Putin boasts military might with animation of Florida nuke strike

[ And Still No Response To Putin - I Think Putin Has Those Videos

(CNN)

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday used a concept video of unlimited range nuclear warheads apparently raining down on Florida -- President Donald Trump's home away from home -- to tout his country's new firepower.

Putin boasted about the Kremlin's resurgent military might during his annual address to his nation's Parliament, hyping weaponry that he said would render NATO defenses "completely useless."

He drew repeated applause with animation-backed claims of nuclear-capable weapons that elude air-defense systems and "invincible" missiles that travel at hypersonic speed.

"Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, any kind of attack, will be regarded as a nuclear attack against Russia, and in response, we will take action instantaneously no matter what the consequences are," Putin said. "Nobody should have any doubt about that."

Putin, who is up for re-election March 18, used Thursday's speech to showcase his country's strides in military technology.

"Russia still has the greatest nuclear potential in the world, but nobody listened to us," he said. "Listen now."

To drive home his point, Putin spoke as a video showed multiple nuclear warheads streaking through space before showering down on what appears to be the outline of the state of Florida.

"But even this is not the end," Putin said. "We've developed new strategic weapons that don't use ballistic trajectory at all, which means that missile defense will be useless against it."

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters that Putin's remarks confirmed what the United States has long known: "Russia has been developing destabilizing weapons systems for over a decade, in direct violation of its treaty obligations," she said.

"President Trump understands the threats facing America and our allies in this century and is determined to protect our homeland and preserve peace through strength," she added. "US defense capabilities are and will remain second to none."
US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said department officials watched Putin's speech with interest.

"It was certainly unfortunate to have watched the video animation that depicted a nuclear attack on the United States," she said. "That's certainly something that we did not enjoy watching. We don't regard that as the behavior of a responsible international player."

CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd said Putin's braggadocio was meant to rile up Trump, whose presidency has been marred by investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

"I do think Vladimir Putin was speaking to one audience," she said. "It wasn't anyone in Russia. It was Donald Trump."

"He was trying to get the President distracted from anything that Trump may be doing to hold Russia accountable for the ongoing attack on the United States," she said.

"The President's inaction makes Vladimir Putin think, 'Why wouldn't I say all this? Why wouldn't I show that I can violate treaties and laws and talk about strategic attacks all around the world?' Vladimir Putin has no reason to feel constrained in any way."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/01/europe/p ... index.html

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Putin says arms race between US, Russia followed Washington’s withdrawal from ABM Treaty

NEW YORK, March 2. /TASS/. The arms race between Moscow and Washington followed the US’ withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with NBC News.

Asked whether his Thursday's address to the Federal Assembly should be considered declaration of a new Cold War and whether the US and Russia are currently pursuing an arms race, Putin said: "From my point of view, those who make statements about a new Cold War being launched, are not analysts, they engage in propaganda. If you speak about the arms race, it started when the US withdrew from the ABM Treaty."

On December 13, 2001, President George W. Bush announced the US pullout from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty signed with the Soviet Union in 1972. In accordance with the Treaty's provisions, the withdrawal from the agreement came into force six months after the announcement, on June 13, 2002.

[ WHO'S RUNNING THE WHITE HOUSE ??? ]



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Think the White House is in chaos now? Just wait.

WH struggles with one crisis after another

(CNN)

President Donald Trump has, throughout his life, embraced chaos as a life philosophy.

But now, chaos -- spurred by surprise departures, the ongoing Russia investigation and Trump's own grudge-nursing -- is threatening to overwhelm his presidency, and there's every reason to believe things will get worse, not better, in the coming days.

Here's why: Trump is not only beset on all sides by bad stories -- Russia investigations, a feud with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Ben Carson's taste for fine furniture, etc., etc. -- but he is also forced to face these stories with an ever-diminishing group of loyalists around him.

It's a perfect storm for Trump -- and not in a good way.

The descriptions coming out of the White House describing Trump's state of mind over the last few days all paint a picture of a frustrated and angry executive who feels more and more isolated in his own White House.

Here's how CNN's White House team described the mood:

"The tumult of the past week has fueled a deep and seething anger within President Donald Trump -- not an uncommon emotion for the insolent commander in chief -- but one that allies and aides say has escalated as he faces a new gauntlet of problems."

Axios' Mike Allen put it this way:

"After a crazy 24 hours, sources close to President Trump say he is in a bad place — mad as hell about the internal chaos and the sense that things are unraveling."

Even longtime Trump defender -- and 10-day White House communications director -- Anthony Scaramucci acknowledged in an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo Thursday morning that "the morale is terrible."

What's important is not that Trump is angry or thinks he is ill-served by staff. He thinks that pretty much all the time. What's different this time is that three of the people he trusts most -- his daughter Ivanka, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his longtime aide Hope Hicks -- are either leaving him or weathering problems that put them in weakened positions, at best, and in jeopardy of being forced to leave the White House, at worst.

Hicks' decision to resign as communications director was clearly a blow to Trump on a personal level. Hicks' title is far less important than how Trump regarded her: as a trusted loyalist who had been with him when everyone else thought his presidential candidacy was a joke. Outside of his immediate family, Trump trusted no one more and listened to no one more than Hicks.

Speaking of the President's immediate family, they've had a rough run of things too. Ivanka's trip to the Olympic closing ceremonies in South Korea raised the hackles of the likes of chief of staff John Kelly. And her response that it was "inappropriate" for a reporter to ask her about the sexual misconduct allegations against her father simply served to highlight the difficulty of simultaneously being the daughter of the President and a senior adviser to that President.

If Ivanka's last few weeks have been bad, Kushner's have been worse. First came the news that his security clearance had been downgraded by Kelly amid ongoing questions about Kushner's ability to secure a permanent clearance. Then the news that countries had targeted Kushner as vulnerable to manipulation due to the complexity of his financial holdings. Then The New York Times reported Wednesday night that Kushner's family had received $500 million in loans following meetings between Kushner and the heads of investment companies that made the loans.

The spate of stories on Kushner have occasioned talk that he might not be able to even approximate the job he has been assigned in the Trump White House and may have to move on -- whether to Trump's growing 2020 staff or return to the private sector.

Even if Javanka stays put -- and yes, it's totally fair to consider them a matching set -- it's not clear they are in any sort of position to talk Trump down when he is angry or frustrated -- or both. They are dealing with problems of their own, problems that distract them from giving their full attention to the President of the United States.

All of which means that Trump faces the most serious set of problems since the start of his presidency with fewer and fewer people he feels he can truly rely on.

And a lonely and cornered Trump rarely reacts well.

I keep thinking back to the early days of Trump's time in the White House -- when he was largely alone and unhappy. This, from a stunning New York Times story in February of 2017, is the image that sticks in my head:

"Usually around 6:30 p.m., or sometimes later, Mr. Trump retires upstairs to the residence to recharge, vent and intermittently use Twitter. With his wife, Melania, and young son, Barron, staying in New York, he is almost always by himself, sometimes in the protective presence of his imposing longtime aide and former security chief, Keith Schiller. When Mr. Trump is not watching television in his bathrobe or on his phone reaching out to old campaign hands and advisers, he will sometimes set off to explore the unfamiliar surroundings of his new home."

