that it defies class factors.
“It doesn’t really matter how much money you have, what school you went to, or what profession you have,” Cohen tells PEOPLE. “There’s still this potential for you to be exposed to poor care and to have your experience not necessarily be in alignment with how you live your life. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how you’ve tried to prepare yourself because of implicit bias.”
Cohen’s statements are supported by a 2006 study that found that “racial inequalities in health exist” even in the absence of poverty. To help address this, Cohen has launched an online birth course based on her book.
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On a political level, North Carolina Rep. Alma Adams and Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood have teamed up with the Alliance to the launch the nation’s first-ever Black Maternal Health Caucus, which would work to address and promote policy to improve Black maternal health. Meanwhile, Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Adams have introduced a resolution to designate Apr. 11-17 Black Maternal Health Week.
Last year, Harris introduced the Maternal Care Access and Reducing Emergencies (CARE) Act to reduce racial disparities in maternal mortality and morbidity.
RELATED VIDEO: Serena Williams Recalls Being ‘Devastated’ By Emergency C-Section and Postpartum Problems




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Federal efforts are only strengthened by those at the grassroots level. Black Women’s Blueprint, a New York-based social justice organization, has announced its July training session called The Sexual Abuse to Maternal Mortality Pipeline (registration for the educational workshop is now open).
“There hasn’t been any conversation around the ways that gender-based violence, violence against women impacts maternal outcomes and clinical experiences for survivors,” Sevonna Brown, assistant director of the organization, which works directly with survivors of sexual and domestic violence.

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BlackWomensBlueprint@BlackWomensBP





[ltr]It's #BlackMaternalHealthWeek ! We're so proud to announce our newest training session, The Sexual Abuse to Maternal Mortality Pipeline — let's unify maternal health advocacy & the fight to end sexual violence! #BMHW19

Register for the training here[img(16.05px,17px)]https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/72x72/1f447-1f3fe.png[/img]https://www.bwbtraining.org/hands-off-our-bodies …[/ltr]


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Brown says the training seeks to unify sexual violence activists and reproductive rights activist — especially as the organization participates in Black Maternal Health Week.
Now, as advocates, legislators and health officials use the week as an opportunity to raise awareness and promote change, Neely says she’s hopeful for the future.
“It’s been encouraging to see legislation … just to hear these issues being elevated as national issues. It also needs to be framed as a general, societal issue. Our rates overall for maternal and infant mortality are much higher than other developed countries. The Black infant mortality piece is bringing that down. We have to help Black women and babies in order to improve these outcomes overall.”


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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6915899/Georgetown-students-endorse-slavery-reparations-fund-vote.html

[size=34]Georgetown University undergraduate students vote to pay $27 per-semester fee for slavery reparations to benefit descendants of slaves sold by the school in the 1800s[/size]

• Georgetown University students voted on Thursday in favor of creating a reparations fund to compensate slavery descendants sold by the school
  
  
• The $27.20-per-semester fee would create one of the first reparations funds at a major U.S. institution 
  
  
• More than 2,500 undergraduate students voted for the 'Reconciliation Contribution' fee, while 1,304 students opposed it
  
  
• The student-led proposal aims to atone for the Jesuit-organized sale of 272 slaves in 1838
  
  
• Fees would go toward education and health care initiatives in underprivileged communities throughout Louisiana and Maryland 
  
  
• University officials haven't indicated how they plan to respond to the vote
  
  

By EMILY CRANE and STEPHANIE HANEY AT DAILYMAIL.COM 
PUBLISHED: 08:34 EDT, 12 April 2019 | UPDATED: 12:19 EDT, 12 April 2019

     




Georgetown University students have voted in favor of a referendum seeking the establishment of a fund that benefits the descendants of enslaved people who were sold by the school in the 1800s to pay off its debts.
The $27.20-per-semester fee would create one of the first reparations funds at a major U.S. institution. 
More than 2,500 undergraduate students at the Washington D.C. campus voted in favor on Thursday for the 'Reconciliation Contribution' fee.
The Georgetown University Student Association Elections Commission said those in favor (2,541) represented 66 per cent of votes. 

The fee was opposed by 1,304 students and voting turnout was 57.9 percent.   
Scroll down for video 


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Georgetown University students voted on Thursday in favor of a referendum seeking the establishment of a fund that benefits the descendants of enslaved people who were sold by the school in the 1800s to pay off its debts 
University administrator Todd Olson didn't commit to the fund's establishment in a statement on Friday, but said the non-binding vote provided 'valuable insight into student perspectives'.
The student-led proposal aims to atone for the Jesuit-organized sale of 272 slaves in 1838. 

If they succeed in getting the fund created, it would raise around $406,000 in its first year, based on the school's 2018-2019 undergraduate enrollment of 7463 students. The referendum is titled 'GU272'
Fees would go toward education and health care initiatives in underprivileged communities throughout Louisiana and Maryland, where some descendants of those who were sold now live.  
The history of Georgetown, which was founded in 1789 by John Carroll, is rife with benefit at the expense of enslaved people.
In September 2015, Georgetown's 48th president John J. DeGioia formed a working group of faculty, staff and students to study the issue of how the school could address its checkered past, but little action has resulted save removing names from buildings following student demonstrations. 
Students held a rally in support of the referendum, titled 'GU272' ahead of the vote on Thursday.
If they succeed in getting the fund created, it would raise around $406,000 in its first year, based on the school's 2018-2019 undergraduate enrollment of 7,463 students, according to data compiled by US News & World Report.  


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Students held a rally (above) in support of the referendum, titled 'GU272', ahead of the vote on the Georgetown University campus on Thursday




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In 1838, then-president Thomas Mulledy, SJ, orchestrated the mass sale of enslaved people for the benefit of the school to Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey of Louisiana. This vintage illustration shows Georgetown University in 1830, from a series of prints of American historical college
'What is happening right now on Georgetown's campus is a reflection of a larger political climate, in which, I think, people are taking seriously what anti-racist action looks like,' Marcia Chatelain, a professor of history and African-American studies and a member of the president's working group, told Politico.
'So it's not just being nice to each other or saying racism is a bad thing. It's about actually taking account and responsibility for the ways that these decisions and processes in the past shape contemporary life.' 

The history of Georgetown University, which was founded in 1789 by John Carroll (depicted), is rife with benefit at the expense of enslaved people
But the sentiment on campus is far from unanimous regarding the reparations fee, which according to the students' referendum would be paid for by students and not the university.
'When you target undergraduates, to be quite frank, you're literally targeting the least financially successful subset of people who benefit from Georgetown,' sophomore and student senator Sam Dubke, an international economics major, said.
The fee would be tacked on to an already high academic bill, currently running $54,104 in just annual tuition and fees. Room and board averages an additional $16,418 per student each year, bringing the yearly cost of attendance to $70,522.
Meanwhile, an Andrew Mellon Foundation grant to the school has funded faculty positions and fellowships to study slavery, with entire classes devoted to discussing how the school operated in such a way despite founding principles rooted in Catholic beliefs.
After its founding in the late 1700s, one of Georgetown's first directors, Rev. John Ashton, and an early president, Rev. Francis Neale, SJ, would be sued by slaves they each owned for their freedom, according to a timeline on the Georgetown University website. 


Records dating back to at least 1792 showed a receipt related to the enslavement of a woman named Sukey, who was just one of many who labored as artisans, cooks and laundresses at Georgetown.
In 1838, then-president Thomas Mulledy, SJ, orchestrated the mass sale of enslaved people for the benefit of the school to Henry Johnson and Jesse Batey of Louisiana.
The slaves were shipped to New Orleans and once there were dispersed between two sugar plantations in the state.


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In 1874, Rev. Patrick Patrick Francis Healy, SJ, who was born into slavery in 1834, became the 26th president of Georgetown. His mixed race heritage was not known at the time
Even after the sale in 1838, Georgetown continued to benefit from forced servitude of black people in later years, with a financial statement for the school from 1841 indicating at least two slaves lived on campus at that time.
On April 14, 1862, slavery was abolished in Washington DC, eight months before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
In 1874, Rev. Patrick Patrick Francis Healy, SJ, who was born into slavery in 1834, became the 26th president of Georgetown. He father, Michael Healy, was an Irish immigrant and his mother, Mary Elizam, was a mixed race enslaved person. His mixed-race heritage did not become widely known until the 1900s.
The student body wouldn't be integrated until nearly 100 years later, with the first black undergraduate being admitted in 1950.  
Georgetown now offers preference in admissions to descendants of the 272 people who were sold, but has fallen short of offering financial reparations. 
The first two descendants of those enslaved people joined the school in 2017. 
The student referendum hopes to address the issue of lack of financial atonement to the entirety of the estimated 4,000 living descendants, even if the students have to foot the bill themselves.

