Archives for FUBAR

Trump to Florida for hurricane photo op

by CATHERINE LUCEY | September 14, 2017 | No Comments

President Donald Trump will hear directly from people affected by Irma’s fury as he makes his third visit in less than three weeks to the storm-wracked South. Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence, was scheduled to visit Naples and Fort Myers on Florida’s southwestern coast Thursday to meet with those affected by the hurricane and learn more about relief efforts. He tweeted Wednesday that he planned to meet “with our great Coast Guard, FEMA and many of the brave first responders & others.” The daytrip to Florida follows two earlier outings in which Trump took in Harvey recovery efforts
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Rival health plans doomed to fail

by ALAN FRAM | September 13, 2017 | 1 Comment

Liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders is ready to unveil his bill for starkly reshaping the country’s current hodge-podge health care system into one where the government provides medical insurance for everybody. Republican senators are preparing to roll out details of a last-ditch effort to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s health care law. The rival packages have little in common, other than the likelihood that neither is going anywhere. Seven weeks after the GOP drive to uproot Obama’s 2010 health care law crashed in the Senate, two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, on Wednesday were
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More omissions from Flynn’s security clearance forms

by CHAD DAY and STEPHEN BRAUN | September 13, 2017 | No Comments

Former business associates of Michael Flynn have told lawmakers that he traveled to the Middle East in 2015 as part of a private proposal to build nuclear power plants across the region, a trip that the former Trump administration national security adviser never disclosed during his security clearance process. In a letter released Wednesday, two top House Democrats reveal that companies involved in the proposal provided details of Flynn’s trip in June 2015 that suggest he also failed to report contacts with Israeli and Egyptian government officials. The lawmakers — Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Rep. Eliot Engel of
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Republicans walk away from Congress, Trump

by ERICA WERNER and THOMAS BEAUMONT | September 11, 2017 | 3 Comments

Veteran Republicans are bailing on Congress in growing numbers, as GOP control of Washington fails to produce the unity or legislative successes party leaders wish for. With President Donald Trump willing, if not eager, to buck fellow Republicans and even directly attack them, a number of lawmakers no longer wish to be involved. The latest was two-term Rep. Dave Trott of Michigan, who said in a statement Monday that he’d decided after careful consideration that the best course for him was to spend more time with his family and return to the private sector. In contrast to those diplomatic words
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Clearance backlog leads to security problems

by DEB REICHMANN | September 11, 2017 | No Comments

A government backlog of 700,000 security clearance reviews has led agencies like the Defense Department to inadvertently issue interim passes to criminals — even rapists and killers — fueling calls for better and faster vetting of people with access to the nation’s secrets. The pileup, which is government-wide, is causing work delays for both federal and private intelligence efforts. It takes about four months to acquire a clearance to gain access to “secret” information on a need-to-know basis, and nine to 10 months for “top-secret” clearance. Efforts to reduce the backlog coincide with pressure to tighten the reins on classified
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Trump to Supremes: ‘I want my travel ban’

by MARK SHERMAN | September 11, 2017 | No Comments

The Trump administration is back at the Supreme Court, asking the justices to continue to allow strict enforcement of a temporary ban on refugees from around the world. The Justice Department’s high court filing Monday follows an appeals court ruling last week that would allow refugees to enter the United States if a resettlement agency in the U.S. had agreed to take them in. The appellate ruling could take effect as soon as Tuesday and could apply to up to 24,000 refugees. Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a brief order Monday that will keep the ruling on hold for the time
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Trumps plan to remember 9/11

by DARLENE SUPERVILLE | September 11, 2017 | No Comments

President Donald Trump is preparing to preside over his first 9/11 commemoration in office, a solemn and nonpartisan occasion in which he will be joined by first lady Melania Trump. The Trumps plan to observe a moment of silence at the White House on Monday in remembrance of the nearly 3,000 people who were killed when hijackers flew commercial airplanes into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The morning remembrance is scheduled for about the time the first plane struck one of the Twin Towers on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Trump
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Republicans can’t handle bi-partisanship

by KEN THOMAS and CATHERINE LUCEY | September 11, 2017 | No Comments

President Donald Trump was in the mood to celebrate after cutting a big deal with opposition Democrats. Joshing with Northeastern officials in the Cabinet Room, Trump hailed New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo as “my governor” and traded banter with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, another fellow New Yorker. “If you just dropped in from outer space, you wouldn’t know what the last eight months have been like,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., recalling the friendly exchanges between Trump and Schumer during the meeting with New York and New Jersey lawmakers. That would be the same Schumer whom the president had
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More hurricanes, more toxic sites

by MICHAEL BIESECKER and JASON DEAREN | September 11, 2017 | No Comments

Dozens of personnel from the Environmental Protection Agency worked to secure some of the nation’s most contaminated toxic waste sites as Hurricane Irma bore down on Florida. The agency said its employees evacuated personnel, secured equipment and safeguarded hazardous materials in anticipation of storm surges and heavy rains. The Associated Press surveyed six of the 54 Superfund sites in Florida before Irma’s arrival, all around Miami in low-lying, flood-prone areas. There was no apparent work going on at the sites AP visited this past week. The EPA said that if there was no activity, a site should be considered secured
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Trump’s warning: ‘Get out of Irma’s way’

by DARLENE SUPERVILLE | September 10, 2017 | No Comments

President Donald Trump urged any U.S. residents still in Hurricane Irma’s path Saturday to “just get out of its way” and not worry about possessions, as he monitored the powerful storm’s advance on Florida from the secluded Camp David presidential retreat. Irma was expected to strike the Florida Keys at daybreak Sunday. Trump called it a “storm of enormous destructive power” and asked “everyone in the storm path to heed all instructions, get out of its way.” “Property is replaceable but lives are not and safety has to come first,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting at the Maryland retreat,
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