RIYADMEDIA

The dissolution of North Carolina’s elections board Friday injected further uncertainty into a still-undecided congressional race as a U.S. House Democratic leader rejected the idea of filling the seat until an investigation of ballot fraud allegations is complete.

Gov. Roy Cooper was met with Republican resistance after announcing he would appoint an interim Board of Elections after a three-judge state court panel ruled Thursday that the current board should disband at noon Friday. The Democrat’s move would fill the gap — and allow the board to proceed with a Jan. 11 evidentiary hearing about the 9th District congressional race — until a new law governing the statewide elections panel can take effect Jan. 31.

Amid the turmoil, incoming U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer issued a statement saying House Democrats won’t allow Republican Mark Harris to be sworn in next week because of the ongoing investigation.

“Given the now well-documented election fraud that took place in NC-09, Democrats would object to any attempt by Mr. Harris to be seated on January 3,” Hoyer said, adding that “the integrity of our democratic process outweighs concerns about the seat being vacant at the start of the new Congress.”

The U.S. Constitution states that the House is the judge of the elections of its members and the final arbiter of contests.

The state Elections Board has refused to certify the race between Harris and Democrat Dan McCready while it investigates absentee ballot irregularities in the district in the south-central part of the state. Harris holds a slim lead in unofficial results, but election officials are looking into criminal allegations against an operative hired by the Harris campaign.

Friday’s standoff was set in motion by the latest ruling from a state court that previously had found the elections board’s makeup unconstitutional after the Republican-controlled legislature altered the board in 2016. The court had ruled earlier this year to allow the board to remain in place until Friday while it investigates the congressional race. The latest ruling came as lawmakers enacted a new law Thursday to largely restore the board to how it operated before 2016.

Cooper started the process of rebuilding the elections board Friday by informing the state Democratic and Republican parties that he plans to create an interim panel with five members of the current elections board, unless he receives different picks from the state parties. The interim board would last until the new law takes effect Jan. 31.

He said he would appoint both Democrats and Republicans to comply with pre-2016 state elections law he says is temporarily back in force.

“All of these members have election law experience and an awareness of the circumstances around the allegations involved in the Ninth Congressional District election,” Cooper said in his letter to state party heads.

But state GOP Chairman Robin Hayes said the dissolving board’s four GOP members “will not accept appointments to an unconstitutional, illegal sham Roy Cooper creation.” Republicans instead will withhold GOP nominees until the new law takes effect, he said.

The outgoing state board refused a last-minute formal request by Harris to certify him the winner.

The elections board reorganization threatens to delay the Jan. 11 hearing. Lawyers for Harris and McCready had a Monday deadline to submit requests to the elections board for people they wanted to have compelled to appear and testify at next month’s hearing. But if the current elections board is disbanded without a new one to replace it, the board chairman or vice chairman who could issue the requested subpoenas wouldn’t exist.

Last week, elections board chairman Josh Malcolm said in an affidavit to the three-judge panel that investigative staffers — who can continue working through any reorganization — had collected more than 182,000 pages of materials in response to 12 subpoenas.

Malcolm said Friday that the elections board issued “numerous additional subpoenas” before disbanding. In a letter to Harris’ attorney, Malcolm wrote that the GOP candidate had turned over only about 400 pages of subpoenaed documents and had yet to produce another 140,000 documents. Harris also had so far failed to arrange a requested interview with agency staffers, Malcolm said.

Harris’ campaign committee has pored through about 135,000 documents that needed review, the Republican’s attorney David Freedman said Friday. Harris “has cooperated and intends to continue cooperating with the investigation,” Freedman said.

If House Democrats refuse to seat Harris, it wouldn’t be the first time a chamber of Congress delayed or rejected seating a new member. In 2009, U.S. Senate leaders initially refused to seat Roland Burris as the replacement for President-elect Barack Obama’s Illinois seat. Burris had been named to succeed Obama by Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was eventually convicted on corruption charges for trying to sell the Senate appointment.
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Silicon Valley has enjoyed years of popularity and growing markets.

But 2018 has been rocky for the industry.

Data breaches, controversies over offensive speech and misinformation — as well as reports of foreign operatives’ use of their services — have left many people skeptical about the benefits of social media, experts say.

Worries about social media in Congress meant tech executives had to testify before committees several times this year.

“2018 has been a challenging year for tech companies and consumers alike,” said Pantas Sutardja, chief executive of LatticeWork Inc., a data storage firm. “Company CEOs being called to Congress for hearings and promising profusely to fix the problems of data breach but still cannot do it.”

 

WATCH: Social Media’s Year of Falling From Grace

An apology tour

Facebook drew the most scrutiny. The social networking giant endured criticism after revelations that its lax oversight allowed a political consulting firm to exploit millions of its users’ data.

In the spring, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, went on what was dubbed “an apology tour” to tell users that the company would do a better job of protecting their data.

The California firm faced other problems when data breaches at the site compromised user information. Other sharp criticism hit Facebook when false reports on its site sparked violence in places like Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

​Using social media to sow division

“Are America’s technology companies serving as instruments of freedom?” asked Kevin McCarthy, R-California and the House Majority Leader during a congressional hearing. “Or are they serving as instruments of manipulation used by powerful interests and foreign governments to rob the people of their power, agency, and dignity?”

Adding to concerns, the year saw new revelations of foreign operatives using social media to secretly spread divisive and often bogus messages in the U.S. and worldwide.

