monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Left-wing candidate wins Mexico presidential election

Lopez Obrador has presented himself as a champion of poor and rural Mexicans who would root out corruption, give scholarships or paid apprenticeships to youth, and increase support payments for the elderly. He's also promised to grant amnesties to some criminals amid a wave of violence that's the bloodiest seen in at least two decades...

But while Lopez Obrador has railed against Mexico's "mafia of power," he's saved some of his strongest words for Trump. Lopez Obrador has ripped the Trump administration's policy of separating families who cross the border illegally as "arrogant, racist and inhuman." He's also vowed to roll back some of outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto's policies toward Central American migrants who cross Mexico's own southern border, saying that his government would no longer do Trump's "dirty work."

Poll: Overwhelming Support For President Trump Immigration Positions….

A Harvard Harris poll (full pdf below) shows President Trump’s instincts are spot-on. 1,448 polled voters. [Poll ideology: Democrat 37%, Republican 32%, Independent 29%]

An overwhelming majority of American registered voters, 70 percent, support tougher immigration enforcement to include a border wall (60% support), deportation (64% support), and repatriation of all illegal border crossers including families with Children (61% support). Additionally 69% of voters do not support the position of disbanding I.C.E.

Should cities that arrest illegal immigrants for crimes be required notify immigration authorities they are in custody or be prohibited from notifying immigration authorities? 84% Require to Notify / 16% Not Required to Notify

A few details from your cite, eh, CJ?

Quote:

A few details from your cite, eh, CJ?

You should make them read. That gives them a chance of knowing what they are talking about and that would be a pleasant change.

That's why I am "making them read."

Do you think we should have basically open borders or do you think we need secure borders? 76% Secure / 24% Open

What do you think is the best way to deter illegal immigration?

Nothing - I don't want to see stronger border enforcement. 15%

Gay rights, transgender rights, muslim rights, etc. got no votes at all.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business group and customarily a close ally of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, is launching a campaign on Monday to oppose Trump’s trade tariff policies.

With some of America’s tightest trading partners imposing retaliatory measures, Trump’s approach to tariffs has unsettled financial markets and strained relations between the White House and the Chamber.

The new campaign, detailed first to Reuters, is an aggressive effort by the business lobbying giant. Using a state-by-state analysis, it argues that Trump is risking a global trade war that will hit the wallets of U.S. consumers.

“The administration is threatening to undermine the economic progress it worked so hard to achieve,” said Chamber President Tom Donohue in a statement to Reuters. “We should seek free and fair trade, but this is just not the way to do it.”

The Chamber, which has 3 million members, historically has worked closely with Republican presidents and praised Trump for signing business tax cuts in December. But mounting trade tensions have opened a rift with the president.

Trump has implemented billions of dollars in tariffs targeted at China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union, saying such moves are needed to offset trade imbalances.

Nations have begun retaliating. On Friday, Canada struck back at U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, vowing to impose punitive measures on $12.6 billion worth of American goods until Washington relents.

China is expected to impose a new 25-percent tax on soybeans in July. Mexico is adding duties to pork imports. The EU has targeted $3.2 billion in American goods exported to the 28-member bloc, including bourbon and Harley Davidson (HOG.N) motorcycles.

With some of America’s tightest trading partners imposing retaliatory measures, Trump’s approach to tariffs has unsettled financial markets and strained relations between the White House and the Chamber.

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer, who is under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, says he sat down for an interview with ABC News and his "silence is broken."

Michael Cohen tweeted a photo Sunday of him sitting with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.

He said in the tweet that he sat down with Stephanopoulos for an interview to air Monday on "Good Morning America" but it wasn't on camera. Stephanopoulos tweeted a similar photo.

President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer, who is under investigation by federal prosecutors in New York, says he sat down for an interview with ABC News and his "silence is broken."

WASHINGTON, D.C.— The pathway of protest is well known to those who choose to walk it. Often starting with gatherings in Lafayette Square, where rallies can rattle the windows of the adjacent White House, people stream onto Pennsylvania Avenue, heading to go make a human wreathe around the Department of Justice and other government buildings. Over the past year, the pathway has become well worn, the sight of thousands of footprints on the grass in the city’s squares or the National Mall much more commonplace. The chants are often similar. On Saturday, when some 50,000 protesters descended upon the nation’s capital, they hewed close to what’s now become a D.C. leitmotif.