Interesting. I was  thinking that tacking the fee onto tuition was maybe not the best idea because so many students didn't agree. But, considering the school's history and the intended use of the money raised, it makes sense. It also gives the organizations that will get the funding an idea of how much money they can expect each year.

I think this is the kind of "reparations" Pete Buttigieg was talking about. I know Georgetown may be an exception to the norm since the school did own slaves, but I hope we see more initiatives like this.

Agree Lizzy.

This is alarming though. What a challenge for somebody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-lg6jJdDoo

It is alarming PAN. The media has only started to report more on he stacking of the courts since Trump took office. I consider Mitch McConnell as dangerous to the U.S. as I do Trump. Maybe even more so. He has on some level more power than the President. He gets to choose what the Senate votes on. As long as the Trump Party is the majority in the Senate this man will continue to wield enormous power. McConnell showed the country who he really was during the Obama Administration. He is deceitful, hypocritical and an obstructionist.

Mm, I have been wondering what drives him, too - of course his wife is on board as well
https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari/watch/the-secret-explaining-mitch-mcconnell-s-endless-enabling-of-trump-1487237187725

This newbie is very impressive though....

https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/coupon-cutting-congresswoman-stumps-big-bank-ceo-1489255491584

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6916417/Minnesota-farmers-tearful-video-shares-industry-troubles.html

[size=34]'We are taking loans just to pay bills': Broken Minnesota farmer posts heartbreaking Facebook video to reveal how the average salary in his industry has dropped to just $15,000-a-year[/size]

• Mark Berg, 26, posted an emotional six-minute-long video, viewed more than 300,000 times, voicing his frustration over the strain of running a dairy farm
  
  
• The  young farmer, brushing back tears, talks about his father telling him that he has less than when he started the business 40 years ago
  
  
• Highlighting the desperation that many of his peers in the dairy industry feel, Berg says he knows of farmers who have died by suicide
  
  
• Minnesota saw the median income at a dairy farm drop from about $43,000 last year to less than $15,000, with one out of 10 dairy farms ceasing operations 
  
  

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 11:30 EDT, 12 April 2019 | UPDATED: 20:05 EDT, 12 April 2019



A Minnesota dairy farmer frustrated by the industry's rising financial pressures has taken to social media to voice his concerns in an emotional video that's been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Mark Berg, 26, told the Star Tribune that he posted the six-minute-long Facebook video Monday after arguing with his family about how to save their 200-cow dairy farm in Pine Island.
'Literally just got done arguing with my dad. Just arguing, screaming back and forth. And it never used to be that way, you know, it never did,' Berg says in the video. 'And it's not our fault. It isn't our fault. It isn't fair.'
Brushing back tears, he talks about his father telling him that he has less than when he started the business 40 years ago.



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Mark Berg, 25, of Trailside Dairy in Pine Island, Minnesota, took to Facebook to voice his frustrations with the difficulty of maintaining a dairy farm under modern conditions


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Mark Berg, seen here with a dairy cow, revealed that after four decades in the farming business, his father has less now than when he began
Minnesota saw the median income at a dairy farm drop from about $43,000 last year to less than $15,000. Roughly one out of 10 dairy farms in the state has ceased operations.
Berg explains that his family has been taking out loans to pay their bills, and that they need to sell some of their cattle due to depleted feed supplies and years of low milk prices.
'We're not asking to make a million,' he says. 'But when you literally work day in day out, all the time, for nothing? We've gained nothing.'
Talking about the desperation that many in the industry feel, Berg says he knows of farmers who have died by suicide.




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Trailside Dairy, pictured here, is struggling in an industry where Minnesota dairy farm income dropped from about $43,000 last year to less than $15,000


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Berg explains that his family has been taking out loans to pay their bills, and that they need to sell some of their cattle due to depleted feed supplies and years of low milk prices
State data about suicide among farmers isn't readily available, but there are efforts throughout the state to address mental health in the farming industry. 
The University of Minnesota Extension began organizing a mental health workshop called Farming in Tough Times after a farmer died by suicide in fall 2018. 
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has set up a crisis hotline and other stress-coping resources for farmers on the agency's website.


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Roughly one out of 10 dairy farms in Minnesota has ceased operations entirely
Berg's video was posted with a note that read: 'To the Dairy Community, I know you are hurting, hang in there if you can.'
He told the Star he posted the video because he 'had to get something off his shoulders.'
'I didn't know if anybody would listen,' Berg said. 'I feel like I was at my weakest point.'
The video has been viewed more than 300,000 times.

This is just so sad. And yet prices for dairy products keep going up and up. Where does the money go? It doesn't seem right that the farmers get so little for all their struggles.

I agree Lizzy it is very sad.The idiot made things harder for the farmers. What happened to farm bail out I thought that was supposed to help them.

Apparently, soybean farmers got the most money from the bail out.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6918911/Trump-demands-know-Democrats-allowed-reexamine-Mueller-report-findings.html

[size=34]Trump demands to know why Democrats should be allowed to reexamine Mueller report findings that took '$35 million and two years' to produce[/size]

• Trump said Saturday there is no reason for Democrats to 'retry' Mueller probe
  
  
• 'The crime committed was by Crooked Hillary, the DNC and Dirty Cops,' he said
  
  
• Congressional Democrats have demanded full evidence from Mueller probe
  
  
• They want to make their own decision whether Trump committed any crimes
  
  
• Trump and his allies accuse Obama administration of illegal campaign spying 
  
  

By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 10:37 EDT, 13 April 2019 | UPDATED: 10:37 EDT, 13 April 2019

     


President Donald Trump has demanded to know why Democrats should be allowed to reexamine Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings after the probe has closed. 
'Why should Radical Left Democrats in Congress have a right to retry and examine the $35,000,000 (two years in the making) No Collusion Mueller Report, when the crime committed was by Crooked Hillary, the DNC and Dirty Cops?' Trump said in a tweet on Saturday morning.
'Attorney General Barr will make the decision!' he continued, tweeting from the White House before departing for his golf club in Sterling, Virginia.
Although the final cost of the Mueller investigation has not been publicly disclosed, $35 million is not unreasonable. A September filing said the probe had spent about $25 million.  


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President Donald Trump has demanded to know why Democrats should be allowed to reexamine Special Counsel Robert Mueller's findings after the probe has closed


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On Thursday, Congressional Democrats demanded that Attorney General Bill Barr release the full unredacted Mueller report, as well as all of the underlying evidence. 
'It now falls to Congress to examine the President's conduct and, if necessary, to hold him accountable,' said a letter signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats. 
Barr has said he will release a redacted version of Mueller's report next week, with protected grand jury information removed. 
The attorney general shocked Democrats by testifying in a Senate hearing this week that he thinks 'spying did occur' by the Obama administration on the Trump campaign.
Barr may have been referring to a surveillance warrant the FBI obtained in the fall of 2016 to monitor the communications of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing.  




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'It now falls to Congress to examine the President's conduct and, if necessary, to hold him accountable,' said a letter signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats
Critics of the Russia investigation have seized on the fact that the warrant application cited Democratic-funded opposition research, done by a former British spy, into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. 
Trump went even further than Barr, saying on Thursday: "I think what he said was absolutely true. There was absolutely spying into my campaign." 
"I'll go a step further. It was my opinion it was illegal spying, unprecedented spying, and something that should never be allowed to happen in our country again," he said. 
Mueller concluded his investigation last month and submitted a nearly 400-page confidential report to Barr.
The attorney general then sent Congress a four-page letter that detailed Mueller's "principal conclusions." 
Democrats have questioned how Barr could boil down Mueller's full report so quickly and allege that it may have been written in a favorable way for the president.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6921061/Sarah-Sanders-slams-Congress-not-smart-read-Trumps-tax-returns.html

[size=34]Sarah Sanders slams Congress as not 'smart enough' to read Trump's tax returns and says president won't release them as long as he's under audit[/size]

• White House press secretary Sarah Sanders slammed members of Congress as not 'smart enough' to read President Trump's tax returns 
  
  
• 'I don't think Congress - particularly not this group of congressmen and women - are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages I would assume that President Trump's taxes will be,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday' 
  
  
• House Ways and Means chairman issued the demand in a letter on Saturday
  
  
• Rep. Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, argues the IRS must comply 
  
  
• Told IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig he must hand over the returns by April 23
  
  
• If the IRS does not meet the deadline the dispute could head to federal court 
  
  

By EMILY GOODIN, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 09:42 EDT, 14 April 2019 | UPDATED: 10:58 EDT, 14 April 2019

     



White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Sunday slammed members of Congress as not 'smart enough' to read the 10 years of tax returns Democratic lawmakers have requested from President Donald Trump.
'I don't think Congress - particularly not this group of congressmen and women - are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages I would assume that President Trump's taxes will be. My guest is most of them don't do their own taxes. And I certainly don't trust them to look through the decades of success that the president has and determine anything,' she said on 'Fox News Sunday.'  
She was also clear the president would not hand over his tax reforms.  
'The president has been clear from the beginning - as long as his tax are under audit  he's not going to release them,' she said. 


