USA, Britain and France launch airstrikes against Syria

WASHINGTON >> The United States and European allies launched airstrikes early today against Syrian research, storage and military targets as President Donald Trump sought to punish President Bashar Assad for a suspected chemical attack near Damascus last weekend that killed more than 40 people.

Britain and France joined the United States in the strikes in a coordinated operation intended to show Western resolve in the face of what the leaders of the three nations called persistent violations of international law. Trump characterized it as the beginning of a sustained effort to force Assad to stop using banned weapons but ordered only a limited one-night operation that hit three targets.

“These are not the actions of a man,” Trump said of last weekend’s attack in a televised address from the White House Diplomatic Room. “They are crimes of a monster instead.”

While he has talked as recently as last week about pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, the president vowed to remain committed to the goal of preventing further attacks with deadly poisons. “We are prepared to sustain this response until the Syrian regime stops its use of prohibited chemical agents,” Trump said.

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But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who had urged caution in White House deliberations leading up to the strike, told reporters Friday night that there would be no more attacks unless Assad again used gas on his own people.

“We confined it to the chemical weapons-type targets,” Mattis said. “We were not out to expand this; we were very precise and proportionate. But at the same time it was a heavy strike.”

Daniel Akaka

Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, the humble and gracious statesman who served in Washington with aloha for more than 3-1/2 decades, died early Friday morning at the age of 93. He had been hospitalized for months and died at The Villas, a St. Francis care facility.

Akaka, the first Native Hawaiian to serve in the U.S. Senate, was a strong advocate for Native Hawaiians and veterans during a political career that started in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976 and ended in the U.S. Senate in 2013.

Known for a modest political style and described as the embodiment of the aloha spirit, Akaka was widely respected in the islands and Washington. But he rarely sought the national spotlight and instead worked largely under the radar, focusing on issues important to Hawaii.

Parkland shooting

[3/24/18] Hundreds of thousands of Americans galvanized by last month’s Florida school massacre rallied in cities across the country on Saturday to demand tighter gun laws.

Carrying signs with slogans such as “If they choose guns over our kids, vote them out,” protesters in Washington jammed Pennsylvania Avenue as students from the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 people were shot to death called on lawmakers and President Donald Trump to confront the issue.

The massive March For Our Lives rallies, some led by student survivors from Parkland, aim to break legislative gridlock that has long stymied efforts to increase restrictions on firearms sales in a nation where mass shootings like the one on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have become frighteningly common. 

[3/21/18] Obamas' letter to Parkland students
[3/14/18] Thousands of students walk out to protest gun violence
[3/10/18] NRA files lawsuit to block school safety bill
[3/9/18] Florida Governor Rick Scott signs compromise school safety bill
[3/7/18] Two great moral crusades (Dan Boylan, Midweek, page 10)

[2/28/18] Trump spars with GOP on gun control and school safety

[2/28/18] Dick's Sporting Goods to stop selling assault-style rifles

[2/26/18] Trump believes he would have run in there even he didn't have a weapon / yes this guy

[2/24/18] Florida’s governor announced plans Friday to put more armed guards in schools and to make it harder for young adults and some with mental illness to buy guns, responding to days of intense lobbying from survivors of last week’s shooting at a Florida high school.

Scott, a Republican widely expected to run for the Senate, outlined his plan at a Tallahassee news conference. In addition to banning firearm sales to anyone under 21, the governor called for a trained law-enforcement officer for every school – and one for every 1,000 students at larger schools – by the time the fall 2018 school year begins.

[2/24/18] PARKLAND, Fla. >> The progression has become numbingly repetitive — mass bloodshed unleashed by a gunman, followed by the stories of the fallen, the funerals, the mourning, the talking heads and the calls for change that dwindle into nothingness.

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, though, has some pondering the improbable: Could this latest carnage actually lead to gun reforms?

Alongside the familiar refrains stemming from earlier shootings, the Feb. 14 attack in Parkland, Florida, came with something else: young survivors immediately pleading for nationwide action. They have led walk-outs, confronted politicians and garnered the support of celebrities, linking their sorrowful, eloquent, outraged voices to the gun debate.

“Our kids have started a revolution,” Stoneman Douglas teacher Diane Wolk Rogers said during a CNN-sponsored forum Wednesday.

[2/22/18] Trump says minimum age for owning guns should be 21

[2/21/18] Trump argues for arming teachers (concealed carry)

[2/20/18] Gun enthusiast destroys his AR-15

[2/20/18]  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he has signed a memo directing the Justice Department to propose regulations to "ban all devices" like the rapid-fire bump stocks involved in last year's Las Vegas massacre.

Seeking to show action days after a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Trump spoke during a White House ceremony recognizing bravery by the nation's public safety officers.

The announcement came days after the shooting deaths of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The device Trump referred to was used in the October shooting deaths of 58 people in Las Vegas, and attached to a half-dozen of the long guns found in the shooter's hotel room. A legislative effort to ban the device fizzled out last year.

White House officials say the president will be meeting with students, teachers and state and local officials to discuss ways of providing more school safety and address gun violence. Pressure has been mounting for action after the Parkland shooting.

[2/18/18] A prominent Republican political donor demanded on Saturday that the party pass legislation to restrict access to guns, and vowed not to contribute to any candidates or electioneering groups that did not support a ban on the sale of military-style firearms to civilians.

Al Hoffman Jr., a Florida-based real estate developer who was a leading fund-raiser for George W. Bush’s campaigns, said he would seek to marshal support among other Republican political donors for a renewed assault weapons ban.

“For how many years now have we been doing this — having these experiences of terrorism, mass killings — and how many years has it been that nothing’s been done?” Mr. Hoffman said in an interview. “It’s the end of the road for me.”

Mr. Hoffman announced his ultimatum in an email to half a dozen Republican leaders, including Jeb Bush and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida. He wrote in the email that he would not give money to Mr. Scott, who is considering a campaign for the Senate in 2018, or other Florida Republicans he has backed in the past, including Representative Brian Mast, if they did not support new gun legislation.

“I will not write another check unless they all support a ban on assault weapons,” he wrote. “Enough is enough!”

[2/14/18] On the afternoon of February 14, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in the Miami metropolitan area. Seventeen people were killed and fifteen more were taken to hospitals, making it one of the world's deadliest school massacres.^[1][2] The suspected perpetrator, Nikolas Cruz, was arrested shortly afterward and confessed to the shooting, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office.^[3] He was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

CNN chief attacks Fox News

[3/22/18] NEW YORK >> CNN chief Jeff Zucker sharply attacked the network’s rivals at Fox News Channel today, saying that it has become a propaganda machine that is “doing an incredible disservice to the country.”

Zucker spoke at the Financial Times Future of News conference two days after a former Fox military analyst quit, claiming he was ashamed at the way the network’s opinion hosts were backing President Donald Trump. Zucker said that analyst, Ralph Peters, voiced what a lot of people have been thinking about Fox in the post-Roger Ailes era.

“What has happened to that network in the last 18 months, especially the last year, is that it has just turned itself into state-run TV,” Zucker said. “TASS has nothing on them,” he said in reference to the Russian news agency.

There was no immediate comment from a Fox representative.

