The provocative rhetoric between U.S. President Donald Trump and the North Korean leadership is adding to an already growing sense of pessimism that peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is possible. 

President Trump said Tuesday the use of military force would be “devastating for North Korea,” though it is not his “preferred option” to stop the Kim Jong Un government’s rapidly advancing nuclear and missile program.

The leaders of the U.S. and North Korea have exchanged not only threats of military retribution, but also derisive personal insults, with Trump calling the North Korean leader “little rocket man” and Kim calling the U.S. president a “dotard,” an archaic English word meaning old and senile.

Military brinkmanship

Calling Trump’s threats a declaration of war, North Korea warned it may shoot down U.S. warplanes flying near the Korean Peninsula after American bombers flew close to it last Saturday. Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho also indicated Pyongyang may soon test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean, a highly provocative act that could induce the U.S. to take preventative military action.

In this highly charged and confrontational environment, analysts warn, a small miscalculation could easily lead to a catastrophic conflict.

“I think we are within hours of a military exchange, within hours,” said Robert Gallucci, the chairman of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University during a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event in Washington this week.

Without criticizing President Trump directly, South Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Kang Kyung-wha called for a less confrontational approach on North Korea. 

“It is imperative that we, Korea and the United States, together manage the situation with astuteness and steadfastness in order to prevent the further escalation of tension or any kind of accidental military clashes in the region that can quickly spiral out of control,” Kang said during the CSIS event on U.S./Korea relations.

De facto nuclear state

The escalation of military tensions may be making it more difficult to find a mutually acceptable diplomatic solution, but skeptics say it is becoming increasingly clear that North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons. 

“I think we all might have to confess that we have reached the point of nowhere to go, as far as the North Korean nuclear problem is concerned. And North Korea is a de facto nuclear state,” said Professor Kim Joon-hyung with Handong Global University in South Korea.

Unlike his pragmatic father Kim Jong Il, who negotiated a deal to halt the country’s nuclear program for economic assistance, which fell apart over a decade ago, Kim Jong Un has shown no willingness to compromise on his goal to develop a working nuclear arsenal, including an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability to target the U.S. mainland. The leadership in Pyongyang argues it needs a strong nuclear deterrence to prevent a possible U.S. led invasion. 

Sanctions impact

During the Kim Jong Un administration, North Korea has defiantly reacted to increasing economic sanctions by accelerating the pace of nuclear and missile tests.  

KOTRA, the South Korean trade and investment agency that monitors North Korean economic activity, says while North Korean foreign trade has declined since 2014, the economy continues to grow and the country’s elites continue to prosper.

“There is a growing demand from middle-class consumers, and North Korean imports of luxury goods have surged,” said KOTRA deputy director Hwang Jae won.

KOTRA says the newest U.N. sanctions, imposed earlier this month, could reduce North Korean trade by 90 percent and oil imports by 30 percent. But critics say China and Russia will not ultimately go along with crippling sanctions that might greatly increase instability at their borders, cause the government in Pyongyang to collapse, and cede control of the entire Korean Peninsula to Washington and its ally in Seoul.

Concessions

Sanctions skeptics say at some point the leadership in Pyongyang may agree to some type of freeze of its current nuclear capabilities, in exchange for significant concessions from the U.S., including possibly ending joint military drills with South Korea and reducing its defense posture, but analysts say economic pressure will not force Pyongyang to agree to unilaterally disarm. 

“If you have another objective, which is getting them to their knees, I think that is not going to happen and we shouldn’t make believe it will,” said Gallucci, who is also a former chief North Korea negotiator in the Clinton administration.
…

your ad here

The United States has imposed sanctions on eight North Korean banks and 26 bank executives amid escalating tensions with Pyongyang over its nuclear program.

“This further advances our strategy to fully isolate North Korea in order to achieve our broader objectives of a peaceful and denuclearized Korean Peninsula,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday in a statement.

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for new economic sanctions against individuals and businesses that finance trade with Pyongyang’s reclusive communist regime and fund its weapons development.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis emphasized Tuesday that the U.S. sought a peaceful resolution to escalating tensions with North Korea, despite the regime’s claim that a tweet Monday by Trump was tantamount to a declaration of war.