“It doesn’t matter to whose benefit they were operating,” said Walt Mossberg, a former tech columnist with the Wall Street Journal. “What bothers people here is that a foreign country, using our social networks, digital products and services that we have come to feel comfortable in … has come in and used that against us.”

​Tech workers stand up

In addition to data privacy and misinformation, online speech became a big issue this year. Under pressure, social media companies like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook’s Instagram tightened restrictions on the kinds of speech they tolerate on their sites.

Tech workers pressed managers about their company’s government contracts, and Google workers staged a worldwide walkout over the treatment of female colleagues.

The issue of user data has led some companies such as LatticeWork, a data storage firm, to create new ways for users to protect their data and themselves. Playing off people’s concerns about data, LatticeWorks markets its products as a way to “bring your data home.”

#DeleteFacebook?

What’s unclear however is whether concerns about personal data and tech company decisions will spur users to leave these services. Facebook revelations prompted some like Mossberg to give up Facebook and its other services such as Instagram. He wants federal law to limit U.S. internet firms collection and use of user data.

“Governments and citizens of countries around the world need the right to regulate them without closing down free speech,” he said. “And that’s tricky.”

Some congressional members have vowed to pass a federal data privacy bill in the coming year, something that tech firms say they support.

But whether new regulations build trust in digital services remains to be seen.
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A Guatemalan woman is coming clean about a secret she says kept her in a void for five years.

Victorina Morales said in a recent interview with The New York Times that she was employed by the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey as a housekeeper. Morales says she did so as an undocumented worker and gained employment using false documents.

Morales, 45, says she wasn’t the only person working there illegally and that a manager was aware of their status.

Her revelation, published Dec. 6, comes amid a debate over immigration and border security.

President Donald Trump has said he wants $5 billion to build a wall along the southern U.S. border and that a partial government shutdown will continue until he gets the money from Congress.

WATCH: Guatemalan Woman Discusses Working at Trump Property as Undocumented Worker

Tending to the Trump family

Amid the manicured green hills and the opulent Georgian manor of the New Jersey golf club, Morales tended to the housekeeping needs of members of the first family, including President Trump, his daughter Ivanka and first lady Melania Trump.

Her first day on the job was April 15, 2013, the day after her interview. From fellow housekeeper and confidante Sandra Diaz, a Costa Rican who at the time of her employment was undocumented, Morales picked up the ground rules: no perfume or makeup, special shoes to enter. Among the president’s pet peeves: dust and flies.

“I’ll come back when they’re gone,” Diaz recalled Trump saying once, disgusted by the flies in his clubhouse patio. Flies are common during New Jersey’s humid summer months.

“He gets red hot, angry,” Diaz added.

On the property grounds, Melania was strict, but courteous. Ivanka rarely said hello. But Donald Trump was, for the most part, thoughtful toward workers who met his expectations, the two women attest. He kept $100, $50 and $20 bills in his nightstand, according to Diaz, lining his pockets daily to tip those worthy of his praise, which included Morales and Diaz.

The problem was not the president, Morales thought, at least not initially.

“I just met a good blond man,” she told Diaz. “I would tell people, this man is so good. He gives us tips. He never looks down upon us.”

Abuse allegations

In 1999, Morales endured dehydration and hunger in the Texas desert, at one point covered in ants while lying flat to hide from “la migra,” U.S. Border Patrol officers. Fourteen years later, on Trump’s property for the first time, Morales looked to heaven.

“Beautiful God,” she said, “You have opened these doors for me.”

What Morales didn’t realize at the time was the length one supervisor would go to make her and other undocumented workers feel inferior.

The supervisor initially reassured her, “We take good papers and bad papers,” a contradiction of Trump’s insistence, three years later on the campaign trail, that his company “didn’t have one illegal immigrant on the job.”

The then-presidential candidate’s on-air comments baffled his employees. As foreign-born workers, they took offense to Trump’s 2015 attack on undocumented Mexican immigrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

“Is it that he’s crazy? Why this attitude toward us?” Morales said she wondered privately at her home in nearby Bound Brook, New Jersey.

“We began to speak amongst ourselves,” said Diaz, who had left the Trump property for another job. “But everyone stayed quiet, because everyone had their own interests.”

WATCH: Guatemalan Woman Talks About Her Treatment at Trump Property

According to Morales, it was then that her supervisor, emboldened by the president, became more aggressive. It was those actions that have led Morales and Diaz to consider a civil lawsuit against the Trump Organization, alleging workplace abuse and discrimination.

“She told us we were donkeys … that her dog understood more English than us,” Morales told VOA.

On multiple occasions, Morales alleges the supervisor shoved her while inside the laundry room, once nearly causing Morales to hit her forehead on the corner of a washing machine.

“Vicky called me, crying,” said Diaz, after one such incident. “[Her supervisor] told her that if she tried to leave the institution or complained about it … migration [immigration authorities] could show up at her door.”

VOA reached out to both the Trump Organization and the White House for comment, but multiple requests went unanswered.

“Supervisors felt that they had the protection of the commander-in-chief,” said attorney Anibal Romero, who is representing both Morales and Diaz. “This is something we see a lot today, where employers are using immigration as an excuse [to justify their actions].”

Morales decided she had had enough. Introduced through Diaz, Romero studied Morales’ case and asked if she was willing to go on record.

“Yes,” she told him. “I’m not afraid. I’ve lost my fear since I was little.”

Life of resilience

When she was 7 years old, Morales says she begged her father’s killer to stop, as the assailant kicked and stabbed him outside their home. She jumped on the man. The man slapped her and forced her head against the ground.