However, Trump’s former White House strategist, Steve Bannon, said later at the same conference that Zucker’s comments were absurd. He said “you can’t name a more propaganda outfit than CNN.”
“Every night it’s ‘hate Trump,’” Bannon said. He questioned why anyone wasn’t fired at CNN after the 2016 election results took many people by surprise.

Fox has maintained its ratings lead with a prime-time opinion lineup led by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham. Together with MSNBC’s left-leaning lineup, the two political talk networks are frequently the most popular destinations for viewers on cable television. Fox and MSNBC have been widening their lead in prime time over CNN, which recently announced that Chris Cuomo would join its prime-time lineup.

Zucker said that Fox has “a handful of good journalists but they get lost in the propaganda machine.”
“The idea that they are a news channel is really not accurate at all,” he said.

Zucker’s network has been on the receiving end of withering criticism from Trump during his presidency. He’s repeatedly referred to CNN as “fake news” when he doesn’t like its coverage. Zucker said Trump’s criticisms are not going to stop CNN from doing its job of holding leaders accountable.

But he said the Trump has created an atmosphere of hostility toward reporters that has spread from the U.S. across the world.

“He doesn’t even understand the danger he is creating for journalists and the danger he is creating for news organizations,” Zucker said.

However, he said the Trump administration has helped news organizations raise their games to cover what is going on.

“He has made American journalism great again,” Zucker said.

Djou leaves Republican Party

Former U.S. Rep. Charles Djou says he is leaving the Republican Party.

Djou, in a column written for the online news site Civil Beat today, cited the party’s leadership under President Donald Trump as the main reason that led to his decision.

Djou wrote,“Today after much consideration, I abandon my party because I am unwilling to abandon my principles. I can no longer stand with a Republican Party that is led by a man I firmly believe is taking the party of Lincoln in a direction I fundamentally disagree with, and a party that is unwilling to stand up to him.”

He added he is “most disappointed by the failure of the GOP to clearly and consistently condemn Trump’s childish behavior.”

“Sadly today, too many Republicans either applaud Trump’s tirades or greet them with silent acceptance. This leads to an implicit ratification by the GOP of Trump’s undisciplined, uninformed, and unfocused leadership as a core part of the Republican Party. This is something I cannot accept and will not be a part of,” Djou wrote.

guns in the home protect families (?)

Guns in the home protect families.

For decades, that has been an essential part of the National Rifle Association’s mantra in defending firearms ownership, repeated at congressional hearings, in advertisements and on T-shirts.

Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who once headed research on firearm violence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wondered if there was any evidence backing the N.R.A.’s assertion.

“So we looked at the question, does having a gun at home protect your family or not?” Dr. Rosenberg recalled.

He was amazed by the answer. The landmark study in 1993 showed that bringing a gun into the home puts everyone at much greater risk.

“They were saying if you want to keep your family safe, if you are a real man, you will have a gun at home,” Dr. Rosenberg said. “Bringing the gun not only didn’t protect you, it put you at much, much greater risk.”

To this day, gun rights advocates dispute the study’s findings. The N.R.A. pushed Congress in 1995 to stop the C.D.C. from spending taxpayer money on research that advocated gun control. Congress then passed the Dickey Amendment in 1996, and cut funding that effectively ended the C.D.C.’s study of gun violence as a public health issue.

The result is that 22 years and more than 600,000 gunshot victims later, much of the federal government has largely abandoned efforts to learn why people shoot one another, or themselves, and what can be done to prevent gun violence.

After the Parkland school massacre in Florida last month, lawmakers and gun control experts have demanded that the agency take up the issue of studying gun violence again, arguing that the federal law doesn’t ban such research altogether but prohibits advocacy of gun control.

North Korea calls for unification

[1/24/18] SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea sent a rare announcement addressed to “all Koreans at home and abroad” on Thursday, saying they should make a “breakthrough” for unification without the help of other countries, its state media said.

It said all Koreans should “promote contact, travel, cooperation between North and South Korea” while adding Pyongyang will “smash” all challenges against reunification of the Korean peninsula.

42 people = 50% of the population

Just 42 people own the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 percent worldwide, a new study by global charity Oxfam claimed.

In a report published Monday, Oxfam called for action to tackle the growing gap between the super-rich and the rest of the world. Approximately 82 percent of the money generated last year went to the richest 1 percent of the global population, the report said, while the poorest half saw no increase at all.

Oxfam said its figures, which some observers have criticized, showed economic rewards were "increasingly concentrated" at the top. The charity cited tax evasion, the erosion of worker's rights, cost-cutting and businesses' influence on policy decisions as reasons for the widening inequality gap.

The charity also found the wealth of billionaires had increased by 13 percent a year on average in the decade from 2006 to 2015. Last year, billionaires would have seen an uptick of $762 billion — enough to end extreme poverty seven times over. It also claimed nine out of 10 of the world's 2,043 billionaires were men.

Booming global stock markets were seen as the main driver for a surge in wealth among those holding financial assets last year. The founder of AmazonAMZN, Jeff Bezos, saw his wealth balloon by $6 billion in the first 10 days of 2017 — leading to a flood of headlines marking him as "the richest man of all time."

Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said the statistics signal "something is very wrong with the global economy."

"The concentration of extreme wealth at the top is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a system that is failing the millions of hard-working people on poverty wages who make our clothes and grow our food," he added.

The report, "Reward Work, Not Health," is based on data from Forbes and the annual Credit Suisse Global Wealth datebook, which has detailed the distribution of global wealth since 2000.

The survey assesses a person's wealth based on the value of an individual's assets — mainly property and land — minus any debts they may hold. The data excludes wages and income to determine what he or she is perceived to own. This methodology has attracted criticism in the past, as a student with high debt levels and a high future earning potential would classify as poor under the current criteria.

Nonetheless, Oxfam said even if the wealth of the poorest half of the population was recalculated to remove the people in net debt, their combined wealth would still be equal to 128 billionaires.

government shutdown 2018

[1/22/18] The Senate is now voting on final passage on a three-week spending bill Monday afternoon that would reopen the government. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said ahead of the vote that he had reached a deal with Republican leaders and that Democrats would vote in favor of the bill.

Senators voted earlier in the afternoon 81-18 to end debate and move to a vote on final passage, which only requires a simple majority: 51 votes. Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Rand Paul voted against ending debate, as did Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto, Dianne Feinstein, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Mazie Hirono, Patrick Leahy, Ed Markey, Bob Menendez, Jeff Merkley, Chris Murphy, Jon Tester, Elizabeth Warren, and Ron Wyden. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, also voted against ending debate.
If final passage is approved in the Senate, the House will have to vote on the proposal. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy anticipated a House vote around 4:30 p.m. Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, signaled Sunday on "Face the Nation" that the House would pass the bill.

"We have agreed that we would accept that in the House, and so we will see sometime today whether or not they have the votes for that," Ryan said. "And that's really where we are right now."

It is unclear, however, if many Democrats will vote in the House for passage. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, is expected to vote "no."

After the House passes the legislation, it will be sent to President Trump's desk. Once Mr. Trump signs it, the government will reopen. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders expects that to be early this evening, she told reporters Monday.