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White House press secretary Sarah Sanders slammed members of Congress as not 'smart enough' to read President Trump's tax returns
And she attacked the section of law Democrats used to request the president's returns, which is a provision that allows Congress to request tax forms to see how changes to the tax code could affect people's returns.  

'This has nothing to do with whether or not they are going to determine policy. This is all about political partisanship. This is a dangerous, dangerous, road,' she said. 
Rep. Richard Neal, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, gave the IRS until April 23 to hand over President Trump's returns, telling the tax agency that the law clearly gives Congress a right to them. 
The government's failure to respond by the deadline could send the dispute into federal court.
Neal's demand on Saturday came after the Trump administration asked for more time to consider his initial request last week.
Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat, argues that a 1920-era law saying the IRS 'shall furnish' any tax return requested by Congress 'is unambiguous and raises no complicated legal issues' and that the Treasury Department's objections lack merit.


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Rep. Richard Neal, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, has given the IRS until April 23 to hand over President Donald Trump's tax returns


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Trump has said that he will not release his tax returns because he is under audit


The letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig is the latest exchange in a tug of war over Trump's returns, which would give lawmakers far greater insight into the president's business dealings and potential conflicts of interest as it exercises its oversight role.
Trump declined to provide his tax information as a candidate in 2016 and as president, something party nominees have traditionally done in the name of the transparency.  
During the campaign, Trump said he wanted to release his returns but said because he was under a routine audit, 'I can't.' 
Being under audit is no legal bar to anyone releasing his or her returns. And after the November midterm elections, Trump claimed at a news conference that the filings were too complex for people to understand.


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IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig will have until April 23 to meet the new demand


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Rep. Richard Neal, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, wrote the letter


Asked repeatedly at a House hearing Tuesday whether any regulation prohibited a taxpayer from disclosing returns when under audit, Rettig responded 'no.'
The issue appears sure to end up in federal court. With an eye to a legal challenge, Neal told Rettig that he has two weeks to respond - by 5pm on April 23. 
If Rettig fails to do so, Neal said he will interpret as denying the request, which could pave the way for a court battle. Neal also seeks the returns through a subpoena.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, told Neal this past week that he needs more time to consider the unprecedented demand for Trump's returns and needs to consult with the Justice Department about it.
Mnuchin accused lawmakers of seeking Trump's returns for political reasons. But he also acknowledged his 'statutory responsibilities' and that he respects congressional oversight. 
Some Treasury-watchers observe that Mnuchin's decision to consult with the Justice Department could suggest that Treasury lawyers believe Neal has a legal right to Trump's returns.
Neal said Saturday that the administration has no right 'to question or second guess' his motivations.

[size=18]Trump on releasing tax returns: 'They'll speak to my lawyers'




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Why would anyone listen to or believe absolutely anything Sarah Sanders says. She’s nothing more than a mouthpiece for Trump. Trump lies more than he tells the truth on a daily basis. Sanders’ comment about Congress not being smart enough belies credibility. She’s a joke.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6920103/Streets-Sudan-flood-thousands-protesters.html

[size=34]Streets of Sudan flood with thousands of protesters as the country's third leader in three days vows to uproot deposed president's regime[/size]

• Protesters insisted they were staying put in Sudan as the country faced having its third leader in as many days 
  
  
• Career soldier General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan was sworn in to head Sudan's new ruling military council 
  
  
• He took the helm of Sudan's transitional military council on Friday when his predecessor General Awad Ibn Ouf - a close aide of ousted veteran president Omar al-Bashir - quit after little more than 24 hours in power 
  
  

By HENRY MARTIN and LEIGH MCMANUS FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 21:00 EDT, 13 April 2019 | UPDATED: 15:25 EDT, 14 April 2019

     



The streets of Sudan continue to flood with thousands of protesters as the country faces having its third leader in as many days. 
Demonstrators marched with national flags outside the army headquarters in the Sudanese capital Khartoum yesterday demanding a civilian body to lead the country's transition to democracy.
Sudan's second new military leader vowed on Saturday to 'uproot' deposed president Omar al-Bashir's regime and release protesters, in a bid to placate demonstrators demanding civilian rule.
'I announce the restructuring of state institutions according to the law and pledge to fight corruption and uproot the regime and its symbols,' General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said, a day after he was sworn in to head Sudan's new ruling military council.

He also ordered the release of all prisoners jailed by special emergency courts and the immediate lifting of a night-time curfew imposed by the council earlier this week. 


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People chant slogans during a protest outside of the Military headquarters in Khartoum, Sudan, 13 April 2019




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The streets of Sudan were flooded with thousands of protesters as the country faced having its third leader in as many days yesterday (pictured: Khartoum, April 13)


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Sudan's second new military leader vowed on Saturday to 'uproot' deposed president Omar al-Bashir's regime and release protesters, in a bid to placate demonstrators demanding civilian rule (pictured: People chant slogans during a protest outside of the Military headquarters in Khartoum)


Career soldier Burhan took the helm of Sudan's transitional military council on Friday when his predecessor General Awad Ibn Ouf - a close aide of ousted veteran president Bashir - quit after little more than 24 hours in power.
Burhan also pledged Saturday that individuals implicated in killing protesters would face justice.
Dozens of protesters were killed and thousands of activists, opposition leaders and journalists arrested.
The police said Friday that 16 people had been killed in live fire in Khartoum alone over the previous two days as NISS agents led a last stand for Bashir before the army intervened.  








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A grab from a broadcast on Sudan TV on April 13, 2019 shows Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdulrahman, new chief of Sudan's ruling military council, in the capital Khartoum


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He also ordered the release of all prisoners jailed by special emergency courts and the immediate lifting of a night-time curfew imposed by the council earlier this week (pictured: Sudanese protestors take selfies with soldiers)


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Career soldier Burhan took the helm of Sudan's transitional military council on Friday when his predecessor General Awad Ibn Ouf - a close aide of ousted veteran president Bashir - quit after little more than 24 hours in power (pictured: Protestors pictured on April 11)


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Young Sudanese rally to celebrate after an announcement made by Sudan's new military ruler, outside the army headquarters in the Sudanese capital Khartoum, on April 13


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Sudanese demonstrators march with national flags as they gather during a rally demanding a civilian body to lead the transition to democracy
In a statement Saturday evening, Burhan said the deputy chief of the NISS was a member of the newly formed 10-member council which also includes the police chief and military figures.
Burhan named as the council's deputy Mohammad Hamdan Daglo, who is also known as Himeidti, field commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) counter-insurgency unit, which rights groups have accused of abuses in war-torn Darfur.
A photograph published by state news agency SUNA had shown Burhan talking with protesters outside army headquarters on Friday, before his elevation to the top job.
Khartoum erupted with joy when Ibn Ouf tendered his resignation on Friday night barely 24 hours after taking the oath of office.
But protest organisers urged demonstrators to keep up their week-old vigil outside army headquarters.
Ibn Ouf had served as Bashir's defence minister right up to the president's downfall, ending three decades of iron-fisted rule.