But it was there in Lafayette Square, under the statue of the Marquis de Lafayette, one of the most important foreign-born citizens in American history, where this protest blended the old and the new, and showcased what the next few years of politics will look like. There, at a rally originally created to protest the Trump administration’s policy of stripping immigrant children from families at the border, demonstrators protested several related issues and joined in spirit with the hundreds of other rallies that were held around the country.

At this rally, the luminaries were there in their full brightness. Lin-Manuel Miranda, America Ferrera, Alicia Keys and other celebrities gave emotional speeches, demanding an end to this administration’s immigration policy, and providing a family-centered view of the ultimate effects of that policy. Of those, the most personal speech came from Orange is The New Black star Diane Guerrero, an American-born daughter of Colombian parents who at 14 was separated from them when her parents were deported. “Even some 17 years later, I can still remember how it felt when I first cried out for my parents and they couldn’t answer,” Guerrero told the crowd.

But it was the testimonials and calls to action from lesser-known people on stage that brought the strongest emotional charge to the event. A 12-year-old girl who identified herself only as Leah described her life as the daughter of an undocumented woman who works as a domestic caretaker. She tearfully recounted her story and the constant fear of losing her mother, tying it to the fear and disruption young children must experience when separated from parents at the border. Other powerful firsthand accounts from people affected by immigration policies reverberated from the small stage at the eastern edge of the square. A youth choir roused the crowd into a marching mood with a taut rendition of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.

One thing about this rally that immediately stood out is that it expanded considerably on its original stated mandate, as noted in its name, Families Belong Together. That expansion reflected the desperate state of the week for people to the left of the White House. This week, the Supreme Court alone took a wrecking ball to some cornerstones of American progressive policy, dealing a big blow to labor, approving Trump’s anti-Muslim travel ban, and setting the stage for the end of Roe v. Wade—among other things—with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Speakers and signs decried each of these developments, and also set their sights on broader racial and gender injustices and mass incarceration.

There was a sense that after one of the worst single weeks for progressive policy in decades, the rally in Washington and the sister marches in hundreds of events across the country were both cathartic for their liberal participants and deliberate attempts to find a way forward. The event in D.C. built on organizing infrastructure laid by two massive women’s marches and smaller events, but it advanced a synthesized policy agenda that added to the concerns that animated the early resistance.

The event leaned heavily on the language of morals, safety, and family. This, of course, serves to rebuke the common conservative critique of liberal policies as a vast plot to undermine families and safety. The shift in focus at many of these rallies has attempted to move the moral high ground and public opinion away from Trump’s policy agenda, and away from the party that has for decades branded itself as the party for families.

That approach, a staple of civil-rights organizing, has been newly emphasized by movements such as the Moral Movement and the Poor People’s Campaign led by Rev. William Barber, and is purposefully tailored for the time. The ongoing bet from the White House appears to be that enough American voters may not oppose policies that are tough on Central American asylum-seekers or Syrian refugees. But given the success of events like these and the bipartisan outrage over family separation, the Trump administration should be worried.

As mothers and daughters took the stage holding hands together, as strollers flattened the grass, as interpreters translated English to Spanish and to sign language, and as the closing chorus of Jackson’s song echoed back and forth from the stage, the meaning of the rally and the march came sharply into focus: Families matter, and families are fighting. No message could have been any clearer.

There, at a rally originally created to protest the Trump administration’s policy of stripping immigrant children from families at the border, demonstrators protested several related issues and joined in spirit with the hundreds of other rallies that were held around the country.

One thing about this rally that immediately stood out is that it expanded considerably on its original stated mandate, as noted in its name, Families Belong Together. That expansion reflected the desperate state of the week for people to the left of the White House.

The event leaned heavily on the language of morals, safety, and family...That approach, a staple of civil-rights organizing, has been newly emphasized by movements such as the Moral Movement and the Poor People’s Campaign led by Rev. William Barber, and is purposefully tailored for the time.

And that butt-ugly skank really thinks some guy is sexually attracted to her!?