Schumer said ahead of the procedural vote at noon that "we will vote today to reopen the government to continue negotiating" a global agreement with the commitment from GOP leaders that if there isn't a deal by the Feb. 8 deadline, the Senate will immediately proceed to legislation dealing with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Schumer said it will be "neutral and fair to all sides" that will get an up or down vote on the floor.

[1/20/18] A Senate attempt to move forward with a short-term spending bill vote failed Friday night, sending the government into a shutdown on the one-year anniversary of President Trump's inauguration.

Republican senators failed to capture the 60 votes they needed to even vote on the bill that would have funded the government for 30 days. Five Democrats voted with the Republicans to push a spending bill vote, and four Republicans voted with Democrats. The House passed the 30-day spending bill Thursday night. Debate over what to do next continued Saturday, with Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, saying he would be open to a three-week continuing resolution (CR), instead of a four-week one.

The Senate adjourned early Saturday and reconvened at noon. McConnell told senators they should expect votes on Saturday, "day one of the senate Democrats' government shutdown," as he described it Saturday. The House also reconvened.

"We do some crazy things in Washington, but this is utter madness," Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said on the House floor at noon.

The White House on Saturday indicated it would not negotiate on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program while the government is shutdown, but Democrats want a fix on that immigration issue, putting the parties at a seeming impasse.

After midnight, McConnell blamed Democrats for "the shoe-horning of illegal immigration into this debate." But Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said he even offered full funding for the border wall in an earlier meeting Friday with Mr. Trump.

"Even that was not enough to entice the president to finish the deal," said Schumer, who also noticed that a handful of Republicans voted with Democrats and blamed "discord" on the Republican side.

The White House called a lid shortly before 11 p.m. Friday, meaning the president will not be speaking — unless he tweets. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders blamed Democrats for the shutdown.

"Senate Democrats own the Schumer Shutdown," she said. "Tonight, they put politics above our national security, military families, vulnerable children, and our country's ability to serve all Americans. We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands. This is the behavior of obstructionist losers, not legislators. When Democrats start paying our armed forces and first responders we will reopen negotiations on immigration reform. During this politically manufactured Schumer Shutdown, the president and his administration will fight for and protect the American people."

Vice President Mike Pence, on board Air Force Two on his way to the Middle East, issued this statement.

"Our administration worked in good faith to put a bipartisan deal on the table that would strengthen our borders, end chain migration, eliminate the visa lottery, and deal compassionately with DACA," Pence said. "But rather than solve problems, Democratic leadership preferred a shutdown that has dangerous consequences for our national defense. Their action tonight — or lack thereof — is unconscionable. Our administration will do everything within our power to support the brave men and women in uniform who stand on the front lines of freedom. But as of tonight, due to a completely avoidable government shutdown, they'll stand their post without pay."

On Capitol Hill Friday night, the scene was one of uncertainty and chaos.

Shortly before the 10 p.m. vote, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said there was "no deal" reached among Republicans to ensure passage. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, announced he was a "no" on the 30-day deal, making a shutdown even more certain.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, said blamed Mr. Trump, at least partially, for the failure to reach a deal. Blumenthal said that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, and Mr. Trump were close to reaching a comprehensive agreement earlier Friday, but the president walked away after talking to the hard right.

New California

SACRAMENTO -- With the reading of their own version of a Declaration of Independence, founders of the state of New California took the first steps to what they hope will eventually lead to statehood. CBS Sacramento reports they don't want to leave the United States, just California.

"Well, it's been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it, and we're rated around 48th or 50th from a business climate and standpoint in California," said founder Robert Paul Preston.

The state of New California would incorporate most of the state's rural counties, leaving the urban coastal counties to the current state of California.

never mind

State emergency management officials mistakenly sent out a missile threat alert at about 8:07 a.m. today, sending the state into a short-lived panic until correcting the error about 20 minutes later.

The cell phone notification read: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT DRILL.”

Although the state emailed that the alert was a mistake at about 8:25 a.m., they did not issue a cell phone alert correction — the way many residents first learned of the bogus alert — until about 38 minutes after the initial mistake.

Gov. David Ige said at a press conference today that the false alarm was caused by human error during a change of shift when an “employee pushed the wrong button.”

***

Sean Shields suffered a massive heart attack minutes after saying his last goodbyes over the phone to his 10-year-old daughter and grown son following the false missile alert.

Shields, 51, started violently throwing up while at Sandy Beach on East Oahu and then drove himself, along with his girlfriend Brenda Reichel, who is disabled, to the Straub Hawaii Kai Family Health Center where she says he collapsed in the waiting room. Emergency medical technicians were able to perform CPR and transport him to Straub Medical Center, where he had emergency surgery and four stents inserted into his heart, she said.

Related:
• Button pusher not holding up well under multiple death threats
• Isle system fails to deliver warning to all cellphones
• Late-night hosts joke about Hawaii missile scare

“This whole thing just took him over the edge. There’s no doubt. The stress brought on a heart attack. What they did was so harmful,” said Reichel, adding that it felt like he flatlined for five to 10 minutes — long enough to get brain damage. “The doctors even agreed that the stress from the event did this. They told him he died. They told me he wasn’t breathing and he had no heartbeat. He had no heart problems ever. I’m just so upset at this.”

Miraculously, Shields survived and is recovering from his traumatic ordeal, she said.

“He’s talking, he’s lucid and cognitive,” Reichel said. “Thanking God for miracles. God is good.”

Honolulu attorney Sam King, a friend of Reichel, said he is investigating the matter and will make a decision shortly on whether there’s a claim to be made against the state or city.

Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said there were no injuries or accidents related to the ensuing panic and confusion following the false alarm. However, the Honolulu Police Department’s 911 dispatch system was overwhelmed with more than 5,000 telephone calls, “more than they could ever handle,” Caldwell said at a press conference Saturday. The state took 38 minutes to issue a cellphone notice that the missile attack warning issued at 8:07 a.m. was an error. Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard said about 2,500 callers to 911 could not get through to emergency lines.

“Mayor said no injuries from panic of bomb alert — total lie. My son had to get stitches from a falling light fixture,” Aiea resident John Nakauye told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, describing how he huddled with three children in a room after informing them that a missile was on its way to Hawaii. “It fell as I placed the mattress to cover the window.”

Nakauye said his 10-year-old son was seriously injured on his leg in the scramble to keep his family safe.

“It’s very traumatic for him. I mean, it was a pretty bad cut. Had we not had this false warning … we wouldn’t have been in that situation to huddle in the room just trying to protect ourselves as best as we can,” he said. “I was extremely infuriated when I read that (there were no injuries). I’m the one dealing with having to take care of this medically and financially now.”

Caldwell said the only incident he heard of occurred when a driver damaged his golf cart following the alert.

“Whatever the government is saying, this has caused major stress to everyone here,” Reichel said. “Sean’s life is never going to be the same now. This has been so horrendous. He told his daughter, ‘I love you.’ He told his son, ‘I love you,’ and he told me, ‘I love you.’ He thought he was never going to see his kids again and this is it, we were all going to die.”

***

Late night commentary

***

Ige didn't know his twitter password

*** [1/30/18]

The Hawaii civil defense employee who issued the false missile alarm that stirred panic across the state last month mistook an alert drill for an actual attack, confused by conflicting messages used in the simulation, investigators said on Tuesday.