“Do what you want with me, but do not touch my daughter, please!” a tearful Morales recalled her father pleading with his killer.

Decades later, long after reuniting with her husband in the United States, Morales learned that her father-in-law had been hacked to death with a machete by killers who knew that family in the U.S. had sent him money, which he’d spent to buy a tractor.

When her eldest son and brother-in-law were threatened, Morales and her husband scrambled to bring them to the United States.

​Looking ahead

Through her lawyer, Morales recently applied for asylum for her and her family, an option she says she didn’t know existed before. The process is ongoing, but Morales has faith everything will work out.

She has not returned to the golf course and recently lost an off-the-books night job cleaning offices after The New York Times story revealed her undocumented status. Supported by her husband, who mows lawns during the day and holds a second job at night to afford their $1,800 monthly rent and living expenses, Morales said she has no regrets.

Morales removed her Facebook account before their story went public, as she and Diaz expected a swarm of disparaging comments from anonymous anti-immigrant readers. And they got them.

“She certainly knows how to milk the system,” said one Times reader from Fairfax, Virginia.

“They are here due to failed policies, poor border enforcement, and Democratic opposition to any action against illegal immigrants,” wrote another reader from Texas.

In the initial New York Times report by Miriam Jordan, Diaz and Morales claimed they were not the only undocumented workers on Trump’s property, and several more women have since come forward, according to attorney Romero. Although it’s hardly the strength in numbers Diaz and Morales hoped for, the two said they have no regrets.

“I cannot turn around, like many people do, and not give a hand to someone like Vicky, who needs to have her story heard,” Diaz said, defending her decision to come forward.

“This role we have taken on is to show that there are brave women,” Morales added.

​Willing to listen

There is a saying in Guatemala that Morales adopted when she was young: La sonrisa en la cara y el luto en el corazón. “A smile on the face and mourning in the heart.”

Morales is one of roughly 7.8 million undocumented immigrants ages 18 and older who work in the U.S., in many cases holding jobs that “people who have papers don’t want,” Diaz said.

“Not just anyone can handle the pressure, the speed, and the treatment,” she added.

“[Trump] has always used us,” she added, acknowledging there is no way of knowing whether the president or first lady ever knew of their undocumented status. Still, she maintains, “He used us to get to power.”

Morales said her faith in God has given her strength.

“I don’t speak for just myself, I speak for all my fellow immigrants,” Morales said. “Let’s stop hiding. There are people willing to listen.”
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President Donald Trump fleshed out his “America First” political doctrine in 2018 with policies aimed at shaking up institutions of the post-World War II world order. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine takes a look on how U.S. foreign policy is shifting under Trump.
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As the partial shutdown of the U.S. federal government stretched into its sixth day with no end in sight, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is offering advice on how to deal with an interrupted cash flow.

Nearly 800,000 federal employees have either been furloughed or will be working without pay and facing potential problems paying bills and meeting other expenses.

“Feds, here are sample letters you may use as a guide when working with your creditors during this furlough,” the agency said in a tweet Thursday, directing the reader to its website. 

OPM suggested workers call their landlord, mortgage company, or creditor to speak with them about their situation. It said the call should then be followed up with a letter and offered samples of how it should be worded.

“I am a Federal employee who has recently been furloughed due to a lack of funding of my agency. Because of this, my income has been severely cut and I am unable to pay the entire cost of my monthly payments, along with my other expenses,” reads one sample letter that OPM released.

The website made it clear that if furloughed workers need legal help, they are on their own. “If you need legal advice to assist you in any response to creditors, landlords or the like, consult with your personal attorney or contact your state or county bar association, many of which maintain lawyer referral services,” it said.

With most lawmakers away from Washington for the holidays, the shutdown will likely stretch into the new year.

President Donald Trump has vowed to keep the government closed until he gets $5 billion to fund his border wall.

According to the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents federal employees, about 420,000 federal employees are working without pay, while 380,000 others have been told to stay home.
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The U.S. government is all but assured to remain partially closed into the new year as neither house of Congress plans to conduct any business for the remainder of 2018.

With a lapse in federal funding nearing the one-week mark, a standoff remains between President Donald Trump, who is demanding Congress approve billions of dollars for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Democratic lawmakers, who back a modest increase in overall border security funding but resolutely oppose a wall.

On Thursday, the House and Senate gaveled in for sessions lasting only minutes, with no mention of the work stoppage or any possible resolution. Both are scheduled to hold pro forma sessions with no business conducted Dec. 31.

Tweeting earlier in the day, Trump asserted that “Border Patrol Agents want the wall” and touted a “Need to stop Drugs, Human Trafficking, Gang Members & Criminals from coming into our country.”

When asked Wednesday how long he thinks the shutdown will last, Trump told reporters, “Whatever it takes.”

He declined to comment on whether he might back away from the $5 billion wall funding demand.

‘Chaos’

Democrats, meanwhile, blamed Trump for “plunging the country into chaos” and noted that, weeks ago, Trump said he would be “proud” to “own” a shutdown over border wall funding.

In a joint statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and presumed incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said, “The president wanted the shutdown, but seems not to know how to get himself out of it.”

Any formula to fully fund the U.S. government will have to be approved by both houses of Congress and signed by Trump. Many lawmakers went home this week for the Christmas holiday and have no plans to return before early January.