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In this March 29, 2008, file photo, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, left, speaks with Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, center, and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, right, during the opening session of the Arab Summit in Damascus, Syria


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According to reports, thousands of Sudanese people demonstrated in front of the Military headquarters in Khartoum demanding that former President Omar al-Bashir face trial
A former military intelligence chief, Ibn Ouf remains under US sanctions for his role in the regime's brutal response to a 2003 ethnic minority rebellion in Darfur region.
Bashir himself came to power in a 1989 Islamist military coup, toppling an elected government led by Sadiq al-Mahdi.
Burhan comes with less baggage from Bashir's deeply unpopular rule than Ibn Ouf.
The grass-roots Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) composed of doctors, teachers and engineers, has spearheaded the nationwide protests.
While welcoming Ibn Ouf's departure, it demanded that Burhan swiftly 'transfer the powers of the military council to a transitional civilian government' and said it would continue to stage sit-ins to that end.


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Sudanese defense minister and head of Sudan's military council, Awad Ibn Auf, stepped down a day after leading a military coup that ousted long-time leader Omar al-Bashir


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Awad Ibn Auf named Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan as his successor. A military-led transitional council will stay in power for two years followed by elections, the army said
Bashir remained in custody and his National Congress Party on Saturday urged the military council to release arrested members.
'We consider (the) taking of power by the military council as violating the constitution's legitimacy,' the NCP said in a statement.
'The NCP rejects the detention of its leaders, among them its acting president' Ahmed Harun, it added, calling for their immediate release.
Outside the Middle East, the formation of a military government to replace Bashir has met with widespread criticism.
The African Union said Bashir's overthrow by the military was 'not the appropriate response to the challenges facing Sudan and the aspirations of its people'.
The Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) called for dialogue and a peaceful transition of power, in a joint statement from their summit in Ndjamena, Chad.


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This file picture dated on November 25, 2018 shows then Sudanese Defence Minister Ahmed Awad Ibn Ouf in Khartoum


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Sudan's General Abdelfattah Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as 'Hemeti', head of the Rapid Support Forces, is sworn-in as the appointed deputy of Sudan's transitional military council
The European Union urged the army to carry out a 'swift' handover to civilian rule, and former colonial ruler Britain said that the two-year transition announced by the military 'is not the answer.'
'We need to see a swift move to an inclusive, representative, civilian leadership,' said Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
But Saudi Arabia backed the transitional military council and promised an aid package including, wheat, medicine and 'petroleum products', the Saudi Press Agency reported Saturday.
Members of the military council have sought to reassure foreign diplomats about its intentions.
'This is not a military coup, but taking the side of the people,' the council's political chief Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin told Arab and African diplomats at a meeting broadcast on state television on Friday.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has longstanding arrest warrants against Bashir for suspected genocide and war crimes during the regime's brutal campaign of repression in Darfur.
But the military council has said it would never extradite him or any other Sudanese citizen.
Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia also announced on Saturday it supported moves taken by the council and said it was sending an emergency aid package to Khartoum, state news agency SPA reported.
'The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques gave instructions to the concerned authorities in the Kingdom to provide a package of humanitarian aid, including petroleum products, wheat and medicines,' SPA said.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6921715/Im-tell-different-story-Make-America-Great-Pete-Buttigieg-announces-bid.html

[size=34]I'm here to 'tell a different story than Make America Great Again': Pete Buttigieg officially announces that he is running for president in 2020 - making him the first openly gay candidate to seek White House[/size]

• South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg formally launched his presidential bid 
  
  
• 'My name is Pete Buttigieg. They call me Mayor Pete. I am a proud son of South Bend, Indiana. And I am running for President of the United States,' he said 
  
  
• He slammed the 'horror show' in Washington politics today 
  
  
• 'The horror show in Washington is mesmerizing, all-consuming. But starting today, we are going to change the channel,' he said
  
  
• He would be the first openly gay man elected president 
  
  
• He and his husband, Chasten Buttigieg, have become national stars
  
  
• Buttigieg, 37, would also be the youngest elected president
  
  
• He campaigns in Iowa and New Hampshire this week  
  
  

By EMILY GOODIN, U.S. POLITICAL REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 15:24 EDT, 14 April 2019 | UPDATED: 19:47 EDT, 14 April 2019

     



South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a breakout star of the 2020 campaign, formally launched his presidential bid on Sunday with a criticism of President Donald Trump's vision for the future of America. 
'My name is Pete Buttigieg. They call me Mayor Pete. I am a proud son of South Bend, Indiana. And I am running for President of the United States,' he announced to a roaring crowd in his home town.  
Buttigieg, in his announcement address, tied his presidential bid to the recovery of South Bend, a touting of his 10 years as mayor of the city. 


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South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a breakout star of the 2020 campaign, formally launched his presidential bid


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Buttigieg would be the first openly gay man elected president


He gave his remarks in Studebaker Building 84, a building that closed during the economic down turn in 1963, and used the symbolism of its regrowth heavily in his remarks. 
'I ran for mayor in 2011 knowing that nothing like Studebaker would ever come back - but believing that we would, our city would, if we had the courage to reimagine our future. And now, I can confidently say that South Bend is back,' he said.
'And that’s why I’m here today. To tell a different story than “Make America Great Again.” Because there is a myth being sold to industrial and rural communities: the myth that we can stop the clock and turn it back,' he said. 
'It comes from people who think the only way to reach communities like ours is through resentment and nostalgia, selling an impossible promise of returning to a bygone era that was never as great as advertised to begin with. The problem is, they’re telling us to look for greatness in all the wrong places,' he added.
'Because if there is one thing the city of South Bend has shown, it’s that there is no such thing as an honest politics that revolves around the word “again.” It’s time to walk away from the politics of the past, and toward something totally different. So that’s why I’m here today, joining you to make a little news,' he said as the crowd roared. 
The old Studebaker auto plant underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation led by a private developer with help from state grants and financing from South Bend. The newly remodeled structure is now part of a mixed-use technology center outside the city's downtown. It was filled to capacity at Buttigieg's remarks. 
Supporters shouted 'Pete' and 'Buttigieg' during his remarks. They waved green 'Pete 2020' signs and yellow 'Boot-Edge-Edge' signs, which showed how to pronounce the mayor's last name.


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Supporters wait for Mayor Pete Buttigieg's remarks


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Several supporters wore Pete t-shirts


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Buttigieg slammed the 'horror show' in Washington politics today
Buttigieg's remarks were a combination of hope for the future with one-liners decrying the current state of American politics.  
He slammed the 'horror show' in Washington politics today.
'The horror show in Washington is mesmerizing, all-consuming. But starting today, we are going to change the channel,' he said. 
He acknowledged his young age and lack of national political credentials in the crowded Democratic field of 18 contenders. 
'I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor. More than a little bold - at age 37 - to seek the highest office in the land,' he said. 
But, he argued, it's time for a change.
'If America today feels like a confusing place to be, it’s because we’re on one of those blank pages in between chapters. Change is coming, ready or not. The question of our time is whether families and workers will be defeated by the changes beneath us or whether we will master them and make them work toward a better everyday life for us all,' he said.
'Such a moment calls for hopeful and audacious voices from communities like ours,' he added.


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Buttigieg, 37, would also be the youngest elected president


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He shook hands with supporters after his addess


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A Buttigieg supporter wears a decorated hat 
He argued that freedom means the right to health care, consumer protection, cyber security, racial security, and freedom to marry.
'The chance to live a life of your choosing, in keeping with your values: that is freedom in its richest sense,' he said. 
He slammed several Trump policies, including climate change and the president's call to build a border wall against illegal immigrants.
'We are here to say there's a lot more to security than putting up a wall from sea to shining sea,' he said. 'And to those in charge of our border policy, I want to make this clear: the greatest nation in the world should have nothing to fear from children fleeing violence.'
He also called for the end of the electoral college, a call that has gained steamed after Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in 2016 but lost the electoral college vote to Trump.
'We can’t say it’s much of a democracy when twice in my lifetime, the Electoral College has overruled the American people,' he said referring to the 2016 and 2000 presidential elections. 
'So let’s make it easier to register and to vote; let’s make our districts fairer, our courts less political, our structures more inclusive; and yes let’s pick our president by counting up all the ballots and giving it to the woman or man who got the most votes!,' he said.
Buttigieg thanked his husband Chasten Buttigieg and his family for their support.
'Thanks to my Mom who is here physically and my Dad who is here in more way than he could have imagined. And Chasten, my love, ... for giving me the strength to do this and the grounding to be myself as we go,' Buttigieg, whose father died in January.
He made several references to his husband and his marriage in his remarks. Chasten Buttigieg, a school teacher, has become a social media star in his own right as he has campaigned across the country with his husband.  
The two men embraced after Buttigieg's announcement and then greeted supporters together.  
'Our marriage exists by the grace of a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court. Nine men and women sat down in a room and took a vote and they brought me the most important freedom in my life,' Pete Buttigieg said. 
'Politics matters because it hits home. It hits home at our most vulnerable moments,' he said. 