9 ways the world got better in 2017

There has been a lot of bad news in America this year, and people are noticing: In December, 60 percent of US respondents felt the country was on the wrong track.

The angst isn’t unique to the US. Across 26 countries that are home to the considerable majority of the world’s population, an average of six out of 10 people thought their country was on the wrong track (as of the middle of 2017). That’s more surprising than the US result because, despite the threats posed by the world’s sole superpower going rogue — admittedly no small problem — the planet as a whole had a pretty good year.

Before 2017 recedes entirely into the rearview mirror, let’s take note of some of the good news.

128 countries call for U.S. to drop recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - More than 120 countries defied President Donald Trump on Thursday and voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to drop its recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Trump had threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that voted in favor. A total of 128 countries backed the resolution, which is non-binding, nine voted against and 35 abstained. Twenty-one countries did not cast a vote.

Trump’s threat appeared to have some impact, with more countries abstaining and rejecting the resolution than usually associated with Palestinian-related resolutions.

Nevertheless, Washington found itself isolated as many of its Western and Arab allies voted for the measure. Some of those allies, like Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, are major recipients of U.S. military or economic aid, although the U.S. threat to cut aid did not single out any country.

A spokesman for Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the vote “a victory for Palestine.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the vote.

Earlier this month, Trump reversed decades of U.S. policy by announcing the United States recognized Jerusalem -- home to major Muslim, Jewish and Christian holy sites -- as the capital of Israel and would move its embassy there.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest obstacles to a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, who were furious over Trump’s move. The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the full city.

Doug Jones upsets Judge Roy Moore

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Reuters) - Democrat Doug Jones won a bitter fight for a U.S. Senate seat in deeply conservative Alabama on Tuesday, dealing a political blow to President Donald Trump in a race marked by sexual misconduct accusations against Republican candidate Roy Moore.

The stunning upset by Jones makes him the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama in a quarter-century and will trim the Republicans’ already narrow Senate majority to 51-49, endangering Trump’s agenda and opening the door for Democrats to possibly retake the chamber in next year’s congressional elections.

The ugly campaign drew national attention and split the Republican Party over accusations from several women that Moore pursued them when they were teens and he was in his 30s.

Moore, 70, a Christian conservative who was removed from the state Supreme Court in Alabama twice for ignoring federal law, denied the allegations and said he did not know any of the women who made them. Reuters has not independently verified the allegations.

Trump endorsed Moore even as other party leaders in Washington walked away from him, but Jones, 63, a former federal prosecutor, portrayed the campaign as a referendum on decency and promised the state’s voters he would not embarrass them in Washington.

Franken to resign from Senate

WASHINGTON — Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, in an emotional speech on the Senate floor, announced on Thursday that he would resign from Congress, the most prominent figure in a growing list of lawmakers felled by charges of sexual harassment or indiscretions.

At turns defiant and mournful but hardly contrite, Mr. Franken called it “the worst day of my political life,” as he denied allegations of groping and improper advances from at least six women. Instead, as his Democratic colleagues looked on, he took a parting shot at President Trump and Roy S. Moore, the Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama; both have also been accused of sexual misconduct.

“I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party,” Mr. Franken said.

Matt Lauer too?

NEW YORK >> NBC News fired longtime “Today” show host Matt Lauer today for “inappropriate sexual behavior,” making him the second morning television show personality to lose his job because of sexual misconduct charges in a week.

Lauer’s co-host Savannah Guthrie made the announcement at the top of today’s “Today” show. Last week, CBS News fired Charlie Rose after complaints from several women who worked for him.

NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack said the network had received a complaint from a colleague on Monday night, and a review determined it was a clear violation of company standards. While it was the first complaint lodged against Lauer, Lack said in a memo to staff that “we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”

Lauer, 59, has hosted “Today” for two decades. When paired with Katie Couric, “Today” was the longtime ratings leader and was highly lucrative for NBC. It now runs second in the ratings to ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Many “Today” show viewers took out their anger for the unsightly 2012 firing of co-host Ann Curry on Lauer, sending the show plunging in the ratings. But NBC stuck with Lauer and the show had steadied with his pairing with Guthrie. The show runs for four hours, with Lauer and Guthrie hosting the first two.

He joins a lengthening list of media figures felled by sexual misconduct charges this year. Besides Rose, they include Lauer’s former NBC News colleague Mark Halperin, former Fox News prime-time host Bill O’Reilly and National Public Radio newsroom chief Michael Oreskes. The New York Times suspended White House correspondent Glenn Thrush last week.

Charlie Rose too?

CBS News and PBS fired Charlie Rose on Tuesday after eight women accused the veteran journalist of sexual misconduct.

"Despite Charlie's important journalist contribution to our news division, there is absolutely nothing more important, in this or any organization, than ensuring a safe, professional workplace-a supportive environment where people feel they can do their best work," said CBS News President David Rhodes in a memo.

"We need to be such a place," he added. "I'm deeply disappointed and angry that people were victimized-and that even people not connected with these events could see their hard work undermined."

PBS fired Rose not long after CBS News announced its decision to terminate the newsman.

"In light of yesterday's revelations, PBS has terminated its relationship with Charlie Rose and cancelled distribution of his programs. PBS expects all the producers we work with to provide a workplace where people feel safe and are treated with dignity and respect," PBS said in a statement.

The firings come after eight women accused Rose of sexual misconduct in a report published Monday by The Washington Post.

Rose, who co-hosted "CBS This Morning," was accused of making unwanted sexual advances ranging from making lewd suggestions during phone calls to walking naked in front of female employees to groping their breasts or genital areas, according to the report.

The accusations, which centered around behavior at Rose's PBS program, "Charlie Rose," date from the late 1990s to as recently as 2011.

Rose acknowledged Monday in a statement that he had "behaved insensitively" at times, but said that some of the allegations were not accurate.

"It is essential that these women know I hear them and that I deeply apologize for my inappropriate behavior. I am greatly embarrassed. I have behaved insensitively at times, and I accept responsibility for that, though I do not believe that all of these allegations are accurate. I always felt that I was pursuing shared feelings, even though I now realize I was mistaken," Rose said in a statement to the Post.

Rose's CBS co-hosts addressed the controversy on-air Tuesday morning.

"This is a moment that demands a frank and honest assessment about where we stand, and more generally, the safety of women," "CBS This Morning" co-host Norah O'Donnell said.

"Let me be very clear: There is no excuse for this alleged behavior. It is systematic and pervasive."

PBS announced Monday it would suspend distribution of Rose's program while it looked into the allegations against the 75-year-old host.

"PBS was shocked to learn today of these deeply disturbing allegations. We are immediately suspending distribution of 'Charlie Rose,'" a PBS spokesman said in a statement Monday.

"'Charlie Rose' is produced by Charlie Rose, Inc., an independent television production company. PBS does not fund this nightly program or supervise its production, but we expect our producers to provide a workplace where people feel safe and are treated with dignity and respect," the spokesman added.

mass shooting in Texas

At least 26 people were killed in Sunday's church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press conference.

About 20 others were wounded, said Freeman Martin, a regional director with the Texas Department of Public Safety, with victims ranging in age from 5 to 72 years old.