In New Delhi for talks with Indian officials about strengthening U.S.-India ties, Mattis said that while the U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula was necessary to deter North Korea’s threats, it also supported diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully.

“And that is our goal, to solve this diplomatically, and I believe President Trump has been pretty clear on this issue,” Mattis said, following a meeting with India’s defense minister.

Hope for diplomacy

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday also stressed that the U.S. would “continue to pursue our diplomatic efforts and hope that’s the way we’ll solve this”

On Monday, Trump commented on Twitter that if North Korea carried out its threats, Kim Jong Un’s regime “won’t be around much longer.”

Speaking to reporters near U.N. headquarters in New York, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said, “Given the fact that this comes from someone who is currently holding the seat of the United States presidency, this is clearly a declaration of war.”

The world should clearly remember, he added, that “it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Ri’s characterization of the tweet “absurd.”

“We’ve not declared war on North Korea,” she said.

Although North Korea has declared “war” many times in the past, now “we’ve entered a bona fide crisis,” Van Jackson, senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, told VOA.

“Even if we’re not in a war right now, we seem to be doing everything in our power to make one happen by actions and statements that make deterrence more likely to fail,” said Jackson, a former director for Korea policy and a defense strategy adviser at the U.S. Defense Department.

Threat to bombers

Ri warned that his country might shoot down U.S. strategic bombers, even if they were not in North Korean airspace. According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency Tuesday, Lee Cheol-woo, the chief of the National Assembly’s intelligence committee, said Pyongyang was spotted readjusting the position of its warplanes and boosting its defensive capabilities along its east coast.

A fighter jet from North Korea in 1969 shot down an unarmed U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane, outside North Korean territorial airspace in the Sea of Japan, killing 30 sailors and one marine on board.

Speaking at a security conference on Monday, Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said the United States hoped to avoid war with North Korea, “but what we can’t do is discount that possibility.”

The Army lieutenant general added that the U.S. had thought through several different ways the problem with North Korea could be resolved, and “some are uglier than others.”

However, McMaster, told the conference, hosted by the Institute for the Study of War, that “there’s not a precision strike that solves the problem.”

One peaceful solution, according to McMaster, would be for Pyongyang to give access to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. But any diplomatic negotiations, McMaster said, would “have to happen under conditions that are different from previous talks.” He said, however, he was not going to come up with a list of preconditions.

Beijing’s role

Some analysts see the path to talks still running through Beijing, which recently moved to cut banking ties between China and North Korea, shut off the supply of liquefied natural gas to the North Koreans and stop imports of their textiles.

“I think that the Chinese are sending a signal to the North that they are skating on thin ice,” said T.J. Pempel, a political science professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

The North Korean foreign minister threatened on Saturday that his country could conduct an atmospheric hydrogen bomb test over the Pacific Ocean.

Mattis responded Monday that if North Korea carried out its threat, “this would be a shocking display of irresponsibility toward global health, toward stability, toward nonproliferation.”

U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers from Guam escorted by F-16 fighter jets from a U.S. base in Japan on Saturday flew in international airspace over waters east of North Korea.

The Pentagon said the show of force, meant to display some of the military options available to Trump, was “the farthest north of the demilitarized zone any U.S. fighter or bomber aircraft have flown off North Korea’s coast in the 21st century.”

VOA’s William Gallo contributed to this report from New Delhi.
…

your ad here

President Donald Trump’s clash with scores of professional football players who knelt during “The Star-spangled Banner” last weekend has set off a heated debate over proper etiquette during the national anthem. But the U.S. is far from alone.

Throughout the world, flags, anthems and other national symbols can often divide as much as they unify, especially in countries with large religious or ethnic divisions.

 

Here is a look at some of the controversies:

Israel

 

Israel’s Arab minority has long felt disconnected from the national symbols of the Jewish state.

 

Israel’s national anthem “The Tikva,” or “the hope,” expresses the yearning of Jews to return to their ancient homeland. The Star of David is emblazoned on the flag and the national emblem is a menorah, a candelabra used in the biblical Temple in Jerusalem.      

 

Arabs make up about 20 percent of Israel’s citizens. But they often face discrimination, and many feel alienated or identify with their Palestinian brethren.