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South Bend's Mayor Pete Buttigieg and his husband Chasten Buttigieg embrace after his presidential announcement


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Both Buttigiegs' have become national stars and embraced by young Democrats around the country


He said if he could go back in time he would reassure his teenage self he would be okay.
He said he'd 'tell him he’ll be all right. More than all right. To tell him that one rainy April day, before he even turns forty, he’ll wake up to headlines about whether he’s rising too quickly as he becomes a top-tier contender for the American presidency. And to tell him that on that day he announces his campaign for president, he’ll do it with his husband looking on.'
He added: 'How can you live that story and not believe that America deserves our optimism, deserves our courage, deserves our hope.'
He told the roaring crowd: 'If you and I rise together to meet this moment, one day they will write histories, not just about one campaign or one presidency but about the era that began here today in this building where past, present, and future meet, right here this chilly day in South Bend.' 
The 37-year-old Rhodes Scholar and Afghanistan War veteran made the announcement in the town of roughly 100,000 where he grew up.
Before he spoke to supporters in Studebaker Building 84, he addressed the overflow crowd outside in the rain, unable to get into the packed area.
Buttigieg was introduced by Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, Texas. And he had two other mayors speak in the runup to his remarks. But Adler's presence was notable given Texas has two of its own running for president in the crowded field of 18 contenders: Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro. 


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Buttigieg will campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire this week


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Buttigieg stock rose as a candidate with his attacks on President Trump
He will return this week to Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold the nation's first nominating contests, to campaign as a full-fledged candidate.
His national attention grew with his willingness to take on President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence (who was governor of Indiana while Buttigieg was mayor), and their administration.
A town hall meeting at South by Southwest in March - where he called out Pence, an evangelic Christian, for serving in the 'porn star presidency' - pushed him into the national spotlight.
It's not the first time he was tough on Trump administration.
When Buttigieg ran for Democratic National Committee chairman in 2017, he called Trump a 'draft-dodging chickenhawk.'
'I'll be damned if we're going to have a draft-dodging chickenhawk president of the United States - who thinks he's too smart to read his own intelligence briefings - ordering the people I served with back into another conflict because he can't be bothered to do his job properly,' he said at a forum in Baltimore. 
He has shot up to third space in many of the polls, trailing former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
His campaign has raised more than $7 million in the first three months of this year - more than Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker.
Buttigieg would be the first openly gay nominee of a major presidential party; he married his husband, Chasten, last year. 
Buttigieg and Chasten Buttigieg have become social media stars and embraced by Democrats - particularly the younger crowd - as they hit the campaign trial.


'I really don't mind sharing him on the trail because I'm really enjoying watching people fall in love with him,' Chasten Buttigieg told DailyMail.com at a fundraiser for his husband in Washington D.C. earlier this month. 
The mayor - known as Mayor Pete due to the difficulty people have in pronouncing his last name - got into a heated back and forth with Pence last week over his sexuality and the vice president's faith.
Buttigieg said earlier this month that if the vice president is mad at people for being gay, it's God he should actually be angry at.
'If me being gay was a choice it was a choice made far, far above my pay grade,' he told the LGBTQ Victory Fund event in Washington D.C.
'And that's the thing I wish the Mike Pences of the world would understand. That if you have a problem with who I am, your problem is not with me. Your quarrel, sir, is with my creator,' he added.
Pence shot back, saying the mayor 'knows better' than to criticize his faith and charging him with trying to win points with progressives.
'He said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally. And he knows better. He knows me,' Pence, who has a long history of opposing gay rights, told CNBC.  
Pence argued Buttigieg was trying to rally the liberal left to his side in the crowded field for the Democratic presidential nomination with his criticism. 
'But I get it. You know, it's look, again, 19 people running for president on that side in a party that's sliding off to the left. And they're all competing with one another for how much more liberal they can be,' Pence said. 
Buttigieg, a graduate of Harvard, speaks seven foreign languages - Norwegian, Arabic, Spanish, Maltese, Dari, French, and Italian. He has two rescue dogs with his husband and plays the piano. 
He would be the first mayor to go directly to the White House. 
And he would be the youngest person to become president, turning 39 the day before the next inauguration, on Jan. 20, 2021.  





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Mayor Pete Buttigieg (right) and his husband Chasten Buttigieg (left) got married last year


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Buttigieg became a breakout star at a town hall meeting at South by Southwest in March
Buttigieg came out as gay during his June 2015 mayoral re-election campaign, which he went on to win with 78 percent of the vote.
Earlier this month, he dove into more personal terms about what being gay and his marriage to Chasten, a school teacher, means to him. 
'When I was younger I would do anything to not be gay,' he told the crowd at the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a political PAC dedicated to increasing the number of openly LGBT public officials in the U.S. 
'If you had offered me a pill to make me straight I would have swallowed it before you had time to give me a sip of water,' he said, adding 'It's a hard thing to think about now.'
'It's hard to face the truth there were times in my life when you had shown me exactly what it was inside me that made me gay I would have cut it out with a knife,' he noted.
But he said out of the pain of those early years became joy in the form of his marriage. 
'The best thing in my life - my marriage – might not never have happened at all,' he said.
'My marriage to Chasten has made me a better man and, yes, Mr. Vice President, it has moved me closer to God,' he added.
Buttigieg was raised Catholic but has become a devout Episcopalian.  

[size=34]WHO ARE ALL THE 18 DEMOCRATS RUNNING FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN 2020?[/size]

CORY BOOKER
Age on Inauguration Day: 51
Entered race: February 1, 2019
Career: Currently New Jersey senator. High school football star who went to Stanford or undergraduate and masters degrees before studying in Oxford as a Rhodes scholar and Yale Law School. Worked for advocacy and youth projects and successfully ran for Newark, New Jersey, city council in 1998. Narrowly lost mayoral election in 2002 facing claims he was 'suburban' and 'not black enough.' Ran again in 2006 and won landslide on radical reform platform for troubled city, including being tough on crime, cutting budget deficit, increasing affordable housing and tackling failing schools - controversially taking a huge donation from Mark Zuckerberg for the city. Ran for New Jersey senate seat in 2013 special election and won; won full term in 2014
Family: Unmarried but dating actress Rosario Dawson. Parents Cary and Carolyn were among IBM's first black executives. Brother Cary Jr. is education adviser to New Jersey's Democratic governor. If he does not marry he would be first president to enter office single since Grover Cleveland in 1885
 Religion: Baptist
Views on key issues: Self-proclaimed liberal. Endorses abortion rights; affirmative action; single-payer health care; criminal justice reform; path to citizenship for 'dreamers; federal marijuana decriminalization; $15 minimum wage; but has also spoken against tech regulation and for long-term deficit reduction
Slogan: To be announced     
 


PETE BUTTIGIEG
Age on Inauguration Day: 39
Entered race: Announced formation of exploratory committee January 23, 2019
Career: Currently mayor of Sound Bend, Indiana. Harvard grad and Rhodes scholar who got a second degree from Oxford before working as a McKinsey management consultant and being commissioned as a Navy Reserve intelligence officer. Elected South Bend mayor in 2011 and served in combat in 2013, won re-election in 2015
Family: Came out as gay during second mayoral run and married husband Chasten Glezman, a middle school teacher in 2018. Parents were University of Notre Dame academics. Surname is pronounced BOOT-edge-edge. Would be first openly gay president, youngest-ever president and first combat veteran since George H.W. Bush
Religion: Episcopalian
Views on key issues: Has said Democratic party needs a 'fresh start'; wrote an essay in praise of Bernie Sanders aged 17; backed paid parental leave for city employees; other policies unknown 
Slogan: To be announced  
 