While the White House denied that Trump wandered around the White House in his bathrobe and Melania and Barron have since moved to Washington, there's little question that the more isolated Trump gets -- or feels -- the more he gives in to his most basic instinct: score-settling via Twitter.

Without the likes of Hicks to rein him in, we are likely headed into an even more chaotic moment for Trump. Unleashed to say and do what he wants when he wants -- and increasingly convinced that he is being victimized by, well, everyone -- Trump is likely to get even more unpredictable in the weeks to come.

That's a prospect that has to terrify Republicans, who are desperately trying to hold on to their House and, to a lesser extent, Senate majorities in November. But they better get used to it. It's likely to be the new normal.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/01/politics ... index.html

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US academics track North Korea nuclear progress with public data

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watc ... associated

Richard Engel visits The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, where academics use publicly available maps and media, and a lot of creative problem solving, to assess North Korea's progress toward nuclear weapon capability.

[ SERIOUS STUFF - SCARY STUFF ! TWO UNSTABLE LEADERS WITH THE PANIC BUTTON WITHIN EASY REACH - IF YOU HAVE ABOUT 15 MINUTES OF SOME FREE TIME TO WATCH - CLICK ON THE LINK IF INTERESTED ]



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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watc ... associated

UN report to show North Korea dodging sanctions with Russian help

Richard Engel reports on how Russian ships out of Vladivostok evade detection to secretly transport cargo to and from North Korea in violation of international sanctions.

[ ANOTHER INTERESTING VIDEO - STILL NO RESPONSE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE - JUST CLICK ON LINK ]

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump says trade war ‘easy’; maybe not

WASHINGTON (AP) — In agitating for a trade war, President Donald Trump may have forgotten William Tecumseh Sherman’s adage that “war is hell.”

The Civil War general’s observation can be apt for trade wars, which may create conditions for a shooting war.

A look at Trump’s spoiling-for-a-fight tweet Friday:

TRUMP: “When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!”

THE FACTS: History suggests that trade wars are not easy.

The president’s argument, in essence, is that high tariffs will force other countries to relent quickly on what he sees as unfair trading practices, and that will wipe out the trade gap and create factory jobs. That’s his motivation for announcing that the U.S. will impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports.

The record shows that tariffs, while they may help certain domestic manufacturers, can come at a broad cost. They can raise prices for consumers and businesses because companies pass on at least some of the higher costs of imported materials to their customers. Winning and losing isn’t as simple a matter as tracking the trade gap.

The State Department’s office of the historian looked at tariffs passed in the 1920s and 1930s to protect farms and other industries that were losing their markets in Europe as the continent recovered from World War I. The U.S. duties hurt Europe and made it harder for those countries to repay their war debts, while exposing farmers and consumers in the U.S. to higher prices. European nations responded by raising their tariffs and the volume of world trade predictably slowed by 1934.

The State Department says the tariffs exacerbated the global effects of the Great Depression while doing nothing to foster political or economic cooperation among countries. This was a diplomatic way of saying that the economic struggles helped embolden extremist politics and geopolitical rivalries before World War II.

Nor have past protectionist measures saved the steel industry, as Trump says his tariffs would.

The United States first became a net importer of steel in 1959, when steelworkers staged a 116-day strike, according to research by Michael O. Moore, a George Washington University economist. After that, U.S. administrations imposed protectionist policies, only to see global competitors adapt and the U.S. share of global steel production decline.

https://www.apnews.com/06e2d5e7ff624467 ... -maybe-not

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Ex-CIA chief: Trump ‘unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical’

Former CIA chief John Brennan on Friday predicted "rough waters ahead," particularly on international issues, because President Trump is "unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical."

In an interview with MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," Brennan told host Nicole Wallace that the president was "ill prepared" to take on the duties of commander-in-chief, particularly growing military aggression from Russia and North Korea.

"It is no secret to anybody that Donald Trump was very ill prepared and unexperienced in terms of dealing with matters that a head of state needs to deal with, head of government, and I think this is now coming to roost," Brennan said.

"[O]ur country needs to have confidence that we’re going to be able to deal with Mr. Putin, who is flexing his muscles once again on the military front, that we can deal with North Korea, that we can deal with these issues. And if we have somebody in the Oval Office who is unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical - we really have rough waters ahead."

The former CIA chief under President Obama went on to hit Trump for tweeting at actor Alec Baldwin over his "Saturday Night Live" impression of Trump rather than responding to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who announced the previous day the development of missiles he claimed would render defense systems "useless."

"When I hear what Vladimir Putin was saying just yesterday about the nuclear capabilities he has, the President of the United States is tweeting about Alec Baldwin this morning, I mean, where is your sense of priorities?" Brennan asked.

"I think a lot of Americans are looking at what’s happening with a sense of — this is surreal."

The Russian leader told lawmakers this week that new intercontinental ballistic missiles developed by the country could reach almost any target in the world.

"I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country's development ... you have failed to contain Russia," he said.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed Putin's comments in a statement to CNN.

"President Putin has confirmed what the United States government has known all along, which Russia has denied. Russia has been developing destabilizing weapons systems for over a decade, in direct violation of its treaty obligations."

‘He’s JFK With Tattoos and a Bench Press’

Paratrooper Richard Ojeda is redefining what it means to be a Democrat in a deeply red state.

AFGHANISTAN I SERVED,” said one. “IRAQ I SERVED,” said another. “IT’S NOT THAT I CAN AND OTHERS CAN’T,” said a third. “BUT I WILL AND OTHERS WON’T.”

CHARLESTON, W.Va.—

After pushing 90 for the better part of an hour to get here to the gold-domed Capitol from his home in rugged, woebegone Logan County, the former Army paratrooper and current state senator with 36 tattoos, bulging muscles and a dry-razored buzz cut jumped out of his red Jeep and bounded across a parking lot toward the snaking line of hundreds of striking teachers.

They rushed to shake his hand.

They clamored for snapshots and selfies.

They waved homemade signs. “HEAR US NOW.” “SUPPORT WV TEACHERS.” “UNITED WE STAND.”

“We got your back, you got ours!” one teacher called out, and they roared.

“You keep making that noise, ladies and gentlemen!” he bellowed back. “This is what union is right here! Hey! Shoulder to shoulder! Don’t take a step back! Y’all deserve it!”

As he tried to make his way through the pulsing crowd, another teacher stopped him, asking him to sign with a Sharpie the chest of her shirt that had on it a picture of him looking stalwart and stern in his military fatigues.

The people chanted his name.

“Oh-jed-ah!”

“Oh-jed-ah!”

“Oh-jed-ah!”
In hard red, Donald Trump-loving West Virginia, Ojeda has become a kind of one-man blue wave, threatening to defy a conventional belief that the only kind of Democrat that can win big races here—or anywhere, for that matter, in Appalachia or the industrial Midwest—is somebody like Joe Manchin,...................

In the early 20th century, miners fought and died for higher wages and safer working conditions while wearing red bandanas and carrying Winchester rifles. Now, teachers are the new miners; in fact, in a place all but defined by its coal heritage, there are some 20,000 teachers and fewer than 12,000 miners, making the teachers—plus the 13,000 staff who walked off the job with them—by far the largest union in the state. And here, as I hustled after Ojeda into the bustling Capitol, the striking school employees weren’t armed—but many were dressed in red. And some of them had knotted around their necks those bandanas..................