Last week, the Senate unanimously approved a spending bill with no funds set aside to build a wall. The House declined to vote on it, instead passing its own spending bill with the wall funding Trump seeks. That bill is a non-starter for Senate Democrats, who can block such legislation.

Shift in House

Republicans currently control both houses of Congress and the White House, but in one week, Democrats will take over in the House while Republicans will add two seats to their current Senate advantage.

Once sworn in next week, the new House Democratic majority will be able to pass any spending bill it chooses. It remains to be seen, however, how Senate Republicans will react to a House bill that lacks wall funding.

The shutdown is affecting about 800,000 federal workers. About half of them are still going to work while the rest are furloughed. None will be paid until the shutdown is over.

In his morning prayer, Senate Chaplain Barry Black appeared to reference the funding standoff and request divine intervention.

“Stay close to our lawmakers,” the chaplain said.  “Deliver them from the mire of division and despair as you lead them to your desired destination.”
…

Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Thursday for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing early next year regarding the deaths of two children in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody. 

 

In a letter to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Feinstein, D-Calif., requested a hearing “on the care and treatment of children in the custody of Customs and Border Protection.” Graham is set to chair the committee in the new year.  

Feinstein, the highest-ranking member of her party on the committee, called the deaths of the two children “heartbreaking incidents” and said the Judiciary Committee was “uniquely situated to examine these issues.” 

Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security reported that Jakelin Caal Maquin, 7, from Guatemala had died hours after being taken into Border Patrol protection. This week, the agency said that a Guatemalan boy, Felipe Alonzo-Gomez, 8, had died late Christmas Eve in CPB custody. 

In the letter, Feinstein called on CBP to ensure that children are released from detention within 72 hours as required by law. She also demanded the agency account for the need to communicate with detainees in their native languages and develop standards of care in consultation with pediatricians and child welfare experts. 

 

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Wednesday said all children in Border Patrol custody had received medical screenings and that she had directed additional actions to care for those who enter U.S. custody. 

 

On Thursday, DHS announced that Nielsen would travel Friday to El Paso, Texas, and Saturday to Yuma, Ariz. 
…

Thursday is the sixth day of a partial U.S. government shutdown, and it is unlikely to be the day that brings a resolution in the standoff between President Donald Trump and Congress.

Trump has insisted on getting $5 billion in funding for a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, while Democrats have objected and instead said they would agree to $1.3 billion in other border security spending.

When asked Wednesday how long he thinks the shutdown will last, Trump told reporters, “Whatever it takes.”

“I mean, we’re going to have a wall. We’re going to have safety.”

He declined to comment about the prospect of backing away from his demand for $5 billion in wall funding and instead accepting the lower figure for border security.

Democratic leaders in Congress have blamed Trump for “plunging the country into chaos.”

“The president wanted the shutdown, but seems not to know how to get himself out of it,” Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a joint statement.”

Whatever the solution the two sides eventually find to fund about one-quarter of the government it will have to be approved by both houses of Congress and signed by Trump.

​No votes Thursday

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives told members not to expect any votes Thursday, and that they would be given 24 hours’ notice before any votes take place. Many lawmakers went home this week for the Christmas holiday.

In the Senate, the chamber’s calendar says it will reconvene Thursday for discussion of the spending issue, but how many members will be present remains to be seen.

Perhaps further complicating the ongoing discussions is that currently Republicans hold majorities in both the House and Senate, but in one week Democrats will take over in the House while Republicans will add a few seats to their Senate advantage.

​800,000 workers affected

The shutdown is affecting about 800,000 federal workers. About half of them are going to work but will not be paid until the shutdown is over. The rest are at home waiting to find out if Congress will follow what it has done in the past and approve pay for them as well.

Trump said Monday he has the backing of federal workers and that they want him to stick to his demand for the wall funding.

The American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of U.S. federal workers, rejected that statement Wednesday.

“They are eager to get back to work. They unequivocally oppose using shutdowns as a means of resolving policy disputes,” AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. said. “This is not about a wall, this is about 800,000 real people with real families and real bills to pay.”

AFGE membership includes some Voice of America employees.

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett said the shutdown is merely a temporary problem for affected federal employees.

“They might miss a pay period because the government shut down,” Hassett told reporters Wednesday. “But in the end, even if they aren’t working, then Congress has decided to pay people for the whole time. So in the end, it’s really just a sort of short-term problem not a long-term problem for government workers.”
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The current lapse in funding for portions of the U.S. government could be a harbinger of congressional gridlock and dysfunction next year, when Democrats will control the House of Representatives while Republicans continue their control of the Senate.

With a partial federal shutdown nearing the one-week mark, a spending package has yet to emerge that could pass both houses of Congress and receive President Donald Trump’s signature. Funding for wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border remains a sticking point.

The standoff comes during the waning days of unified Republican control of the elective branches of government. Congress will see divided political control beginning Jan. 3, when the new Democratic majority in the House is sworn in.

“The incentive for either party to cooperate across the aisle [bipartisanship] will be a little bit lower because both parties will be looking increasingly to blame the other side for not getting things done,” said political analyst Molly Reynolds of the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

Reynolds added that there are “some possible prospects for bipartisanship on things like [improving America’s] infrastructure or [reducing the price of] prescription drugs, but by and large we’ll see relatively little legislative progress in 2019.”

The year 2010 saw the mirror image of the 2018 midterm election results. In 2010, Republicans won control of the House of Representatives and used it as a check on then-president Barack Obama, a Democrat, as well as what was then a Democratically led Senate. Legislative gridlock and a series of partial U.S. government shutdowns ensued beginning in 2011.