 

Some Arab players on Israel’s national soccer team have expressed discomfort when the anthem is played before matches. An Arab lawmaker, Hanin Zoabi, boycotted the national anthem when she was sworn into Israel’s parliament.

 

Arabs are not the only minority in Israel to reject its national symbols. Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects are anti-Zionist, and members refuse to join the army or participate in national moments of silence on two separate days of remembrance – for fallen soldiers and Holocaust victims.   

 

China

 

China’s national anthem, “March of the Volunteers,” has occasionally been a political flashpoint in the semiautonomous region of Hong Kong.

 

Soccer fans in Hong Kong, where tension is rising over mainland China’s growing influence, have been known to boo the anthem when it’s played at games between the home team and teams from China or other countries. FIFA, the sport’s governing body, has responded by fining the local soccer association.

The Beijing government passed a new law this month that makes improper use of the anthem punishable by up to 15 days in prison. Pro-democracy activists and lawmakers fear it could be used to undermine freedom of speech in Hong Kong.

 

It’s unclear how the law will be implemented in Hong Kong, which has a separate legal system from the mainland.

Russia

 

One of Vladimir Putin’s most resounding steps in his first year as president in 2000 was to re-introduce the Soviet anthem to replace “The Patriotic Song” by the 19th century composer Mikhail Glinka, which was Russia’s anthem between 1991 and 2000.

 

Putin floated the idea in the fall 2000 after some Russian athletes publicly complained that the Patriotic Song has no lyrics and they could not sing along as athletes in other countries do. Soviet poet Sergei Mikhalkov, who authored the original lyrics for the Soviet anthem, was commissioned to write the new ones.

 

Liberal politicians and media criticized the return of the Soviet anthem as an ominous harbinger of a rollback on reforms and freedoms brought about after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Japan

 

Japan’s anthem “Kimigayo,” or “your reign,” was taken from an ancient poem and widely known as a song dedicated to the emperor.

 

The song has long been controversial and is still politically sensitive because it was once used to glorify the emperor and to drum up support for Japan’s wartime militarism, prompting some pacifist teachers and students to refuse to stand up and sing at graduation ceremonies or other commemorative events.

 

“Kimigayo” was officially stipulated as the national anthem in 1999 following years of pressure by Japan’s conservative ruling party, and singing it has been mostly enforced at most public schools, in part due to fear of punishment for failing to do so.

Singing “Kimigayo” and hoisting the national flag is often considered a rightwing statement, though it is less so now, while ultra-rightists typically use the Rising Sun flag in their social media cover photos.

 

Germany

 

Germany bans any display of the Nazi red, black and white flag with the swastika, as well as any other symbols from the period.

 

Violating the ban can lead to charges of incitement. It also bans the use of any Nazi anthems and even things like the stiff-armed so-called “Hitler salute.”

 

That led to difficulties for several tourists this summer – one American and two Chinese – who were investigated by police after giving the salute in public.

 

India

 

India has long been touchy about perceived slights to its national symbols.

Though Indian law doesn’t require people to stand when the country’s national anthem is played, a Supreme Court ruling last year demanded it from all citizens. The court also ruled that movie theaters must resume a tradition of playing the anthem before any film, and said all those present “must stand up in respect.”

Citizens caught burning or otherwise desecrating India’s tri-color flag can also be punished by up to three years in prison. But nothing irks the country’s leadership more than maps that question the country’s borders.

 

The issue has most often flared over the borders drawn around the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which Pakistan also claims, as well as the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, contested by China.

 

India routinely criticizes its neighbors as well as companies like Google or Twitter when they publish maps ascribing Indian-controlled territories to either Pakistan or China. Last year, lawmakers drafted legislation threatening up to $15 million and seven years in prison for drawing and publishing an incorrect map.

 

Egypt

President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, a former general, has emphasized patriotism as a cornerstone of his political discourse since taking office in 2014. His public displays of patriotism, like ending speeches with “long live Egypt!” three times, has fueled nationalism, even jingoism, in media loyal to him.

 

For the first time in living memory, on the first day of classes in state universities this month, students saluted the red, black and white flag as they chanted the national anthem.

 

The new practice, which is not obligatory, was celebrated by the pro-government media as a welcome demonstration of patriotism, but also provided rich material for satire on social media.