Among the dead is the 14-year-old daughter of the First Baptist Church's pastor, Frank Pomeroy, according to his wife, Sherri Pomeroy, the girl's mother. The couple were traveling out of state when the shooting occurred.

the Russian investigation

10/30/17 - Trump tweets NO COLLUSION!
10/30/17 - Paul Manafort indicted for funneling money, pleads not guilty
10/29/17 - Roger Stone Jr. suspended from twitter after tirade against Don Lemon
10/28/17 - WSJ calls for investigation into the FBI, Hillary Clinton and for Mueller to resign
10/27/17 - First charges approved in the Mueller investigation

repealing and replacing Obamacare

[10/19/17] Shutdown of insurance subsidies could mean more free insurance coverage
[10/17/17] Alexander and Murray reach bipartisan deal to restore subsidies
[10/13/17] Eighteen U.S. states vowed to sue President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday to stop him from scrapping a key component of Obamacare, subsidies to insurers that help millions of low-income people pay medical expenses
[10/13/17] Trump to stop subsidy payments to insurers
[10/2/17] There is nothing sacred about single-payer
[9/26/17] Trump to work with Democrats
[9/26/17] GOP healthcare bill fails again
[9/22/17] McCain opposes this bill too
[9/21/17] Senator Cassidy health care fact check
[9/21/17] Santorum on Paul on health care bill
[9/21/17] Rand Paul: new plan keeps Obamacare funding giving more to Republican states
[9/20/17] Huelskoetter: Graham-Cassidy is the most harmful version yet.
[9/20/17] Ned Ryun: Graham-Cassidy is like lukewarm gruel but better than ObamaCare
[9/20/17] Kimmel blasts Brian Kilmeade too
[9/20/17] It would depend on where Billy Kimmel lives
[9/20/17] Jimmy Kimmel blasts Graham-Cassidy bill

[8/10/17] - Trump tells McConnell to get back to work

[7/31/17] - Should Trump let Obamacare fail? (Yes / No)

[7/28/17] McCain votes no on Obamacare repeal, wants input from both sides of the aisle

[5/7/17] Charlie Munger on healthcare

[5/4/17] Relieved Republicans muscled their health care bill through the House today, taking their biggest step toward dismantling the Obama health care overhaul since Donald Trump took office. They won passage only after overcoming their own divisions that nearly sank the measure six weeks ago.

The measure skirted through the House by a thin 217-213 vote, as all voting Democrats and a group of mostly moderate Republican holdouts voted no. A defeat would have been politically devastating for President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Passage was a product of heavy lobbying by the White House and Republicans leaders, plus late revisions that nailed down the final supporters needed. The bill now faces an uncertain fate in the Senate, where even GOP lawmakers say major changes are likely.

[3/14/17] health care bill fact check

[3/13/17] President Donald Trump's administration on Monday rejected a report by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office that concluded millions of Americans would lose health insurance under a Republican plan to dismantle Obamacare.

U.S. health secretary Tom Price told reporters at the White House that the administration strenuously disagreed with the report, which he said did not look at the full Republican plan and did not take into account regulatory reforms and other efforts to reform healthcare.

[3/13/17] Fourteen million Americans would lose medical insurance by next year under a Republican plan to dismantle Obamacare, the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office said on Monday in a report that dealt a potential setback to President Donald Trump's first major legislative initiative.

The eagerly awaited CBO report also forecast that 24 million more people would be uninsured in 2026 if the plan being considered in the House of Representatives were adopted. Obamacare enabled about 20 million previously uninsured Americans to obtain medical insurance.

The CBO projected that 52 million people would be uninsured by 2026 if the bill became law, compared to 28 million who would not have coverage that year if former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law remained unchanged.

[3/6/17] House Republicans unveiled on Monday their long-awaited plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, scrapping the mandate for most Americans to have health insurance in favor of a new system of tax credits to induce people to buy insurance on the open market.

The bill sets the stage for a bitter debate over the possible dismantling of the most significant health care law in a half-century. In its place would be a health law that would be far more oriented to the free market and would make far-reaching changes to a vast part of the American economy.

The House Republican bill would roll back the expansion of Medicaid that has provided coverage to more than 10 million people in 31 states, reducing federal payments for many new beneficiaries. It also would effectively scrap the unpopular requirement that people have insurance and eliminate tax penalties for those who go without. The requirement for larger employers to offer coverage to their full-time employees would also be eliminated.

gun-related deaths

[10/8/17] The empirical literature on firearm policy is complex, but most studies support one clear conclusion: Places with more guns have more gun-related deaths and violence. After reviewing 130 studies in 10 different countries, one comprehensive analysis in Epidemiologic Reviews determined that laws restricting the purchase of and access to firearms were strongly associated with lower rates of homicide and unintentional deaths.

Strict regulations cannot protect us from all gun violence — but they can dramatically reduce it.

There is no better example of their potential for success than here in Hawaii. In 2014, Hawaii had the lowest firearm death rate in the nation, with a mere 2.6 gun deaths per 100,000 residents, compared to a rate of 14.8 in Nevada and an astonishing rate of 19.2 in Alaska.

[5/7/09] Hawaii continues to have the lowest rate of gun-related deaths in the nation, which state officials and a national organization attribute to Hawaii's strict gun laws and low gun ownership.

Hawaii had 2.58 gun deaths per 100,000 residents, while Louisiana, the highest, had a rate of 19.58, according to a Violence Policy Center report. The national average was 10.32, according to 2006 data the center used from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Only 9.7 percent of households in Hawaii owned a gun, compared with 45.6 in Louisiana.

"More guns means more gun death and injury. Fewer guns means less death and injury. It's a simple equation," said Kristen Rand, the center's legislative director.

* * * [6/10/09]

Let's see.. The top 5 states in gun related deaths are Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, Mississippi, Nevada. I wonder if they're all Republican states? (Not to be political, but I was just wondering.)

It was hard to pinpoint, but according to this map of the 2010 Senate races, LA is barely GOP, AL strong GOP, AK barely GOP, MS (grey, but both Senators republican), NV strong democrat.

OK, how about going by who they voted for in the last Presidential Election.

Louisiana (McCain)
Alabama (McCain)
Alaska (McCain)
Mississippi (McCain)
Nevada (Obama)

How about the states with the least gun death percentages?

Hawaii (Obama)
Massachusetts (Obama)
Rhode Island (Obama)
Connecticut (Obama)
New York (Obama)

OK, I'm detecting a trend here.

Las Vegas shooting

LAS VEGAS — Perched in his suite at a high-rise hotel overlooking the Vegas Strip, a 64-year-old retiree with no real criminal history and no known affiliations with terror groups rained bullets down into a crowd at a country music festival Sunday, killing at least 59 people and injuring hundreds more in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

The attack, at least initially, was as inexplicable as it was horrifying. Law enforcement officials said they could not immediately tell what drove Stephen Paddock to fire at thousands of unsuspecting concertgoers from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino before killing himself.

Authorities said a sweep of law enforcement databases showed Paddock had no known run-ins with police, and — despite the Islamic State’s repeated claims otherwise — investigators also could not find any connections to international terrorist groups. He was the son of a notorious bank robber and his own crime demonstrated some amount of sophisticated planning.