“Just as in 2011 and 2012, [in 2019] we’re going to see almost no progress on the major issues facing the country, with one possible exception, infrastructure, where the interests of House Democrats and the president may come together,” American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Norman Ornstein said.

‘A judge factory’

Beginning in January, Democrats will be able to use their House majority to block any legislation to which they object. But in one critical area, judicial nominees, Republicans will have a stronger hand to confirm Trump’s picks for lifetime appointments to the federal bench and make the judiciary far more ideologically conservative for years, perhaps decades, to come.

Republicans will hold 53 of 100 Senate seats, up from the 51 they currently control.

“While most things the Senate does need to get 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, nominations only need 51 votes,” Reynolds explained.

“The Senate has become a judge factory,” Ornstein said. “[Republican Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell is bringing up a substantial number of judges. With 53 [Republican senators], you can withstand one, two or even three defections [Republican ‘no’ votes], and still get it done. So for McConnell, this is a substantial amount of breathing room.”

Oversight, investigations

House Democrats, meanwhile, have signaled their intention to scrutinize and investigate the Trump White House and the administration as a whole.

“I expect Democrats to spend most of their time on oversight and engaging in a wide range of investigations, some of which will target President Trump personally as well as the conduct of the executive branch over the last two years,” Reynolds said.

The November 2020 presidential election could increasingly set the parameters of what a divided Congress can tackle as 2019 progresses. Some things, like an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws, could be out of reach.

“We’re about to enter the 2020 presidential campaign [cycle], and that will affect how Congress spends its time, what issues it’s active on. I don’t want to dismiss the possibility of immigration reform in the next two years outright, but I do think it will be an uphill battle for Congress,” Reynolds said.

“We have a divided country, we’ll have divided government,” John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center said. “There are a few opportunities [for bipartisanship]. The trick in divided government is not to think that we’re going to do everything together, but to find some discreet larger initiatives that both sides might find some interest in.”

Changes in party control of one or both houses of Congress occurred in 2007, 2011 and 2015, and will occur again in 2019. Throughout it all, Congress has suffered low approval ratings from the American people, a situation that is unlikely to improve anytime soon.

“We’re going to have sharper partisan edges in the body, a lot of partisan and ideological combat, tribal combat, in the coming years,” Ornstein said. “It’s hard for me to imagine that Americans are going to feel better about things.”

Reynolds agreed. “Gridlock is likely to keep most Americans not terribly happy with how Washington works,” she said.
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President Donald Trump made an unannounced trip to Iraq Wednesday to visit U.S. troops stationed there.

Trump and first lady Melania Trump landed at al-Asad air base in western Iraq at 7:16 p.m. local time.

They left Washington late Christmas night, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a tweet Wednesday afternoon.

This is Trump’s first visit to a conflict zone as president. The trip was undertaken in near secrecy.

Syria withdrawal

In speaking to the troops, Trump defended his decision to withdraw from Syria, saying that Islamic State (IS) is “very nearly defeated” and the caliphate is gone.

“I made it clear from the beginning that our mission in Syria was to strip ISIS of its military strongholds,” Trump said, using an acronym for the militant group.

“Eight years ago, we went there for three months and we never left,” he said, adding the U.S presence in Syria was never meant to be “open-ended.”

Trump said Turkey has agreed to eliminate any IS “remnants” in the region.

“The nations of the region must step up and take more responsibility for their future,” Trump said, adding there would be an “orderly withdrawal” of the roughly 2,000 U.S. forces in Syria.

​Greeting the troops

The president and first lady greeted troops in a dining hall, taking photos and signing autographs as part of the visit. They left three hours later.

On the return to Washington, Air Force One stopped briefly at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, where Trump met with several U.S. Air Force leaders, and he and the first lady took photos with U.S. service members there.

Trump did not meet with any Iraqi officials during his short visit to the country, but he did speak on the phone with Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi.

Trump’s visit to Iraq came a day after he held a video conference from the Oval Office with military members around the globe. After the call, he was criticized by some media outlets that reported he is first president since 2002 to not visit U.S. troops at Christmastime.

 

WATCH: Trump Visits US Troops in Iraq on Unannounced Trip

Presidential visits

Visiting U.S. troops in conflict zones is a tradition embraced by U.S. presidents because it is seen as a morale-booster for troops.

President George W. Bush visited U.S. troops stationed overseas eight times during his presidency, including serving a Thanksgiving meal to soldiers in Baghdad in 2003. President Barak Obama visited troops in Baghdad in April 2009, four months after he took office. He also visited troops in Afghanistan and South Korea.

The Pentagon said there are about 5,200 U.S. forces in Iraq.

In Washington, a partial shutdown has closed a quarter of the U.S. government after Congress failed to fund Trump’s proposed wall on the southern border with Mexico.

Last week, Trump made the controversial move of announcing plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. He also is considering withdrawing roughly half of the more than 14,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan, beginning next month.

Trump’s senior advisers and military officials have warned the move will plunge the region further into chaos.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and the special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, Brett McGurk, have both resigned, at least in part in disagreement over policy in Syria and Afghanistan.
…

The partial shutdown of the U.S. government entered its fifth day Wednesday, with no public indication a resolution is imminent.

President Donald Trump spoke about the shutdown Tuesday, asserting that it will continue until his demand for funds to construct a U.S.-Mexico border wall are met.