And in Logan County, where Ojeda grew up and still lives, just shy of 80 percent of voters chose Trump—and one of them was Ojeda himself. He’s not on Massachusetts congressman Seth Moulton’s tally of veterans he has endorsed, and he’s not on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” list, either. He’s been a mostly limited fundraiser, too, in part because he takes no money from anybody except individual donors and labor unions. There is next to no standard reason to think Ojeda could win—except for the visceral evidence that was swirling around us. The more than 5,000 teachers screaming his name.
Ojeda was surrounded by a rapt half-moon of teachers. His eyes were wide, and he was jabbing the air with a finger. “We are on the next Saudi Arabia!” he was hollering. “They’ve said that—the energy people said that! So, if we’re on the next Saudi Arabia, obviously they want it to be just like Saudi Arabia, where you have about 10 people driving around in Lamborghinis and everybody else eatin’ sand sandwiches!

Labor unions. That’s it. “I don’t give a shit about Big Energy!” he yelled. They erupted again in applause...............

Over the course of the next two days, the first two days of the West Virginia teachers’ strike that remained unresolved as of Thursday, I saw signs that read: “OVER WORKED UNDER PAID” and “TEACHERS ARE WORTH MORE.” One just said, “Help Us Ojeda. You’re our Only Hope!”.......................
I first got interested in Ojeda late last year after I watched the launch video for his congressional campaign. It was unlike any campaign video I’d ever seen. Shots of him toughing out pullups and bench press reps. A picture of his battered, bloodied head after he suffered facial fractures in a brass-knuckles attack at a campaign picnic before his primary in 2016—an attack Ojeda believes was politically motivated. ......................

The assailant, who had ties to Ojeda’s opponent, later was sentenced to one to five years in prison—bringing to a close the violent episode that elicited his first round of national news coverage, a trend that’s continued. In 2016, though, even after the attack, Ojeda won, .................

He picked me up at my hotel in Logan early in the morning on the first day of the strike. The back of his Jeep was covered with stickers. “AFGHANISTAN I SERVED,” said one. “IRAQ I SERVED,” said another. “IT’S NOT THAT I CAN AND OTHERS CAN’T,” said a third. “BUT I WILL AND OTHERS WON’T.”....................

“Where I come from, when you graduate high school, there’s only three choices—dig coal, sell dope, or join the Army. And I chose the military.” He served 24 years. He went to Korea and Honduras and Jordan and Haiti. Afghanistan. Iraq. He almost died five times, by his count, an IED blast, a couple of dud mortars, the Taliban. He earned two Bronze Stars and retired as Major Ojeda. “I’m a combat soldier,” he told me. He wants his ashes spread on Sicily Drop Zone at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, the paratroopers’ training facility, which he considers “hallowed ground.”..................

When he was little, Ojeda was scrawny, but he could use his fists. “If I thought you was gonna try to come bully me,” he told me, “I was gonna get you.” In Iraq, he built a boxing ring in a gravel pit. “And we beat the shit out of each other,” he said. “We would come back from a mission, and we would fight.”..................
His office at the Capitol, from what I could see, has two small pictures of a single politician—John F. Kennedy, taped to the front of his desktop computer. On his desk, too, is “A Coal Miner’s Prayer.” But almost all the other pieces of the décor, if that’s even the right term, are Army flags, Army plaques, Army certificates, Army paraphernalia, the boots and fatigues of fallen friends. Now, he told the teachers that kept coming in, “I fight like a daggone wild man for labor unions.” And anybody who doesn’t? “I will make their life a living hell.”......................

Campaigning—clad in his typical garb of combat boots, Ripstop tactical pants and Grunt Style shirts. His bid to come to Washington is about to shift to full-fledged. His strategy? “Boots on the ground, my man,” he said. “Boots on the ground.”.........................

In the red Jeep on the way back to Logan, I asked Ojeda about his vote for Trump, a fact that in another state could be seen as disqualifying for a Democrat.

“I voted for him because it was about family and friends,” he said. “Nobody else was saying anything. Hillary Clinton was coming here blowing smoke up everybody’s ass. Hell, I wanted Bernie Sanders”—and he wasn’t the only one, obviously, as Sanders beat Clinton in the primaries in all 55 counties—“but once Bernie Sanders was screwed over by Hillary Clinton, by the way, you had no other option.”

He regrets his vote for Trump.

“Sure do,” he said.

Because?

“Because he hasn’t done shit,” he said. “It’s been a friggin’ circus for a solid year.” Nothing’s changed. So many people in southern West Virginia are still poor and need jobs. The opioid epidemic rages unabated. “All he’s done,” Ojeda said, “is shown that he’s taking care of the daggone people he’s supposed to be getting rid of.”
“You know, hey, here’s the thing,” Ojeda told me. “Donald Trump, Donald Trump, made everybody excited because he said shit nobody else has ever said. But the difference is, Donald Trump wins, and he ain’t done jackshit to help us. Now let me tell you something about Ojeda. Ojeda won, and I’m telling you right now: I guarantee you there’s not one single freshman damn Democrat, there’s not one freshman friggin’ senator that’s ever made more damn noise than I have and has done more than what I’ve done.

“I get shit done!” he said. “I just started a friggin’ movement!”

Michael Kruse is a senior staff writer for Politico.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... one-217217

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Report: Trump Urges GOP Lawmakers to Block Hudson Rail Tunnel

President Trump has reportedly been urging Republican lawmakers to oppose funding for a major railway project to spite his Democratic rivals, The New York Times reports. The so-called Gateway project, which would see a rail tunnel constructed to connect New York and New Jersey, has been a top priority in the region for years and is expected to be included in an upcoming spending bill. But Trump personally called on Speaker Paul Ryan to come out against funding the $30 billion project earlier this week, the Washington Post first reported Friday. His opposition to the tunnel—which is meant to replace aging infrastructure in urgent need of an overhaul—first became clear in December, when local authorities were informed the deal earlier reached under Obama for the project was now “nonexistent.” Trump's recent arguments against the project have reportedly taken on a personal tone, however. According to sources cited by the Times, Trump has told Republicans the project should be blocked partly to get back at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has regularly blocked Trump's nominees.



Man Who Shot Himself Near White House Identified as Alabama Resident

The man who fatally shot himself in front of the White House on Saturday has been identified as a 26-year-old man from Maylene, Alabama. D.C. police say the man, Cameron Ross Burgess, approached the White House fence on the North Lawn before firing multiple shots from a handgun, "none of which at this time appear to have been directed towards the White House." Burgess died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but no other bystanders were injured in the incident, which authorities are now describing as a suicide. It remains unclear why Burgess chose to take his life in front of the White House.



Arizona Sen. Flake Says Republican Party in bad place

(CNN)

Outgoing Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake says the Republican Party is in a "bad place," and that President Trump does not behave in the way that "a conservative should act." Flake blasted the direction the Republican Party was heading. "We've stopped being the party of limited government, economic freedom, individual responsibility ... and kind of drifted off to fight the culture wars," said Flake. "That's when you always know you're in a bad place. When you stop talking, as a Republican, about limited government or limiting spending and you start talking about flag burning or other cultural issues or immigration to try to make up for not being conservative fiscally. You have to emphasize other issues," he said. Flake, a frequent critic of Trump, said that though he had voted with the President in terms of policy, he ultimately didn't believe Trump was even a conservative.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics ... index.html



The most important political prisoner in Latin America


"Can Venezuela Be Saved? As a nation unwinds, Leopoldo López, the opposition’s most prominent leader, sits under house arrest and contemplates what might still be possible," by Wil S. Hylton.