Police said he stayed in a large hotel suite for several days and aroused no suspicion, bringing with him an arsenal of 23 guns — their calibers ranging from .223 to .308, some with scopes — authorities said. One of the weapons he apparently used in the attack was an AK-47 type rifle, with a stand used to steady it for firing, people familiar with the case said. He fired, without warning, from an elevated position on an open-air venue, leaving his victims few options to avoid harm.

***

In the hours after a Las Vegas gunman mowed down more than 50 people Sunday night, Washington sent an implicit, but clear, message: Do not expect the capital to attempt to stop the next mass shooting.

Critics of Washington’s refusal to budge on gun control point out that the United States regulates many things to keep them out of the hands of evil and insane people — explosives or the ability to control an airplane, for example. The Republican posture is increasingly frustrating to Democrats and gun control activists who are beginning to boycott the predictable moments of unification that commonly occur in the hours after mass shootings — hoping their refusal to participate will call attention to the inaction.

But the Democratic protests will almost certainly have no impact on the larger gun control debate. Most observers point to the fact that the country refused to pass gun laws after the December 2012 Newtown mass shooting in which 26 people — including 20 children ages 6 and 7 — were killed. At that time, Democrats controlled the White House and the Senate.

Polling shows Republican voters support some gun control measures. Nearly 90 percent of GOP voters say that the mentally ill should not be able to purchase a gun, according to a June survey by the Pew Research Center. Seventy-seven percent want background checks for private sales or weapons purchased at gun shows. And 54 percent would ban the assault-style weapons that are frequently used in mass shootings.

But the Republican Party’s energized base is quick to turn on anyone seen as soft on the Second Amendment, leaving GOP candidates competing to show who is more pro-gun. In a recent Senate primary in Alabama, Republican Roy Moore pulled out a gun during a campaign rally to show how much likes weapons. He beat incumbent Luther Strange.

***

The casualties in the attack exceeded those of the Pulse nightclub tragedy in Florida more than a year ago. As with the Pulse attack, the Las Vegas shooting led to prompt calls from Democrats – not just Clinton – for gun legislation, though the party has struggled to tighten laws even when the Obama administration was in power.

Connecticut’s senators, who have been especially outspoken on gun control ever since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, were among the first to issue statements Monday.

“Nowhere but America do horrific large-scale mass shootings happen with this degree of regularity,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said in a statement. “This must stop. It is positively infuriating that my colleagues in Congress are so afraid of the gun industry that they pretend there aren't public policy responses to this epidemic. There are, and the thoughts and prayers of politicians are cruelly hollow if they are paired with continued legislative indifference. It's time for Congress to get off its ass and do something."

Connecticut’s other Democratic senator, Richard Blumenthal, issued a similar statement.

“It has been barely a year since what was previously the largest mass shooting in American history – the deadly attack at Pulse nightclub. In the interim, thousands more have been lost to the daily, ruthless toll of gun violence. Still, Congress refuses to act. I am more than frustrated, I am furious,” he said.

As the lawmakers seemed to acknowledge, gun legislation stands little chance of passing under a Republican-controlled Congress and White House.

After the Pulse shooting, Senate Democrats launched a 15-hour filibuster followed by a Democratic sit-in on the House floor in a high-profile push for gun control legislation. But the divided Senate ultimately rejected all four gun measures put on the floor for a vote.

***

It’s been almost five years since a gunman mowed down students and teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. But Congress has rejected just about every attempted gun safety measure since then—more than 100 all totaled, although many are duplicative—and passage is even less likely following the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Maddow most watched cable news show?

Fox News Channel finished the third quarter of 2017 as the most-watched cable news network across the board for the 63rd consecutive quarter, dating back to the first quarter of 2002.

Rupert Murdoch’s news network averaged 1.4 million total viewers and 2.2 million viewers during prime time to win both categories. FNC also won both categories among the key news demo of adults ages 25-54, averaging 298,000 total demo viewers and 436,000 from 8-11 p.m. ET.

FNC also was the top-rated basic cable network in both prime time and total day viewers, for the fifth straight quarter.

“The Rachel Maddow Show” became the first program in MSNBC history to finish as the most-watched show in cable news among both total viewers and the demo for an entire quarter. Maddow averaged 2.7 million total viewers and 606,000 viewers between ages 25-54.

Among total viewers, Maddow picked up a win for the first time ever. Among other cable news programs, Fox News had six of the Top 10 programs among total viewers, while MSNBC has three other programs finish among the 10 most-watched cable news shows. The most-watched show on the liberal CNN was ”Anderson Cooper 360,” which finished at No. 21, behind 13 different FNC programs.

Maddow finished atop the demo for the second consecutive quarter. Her new competitor, “Hannity,” finished second followed by “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “The Five.” CNN’s most popular show among younger viewers was Cooper, who finished sixth overall.

“Fox & Friends" dominated mornings, averaging 1.5 million viewers and 343,000 in the demo, compared to 1 million and 237,000 for MSNBC’s “Morning Joe." CNN’s “New Day” averaged only 643,000 viewers and 228,000 between ages 25-54.

FNC’s sister station, Fox Business Network, ended the third quarter as the No. 1 rated business network, marking the first time ever the network has outpaced rival CNBC in business day viewers for four consecutive quarters. FBN grew 26 percent from last year among business day viewers, while CNBC saw a 14 percent decline over the same time period.

*** [9/26/17]

O'Reilly gloats Hannity slaughtered Maddow

will Trump reverse back into Paris climate agreement?

Will President Trump bring the country back into the Paris climate agreement? The bets are on, and this bet says he will.

After his call to ban transgender troops from serving in the armed forces, our military leaders pushed back, and Trump pulled back. Defense Secretary James Mattis is now tasked with devising a new policy months hence. Meanwhile, transgender people are re-enlisting.

What makes one think that Trump will follow a similar trajectory on the Paris climate deal? Several things.

One, and I hate putting this first because it should be the least consequential: his approval ratings. They've been inching up from the depths for three weeks in a row. Trump's moves toward moderation, which includes working with Democratic leaders, are surely playing a part. A rising applause meter lowers a reality TV star's blood pressure.

Two, and it's a shame this has to go second, is Emmanuel Macron. The French president excels in courting Trump's grandiosity. As other European leaders gave Trump a wide berth, Macron gallantly invited him to Paris for the Bastille Day parade.

At the Elysee Palace, Macron had Trump sitting on gilded chairs that the gilded chairs in Trump Tower wish they could be. Trump was so impressed by the Bastille Day spectacle that he's proposing a Fourth of July parade in Washington that would "top it."

the Hawaii delegates

Capitol Priorities

With Congress back in session, we ask Hawaii's delegates about their top priorities and how they expect to make headway in such partisan times and with the fledgling Trump administration.

Mazie Hirono (Time Magazine)

For the near term, I will continue focusing on protecting Hawaii from further harm from this administration, and working across party lines to advance important priorities for Hawaii and the country.

Immigrants and minorities have been under near continuous attack from this administration, and I will continue to fight to protect them from discriminatory treatment.