“I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open. I can tell you it’s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it,” Trump said in the Oval Office after a video conference with U.S. troops, who are stationed overseas.

Trump claimed the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are furloughed due to the shutdown also want the wall, despite a lack of evidence supporting the contention.

On Monday, Trump asserted Democrats “must end” the standoff while Democratic leaders in Congress blamed Trump for “plunging the country into chaos.”

“The president wanted the shutdown, but seems not to know how to get himself out of it,” Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a joint statement. ”

While government agencies dealing with national security and public safety remain open, other offices are closed and 800,000 federal workers are on furlough. Those who are considered to be essential employees are reporting for duty, but will not get a paycheck for that work until the shutdown is over.

Trump has demanded $5 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for other border security measures.

The president canceled his Christmas vacation to his Florida resort because of the impasse with Congress.

“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” he tweeted Monday. “At some point, the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy.”

 
…

The year 2018 proved to be one of change in U.S. politics.  Opposition Democrats won back control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, and that could have a profound impact on the next two years of Donald Trump’s presidency.

A preview of what the year ahead could look like came in the December 11 Oval Office meeting between President Trump and Democratic congressional leaders Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer.

The verbal jousting over the president’s demand for a border wall with Mexico is likely the first of many partisan showdowns ahead given that Democrats will hold the majority in the House beginning in early January.

“Democrats will certainly use their majority to highlight some differences with Donald Trump and to investigate the Trump administration,” said John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a recent guest on VOA’s “Encounter” program. “And then we will be spending this year leading into the presidential election of 2020, so it is a transition year.”

Investigations ahead

 

Democrats fueled their midterm victory with opposition to President Donald Trump spurred by a strong turnout from women and progressive voters on behalf of candidates like Massachusetts Democrat Ayanna Pressley.

“We have affirmed that while this could go down as the darkest time in our history, we will not let it be. And instead, we will be defined by our hopes, not our fears,” Pressley told supporters on election night.

Democrats picked up 40 House seats but Republicans bolstered their majority in the Senate and will hold a 53-to-47-seat edge in January.

Even though Trump now faces the prospect of a stalled legislative agenda and numerous oversight investigations launched by House Democrats, he remains defiant.

“Almost from the time I announced I was going to run, they have been giving us this investigation fatigue. It has been a long time,” the president told a White House news conference shortly after the election. “They have got nothing. Zero. You know why? Because there is nothing. But they can play that game but we can play it better.”

Deal or no deal?

But Democratic control of the House will force the president to adjust to a new political reality, according to University of Virginia expert Larry Sabato.

“Trump has faced relatively few problems in dealing with Congress [in his first two years] at least compared to other presidents who were dealing with one or both branches being controlled by the opposition party,” Sabato told Associated Press Television.

Trump can boast of his tax cut passed by a Republican Congress and his two Supreme Court appointments approved by the Republican-controlled Senate.

But next year, without full Republican control of Congress, and with an eye on an approaching re-election campaign, Trump could be more interested in cutting some deals with Democrats.

Jim Kessler is with the center-left policy group Third Way.

“At this point we have not seen Donald Trump really have the ability to work with Democrats to cut any sort of deal in the first two years,” Kessler told VOA. “So, Mr. ‘Art of the Deal’ has really fallen short and we will see if that is possible this time.”

Russia probe looms

Also looming on the horizon for the Trump White House in 2019, though, is the Russia investigation, which could move toward a conclusion in the coming months.

“This is a watershed year coming up for President Trump,” said Tom DeFrank of the National Journal, who has covered Washington politics for 40 years. “I mean, he [Trump] is going to have to confront whatever it is that Robert Mueller says about him or alleges, and I think it is going to be a difficult year for him.”

Trump will be increasingly focused on the next presidential election, but so will scores of Democrats who hope to defeat him in 2020, said University of Virginia analyst Guian McKee.

“You know, I think the reality is that the 2020 campaign has begun. That is probably unfortunate, but that shapes everything going forward,” said McKee.

Given the political reset between Congress and the White House and the uncertainty of what the Russia investigation will find, what happens in 2019 could go a long way to determining whether Donald Trump is a one-term or two-term president.
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The year 2018 proved to be one of change in U.S. politics. Opposition Democrats won back control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, and that could have a profound impact on the next two years of Donald Trump’s presidency. VOA National Correspondent Jim Malone has more from Washington.
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The partial shutdown of the U.S. government has moved no closer to a resolution, with President Donald Trump asserting on Tuesday the shutdown will continue until his demand for funds to construct a U.S.-Mexico border wall are met.

“I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open. I can tell you it’s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they’d like to call it,” Trump said in the Oval Office after a video conference with U.S. troops, who are stationed overseas.

Trump claimed the hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are furloughed due to the shutdown also want the wall, despite a lack of evidence supporting the contention.

On Monday, Trump asserted Democrats “must end” the standoff while Democratic leaders in Congress blamed Trump for “plunging the country into chaos.”

The two sides traded their accusations ahead of Christmas, the fourth day in which parts of the government are closed because Congress and Trump have not been able to agree on necessary spending legislation.

While government agencies dealing with national security and public safety remain open, other offices are closed and 800,000 federal workers are on furlough. Those who are considered to be essential employees are reporting for duty, but will not get a paycheck for that work until the shutdown is over.

“The president wanted the shutdown, but seems not to know how to get himself out of it,” Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a joint statement.

“The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war on the Federal Reserve after he just fired the secretary of defense,” they said.