Why he matters: "[H]e has become the most prominent political prisoner in Latin America, if not the world. His case has been championed by just about every human rights organization on earth."

López was arrested in February 2014 after leading a public protest that turned violent. ... Before his arrest, he was among the most prominent and popular opposition leaders in Venezuela. Polling suggested that he could defeat President Nicolás Maduro, the unpopular successor to Hugo Chávez."

"The Venezuelan government routinely disparages him as a right-wing reactionary from the ruling class who wants to reverse the social progress of chavismo and restore the landed aristocracy; the Venezuelan right, meanwhile, considers López a neo-Marxist, whose proposal to distribute the country’s oil wealth among the people would only deepen the chavista agenda."

Update: "Since the publication of this article, armed guards from the Venezuelan intelligence service have raided and occupied the residence of Leopoldo López. Members of the Venezuelan National Assembly gathered in front of the house, along with local media and citizens, to protest the invasion and threats by the Venezuelan government that López will be returned to military prison."



LaVar Ball revives Trump feud after damning report

The Big Baller is taking a big victory lap

After LaVar Ball’s public spat in November with Donald Trump, in which the overbearing father would not thank the president for his alleged role in freeing son LiAngelo from China, the Ball family patriarch feels especially emboldened and proven correct.

On Saturday, LaVar believed the scoreboard favored his side.

“Donald Trump actually didn’t help get LiAngelo Ball out of jail in China, per report.”

“The situation was already resolved by the time we heard about Trump’s involvement,” one team source said. “That’s not to take away from the fact that he got involved, but the players already had their passports back and their flights booked to go home Tuesday night when Gen. [John] Kelly called the players.”

“The players were already checked into the hotel before the public discovered they were arrested,”

“They also were not under house arrest. It was our decision to keep them at the hotel until the situation was resolved. The charges were dropped, they weren’t reduced, and that happened two days before we heard from Gen. Kelly.”

https://nypost.com/2018/03/03/lavar-bal ... d-nothing/



'It can be a legacy': Democrats urge Trump not to retreat on gun control

Senate Democrats have appealed to Donald Trump not to retreat from his surprise expression this week of support for gun control measures, in the aftermath of the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed.

He also castigated Republicans for being “petrified” of the National Rifle Association.

After the meeting Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA’s lobbying arm, tweeted: “POTUS & VPOTUS support the second amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control.”

The Florida legislature wraps up its annual session on Friday and lawmakers are scrambling to take some kind of action. The House has yet to take up the bill.

On a national level, Manchin agreed with CNN host Jake Tapper that there was “a high probability” no gun law reform will be passed at all.

[ HI CAP MAGS AND ASSAULT RIFLES AKA AR-15 NOT PROTECTED UNDER THE 2ND AMMENDMENT - WHY DOES THE NRA KEEP BRINGING UP THE ISSUE ???? ]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... un-control





'Maybe we'll give that a shot': Donald Trump praises Xi Jinping's power grab

Donald Trump has celebrated Xi Jinping’s bid to shepherd China back into an era of one-man dictatorship, suggesting the United States might one day “give that a shot”.

China’s authoritarian leader took power in 2012 and had been expected to rule until 2023. However, last week it emerged that Xi would attempt to use an annual meeting of China’s parliament, which kicks off on Monday morning, to abolish presidential term limits by changing the Chinese constitution.

Liberals have condemned the power grab, which will almost certainly be approved by members of the National People’s Congress who have flocked to Beijing for the two-week summit. Experts say the amendment paves the way for Xi to be China’s ruler-for-life. “This is a critical moment in China’s history,” Cheng Li, a prominent expert in elite Chinese politics who has criticised the move, told AP.

However, Trump offered a more positive assessment during a fundraising event at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where he hosted Xi last April. “He’s now president for life. President for life. And he’s great,” the US president reportedly told Republican donors.

“And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot some day,” Trump added, according to CNN which obtained a recording of what it described as an upbeat, joke-filled speech.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... shot-china



Flake: Obama and I stay in touch

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said on Saturday that he has kept in touch with former President Obama.

Flake told “The Axe Files” host David Axelrod that he still talks with Obama and that the former president called him recently to make sure he was alright, apparently after the senator gave an impassioned speech announcing he would not seek reelection.

During that speech, Flake heavily criticized President Trump and said he would “no longer be complicit or silent” while the president continues his “reckless, outrageous and undignified” behavior.

On Saturday, Flake complimented Obama for reaching out to him just before he left the White House.

"The last night he was in the White House, the day before inauguration he called just to say that he enjoyed working with me," Flake said. "And I certainly said the same. He didn't have to do that. It was very nice."

During his interview with the former Obama adviser, Flake said the Trump Cabinet meetings are “painful” to watch and said that the Republican Party is currently in a “bad place.”

“There's not much place for a Republican like me in a party like this right now,” Flake said.

He didn’t rule out running against Trump in 2020 and reiterated that he believes Trump will face a challenge "from the Republican Party.”

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3766 ... y-in-touch



Half Of Americans Favor Obamacare, But Hatch Thinks They’re ‘Stupidest, Dumbass People’




NUNES: COLBERT A ‘DANGER’ IN THIS COUNTRY




Since Sandy Hook, More NRA-Backed Gun Legislation Has Passed Than Laws To Restrict Guns




Trump Mocks Kushner At Gridiron Dinner: ‘Jared Could Not Get Through Security’




Baldwin’s Trump Boasts On ‘SNL’ He’s Running Country Like A Waffle House




The Florida Senate Approved An AR-15 Ban. Then They Didn’t.


Donald Trump Has Spent Nearly a Quarter of His Days as President at His Golf Courses

At least he’s consistent (at something).

The National Rifle Association is pissed, the White House’s battle-tested communications staff is reeling, and hundreds of thousands of young immigrants are worried about how their lives will change on Monday. But Donald Trump keeps on golfing!

With his appearance Saturday at his Palm Beach County, Florida, golf course, the president hit a new milestone: 100 days of golfing at his own properties, according to CNN. It’s a remarkable feat for a man who’s been president for 407 days.

According to a running count by the folks over at Trump Golf Count, the president’s very frequent golfing habit has already cost taxpayers more than $56 million.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... president/



RUSSIA’S PUSSY RIOT: TWO MEMBERS OF PUNK GROUP DISAPPEAR AFTER PROTESTS IN CRIMEA

wo members of Pussy Riot, the all-female Russian punk rock band from Moscow known for their provocative protest lyrics and colorful balaclavas, disappeared on Tuesday while traveling from the Crimean Peninsula to Moscow.

Olga Borisova and Sasha Sofeyev were meant to fly from Simferopol on the Crimean Peninsula to Moscow Monday evening, according to local media reports. Instead, they disappeared without a trace.

Their friends and fellow band members said they have been unable to reach them.

The women were allegedly in Crimea to protest the detention of filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who is serving a 20-year sentence on terrorism charges that many say are politically motivated. Sentsov is originally from Crimea and was arrested there in 2014.