JULIAN CASTRO 

Age on Inauguration Day: 46
Entered race: January 12, 2018, at rally in his native San Antonio, TX. Had formed exploratory committee two months previously
Career: No current job. Stanford and Harvard graduate who was a San Antonio, Texas, councilman at 26 and became mayor of the city in 2009. Was Obama's Housing and Urban Development secretary from 2014 to 2016
Family: Married with nine-year-old daughter, Carina, and four-year-old son, Cristian. His identical twin Joaquin, who is a minute younger, is Democratic congressman. Mother Maria del Rosario Castro was part of 'radical' third party for Mexican-Americans; father left his wife and five children for her but they never married. Would be first Hispanic-American president - announced his run in English and Spanish - and first-ever U.S. president with a twin
Religion:  Catholic
Views on key issues: Wants medicare for all; universal pre-K; action on affordable housing; will not take money from political action committees (PACs) tied to corporations or unions. Other views still to be announced
Slogan: One Nation. One Destiny
 


JOHN DELANEY
Age on Inauguration Day: 57
Entered race: Filed papers July 28, 2017
Career: No current job. Three-time Maryland congressman, first winning election in 2012. Previously set up publicly-traded companies lending capital to healthcare and mid-size businesses and was youngest CEO at the time of a New York Stock Exchange-listed firm
Family: Married father of four; wife April works for children's issues nonprofit 
Religion: Catholic 
Views on key issues: Social liberal in favor of legalized pot and gun control but not single-payer healthcare; fiscally conservative
Slogan: Focus on the Future
 


TULSI GABBARD
Age on Inauguration Day: 39
Entered race: Still to formally file any papers but said she would run on January 11 2019
Career: Currently Hawaii congresswoman. Born on American Samoa, a territory, and therefore may be subject to questions over whether she is natural-born. Raised largely in Hawaii, she co-founded an environmental non-profit with her father as a teenager and was elected to the State Legislature aged 21, its youngest member in history. Enlisted in the National Guard and served two tours, one in Iraq 2004-2006, then as an officer in Kuwait in 2009. Ran for Honolulu City Council in 2011, and House of Representatives in 2012
Family: Married to her second husband, Abraham Williams, a cinematographer since 2015. First marriage to childhood sweetheart Eduardo Tamayo in 2002 ended in 2006. Father Mike Gabbard is a Democratic Hawaii state senator, mother Carol Porter runs a non-profit. Would be first Samoan-American, first Hindu, first female and youngest-ever president
Religion: Hindu
Views on key issues: Has apologized for anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage views; wants marijuana federally legalized; opposed to most U.S. foreign interventions; backs $15 minimum wage and universal health care; was the second elected Democrat to meet Trump after his 2016 victory
Slogan: To be announced 
 


KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND
Age on Inauguration Day: 54
Entered race: Announced exploratory committee on Stephen Colbert's CBS show on January 16, 2019. Formal launch in front of Trump International Hotel and Tower, New York, March 24, 2019
Career: Currently New York senator. Dartmouth and UCLA law grad who was a high-flying Manhattan attorney representing big businesses. Says she was inspired to enter politics by hearing Hillary Clinton speak, although she is also scion of a prominent New York Democratic political family. Won New York's 20th district, centered on Albany in 2004; appointed to Hillary Clinton's senate seat in 2008 and won it in 2010 special election 63-35; won first full term 2012 and re-elected 67-33 in 2018
Family: Married to British venture capitalist Jonathan Gillibrand with two sons, Theodore, 15, and Henry, ten. Father Douglas Lutnik was Democratic lobbyist; grandmother Polly Noonan was at center of Albany Democratic politics. Would be first female president
Religion: Catholic
Views on key issues: Initially pro-gun as Congresswoman, has since reversed herself to be pro-gun control and also pro-immigration; said Bill Clinton should have resigned over Monica Lewinsky and helped force Al Franken out of Senate over groping allegations; in favor of single-payer healthcare and Medicare for all
Slogan: Brave wins
 


KAMALA HARRIS  
Age on Inauguration Day: 56 
Entered race: Announced she was running January 21, 2018 - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - on Good Morning America. Formally entered race January 27
Career: Currently California senator. Howard and U.C. Hunter law school grad who worked as assistant district attorney in Alameda County, CA, then in San Francisco's DA's office before being elected San Francisco DA in 2003 and used it as springboard to run successfully for California attorney general in 2010. Won again in 2014 and was at center of U.S. attorney general and Supreme Court speculation but also endured a series of controversies, including over police brutality allegations. Ran for Senate in 2016 and established herself on liberal wing of party
Family: Born in Berkeley, CA, to immigrant Indian Tamil mother and Jamaican father who were both academics and brought up from seven to 18  in Montreal, Canada. Dated married San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, when he was 60 and she was 29. Married attorney Douglas Emhoff in 2014 and has two stepchildren; Cole, an aspiring actor, and Ella, an art and design student. Sister Maya was a Hillary Clinton adviser and brother-in-law Tony West is Uber's chief legal counsel. Would be first female, first Indian-American, first Jamaican-America and first female black president
Views on key issues: Social ultra-liberal who has rejected criticisms of 'identity politics' and is running without a political action committee, which will make her reliant on small donors. Has shifted left on criminal justice reform; supports Medicare for all;  pro-gun control and anti-death penalty; says illegal immigration is a civil not a criminal offense
Religion: Has said she was brought up in both Baptist and Hindu tradition
Slogan: Kamala Harris: For The People 
 


JOHN HICKENLOOPER
Age on Inauguration Day: 68
Entered race: March 4, 2019 with Good Morning America interview
Career: No current job. Wesleyan University-educated geologist who moved to Colorado to work in petroleum industry but was laid off and started Wynkoop Brewing Company, the first craft brewpub in 1988 in Denver's LoDo (lower downtown) area. Ran for mayor of Denver as an outsider in 2003 and won, then won a second term in 2007. Ran for Colorado governor in 2010 and won 51 per cent of the vote; his nearest rival took 36.5 per cent. Won re-election 49.3 to 46 in 2014, but was term limited and ended his second term in January 2019
Family: Married to second wife Robin Pringle, 40, a vice president at LibertyMedia Corp., owners of Sirius XM. Divorced first wife Helen Thorpe in 2012 after 10 years of marriage; ex-couple have son Teddy, a high school student. Born and brought up in Narbeth, in the Main Line of Philadelphia, his father's ancestors include Civil War Union general Andrew Hickenlooper
Religion: Quaker
Views on key issues: Voiced support for Green New Deal but has also been in favor of fracking; has not embraced single-payer healthcare but expanded Medicaid in Colorado; long record of being pro-gun control; pro-choice but has gone out of his way to talk about reducing unplanned teenage pregnancies ; opposed to the death penalty; advocated for gay marriage
Slogan:  To be announced     
 


JAY INSLEE
Age on Inauguration Day: 69
Entered race: March 1, 2019
Career: Currently Washington governor. Stanford drop-out who graduated from University of Washington and Williamette University School of Law before working as a city prosecutor in Selah, WA. First elected to Washington House of Representatives in 1989 and again in 1990; won Congressional seat in 1992 elections but lost in 1994 and then had failed 1996 gubernatorial run. Returned to Congress in 1998 elections and stayed until 2012 to run for governor. Won first term 51.5 to 48.5; re-elected in 2016 by 54.4 to 45.6
Family: Born in Seattle to late parents Frank, a Navy veteran and high school teacher and coach, and Adele, a Sears sales clerk. Married high school and college sweetheart Trudi since 1972. Three adult sons Jack, a radio producer in Washington D.C.; Connor, director of a Washington state non-profit for the disabled; and Joe, who works for King County, WA's department of natural resources and parks. Grandfather of three 
Religion: Non-denominational Protestant 
Views on key issues: Running to combat climate change with praise for  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal - his record in Washington D.C. including aspiring to 'zero emissions' buildings and largely eliminate fossil fuel use; vocal gun control advocate; fought Trump's ban on entry to people from seven Muslim-majority countries; called moratorium on death penalty in Washington; supported marijuana legalization in Washington and expected to do so federally; will not take money from political action committees; healthcare position still unclear
Slogan:  Our moment 
 





AMY KLOBUCHAR
Age on Inauguration Day: 60
Entered race: Announced candidacy February 10, 2019 at snow-drenched rally in her native Minneapolis
Career: Currently Minnesota senator. Yale and University of Chicago law graduate who became a corporate lawyer. First ran unsuccessfully for office in 1994 as Hennepin, MI, county attorney, and won same race in 1998, then in 2002, without opposition. Ran for Senate in 2006 and won 58-38; re-elected in 2012 and 2018
Family: Married to John Bessler, law professor at University of Baltimore and expert on capital punishment. Daughter Abigail Bessler, 23, works fora Democratic member of New York City council. Father Jim, 90, was a veteran newspaper columnist who has written a memoir of how his alcoholism hurt his family; mom Rose is a retired grade school teacher. Would be first female president
Religion: Congregationalist (United Church of Christ)
Views on key issues: Seen as a mainstream liberal: says she wants 'universal health care' but has not spelled out how; pro-gun control; pro-choice; backs $15 minimum wage; no public statements on federal marijuana legalization; has backed pro-Israel law banning the 'boycott, divestment and sanctions' movement; spoke out against abolishing ICE
 Slogan: To be announced
 