This has become an even more urgent priority following the administration’s decision to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Tulsi Gabbard

For too long, our country’s leaders have refused to meet and negotiate directly with North Korea, and have held onto failed policies that resulted in a nuclear-armed North Korea with intercontinental ballistic missiles that put Hawaii and the mainland squarely within range. President Donald Trump needs to meet with Kim Jong Un to conduct direct negotiations without preconditions, in order to de-escalate and ultimately denuclearize the peninsula. Until then, we must also invest in cutting edge missile defense technology. We must always be willing to sit down with our adversaries, not just our friends, to pursue all avenues of peace.

Colleen Hanabusa

Congress has important work to accomplish during this 2017 fall session. As a member of the House Democratic Caucus, my priorities include issues important to the people of Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District and, of equal importance, resistance to Trump administration initiatives opposed by my constituency. In a broad sense, my top three priorities are: 1) People, 2) Budget, and 3) Defense.

Brian Schatz

We live in highly partisan times. But in the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, distrust and dislike for the other party is rare.

As a member of the committee, my No. 1 priority is to bring federal funds home, knowing that these dollars play a critical role in helping our state solve challenges and seize opportunities.

Bernie Sanders to introduce Medicare for all

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will introduce legislation on Wednesday that would expand Medicare into a universal health insurance program with the backing of at least 15 Democratic senators — a record level of support for an idea that had been relegated to the fringes during the last Democratic presidency.

“This is where the country has got to go,” Sanders said in an interview at his Senate office. “Right now, if we want to move away from a dysfunctional, wasteful, bureaucratic system into a rational health-care system that guarantees coverage to everyone in a cost-effective way, the only way to do it is Medicare for All.”

Sanders’s bill, the Medicare for All Act of 2017, has no chance of passage in a Republican-run Congress. But after months of behind-the-scenes meetings and a public pressure campaign, the bill is already backed by most of the senators seen as likely 2020 Democratic candidates — if not by most senators facing tough reelection battles in 2018.

The bill would revolutionize America’s health-care system, replacing it with a public system that would be paid for by higher taxes. Everything from emergency surgery to prescription drugs, from mental health to eye care, would be covered, with no co-payments. Americans under 18 would immediately obtain “universal Medicare cards,” while Americans not currently eligible for Medicare would be phased into the program over four years. Employer-provided health care would be replaced, with the employers paying higher taxes but no longer on the hook for insurance.

Private insurers would remain, with fewer customers, to pay for elective treatments such as plastic surgery — a system similar to Australia, which President Trump has praised for having a “much better” insurance regime than the United States.

But the market-based changes of the Affordable Care Act would be replaced as Medicare becomes the country’s universal insurer. Doctors would be reimbursed by the government; providers would sign a yearly participation agreement with Medicare to remain with the system.

“When you have co-payments — when you say that health care is not a right for everybody, whether you’re poor or whether you’re a billionaire — the evidence suggests that it becomes a disincentive for people to get the health care they need,” Sanders said. “Depending on the level of the copayment, it may cost more to figure out how you collect it than to not have the copayment at all.”

As he described his legislation, Sanders focused on its simplicity, suggesting that Americans would be happy to pay higher taxes if it meant the end of wrangling with health-care companies. The size of the tax increase, he said, would be determined in a separate bill.

Sanders acknowledged that the plan would be costly but pointed to the experience of other industrialized countries that provided universal coverage through higher taxes. The average American paid $11,365 per year in taxes; the average Canadian paid $14,693. But the average American paid twice as much for health care as the average Canadian.

[9/14/17] Trump calls Sanders' plan a curse on the U.S.

Trump administration to unwind Dreamer program

[9/5/17] The Trump administration announced Tuesday it would begin to unwind an Obama-era program that allows younger undocumented immigrants to live in the country without fear of deportation, calling the program unconstitutional but offering a partial delay to give Congress a chance to address the issue.

The decision, after weeks of intense deliberation between President Trump and his top advisers, represents a blow to hundreds of thousands of immigrants known as “dreamers” who have lived in the country illegally since they were children. But it also allows the White House to shift some of the pressure and burden of determining their future onto Congress, setting up a public fight over their legal status that is likely to be waged for months.

The Department of Homeland Security said it would no longer accept new applications for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which has provided renewable, two-year work permits to nearly 800,000 dreamers. The agency said those enrolled in DACA will be able to continue working until their permits expire; those whose permits expire by March 5, 2018 will be permitted to apply for two-year renewals as long as they do so by Oct. 5.

New applications and renewal requests already received by DHS before Tuesday will be reviewed and validated on a case-by-case basis, even those for permits that expire after March 5, officials said. Also, the agency said it will no longer issue "advanced parole" notices allowing DACA recipients to travel abroad and reenter the country.

Trump administration officials cast the decision as a humane way to unwind the program and called on lawmakers to provide a legislative solution to address the immigration status of the dreamers. Senior DHS officials emphasized that if Congress fails to act and work permits begin to expire, dreamers will not be high priorities for deportations — but they would be issued notices to appear at immigration court if they are encountered by federal immigration officers.

Trump had deliberated for weeks as pressure mounted on him to fulfill a campaign promise to end DACA, which he repeatedly called an abuse of executive authority by his predecessor. The president had equivocated since taking office, vowing to show “great heart” in his decision and saying dreamers could “rest easy.”

But a threat from Texas and several other states to sue the administration if it did not end DACA by Tuesday forced Trump to make a decision. Several senior aides, including Sessions, an immigration hard-liner who had said the administration would be unable to defend the program in court, lobbied the president to end DACA. Others, including Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the former DHS secretary, cautioned that terminating the program would cause chaos for immigrants who enjoy broad popular support.

Sessions wrote a memo Monday calling DACA unconstitutional, leading acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke to issue a memo Tuesday to phase out the program.

“As a result of recent litigation,” Duke said in a statement, “we were faced with two options: wind the program down in an orderly fashion that protects beneficiaries in the near-term while working with Congress to pass legislation; or allow the judiciary to potentially shut the program down completely and immediately. We chose the least disruptive option.”

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who last week had urged Trump not to end the program until Congress acted, said in a statement that DACA was a “clear abuse of executive authority” by Obama.

“It is my hope that the House and Senate, with the president’s leadership, will be able to find consensus on a permanent legislative solution that includes ensuring that those who have done nothing wrong can still contribute as a valued part of this great country,” Ryan said.

Immigrant rights groups quickly denounced Trump's decision. More than 150 immigration activists protested front of the White House Tuesday morning, calling the president a “liar” and a “monster." Javier Palomarez, president of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, announced he was resigning from Trump's presidential diversity committee over the "disgraceful action."

In a tweet, former vice president Joe Biden wrote: "Brought by parents, these children had no choice in coming here. Now they'll be sent to countries they've never known. Cruel. Not America."

And in a sign of the political nature of the issue, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) quickly sent out a fundraising pitch to Democratic supporters, calling the decision “quite possibly the cruelest thing President Trump has ever done.”

The president was reportedly torn over the decision, according to White House officials, split between his desire to appear tough on illegal immigration and his personal feelings toward the dreamers, most of whom have lived in the United States most of their lives.

"We will resolve the DACA issue with heart and compassion – but through the lawful Democratic process," Trump said, "while at the same time ensuring that any immigration reform we adopt provides enduring benefits for the American citizens we were elected to serve."