Trump has demanded $5 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats have offered $1.3 billion for other border security measures. 

The president canceled his Christmas vacation to his Florida resort because of the impasse with Congress.

“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” he tweeted Monday. “At some point, the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy.”

Another Trump tweet claimed “virtually every Democrat” strongly supported a “Border Wall or Fence” but turned against the idea after he made it an important part of his campaign for president.

Most Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have rallied around Trump’s demand.

“One would think that securing our homeland, controlling our borders and protecting the American people, would be bipartisan priorities…a core duty of any nation’s government,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.

In the past, Democrats have been open to approving additional border security funding, including money for a wall, as part of a larger deal on immigration reform.

Earlier this year, Democrats were willing to support wall funding in return for protections for so-called “Dreamers” — immigrants brought to America illegally as children – a deal Trump initially hailed but later abandoned. 

Democrats say Trump was willing to sign a deal to keep the government operating without the full $5 billion, but backed out after those Schumer calls and “right-wing radio and TV talk show hosts” complained.

“Different people from the same White House are saying different things about what the president would accept or not accept…making it impossible to know where they stand at any given moment,” Schumer and Pelosi said.

What is certain, though, is the government will remain closed at least through Thursday and, according to acting Chief of Staff Nick Mulvaney, quite possibly into 2019.
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As the first two years of President Donald Trump’s administration close, Republican allies still haven’t figured out how best to influence a leader who takes cues from the forces that swept him to office and seems to fear losing them above all else.

Republicans on Capitol Hill and even the president’s closest advisers have been whipsawed over a series of recent actions that show how intently Trump relies on what is sometimes called his gut — an adherence to campaign promises he made that are being reinforced by a constellation of election gurus, Fox News personalities and others who hold sway like few others.

 

“I know he can be a handful, but he is the president,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told The Associated Press.

 

On the domestic front, no sooner had Trump signaled he might be backing off his demand for $5 billion to build a border wall with Mexico — easing away from a partial government shutdown — than he took a U-turn after being scolded by conservative allies and pundits, who accused him of wavering on a campaign promise. Now, three days into the shutdown, his budget chief says it could drag into the New Year.

 

On issues abroad, Trump acted against the advice of his national security advisers and issued a surprise decision to pull troops from Syria. That prompted Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to step down and Trump’s special envoy to the coalition fighting Islamic State militants, Brett McGurk, to resign. A drawdown of troops in Afghanistan also appeared to be in the works.

 

As the stock market tumbled on Christmas Eve, Trump lashed out at the Federal Reserve sowing more uncertainty over his public criticism of chairman Jerome Powell.

 

Now, as Republicans prepare to relinquish their hold on government, with Democrats taking control of the House in January, the opportunities — and limits — of the GOP alliance with the Trump White House may be running their course.

 

“I am all alone [poor me] in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal,” the president tweeted.

 

Over and again, Trump has shown himself to be more of a tactical, than strategic, thinker, acting to avoid short-term pain rather than seeking long-term gain.

When Congress was about to keep the government running without a fight over border wall money, Trump felt the outcry from his base and intervened.

 

Trump told House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican leaders at the White House he wouldn’t sign a Senate-passed compromise bill, which would have kept border security money at $1.3 billion, not the $5 billion he wanted for the wall with Mexico.

 

The House and Senate gaveled in for a brief Christmas Eve session Monday only to close up quickly for the holidays.

 

“Trump is plunging the country into chaos,” the Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement. “Instead of bringing certainty into people’s lives, he’s continuing the Trump Shutdown just to please right-wing radio and TV hosts.”

 

Trump’s sudden moves on Syria left top Republicans on Capitol Hill criticizing his decision to pull out all of the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., signed on to a letter with other GOP senators urging Trump to reconsider.

 

Graham used a weekend luncheon with conservative lawmakers at the White House to impress on the president the rightness of his instinct on both the border wall and the troop withdrawal in Syria, while also sharing with Trump some ideas for smoothing the policy around both issues.

 

“I told the president, I’m not arguing with your general philosophy,” Graham said. “He’s a good listener.”

 

Graham reminded Trump that while shoring up the border wall is important, “a Southern wall isn’t going to protect you against ISIS.”

 

It’s unclear if Trump was listening. The Pentagon said Monday that Mattis has already signed the order to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria.

 

And Mattis, who was also unhappy with Trump’s order to develop plans to pull out half of the 14,000 troops in Afghanistan, was being pushed out two months early. Irritated by a surge of criticism over his decision, Trump said Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan will take over as acting secretary on Jan. 1.

 

Trump’s allies chock up the president’s year-end moves to a wager that the intense support from his base of voters will continue to propel his electoral chances in 2020 — even if polling suggests otherwise.

 

An analysis of VoteCast, a nationwide poll of more than 115,000 midterm voters conducted for The Associated Press by NORC at the University of Chicago, highlights the fractures.

 

A small, but significant slice of voters — the 18 percent who described themselves as only “somewhat” approving of the president — expressed concerns.

 

Compared with the 27 percent of voters who describe themselves as strong Trump supporters, the “somewhat” Trump voters are much more likely to disapprove of Trump on key issues and have reservations about his personality.

 

In a warning signs for Republicans, who just lost their House majority in the November election, those voters are more likely to have voted for Democrats in 2018. They are more educated, somewhat more likely to be women, and more likely to live in suburbs.

 

The president has been busy on the phone to allies on Capitol Hill, talking late into the night with some.