[size=22][size=31]WAYN[/size][/size]E MESSAM
Age on Inauguration day: 46
Entered race: Announced March 28, 2019, formal launch March 30, 2019
Career: Currently mayor of Miramar, Florida. Florida State University football star who played starting wide receiver, and graduated in 1997. Worked in construction industry as contractor and started his own company in 2007. Ran for City of Miramar Commission in 2011 and mayor in 2015, defeating 16-year Democratic incumbent and becoming first black mayor of the city. Won second term March 2019, days before announcing presidential bid
Family: Married to college sweetheart Angela Sands, 44, who is also his business partner. Three college-age children: son Wayne Jr. and twin daughters Kayla and Kyla. Fourth child and first American-born child of Jamaican immigrants Hubert , a sugar-cane cutter, and his wife Delsey, who are both deceased. Was president of the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials in 2018. Would be first Jamaican-American president
Religion: Worships at the Fountain of New Life Church in Miami Gardens where he is a deacon
Views on key issues: Says he is staunch advocate of gun control. Wants action on climate change and is opposed to off-shore oil drilling. Opposes Trump immigration policies and proposed forcing immigration officials to get a warrant before entering city property. Yet to state position on health care and foreign policy
Slogan: Your Champion
 


 BETO O'ROURKE 
Age on Inauguration Day: 47
Entered race: March 14, 2019
Career: No current job. Born Robert Francis O'Rourke. Boarding-school educated Columbia grad who lived in a New York loft, playing in a punk band and doing desultory jobs and setting up an internet firm. Ran for El Paso city council in 2005, winning re-election and serving until 2012. Ran for Congress in 2012, defeating eight-term Democratic incumbent in primary. Gave up seat to run for Senate against Ted Cruz in 2018, losing 51-48
Family: Married to wife Amy Sanders, nine years his junior, with sons Ulysses and Henry, and daughter Molly. Father Pat was long-time El Paso politician who switched from Democrat to Republican; mom Melissa ran family-owned store in city until selling it after IRS probe. Melissa's stepfather Fred Korth was one of JFK's secretaries of the Navy. Father-in-law William Saunders is real estate developer estimated to be worth $500 million
Religion: Catholic
Views on key issues: Wants comprehensive immigration reform to give citizenship to 'dreamers' and a path to it for their parents, and vehemently opposes Trump's wall. Supports federal marijuana legalization. Pro-gun control including an assault rifle ban and universal background checks. Supports single-payer health care but with co-pays and has backed Medicaid expansion. Strongly pro-choice. Has hinted at backing breaking up tech giants. Said he would have voted for impeachment in Congress if he had had the chance
Slogan: To be announced  
 


[size=40][size=32]TIM RYAN[/size][/size]
Age on Inauguration Day: 46
Entered race: April 4, 2019
Career: Currently Ohio congressman. High school football star who got a scholarship to Youngstown State, Ohio, but transferred to nearby Bowling Green University when his career ended in injury. Became a congressional aide, picked up a law degree, then served in the Ohio Senate and when his former House boss Jim Traficant went to prison for fraud ran for his seat in 2002 and won. Has held district - first Ohio 13th then the 17th when Youngstown was redistricted - since with little opposition since. Released book on meditation in 2012 and considered running against Nancy Pelosi for minority leader. Would be only second sitting congressman elected president - first was James Garfield, also from Ohio, in 1880
Family: Married first grade schoolteacher Andrea Zetts in 2013. Couple had a son, Brady, the following year. Zetts has a daughter, Bella, and a son, Mason, from her first marriage who Ryan says he 'loves like his own.' Ryan's first marriage ended in divorce. He was brought up by his mom Rochelle after she and his father Allen divorced when he was seven.
Religion: Catholic
Views on key issues: Moderate who backs Medicare for all. Flipped from anti-abortion to pro-choice in dramatic fashion in 2015. Does not appear to back the Green New Deal but suggests a carbon tax. Spoken up for capitalism but is also pro-union. Advocated for mindfulness teaching in classrooms. Also flipped on gun control from A rating by NRA to strong support of anti-gun measures
Slogan: To be announced
 


BERNIE SANDERS
Age on Inauguration Day: 79
Entered race: Sources said on January 25, 2019, that he would form exploratory committee. Officially announced February 19
Career: Currently Vermont senator. Student civil rights and anti-Vietnam activist who moved to Vermont and worked as a carpenter and radical film-maker. Serial failed political candidate in the 1970s, he ran as a socialist for mayor of Burlington in 1980 and served two terms ending in 1989, and win a seat in Congress as an independent in 1990. Ran for Senate in 2006 elections as an independent with Democratic endorsement and won third term in 2018. Challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2016 but lost. Campaign has since been hit by allegations of sexual harassment  - for which he has apologized - and criticized for its 'Bernie bro' culture
Family: Born to a Jewish immigrant father and the daughter of Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York. First marriage to college sweetheart Deboarah Shiling Messing in 1964 ended in divorce in 1966; had son Levi in 1969 with then girlfriend Susan Cambell Mott. Married Jone O'Meara in 1988 and considers her three children, all adults, his own. The couple have seven grandchildren. His older brother Larry is a former Green Party councilor in Oxfordshire, England. Would be first Jewish president
Religion: Secular Jewish 
Views on key issues: Openly socialist and standard bearer for the Democratic party's left-turn. Wants federal $15 minimum wage; banks broken up; union membership encouraged; free college tuition; universal health care; re-distributive taxation; he opposed Iraq War and also U.S. leading the fight against ISIS and wants troops largely out of Afghanistan and the Middle East
Slogan: Not me. Us.
 


ERIC SWALWELL
Age on Inauguration Day: 39
Entered race: Announced on the Stephen Colbert Show, April 8, 2019
Career: College soccer scholar whose sporting career was ended by injury who was a Capitol Hill intern in the building on 9/11. University of Maryland law graduate, served as a prosecutor in Alameda County, CA – where Kamala Harris worked in earlier years. He was elected to Dublin City Council, CA, in 2010 and ran for Congress in California's 15th District the following year, unseating 20-seat Democrat incumbent through California's 'top-two' system. Number 6 on The Hill's 50 Most Beautiful List in 2014. Won fourth term 73-27 in 2018. Would be only second sitting congressman elected president - first was James Garfield in 1880
Family: Married second wife Brittany Ann Watts, a Ritz-Carlton sales director in 2016, and has a son Nelson and daughter Kathryn. First marriage to Melissa Maranda ended in divorce. Born in Iowa where his father was a police chief who was fired for being too hardline, and brought up in California where the family moved in search of work
Religion: Christian
Views on key issues: Socially-ultra liberal. Has called for mandatory buyback of 'military-style semi-automatic assault weapons' and other gun control measures. Supportive of the green new deal but with new jobs guarantee for fossil fuel workers. Wants 'health-care guarantee' rather than Medicare for all. Aggressive voice for investigation of Trump.
Slogan: Go big. Be bold. Do good.          
 