 

Former Yugoslavia

 

In 1995 at the European basketball championship in Athens, there was controversy during the medal ceremony right before the winning Yugoslav team, made up mostly of Serbs, were about to receive their gold medals.

 

The third-placed Croatian team, in an unprecedented move, stepped down from the medal podium and walked off the court minutes before the old Yugoslav anthem was to be played. The two former Yugoslav republics were at war in the 1990s. Even today, when they meet in sports events, the anthems are loudly booed by the fans.

 

Indonesia

 

Malaysia apologized to its much bigger neighbor Indonesia last month for an “unintentional” mistake in printing the Indonesian flag upside down in a souvenir guidebook for the 11-nation Southeast Asian Games it was hosting.

 

The error made the red-and-white Indonesian flag resemble Poland’s and caused anger in Indonesia, where “shameonyoumalaysia” became the most popular hashtag on Twitter.

 

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo demanded an apology but also cautioned against exaggerating the incident.

 

France

 

France hasn’t seen take-a-knee protests, but there has been a long-running debate over whether French soccer players should sing the national anthem at international matches. Many French players don’t, but it’s generally out of indifference instead of political protest. The issue resurfaces at the World Cup and other soccer tournaments, often raised by the far right.

 

France has seen taunts from fans during the national anthem at soccer matches in the past, notably from Corsican separatists and French fans of North African descent. As interior minister in 2003, Nicolas Sarkozy backed a law that made it a misdemeanor to insult the national flag and anthem.

 

More broadly, French national symbols were long associated with the nationalist far-right, and it was seen as OK in many quarters to snub them. Attitudes have shifted as France has faced terrorist attacks in recent years, and it’s becoming more and more common to see people of varying political views flying a French flag and singing the anthem.
…

your ad here

The parents of a young Ohioan who was detained in North Korea for more than a year and died soon after being released said Tuesday he was “jerking violently,” howling, and “staring blankly” when he returned home on a medical flight.

 

Fred and Cindy Warmbier appeared on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” morning TV show amid an escalating war of words between the Trump administration and North Korea. A North Korean official has claimed President Donald Trump has, in effect, declared war, which the White House denied.

 

Otto Warmbier’s father said they wanted to speak out about his condition after hearing North Korea claiming to be a victim that’s being picked on.

 

“North Korea is not a victim. They’re terrorists,” he said. “They kidnapped Otto. They tortured him. They intentionally injured him. They are not victims.”

 

The parents described the condition his family found him in when they went aboard an air ambulance that arrived June 13 in Cincinnati. They said Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, was howling, making an “involuntary, inhuman sound,” “staring blankly into space jerking violently,” and was blind and deaf with his head shaved. Fred Warmbier said his mouth “looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth.”

 

Fred Warmbier said Otto’s mother and sister ran off the plane at the initial sight of him.

 

“We weren’t prepared … no mother, no parent should ever have gone through what we went through,” Cindy Warmbier said. She said it was “inexcusable” that her son had been alone in captivity for so long with no one to comfort him. She said she “got it together” and stayed with him after his arrival.

President Trump tweeted about the family’s appearance, calling it “a great interview” and that: “Otto was tortured beyond belief by North Korea.”

 

Fred Warmbier also said Otto had a large scar on his right foot and a high fever.

 

He died less than a week after returning at University of Cincinnati Medical Center. Doctors there said he arrived in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness” and had suffered a “severe neurological injury” of uncertain cause.

 

North Korea has denied mistreating the youth, sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. He was arrested that January as he prepared to leave the country after visiting as a tourist.
…

your ad here

Inside the Woodridge Neighborhood Library in the U.S. capital, a wall is plastered with ominous warning signs: “Reading This Book Display Is Banned” and “No Books to See Here.” Below the messages are shelves with books that have been banned, at one time or another, in parts of the United States. They include books in the popular Harry Potter series, banned for “witchcraft,” and the classic futuristic novel Brave New World, which has been banned for sexual content.

Although no books have been removed from libraries or schools in Washington, the display is part of Banned Books Week, which runs through September 30. The annual event points out the perils of censorship and emphasizes the freedom to read.

Among the groups sponsoring Banned Books Week is the American Library Association (ALA), which releases an annual list of the 10 most challenged books — works that have been targeted for removal from a library or school curriculum.