The fight over the dreamers now shifts to Congress to act on a bill to grant them some form of permanent legal status. A bill called the Dream Act that would have offered them a path to citizenship failed in the Senate in 2010. Several new proposals have been put forward, including the Bridge Act, a bipartisan bill with 25 co-sponsors that would extend DACA protections for three years to give Congress time to enact permanent legislation.

*** [9/6/17]

Sessions told Trump he would not defend the DACA program in court.  Kelly's solution was to delay the program's end by six months.

*** [9/14/17]

The top House and Senate Democrats said today they had reached agreement with President Donald Trump to protect thousands of younger immigrants from deportation and fund some border security enhancements — not including Trump’s long-sought border wall.

Fox News taken off the air

in Britain.

Rupert Murdoch and his sons are pulling Fox News off the air in Britain.

The network's parent company, 21st Century Fox, has announced that the controversial news channel will no longer be broadcast in the U.K. after failing to attract an audience. The network has also become a lightning rod for critics seeking to spoil the Murdochs' planned $15 billion takeover of Sky, the top pay TV provider in the U.K.

"Fox News is focused on the U.S. market and designed for a U.S. audience and, accordingly, it averages only a few thousand viewers across the day in the U.K.," 21st Century Fox said in a statement.

"We have concluded that it is not in our commercial interest to continue providing Fox News in the U.K.," it added.

21st Century Fox (FOX) said the network's final broadcast in the U.K. would be Tuesday at 4:00 p.m. local time.

The decision to jettison the network in Britain could help insulate 21st Century Fox from criticism as it seeks to win approval for its takeover of Sky.

death toll rises in Houston flood

HOUSTON — The biggest rainstorm in the history of the continental United States finally began to move away from Houston on Tuesday, as the remnants of Hurricane Harvey and its endless, merciless rain bands spun east to menace Louisiana instead.

But, after more than 50 inches of rain over four days, Houston was less of a city and more of an archipelago: a chain of urbanized islands in a muddy brown sea. All around it, flat-bottomed boats and helicopters were still plucking victims from rooftops, and water was still pouring in from overfilled reservoirs and swollen rivers.

Between 25 and 30 percent of Harris County — home to 4.5 million people in Houston and its near suburbs — was flooded by Tuesday afternoon, according to an estimate from Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the county flood control district. That’s at least 444 square miles, an area six times the size of the District of Columbia.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner imposed a curfew starting Tuesday from midnight to 5 a.m. to deter looting of abandoned homes.

On Tuesday morning authorities discovered the body of a Houston police officer who had drowned in his patrol car two days earlier, at the storm’s height. Sergeant Steve Perez, a veteran officer, was on his way to work on Sunday morning — spending two and a half hours looking for a path through rain-lashed streets — when he drove into a flooded underpass.

In all, authorities said at least 22 people had been confirmed dead from the storm. But they said it was difficult to know how many more were missing. They also said it is too early to assess the total number of homes and other buildings damaged, in part because rescue crews were still having trouble even reaching some areas because of flooded or flood-damaged roads, said Francisco Sanchez, spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Authorities said more than 3,500 people had been rescued from floodwaters, but that number was surely low. Many had been rescued by strangers with boats, who had rescued so many that they themselves had lost count. They left behind homes that could be flooded for days, or weeks, and perhaps lost forever.

Officials said more than 13,300 people were already in shelters. Federal authorities estimated that 30,000 people could be forced from their homes in Texas and surrounding states.

President Trump flew to Texas on Tuesday, and he visited both Corpus Christi — near where the storm made landfall — and state officials in Austin. At one point, he shouted a message to a crowd outside a fire station in Corpus Christi.

“This is historic, it’s epic what happened. But you know what, it happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything,” he told the crowd, which applauded his remarks and cheered more loudly when he waved the Texas state flag.

John McCain diagnosed with brain cancer

[7/28/17] McCain votes no on Obamacare repeal, wants input from both sides of the aisle

[7/27/17] John McCain on courage

[7/25/17] McCain calls for bi-partisan cooperation on healthcare

[7/22/17] Sen. John McCain, 80, has been diagnosed with a primary glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor, Mayo Clinic doctors directly involved in the senator's care told CNN exclusively. The doctors spoke directly to CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

The senator underwent surgery to remove a blood clot on Friday at Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix. Lab results from that surgery confirmed the presence of brain cancer associated with the blood clot.

Glioblastoma is a particularly aggressive tumor that forms in the tissue of the brain and spinal cord, according to the American Brain Tumor Association.

McCain is recovering "amazingly well," according to a statement from his office.

Republicans vs. Democrats on education

A sizable majority of Republicans consider higher education to be a negative influence on America, according to a new Pew Research Center poll published Monday.

Pew found that fifty-eight percent of Republicans viewed college education negatively, while 36 percent of GOP voters saw these institutions positively.

Democrats, on the other hand, overwhelmingly viewed higher education favorably, with 72 percent of the party’s self-described voters having a positive opinion of it. Only 19 percent of Democrats had a negative view of higher education, according to Pew.

The prestigious research firm said that Republican views on college have dramatically changed over a short period of time. In just two years, the number of Republicans who positively viewed higher education declined from 54 percent to 36 percent, Pew reports.

The study also reported that self-described conservative Republicans were more likely to suspiciously view college education — 65 percent versus 58 percent for all GOP voters.

Pew’s poll attempted to study which major institutions Americans trust and distrust based on party affiliation. Republicans were also found to overwhelmingly view the news media negatively, while Democrats were more evenly split on the institution.

Eight-five percent of Republicans said they had a negative opinion of the press versus only 10 percent with a positive view of this institution. Most Democrats as well were found to negatively view the media, but by a much smaller margin of 46 percent with a negative opinion versus 44 percent with a positive view of the press.

Ige takes from the rich

Gov. David Ige approved a new law Monday that increases income tax rates for the state’s wealthiest residents while also creating a new state earned income tax credit to ease the state tax burden on some of Hawaii’s poorest working families.

In all, the state treasury will gain about $20 million to $40 million a year from the new law because the extra income tax on wealthier residents will bring in more money than the tax credits will cost the state in lost revenue, according to House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke.

Fox News no longer fair and balanced

You can’t call Fox News “fair and balanced” anymore… because they’re not calling themselves that anymore.

The cable news network is dropping its famous “Fair & Balanced” marketing slogan, according to New York Magazine — a slogan that’s been an integral part of Fox News since the channel debuted in 1996. The motto was an invention of late founder/chairman Roger Ailes, who resigned last year after a series of sexual-harassment allegations. Fox will reportedly rely on its other tagline going forward: “Most Watched. Most Trusted.”

The “Fair & Balanced” moniker was a controversial one, viewed by some as a way for the conservative-leaning news channel to feign editorial objectivity. (NY Mag‘s Gabriel Sherman calls it an example of “Ailes’ cynical genius at its most successful.”) But Ailes insisted it was a necessary guideline to fight the tide of a largely liberal media. “He would say, ‘The news is like a ship. If you take hands off the wheel, it pulls hard to the left,'” a Fox News senior producer remembers.

The move is the latest sign that Fox News is busy rebuilding its identity in the wake of Ailes’ departure, along with the high-profile exits of anchors Megyn Kelly (who left to join NBC News) and Bill O’Reilly (who was fired following his own sexual-harassment scandal).