The women decided to leave Crimea on Monday evening because they had been detained and harassed by security forces. The punk group’s Twitter account claimed that the members’ phones and computers had been broken. Masha Alekhina, a third member of Pussy Riot, is believed to be in police custody. However, she posted a picture of herself on Facebook on Tuesday holding up a sign that says “Free Sentsov.”

http://www.newsweek.com/russias-pussy-r ... sed-822061



El Salvador's Gangs Are Targeting Young Girls

And the Trump administration’s immigration policies are certain to make it worse.

In El Salvador, a small country of some 6.5 million, the defense ministry has estimated that more than 500,000 Salvadorans are involved with gangs. (This number includes gang members’ relatives and children who have been coerced into crimes.) Turf wars between MS-13, the country’s largest gang, and its chief rivals, two factions of Barrio 18, have exacerbated what is the world’s highest homicide rate for people under the age of 19. In 2016, 540 Salvadoran minors were murdered—an average of 1.5 every day.

While a majority of El Salvador’s homicide victims are young men from poor urban areas, the gangs’ practice of explicitly targeting girls for sexual violence or coerced relationships is well known. Since 2000, the homicide rate for young women in El Salvador has also increased sharply, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization. To refuse the gangs’ demands can mean death for girls and their families.

These conditions leave them with few options but to flee their country. In fiscal year 2016, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended a record 17,512 unaccompanied Salvadoran minors. One-third of the children traveling alone to the U.S. border that year were girls, up 10 percent from just four years prior. In fiscal year 2017, which marked a 50-year low for illegal immigration, roughly a third of unaccompanied minors, again, were girls. Yet in listening to President Donald Trump, one might assume that all of these Central-American youth are blood-thirsty male gang members. “MS-13 gang members are being removed by our Great ICE and Border Patrol Agents by the thousands, but these killers come back in from El Salvador, and through Mexico, like water,” Trump tweeted on February 23. “El Salvador just takes our money.”

Once these people arrive in El Salvador, gangs target many of them for attacks and extortion, believing that returnees have more money and fewer connections to the community. Young people, often alienated from a country they barely know, can be vulnerable to the gangs’ aggressive efforts to recruit minors. For young women who fled El Salvador for the United States and now face deportation back to their home country, the situation is even more dire, Salvador Carrillo, president of the National Network of Returned Entrepreneurs of El Salvador, told me. “When they come back, they can experience retaliation [ranging from] from rape to assassination,” he said..........................

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... ce/554804/



Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice speak to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University on Jan. 17. Rice was one of the key backers of Tillerson after it was announced that he had been nominated to become America's top diplomat.

Condoleezza Rice: Tillerson has 'exceedingly difficult' job in 'unusual administration'

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that current top diplomat Rex Tillerson has a tough job — made more challenging by President Donald Trump's freewheeling communication style.

"I think what's hard is to get up every day and not know what the president said at 3 o'clock in the morning," Rice said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS." "That would be exceedingly difficult."

Rice was one of the key voices in the foreign policy arena championing Tillerson when he was first nominated. And she said Sunday that the top diplomat, with whom Rice's consulting firm worked when he was chief executive of ExxonMobil, is doing his best in what Rice called an "unusual administration." The pair recently spoke together at Stanford University, where Rice is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

"I think that Rex Tillerson, in an unusual administration with an unusual president, who has never been in government before, is really doing a very good job on the diplomacy and is just putting his head down and going about that work," Rice said, crediting Tillerson for working to isolate North Korea and ensuring the U.S. maintains some diplomatic ties to Russia.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... son-435481



Priebus: Sessions exit would hurt Trump

Former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Sunday that if embattled Attorney General Jeff Sessions were to exit the administration, it would come back to haunt President Donald Trump.

Trump has attacked Sessions for months as the Justice Department has investigated Russian involvement in the 2016 election. Sessions, an early backer of Trump during his presidential campaign, recused himself from the probe. Last week, Trump mocked Sessions as "Mr. Magoo."

"It is a problem," Priebus said of the tensions on ABC's "This Week."

"And I don't think that it would be good for the president for Attorney General Sessions to leave."

But Priebus, who left the Trump administration in July, said Trump has "made up his mind in regard to how he feels about the recusal."

"He feels that was the first sin, the original sin," Priebus said. "And he feels slighted by it. He doesn't like it. And he's not going to let it go."

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was being interviewed with Priebus on ABC, said: "If the president has absolutely no confidence in the attorney general, then the president has to act, not just criticize, but act."

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/ ... ump-435420

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West Virginia teachers cheer pay hike deal to end walkout

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) —

West Virginia’s striking teachers cheered, sang and wept joyfully Tuesday as lawmakers voted to give them a 5 percent raise, ending a nine-day walkout that closed schools across the state.

A huge crowd of teachers packing the Capitol jumped up and down, chanted “We love our kids!” and sang John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” The settlement came after a crippling strike had idled hundreds of thousands of students, forced parents to scramble for child care and cast a spotlight on government dysfunction in one of the poorest states in the nation.

State schools Superintendent Steve Paine said in a statement he was “pleased that our students, teachers and service personnel will return to school” Wednesday.

Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, formally declared Tuesday evening that the “work action was over” after a consultation among local organizers. That group is the largest teacher organization in West Virginia and Lee said all 55 West Virginia counties had stood together, adding, “without them, today’s agreement would not have happened.”

Erick Burgess, a teacher from Mercer County, said he was pleased with the salary increase and hoped the teachers’ actions in West Virginia would inspire educators elsewhere.

“Teachers seem to be mistreated throughout the country, so we are hoping other teachers and other public employees step up and tell their government they have had enough,” he said........

https://www.apnews.com/50bbbb160df44549 ... nd-walkout




Trump says he’ll push tariffs despite pressure from GOP

WASHINGTON (AP) —

Warning of economic fallout, congressional Republicans and industry groups pressed President Donald Trump on Tuesday to narrow his plan for across-the-board tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. Trump appeared unmoved, declaring: “Trade wars aren’t so bad.”

The president said he planned to move forward with special tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, contending the U.S. has long been “mistreated” in trade deals.

“We’re doing tariffs on steel. We cannot lose our steel industry. It’s a fraction of what it once was. And we can’t lose our aluminum industry,” Trump said during a joint news conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven.

Hours later, White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, who has opposed the tariffs, announced his plans to depart the White House, another signal that the president intends to go through with the penalties.......

https://www.apnews.com/1c3233d7e7804f0e ... e-from-GOP




Senate Republicans float legislation to reverse Trump tariffs

Senate Republicans are weighing how to respond to President Trump's floated tariffs, including potentially passing new legislation to rein him in if he moves forward with the plan.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday said Congress should look at trying to “box in” what tariffs a president can impose on imported materials.

“I would like to see what we can do for him imposing tariffs and that should be something Congress does, not the president,” Flake said, adding that he didn’t think the steel and aluminum tariffs floated by Trump meet the national security qualifications under Section 232 of the trade law.

Trump’s decision to push forward with tariffs on imported steel and aluminum has roiled Capitol Hill, where Republicans are pleading publicly for him to at least narrow the forthcoming financial penalties.

But Trump appeared to double down on his tariff plan Tuesday stressing that he will move forward despite warnings from GOP lawmakers and even some of his own advisers.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/s ... mp-tariffs





Tillerson heads to Africa with explaining to do for Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — As far as Africa’s concerned, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Trump administration have some explaining to do.