“Some of the themes could be dealing with LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) issues, race and religion,” said Julius Jefferson Jr. of the ALA’s intellectual freedom committee. Most requests for books to be banned “you see coming from parents, because they feel they are not appropriate for their children,” he added.

Such topics may include “families with two dads or two moms,” said Linnea Hegarty, executive director of Washington’s DC Public Library Foundation. 

“Books about war are often banned, particularly if they talk about political issues,” she added, and also books about mental illness, because “some parents don’t want their children to be exposed to that.”

Transgender issues, profanity, Cosby

The books on this year’s ALA list were mostly written for children or young adults, such as Drama, by Raina Telgemeier, which includes transgender characters, and Mariko Tamaki’s This One Summer, which some critics have said is offensive due to profane language and instances of drug use.

In a first this year, a book was listed not due to its content or style, but because the author is under fire. Comedian and children’s story-teller Bill Cosby wrote a series of books called Little Bill. The series is being challenged because of sexual assault allegations against Cosby.

As part of Banned Books Week, hundreds of copies of six other books that may be challenged or banned have been placed in museums, restaurants and coffee shops around Washington, for anyone to take home for free. They are wrapped in black paper and hidden among other books on sale.

At the Duende District Bookstore in Washington, customer Lyric Prince discovered Fahrenheit 451, a science-fiction novel that depicts an American society where books are outlawed, and firemen burn any contraband literature. Some people object to the burning of a Bible in the story.

Prince is not surprised that books like this novel published more than 60 years ago are still banned today, because “a lot of places in this country don’t exactly take kindly to progressive ideas.”

Another customer, Katie Schwartz, found The Giver, criticized for its violence in a story about a world of conformity. Schwartz can’t believe books are still banned in the U.S., especially since the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of speech.

“It’s an American right to express yourself however you see fit,” she said. “It’s also an American right to avoid things by choice that you don’t agree with, and books are very easily avoided if you don’t agree with them.”

The American Library Association, which keeps tabs on challenges and bans, is aware of about 250 challenges last year, but it says very few succeed, and books hardly ever wind up truly banned.
…

your ad here

Margarita Aponte and her relatives cleared the road in front of her house with two oxen, then drove an hour from her devastated hometown in central Puerto Rico to the old telegraph building in the capital of San Juan.

There, thousands of Puerto Ricans gathered for a chance at a resource nearly as precious as power and water in the wake of Hurricane Maria — communication.

“It’s ringing, it’s ringing, it’s ringing!” Aponte, a janitor, screamed as her phone connected to free Wi-Fi and her Facetime call went through to the mainland on Sunday.

Her eyes filled with tears as she talked with nephews, uncles, brothers and sisters in Florida and Massachusetts for the first time since Maria destroyed nearly every cellphone and fiber optic connection on this U.S. territory of 3.4 million people.

The low murmur at one of two free Wi-Fi hot spots is occasionally interrupted by the cheering of someone getting through the largely jammed network. Most spend hours frowning at their phones, unable to connect.

“There’s no communication. We’re in God’s hands,” Yesenia Gomez, a kitchen worker, said as she left a message for her mother in the neighboring Dominican Republic.

Finally … a signal 

Dozens of other Puerto Ricans opted to pull over to the side of the road along various highways where cellphone signals were strongest.

Carlos Ocasio, a maintenance worker, picked his way through tree branches and broken glass bottles as he found a spot with a good signal. Soon, he was able to reach his brother in New Jersey.

“My throat got a little choked up and I couldn’t talk for a minute,” he said. “They’re calling me from everywhere, asking when I’m going to arrive.”

Others in Puerto Rico and abroad called a local radio station to provide names, numbers, exact addresses and pictures of their loved ones in hopes of reconnecting.

‘Roller-coaster of emotion’ 

But for hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans living on the U.S. mainland, there has been only silence from the island.

Shirley Rodriguez, a resident of New York’s Brooklyn borough, said she has more than 30 relatives in Puerto Rico but she is especially concerned about her 66-year-old mother, Mildred Rodriguez, who has diabetes and pulmonary hypertension and lives in Hormigueros on the island’s west coast.

Rodriguez last spoke to her family before the storm and her relatives were planning on being together for it. Since then, calls to their cellphones have gone to voicemail.