ELIZABETH WARREN
Age on Inauguration Day: 71
Entered race:  Set up exploratory committee December 31, 2018
Career: Currently Massachusetts senator. Law lecturer and academic who became an expert on bankruptcy law and tenured Harvard professor. Ran for Senate and won in 2012, defeating sitting Republican Scott Brown, held it in 2018 60% to 36%. Was short-listed to be Hillary's running mate and campaigned hard for her in 2016
Family: Twice-married mother of two and grandmother of three. First husband and father of her children was her high-school sweetheart. Second husband Bruce Mann is Harvard law professor. Daughter Amelia Tyagi and son Alex Warren have both been involved in her campaigns. Has controversially claimed Native American roots; DNA test suggested she is as little as 1,064th Native American. Would be first female president
Religion: Raised Methodist, now described as Christian with no fixed church
Views on key issues: Was a registered Republican who voted for the party but registered as a Democrat in 1996. Pro: higher taxes on rich; banking regulation; Dream Act path to citizenship for 'dreamers'; abortion and gay rights; campaign finance restrictions; and expansion of public provision of healthcare - although still to spell out exactly how that would happen. Against: U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Syria; liberalization of gambling
Slogan: To be announced 
 


MARIANNE WILLIAMSON
Age on Inauguration Day: 68
Entered race: Announced exploratory committee November 15, 2018. Formally entered January 28, 2019
Career: Currently an author, Dropped out of Pomona College, California, became part of the counter culture and anti-war movement and ran a 'metaphysical bookstore' before publishing spiritual guide A Return to Love and being praised by Oprah, sending it to number one. Published series of follow-ups and founded AIDS charity and subsequently more non-profits including a peace movement. Ran for Congress in 2014 and lost
Family: Born to immigration attorney father Sam and housewife mother Sophie in Houston, Texas. Married for 'a minute and a half' to unnamed man; daughter India was born in 1990 but Williamson declines to name her father. Would be first female president 
Religion: Jewish
Views on key issues: Wants vast expansion of physical and mental healthcare; and nutrition and lifestyle reforms including ban on marketing processed and sugary foods to children; universal pre-K; much of the Green New Deal's proposals including a de-carbonized economy, electric cars and rebuilding mass transit; gun control through licensing; wants more vacation time; pro decriminalizing all drugs
Slogan: Join the Evolution

 


ANDREW YANG
Age on Inauguration Day: 46
Entered race: Filed papers November 6, 2018
Career: No current job. Started a dotcom flop then become healthcare and education tech executive who set up nonprofit Venture for America
Family: Married father of two. His parents were both immigrants from Taiwan who met at the University of California, Berkeley, as grad students. Would be first Asian-American president
Religion: Reformed Church
Views on key issues: Warns of rise of robots and artificial intelligence, wants $1,000 a month universal basic income and social media regulated. Spoke out against male circumcision 

Annemarie -  Thanks for posting this article. It's the first time I've seen a rundown of all the candidates in one place. There are a couple I hadn't even heard of and a couple of surprises about the ones I knew.

It's interesting to me that so many of the candidates are Catholics, when it was considered a major negative when JFK ran for president. Times really do change.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6924017/White-House-slaps-Sanders-collectivist-socialist-approach-taxes-health-care.html

[size=34]White House slaps back at Bernie Sanders for 'collectivist, socialist approach' after senator promises to eliminate Trump tax cuts for the rich to fund universal health care[/size]

• Trump's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow slapped back at Bernie Sanders after he pledged to overturn tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy
  
  
• Sanders says he'll make the millionaires and the billionaires pay their 'fair share' 
  
  
• He says said on a bus tour of the Midwest that he'll use additional revenue to pay for universal health care and other progressive priorities 
  
  
• Kudlow claimed plan could cost the U.S. 'to lose 15 percent of GDP' in 10 years
  
  
• He told DailyMail.com that '15 percent of the economy would be gone, because of the government planning, collectivist, socialist approach' Sanders is pushing
  
  
• White House is touting the GOP tax cuts that Trump signed into law as a winner
  
  

By FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 09:47 EDT, 15 April 2019 | UPDATED: 10:07 EDT, 15 April 2019

     

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow slapped back at Bernie Sanders and other Democrats seeking to overturn the president's tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy, claiming Monday that programs they'd fund with the revenues would hurt the U.S. economy.
'If you ran universal healthcare, and let's say it's part of the Green New Deal in general, our estimates are you'd lose 15 percent of GDP within 10 years - 15 percent of the economy would be gone, because of the government planning collectivist, socialist approach,' he told DailyMail.com.
Sanders claimed at campaign stops in the Midwest last weekend that he'd tax the millionaires and billionaires and use the money to pay for universal health care and other progressive policy proposals.


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White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow slapped back at Bernie Sanders and other Democrats seeking to overturn the president's tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy, claiming Monday that programs they'd fund with the revenues would hurt the U.S. economy
He claimed that Trump, who's seeking to get rid of the existing health law, would throw 32 million American off their plans. 

Kudlow claimed that Sen. Sanders' Medicare-for-All proposal would do more harm. 
'Here's what Mr. Sanders doesn't say: 180 million Americans would lose their private insurance policies. 180 million? That's extraordinary,' Kudlow said Monday morning.  
He said, 'All these socialist proposals, these collectivist central planning proposals, take away our liberty and take away our prosperity. The whole thing's a big poverty trap.
'So, I think this would be a very bad approach. And by the way, we are ourselves working very hard to reform health care.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6922663/Trump-slams-telecom-giant-Huawei-hiring-former-Obama-cyber-security-official-lobbyist.html

[size=34]'This is not good, or acceptable!' Trump slams telecom giant Huawei for hiring a former Obama administration cyber security official as a lobbyist, over fears the Chinese government-owned company is trying to spy on the U.S.[/size]

• Huawei has hired Samir Jain, former Obama administration ex-White House National Security Council cyber security chief 
  
  
• At the White House, Jain led a team responsible for cyber incident response and was chairman of a group that reviewed proposed cyber operations by the U.S. 
  
  
• Trump believes the hiring of Jain to lobby for Huawei is part of a major propaganda and influence campaign by the Chinese government
  
  
• U.S. government began a crackdown on Huawei over fears the technology firm might be using its products to spy on Americans and asked its allies to follow suit
  
  

By DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 00:06 EDT, 15 April 2019 | UPDATED: 00:52 EDT, 15 April 2019

     



President Trump has lashed out on Twitter to complain about the appointment of a former Obama administration cyber security official as lobbyist for Chinese  telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies.
Samir Jain was the former senior director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council during the Obama administration, but he has now registered as a lobbyist for Shenzhen-based Huawei. 
'Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei hires former Obama Cyber Security Official as a lobbyist. This is not good, or acceptable!' the President wrote in a tweet on Sunday evening.
The company, which is owned by the Chinese government, has fallen under the suspicion of U.S. officials in the past over fears the technology firm might be using its products to somehow spy on Americans. 


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Huawei has hired Samir Jain, former Obama administration ex-White House National Security Council cyber security chief, however President Trump believes the hiring of Jain to lobby for Huawei is part of a major propaganda and influence campaign by the Chinese government



'This is not good, or acceptable!' In a tweet, President Trump slammed telecom giant Huawei for hiring a former Obama administration cyber security official as a lobbyist
Trump's tweet shows that he believes that the hiring of Jain to lobby for Huawei is part of a major propaganda and influence campaign by the Chinese government to counter the U.S. government crackdown on Huawei. 

Jain, is now with the lobbying firm Jones Day on behalf of the Chinese firm.
Jain served at the White House from 2016 to 2017 and before that was an associate deputy attorney general from 2014 to 2015, where he worked on national security and computer fraud issues. 
While at the White House, Jain led a team that was responsible for cyber security and was chairman of an inter-agency group that reviewed proposed cyber operations by the U.S. government. 




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The U.S. government began a crackdown on Huawei over fears the technology firm might be using its products to spy on Americans and asked allies to follow suit


He also worked on international issues, such as a campaign to win support for U.S.-proposed international cyber norms.
While at the Justice Department, Jain also took part in international negotiations 'such as China's agreement not to engage in cyber-enabled intellectual property theft for commercial gain,' his biography states.
The U.S. is jockeying for position with China over 5G and has effectively banned Huawei from most U.S. networks due to concerns that it might enable Chinese government spying, which Huawei denies. 
Trump's administration has been warning other countries against adopting 5G systems from Huawei citing security concerns, with mixed results. 


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Huawei has been instrumental in developing 5G technology but the U.S. has been urging its allies not to allow such equipment to be introduced for fear of Chinese government spying




Huawei is the world's largest maker of such equipment and the U.S. has accused the company of being controlled by China's ruling Communist Party and thus obliged to spy on its behalf. 
Huawei maintains that it would say no to requests from the Chinese government for confidential information about foreign users of its technology. 
For more than a year, the White House has been mulling an executive order that would direct the Commerce Department to block U.S. companies from buying equipment from foreign telecommunications makers that pose significant national security risks.
The FCC since March 2018 has also been considering rules to bar the use of funds from a government program to purchase equipment or services from companies that pose a security threat to U.S. communications networks.

This is so hypocritical. Not saying there aren't legitimate concerns, but coming from someone in bed with Russia - which actually did interfere with our election - it's a bit hard to swallow.