President Donald Trump’s description of “shithole countries” in January was greeted with a mix of horror and outrage in Africa, where many don’t know what to think about the U.S. president — or what he thinks of them. He’s rarely spoken about priorities for the continent, which garnered a mere seven paragraphs on the very last pages of Trump’s National Security Strategy.

It falls to Tillerson to mend the damage as he travels to the continent on Tuesday, becoming the most senior U.S. official to set foot there since Trump took office more than a year ago.

Tillerson, in a speech laying out the administration’s Africa policy, said the continent’s rapid economic growth and fast-rising populations mean its future is increasingly linked to America’s. He said the U.S. was committed to helping, but that prosperity and basic stability would be impossible until the security situation is brought under control.......

https://www.apnews.com/1961e4039b5244fc ... -for-Trump




Gary Cohn Finally Discovers a Cause for Resignation: Tariffs

Trump’s top economic advisor almost quit after the president’s handling of Charlottesville. Now he’s resigning over a populist rebellion in the White House.

Gary Cohn, President Trump’s top economic adviser and the director of the National Economic Council, will resign from the White House, according to multiple sources.

Neither the White House nor Cohn has offered an official reason for the resignation—the latest in a string of noteworthy departures from an administration that appears to be descending into chaos. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that Cohn’s departure comes in the disorderly aftermath of Trump’s announcement that he will enact stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The president’s tariffs decision was reportedly made over Cohn’s strenuous objections and without input from most of the president’s economic advisers. According to NBC News, Trump made his announcement in a fog of frustration, following the resignation of Hope Hicks, his longtime aide.

Cohn had reportedly threatened to step down before, most notably last August after the Charlottesville protests. After President Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” of the violence that ended in the death of a woman protesting neo-Nazis, Cohn said he felt “enormous pressure” to resign. Then, just the threat of his departure was enough to send financial markets plunging. As of Tuesday evening, stock futures point to a large loss when markets open on Wednesday......

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... fs/555017/




The high-profile Trump White House departures

The Trump White House has had more first-year departures than any other president in at least 40 years — and the departures haven't stopped with their latest resignation: Gary Cohn.

Why it matters: This is not normal.

1. Michael Flynn
2. Sean Spicer
3. Reince Prebius
4. Anthony Scaramucci
5. Steve Bannon
6. Katie Walsh
7. Michael Dubke
8. Sebastian Gorka
9. K.T. McFarland
10. Tom Price
11. Omarosa Manigault Newman
12. James Comey
13. Andrew McCabe
14. Dina Powell
15. Walter Shaub
16. Angella Reid
17. Rob Porter
18. Josh Raffel
19. Hope Hicks
20. Gary Cohn




She Was Stabbed in the Throat and Almost Died. Weeks Later, She Was Asking Tough Questions Again.

Journalist Tanya Felgenhauer was known for her lively morning show on Echo of Moscow. Then she was stabbed. Then, her scars still visible, she went to Putin’s big press conference.

MOSCOW—News that a listener had broken into the independent radio station Echo of Moscow and stabbed its deputy editor in chief, Tanya Felgenhauer, sent tremors through the most remote corners of Russia last October. Many wondered if the 32-year-old Felgenhauer’s voice, so familiar on Echo’s incisive morning broadcasts, would be silenced forever. The vision of a knife cutting into the throat of the slight young woman with a warm smile and boyishly short red hair was painful even for the most conservative critics of Russia’s leading liberal radio station.

But that was not the end of the news about Tanya, and, no, she was not silenced.

A few weeks after she was released from intensive care at a Moscow hospital, Felgenhauer pulled on an elegant red dress, put on her glasses with red frames, and surprised Vladimir Putin and millions of Russians watching the annual presidential press conference with a brief but powerful speech about the Kremlin’s selective application of justice.......

https://www.thedailybeast.com/she-was-s ... n?ref=home




Russian spy fighting for life after being 'poisoned' by unknown substance in Salisbury

Russian agent convicted of spying for Britain was fighting for his life last night amid suspicions he was poisoned in a shopping centre in Wiltshire.

Sergei Skripal, 66, was in intensive care after being exposed to a mysterious substance as he sat on a bench in the centre of Salisbury. A 33-year-old woman who was with him, is also in critical condition. Both had collapsed and were unconscious when they were discovered.

Reports suggest Col Skripal had recently gone to police claiming he was fearing for his life.

The incident comes a little over a decade after the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian agent who was poisoned by radioactive polonium in a London hotel.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/0 ... substance/




Britain Threatens 'Robust' Response If Russia Behind Spy Poisoning

Britain has threatened a "robust" response if it is proven that Russia is behind the apparent attempted killing of a former double agent.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found collapsed in their home town in southern England Sunday, showing symptoms of poisoning.

Skripal, a former Russian agent and army colonel, confessed to sharing information on Russian spies in Europe with British intelligence agencies, in return for $100,000. A Moscow court sentenced him to 13 years in jail in 2006. He was released as part of a spy swap with the United States in 2010 and settled in Britain.

Last Sunday, he and his daughter, Yulia, were found collapsed on a park bench in the southern city of Salisbury. Jamie Paine, who called emergency services, told reporters that the pair appeared severely ill.

“Her eyes were just completely white. They were wide open, but just white and frothing at the mouth. Then the man went stiff. His arms stopped moving, but he's still looking dead straight,” Paine said.

British counterterror police are now leading the investigation. They have sealed off locations that Skripal and his daughter are believed to have visited Sunday, and are reportedly examining security video, which shows a man and a woman walking close to the scene.......

https://www.voanews.com/a/britain-threa ... 83045.html




Investigators probing similarities to Alexander Litvinenko murder

A former Russian colonel who spied for the UK is in a critical condition in hospital after being exposed to an unknown substance in Salisbury.

Sergei Skripal, who was given refuge in the UK after being jailed in his home country for treason, was found unconscious on a bench alongside a woman in a local shopping centre.

The cause of their illness has not yet been confirmed but the case drew immediate comparison to the murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko using radioactive polonium-210 believed to have been administered in a cup of tea.

Investigators are understood to be reviewing the death of Litvinenkno to see if there are any similarities between the modus operandi of that case and this incident.

MI6’s investigation into his death was led by Christopher Steele, the ex-spy behind a dossier of compromising allegations on Donald Trump. The Independent understands investigators may consult Mr Steele in connection with the current investigation.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 41121.html




How Russian media covered the story

Ever since the story broke on Monday night, news that a former Russian colonel who spied for the UK is critically ill in hospital has dominated world news. In Russia, however, the story was initially met with stony silence on most state publications. Later on Tuesday, that silence was replaced by angry accusations of “phobia”, “hype” and “hysteria”.

Those Russians who woke up early on Tuesday morning enjoyed a varied news-line up. The leading story was from Syria – Russian humanitarian convoys entering Eastern Ghouta. There was news from North Korea, bad news from Ukraine with the conflict gas supplies, analysis from the Italian elections, and a light touch with suggestions on what to buy ladies on International Women’s Day this weekend. But there was an obvious omission.