“I’m absolutely numb at this point. It’s a roller-coaster of emotion,” she said. “Not knowing is extremely agonizing.”

Her mother-in-law is in the San Juan area and somehow managed to connect with someone who works for the mayor of Hormigueros, who was able to tell Rodriguez that the area where her parents live escaped flooding. But she still doesn’t know what the actual conditions are like.

Lack of communication

Some in Puerto Rico expressed anger over what they said was a lack of communication from cellphone providers about which towers were working so they could drive in that direction.

“They’re not giving us any information,” said Ricardo Castellanos, a business consultant. “We’re in a state of emergency.”

Castellanos visits the Wi-Fi hot spots twice a day to try to reach his two daughters in the central town of Gurabo and has been able to send a few pictures to friends on social media of the devastation the hurricane left behind.

As people continued to search for a connection in silence, some occasionally spoke up to offer unsolicited advice. “I didn’t move my phone around, and I got a signal,” said one woman to a man complaining that he was in a dead zone.

Nearby, retiree Sylvia Calero tapped her phone with impeccably manicured bright orange fingernails as she tried to reach three brothers and three grandchildren in the hard-hit coastal town of Aguadilla in northwest Puerto Rico. She spent an hour walking up and down the upscale Condado district unable to find a signal before driving to the free Wi-Fi hot spot.

“Zero communication,” she said.

Waiting to leave

Leaning against a boarded-up window, illustrator Avalon Clare from Colorado worried about getting off the island. She and her partner were supposed to fly out of Puerto Rico on Saturday but the flight was canceled.  It was rescheduled for Thursday, but Clare said she had no way to confirm whether that was still the case.

“The only think I can do is text,” she said. “We’re trying to leave because we can’t work without internet … We only have half a tank of gas. We’re running out of cash. It’s just getting harder.”

Jenniffer Gonzalez, Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress, urged people to remain calm, noting that the towers of one cellphone provider that had constant coverage after the hurricane collapsed Sunday.

“Don’t become desperate,” she said, adding that if anyone was in danger, local officials would have been notified by now.

Towers are slowly being replaced

Only about 25 percent of towers were working in the San Juan metro area.

Cell service provider T-Mobile said it reached a deal with other providers to help reconnect their customers, saying callers should use the roaming data option to find a connection. Officials said customers would not be charged extra.

Claro was installing 40 generators to power up its towers, and expected 50 more generators to arrive from the Dominican Republic once a ferry from the neighboring island is operational.

Gov. Ricardo Rossello said a major underwater cable had been repaired, which would allow people to make long-distance calls and improve internet service. Two planes from Spain’s telephone company also arrived over the weekend to help re-establish services.

Success!!!

Persistence paid off for many who waited up to three hours to find a signal, including Wanda Nieves, a government worker who stood at one of the free Wi-Fi hot spots.

She heard about it on the radio and drove 30 minutes to reach the site. Nieves spoke to family in Florida and Michigan and did not plan to return for more calls or messages.

“We’ve already given signs of life,” she said. “Now we just wait for Puerto Rico to recover.”

 
…

your ad here

The latest Republican effort to overhaul the nation’s health care system appears to have failed after another Republican senator came out against the plan.

Senator Susan Collins from Maine became the third Republican senator to oppose the measure, saying Monday night, “This is simply not the way that we should be approaching an important and complex issue that must be handled thoughtfully and fairly for all Americans.”

Collins’ announcement came after the Congressional Budget Office said the attempt to end the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, would reduce health insurance coverage for “millions” of people.

With 52 seats in the 100-member Senate, Republicans could afford only two “no” votes from their ranks if the health reform bill were to pass, given unified opposition from Democrats.

Previously, two Republicans, John McCain of Arizona and Rand Paul of Kentucky, had announced their opposition to the legislation.

The only remaining hope for Republican party leaders is to change opponents’ minds.

Earlier Monday, U.S. senators alternately criticized or defended the last-ditch Republican attempt to end Obamacare at the only committee hearing to examine the bill.

Wheelchair-bound demonstrators chanting “No cuts to Medicaid” delayed the start of the hearing by nearly 20 minutes to the irritation of the Senate Finance Committee’s chairman, Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah.