Sergei Skripal, who was given refuge in the UK after being jailed in his home country for treason, was found unconscious on a bench alongside a 33-year-old woman in a local shopping centre in Salisbury. The cause of their illness has not yet been confirmed, but it drew inevitable comparison with the 2006 murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko using radioactive polonium-210.........

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 41696.html

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A neighborhood in Cayey, Puerto Rico, remains without power five months after Hurricane Maria. About half of the town is still in the dark, one of several factors that has led Puerto Rican residents to flee to the mainland United States. (Erika P. Rodriguez/For The Washington Post)

National

Exodus from Puerto Rico grows as island struggles to rebound from Hurricane Maria

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico —

There have been three muses in Ramoncito “El Andino” Rodríguez’s life: love, lament and la isla, Puerto Rico.

The founder of one of the oldest musical acts here, Rodríguez croons boleros and lyrical anthems that at times quicken the heart and at others create a daydreamy lull. Many of them are homages to his motherland, love songs to this Caribbean island. It was a place he never wanted to leave.

But leave, he did.

Rodríguez reluctantly abandoned Puerto Rico after several feet of floodwater spilled into his home during Hurricane Maria in September, destroying his instruments, albums and handwritten compositions. The 78-year-old joined hundreds of thousands of other islanders who boarded flights in the past five months, creating a growing diaspora that, as time passes, is increasingly unlikely to return. Rodríguez and his wife, like so many others, picked Florida, and their stateside sojourn was supposed to be temporary.

They didn’t expect stability back home to be so elusive for so long.

“I’m still here,” Rodríguez said with a sigh from his niece’s house in Homestead, Fla., in mid-February. If the past decade of Puerto Rican history is any indication, his stay could become permanent. “Destiny will decide what happens next.”
How Puerto Rican artists are channeling grief and loss to restore joy around San Juan

Even before Maria strafed the region, a record number of Puerto Ricans were realizing that the declining island might be where their heart is but cannot be where their feet stay. Nearly 500,000 people left Puerto Rico for the mainland during the past decade, according to the Pew Research Center, pushing the stateside Puerto Rican population past the number living on the island last year — an estimated 3.3 million.

The government of Puerto Rico’s guess is that by the end of 2018, 200,000 more residents will have left the U.S. territory for good, moving to places such as Florida, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New England. It would mean another drop of more than 5 percent in the island’s population.

Experts say the storm and its widespread devastation undoubtedly have sped up the pace of migration as residents have dealt with extended power outages, communication lapses, infrastructure failures and, in some cases, isolation. What already was the largest exodus in the island’s history now includes people fleeing in droves simply to achieve some sense of normalcy.

Just this week, a power outage put nearly 900,000 residents in and around the capital city of San Juan in the dark and without water — again. Tens of thousands in Puerto Rico have had no electricity since the hurricane struck five months ago, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that 1 in 10 customers still won’t have it as of the end of March. The island’s bankrupt public utility has struggled to restore power amid contracting scandals, materiel shortages and intermittent blackouts, and the biggest restoration contractor, Fluor Corp., confirmed that it is pulling out of Puerto Rico in the next several weeks after reaching the funding limit of its $746 million contract.

The governor announced plans last month to privatize the electric utility, sparking standoffs with unionized workers and arousing suspicions from residents. Some municipalities such as San Sebastian, a town in the island’s northwest corner, didn’t wait and formed their own volunteer brigades to string up power lines and return electricity to thousands of residents.
A home damaged by Hurricane Maria in Comerio, Puerto Rico. The town, in the mountainous area of the island, is still mostly without power, according to Mayor Josian Santiago. (Erika P. Rodriguez/For The Washington Post)

Nearly 58,000 homes here have roofs made of blue tarps while they await federal assistance; more than 437,000 residents — about 2 of every 5 who applied so far — have received money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for home repairs.

For many, the future feels ominous.

Victor Dominguez set a June deadline for his island. If Puerto Rico doesn’t get the lights back on and move the economy, the mortgage banker will take his family elsewhere.

“I am very attached to my island, and my preference is to stay here, but I have to think what’s best for my son,” the 39-year-old said. “I’m in a moment in which I have to be very observant about what’s happening and be flexible.”

Immediately after the storm, Dominguez sent his family to the States for two weeks while he continued working and taking care of their home. When schools in Florida announced that they would take in Puerto Rican students, he and his wife considered enrolling their 10-year-old. But as long as he had a job on the island, the family decided to work and wait it out. Many of his colleagues and neighbors did not.

“Combined with this economic crisis, this was a perfect storm for the country to just empty,” he said. “There’s still a lot of people, but I hear about people who are leaving on a weekly basis. I’ve spoken to people who have this hope of coming back to Puerto Rico, but I’ve also heard from people who are happy to have permanent stability.”
José Luis Rodríguez, 53, at his home in Comerio, Puerto Rico. (Erika P. Rodriguez/For The Washington Post)

José Luis Rodríguez, 53, spends his nights in a wind-damaged wooden home pressed against a steep hillside in Comerio, in central Puerto Rico. The mosquitoes are relentless, but the loneliness is what stings; he lives by himself in a barrio where most of the residents rely on government assistance, and half of the homes are now vacant because of the hurricane.

The La Plata river that runs through the town swelled by more than 60 feet, inundating hundreds of homes, including that of Rodríguez’s daughter, 24. Having lost everything, she joined her twin sister on the mainland, leaving behind their father, who is struggling.

“They are the only thing I have,” Rodríguez said. “If I could, I would be there. My daughter said she would come back, but she doesn’t have a place to live.”
A photo of the La Plata River in Comerio, Puerto Rico. (Erika P. Rodriguez/For The Washington Post)

'Pretty tough here'

Puerto Ricans have moved back and forth between the island and the mainland for more than a century, after they received U.S. citizenship in 1917. The circular migration is a fundamental part of the Puerto Rican experience, immortalized in the island’s art and music, because moving from the territory is as easy as moving between states.

The difference between the past decade’s migration and that of previous generations is the character, size and speed with which it threatens to change Puerto Rico’s economic and social future.

Migrants are looking for the things they can’t find on the island: jobs and stability. Puerto Rico’s teens and young adults don’t know what kinds of opportunities will be available to them as the economic depression deepens.

Hector Camacho, 24, has tried to secure a job as a high school literature teacher for more than a year since graduating from the University of Puerto Rico. He now sends résumés to places such as Wyoming and Washington, D.C., hoping for an answer.

“Will I have a roof tomorrow? That’s the worry I have,” said Camacho, who is waiting tables here at a newly opened restaurant and arcade. “I also have loans to pay. It’s been pretty tough here.”
Sin Luz: Life without power in the longest blackout in U.S. history

Camacho and his friend, Christopher Rosario — who left the island a year ago and joined the U.S. Army — were talking outside a laundromat near the university campus in San Juan last week when the power went out for the second time in 24 hours. Both grew up in Utuado, in the central mountains and one of the ­hardest-hit regions of the island, and what they saw there killed any lingering hope.

“You try to see the bright side, but it’s too dim to see anything good,” Camacho said. “I’m done. Once I get a chance, I’m out.”

Puerto Rico’s government fears Camacho is not alone. The administration of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló (PNP of Puerto Rico) published projections that put the island’s population well below 3 million within a decade, a possible 10 percent decline in line with what researchers expect to see in war zones or what happened during the Irish potato famine in the mid-1800s.