“If you want a hearing, you’d better shut up,” Hatch warned before calling a brief recess so police officers could remove the protesters. When the hearing resumed, he pleaded, “Let’s have a civil discussion.”

At issue is Graham-Cassidy, the Republican bill that would break up Obamacare, transfer funding to all 50 U.S. states to craft their own health care programs, and pare back federal dollars for Medicaid, a program that pays medical costs for the poor and disabled. Republicans have until the end of the month to pass the bill with a simple majority vote in the Senate.

Proponents argued the status quo will bankrupt America.

“By 2027, we’re going to be spending more on Medicaid than on the [U.S.] military,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who co-authored the bill with Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, testifying as a witness before the committee. “We’re going to send this money back to the states. … My goal is to get the money and power out of Washington, closer to where people live.

“We’re going to get a better outcome,” Graham added.

Opponents accused Republicans of rushing to pass a poorly-crafted bill that will leave dozens of states with less health care funding.

“This Trumpcare bill is a health care lemon, a disaster in the making,” said the committee’s top Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon. “It’s going to be a nightmare for tens of millions of Americans, and it makes a mockery of the president’s promise of better insurance for everybody, at lower cost.”

President Donald Trump has blasted Senate Republicans for failing to repeal and replace Obamacare, one of the party’s core promises to voters since the law was enacted in 2010.

“7 years of Repeal & Replace and some senators not there,” Trump lamented on Twitter on Sunday. A day earlier, he tweeted, “Large Block Grants to States is a good thing to do. Better control & management.”

Democrats noted that a bipartisan effort was under way to fix Obamacare’s shortcomings without scrapping the law entirely, but said the effort has been undermined by Graham-Cassidy, the latest in a series of Republican attempts to reform health care on their own.

“Millions of lives are at stake. Let’s return to the bipartisan negotiations,” urged Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. “This is exactly how we should approach health care in our country.”

Republican leaders tried on Sunday night to persuade senators on the fence to vote for Graham-Cassidy by adding additional health care funding to their states, including the states of Maine, Arizona and Kentucky.

McCain provided the decisive “no” vote that torpedoed a previous Republican health care bill in July. The Arizona senator argued the bill had not been properly vetted in committee, a criticism he repeated last week in explaining his opposition to Graham-Cassidy.

Dachog Duzor in Washington contributed to this report.
…

your ad here

Republican senators Monday introduced a bill that, if passed, would create a pathway to citizenship for potentially more than 2 million undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children.

Senators Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, along with co-sponsors James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, and Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, announced the Solution for Undocumented Children through Careers, Employment, Education, and Defending our Nation in a news conference Monday afternoon in Washington.

“This act is about the children. It is completely merit-based. If you work hard, if you follow the law and you pay your taxes, you can stay here permanently,” Tillis said.

A 10-year commitment

If passed, the bill — referred to by its acronym as the SUCCEED Act — would require recipients to remain in a so-called “conditional permanent residency” for five years, while either consistently working, studying, or serving in the military.

They could then re-apply for a second five-year conditional term.

After a decade under the program, recipients are able to have the conditions lifted, and obtain full permanent residency, which is a precursor to a citizenship application.

Overwhelming support

Polling data released in the last week shows Americans overwhelmingly support actions to legalize the immigration status of those who came to the U.S. as children.

President Donald Trump’s administration announced in early September that it was ending the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy.

The executive branch mandated the two-year, renewable relief measures from deportation for some undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children, and allowed them to work legally. DACA fell short of allowing a path to citizenship, leaving the approximately 800,000 recipients from 2012-2017 in a semi-legal status.

DACA created in 2012

Trump has framed his decision to end the policy as a push for Congress to pass similar legislation.

DACA was created through a 2012 Homeland Security memo and heartily supported by then-President Barack Obama after lawmakers failed to push comprehensive immigration reform through Congress. Without a new law covering them, hundreds of thousands of recipients will return to a fully undocumented status and be subject to deportation when their current DACA status approvals expire in the coming two years.

The SUCCEED Act is not the long-sought comprehensive immigration reform that has repeatedly failed to pass in Congress. Its sponsors said the bill was not a “stand-alone” piece of legislation, and suggested it could ultimately be part of a broader bill or in conjunction with border security legislation.
…

your ad here