“What we are observing is a major depopulation event that is not extremely common in modern history,” said Lyman Stone, an independent migration researcher and economist at the Agriculture Department who provided models to Puerto Rico. “People kind of treated me like a crazy person when I put it out there.”

Demographers and economists say Stone’s projections appear to be on the high end, but they caution that the Puerto Rican exodus will cut deeply. The Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College in New York estimates that between 114,000 and 213,000 people will leave the island in 2018, with the vast majority headed for Florida.

Most projections are based in part on volatile airline passenger data tracking the number of people boarding flights leaving the island. Three Florida airports reported 371,000 people traveling commercially from Puerto Rico since October. But so far, fewer than 40,000 people have visited the state’s multiagency service centers set up to assist migrants, and far fewer — about 4,500 — have been issued state driver’s licenses.

The center’s director, Edwin Meléndez, is using school enrollment data from six states receiving Puerto Rican children to more accurately pinpoint migration. Since the hurricane, more than 22,000 students from the island have enrolled in stateside schools. More than half of those — 10,324 students — enrolled in school districts in Florida.

Pennsylvania State University demographer Alexis R. Santos said it is difficult to measure the magnitude of the outflow without also considering people like Rodríguez, the musician, who expect to return.

“It’s all speculative,” Santos said. “We have to be really careful with the numbers.”

A more accurate migration head count won’t be available for months from the Census Bureau, and even then it probably won’t capture the entire picture of Puerto Rico’s population fluctuations since the storm.

“Even before Maria, our ability to measure net migration in Puerto Rico wasn’t very good,” said Mario Marazzi, director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, an independent agency.
Josian Santiago, mayor of Comerio, a town that has struggled to recover after the hurricane. (Erika P. Rodriguez/For The Washington Post)

Economic predictions depend on good population statistics, said Puerto Rican economist José Joaquín Villamil.

The island’s economy had all but sputtered to a halt before the Category 5 hurricane hit, and there already was severe turmoil and job losses. The central government had tried to borrow its way out of strife to the point of bankruptcy. Bondholders demanded payment, and Congress appointed a fiscal oversight board in 2016 that imposed austerity measures.

Nearly half of the island’s population lives in poverty, and household income is about $18,000 a year, less than half that of Mississippi, the country’s poorest state. The scarcity of jobs, along with low wages and a rising cost of living, has caused young, working-age Puerto Ricans to head for the mainland, Villamil said. He estimates that nearly half of migrants are younger than 24. Falling birthrates led to a deeper population decline, and Puerto Rico has been left with a rapidly aging populace.

Genesis Muñoz, 19, a student at the University of Puerto Rico, wants to believe she can finish her bachelor’s degree in art and painting. But money has gotten tighter since the storm. She doesn’t eat well, her family home in Humacao was severely damaged, and attending classes 40 miles away is becoming too expensive.

“Everything is going badly,” Muñoz said. “It bothers me that there are people who live in their bubble of privilege saying everything is okay. It’s not, and I can’t judge those who leave because in the long term I know that I will also have to leave for my career.”

Population decline is one of several factors Rossello’s administration weighs in a fiscal plan that was revised this month, detailing how the government views its economic future and how it will find its way out of the red. Critics have said that plan depends heavily on billions in hoped-for federal spending.

“With a less-productive population, you are heading toward serious problems,” Villamil said.
Carla Lopez works at her office in the Santurce Pop retail incubator on March 2. The space, in San Juan, brings together local designers and artists to set up small shops. After Hurricane Maria, the 33-year-old left with her two young children for Florida but decided to return. (Erika P. Rodriguez/For The Washington Post)

‘Puerto Rico Pa’Lante’

Despite the outlook, some Puerto Ricans who left immediately after the hurricane have returned to their homes and businesses, trying to salvage the lives they had here.

Carla Lopez was almost certain she would have to relocate her pop-up retail incubator, Santurce Pop, to central Florida in the days after the hurricane. She and her husband own a building in San Juan that provides affordable space to local entrepreneurs to build their small businesses, most of which specialize in locally sourced products and services.

Lopez, 33, took her two young children to Orlando and began making arrangements with the local Chamber of Commerce to move her business there. But while she was shopping at a farmers market, she realized her heart was still in Puerto Rico.

“What am I doing here?” she said. “I felt bad being there knowing what was happening back home.”

She and her husband decided to return to San Juan and give the business six months to see if they could rebound. Although they lost about half of their clients, the couple reasoned that there was an opportunity to find new customers because many entrepreneurs lost their storefronts or are unable to pay high rent. Since the storm, they have opened a second location in metro San Juan.

“We have a social responsibility to provide this space,” Lopez said. “This is ours, this is our baby, and if we don’t fight for it, who will?”

That’s a decision over which, Rodríguez, the musician, agonized. He, too, chose to return to the island, arriving Thursday to his waterlogged home, carrying his blue binder of crinkled compositions. Among them is a new song he wrote during his time in Florida.

“It’s called ‘Puerto Rico Pa’Lante,’ ” said the crooner, smiling beneath the brim of his Panama hat, explaining that the title means that the commonwealth is moving forward. “The island beckoned me back.”
Ramoncito “El Andino” Rodríguez, 78, in his home in Levittown, Puerto Rico, on March 2, the day after he returned with his family after months in Florida. The musician and his wife had to be evacuated the night of the storm and lost almost all of their possessions. (Erika P. Rodriguez/For The Washington Post)

Usually jobs go down after Christmas but we aren't sick of winning yet.

.

The jobs market is red hot right now.

American businesses added 235,000 jobs in February, ADP and Moody’s Analytics said Wednesday. January’s private sector payroll number was revised upward to 244,000 from the initial report of 234,000.

That was far more than the 195,000 expected by economists.

“The job market is red hot and threatens to overheat,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s, said in a statement. “With government spending increases and tax cuts, growth is set to accelerate.”

The economy has added more than 200,000 jobs in seven out of the last 12 months, roughly the period in which President Trump has held office

Where are the workers going to come from?

The welfare rolls. Work requirements coming.

Wonderful!

We've got servers at McDonalds that can't make change. Auto mechanics that have to ask "is this a lug wrench?"
Unqualified and under trained people trying to do jobs that require more skills.

More morons in the workforce. That's what's coming?

WTF, Seagull? Complaining about more jobs?

I will never understand the liberal mindset. Ever. You people make no damn sense.

60,000 sperm and yours is the one that won. Unbelievable.

Let's just pay everyone to sit on their f'n ass all day. Brilliant.

If Chad decides he wants to go to college and major in art and can't get a job, then he is just going to have to learn how to weld or man that wrench. Or live on the streets of L.A. with the other bums. One of the other. And they have classes and apprenticeship programs that teach you how to do it. That is not a problem. That is an excuse. Many of us have heard enough the last several years.

"Those jobs just aren't coming back" ... "What is Trump going to do, wave a magic wand"

Well abracadabra. Jobs are coming back. Manufacturing jobs. Good paying jobs. Lot's of them.

Thank God people with a clue are back in charge. No more whiners and excuse makers with no ideas.

Great paying jobs right now in Montana and Dakota's for pipefitters and welders. Like 35 bucks an hour. They are begging for people. No excuse for sitting on your ass doing nothing anywhere near where I live. If they don't want to work cut them off the government tit. No problem with it at all.