 

Trump seemed “exuberant” at the luncheon, said one Republican, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who was the only member of the GOP leadership to attend.

 

Ryan, who is retiring, and McConnell have become almost side actors to the year-end shutdown they both tried to avoid, but now will partly own. Both offices said it was up to Trump and Democrats to cut a deal.

 

Shelby said that at lunch Trump did seem like he wanted to reach a deal. At the same time, it’s not always clear whether any of the hours of conversation result in decisions that drift too far from Trump’s own instinct to stay close to his base.

 

“I don’t think it’s imminent we’re going to reach a deal,” Shelby said. “I wish we could.”

 
…

2018 has been dubbed “The Year of the Woman,” after a record number of women were electetd to national, state and local legislatures across the United States. The diverse group includes several first-timers who took the leap into politics in response to the Trump administration’s policies. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni reports.
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The two Congressional Democratic leaders are blaming President Donald Trump for “plunging the country into chaos” on Christmas Eve – when, according to the carol, all is supposed to be “calm and bright.”

“The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war on the Federal Reserve after he just fired the secretary of defense,” Senator Chuck Schumer and incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday.

“The president wanted the shutdown, but seems not to know how to get himself out of it,” they wrote in a joint statement.

Schumer and Pelosi were referring to the partial federal government shutdown which enters its fourth day on Christmas, with no clear end in sight.

Trump is demanding $5 billion for a wall along the U.S. – Mexican border. Democrats say no way and have offered $1.3 billion for what they call border security.

The president canceled his Christmas vacation to his Florida resort because of the impasse with Congress.

“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” he tweeted Monday. “At some point, the Democrats not wanting to make a deal will cost our Country more than the Border Wall we are all talking about. Crazy.”

Another Trump tweet claimed “virtually every Democrat” strongly supported a “Border Wall or Fence” but turned against the idea after he made it an important part of his campaign for president.

Most Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have rallied around Trump’s demand.

“One would think that securing our homeland, controlling our borders and protecting the American people, would be bipartisan priorities…a core duty of any nation’s government,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said  of Kentucky has said.

In the past, Democrats have been flexible on additional border security funding, including money for a wall, as part of a larger deal on thorny immigration issues.

Earlier this year, Democrats were willing to support wall funding in return for protections for so-called “Dreamers” – illegal immigrants brought to America as children  a deal Trump initially hailed but later abandoned.

Democrats say saying Trump was willing to sign a deal to keep the government operating without the full $5 billion, but backed out after those Schumer calls “right-wing radio and TV talk show hosts” complained.

“Different people from the same White House are saying different things about what the president would accept or not accept…making it impossible to know where they stand at any given moment,” Schumer and Pelosi said.

What is certain, though, is the government will remain closed at least through Thursday and, according to acting Chief of Staff Nick Mulvaney, into 2019.

While government agencies dealing with national security and public safety remain open, other offices are closed and 800,000 federal workers are on furlough. Those who are considered to be essential employees are reporting for duty, but are working for no pay.

Congress has always approved back pay for all federal workers after past shutdowns.
…

U.S. stock markets fell sharply on Monday with the S&P 500 down more than two percent and the Dow off nearly three percent.

President Donald Trump is blaming the Federal Reserve (central bank) for stock market declines and other economic problems.

In tweets, Trump has said the only U.S. economic problem is rising interest rates. He accused Fed chief Jerome Powell of not understanding the market and damaging the economy with rate hikes.

The Fed slashed the key interest rate nearly to zero to boost growth during the recession that started in 2007. The central bank kept rates low for several years.

Eventually, growth recovered, and unemployment dropped to its lowest level in 49 years, and Fed officials judged that the emergency stimulus was no longer needed. Fed leaders voted to reduce the stimulus by raising interest rates gradually. The concern was that too much stimulus could spark inflation. Experts say such a sharp increase in prices could prompt a damaging cycle of price increases leading to rising wage demands, which would spark another round of price hikes.

Analysts quoted in the financial press say Trump’s attacks on the Fed make investors worry that the central bank might lose the independence that allows it to make decisions based on economic factors rather than what is politically popular.

Some economists say investor confidence has also been shaken by Trump’s tariffs on major trading partners. Raising trade costs can reduce trade and cutting trade cuts demand for goods and services, which slows economic growth.

Investor confidence, or a lack of it, can cause stock and other markets to decline as worried stock holders sell shares and prospective investors stop buying available stocks. When buyer demand drops, prices fall.

Another factor hurting investor confidence is the political impasse in Washington over money for Trump’s border wall with Mexico. The bickering means Trump and congress can not agree on spending priorities, so legislation paying some government employees has lapsed.

In an effort to calm turbulent markets, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin spoke with leaders of top U.S. banks in an unusual session Sunday. He says they have the money they need for routine operations.
…

As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recovers from recent surgery for early stage lung cancer, two new films are paying tribute to her life and accomplishments.

The documentary “RBG”, by filmmakers Julie Cohen and Betsy West, chronicles the justice’s lifelong legal battles for gender equality, her appointment to the Supreme Court by an overwhelming vote of 96 to 3 in 1993 and her rise as a pop culture icon in America. The feature “On the Basis of Sex”, by Mimi Leder, another female filmmaker, offers a dramatized portrayal of the beginnings of Justice Ginsburg’s illustrious career and her fight for women’s rights, through the lens of her personal life.

Leder’s film follows Justice Ginsburg’s challenges in a man’s world, starting with her first year as a Harvard law student in 1954. She was one of nine female students among more than 500 men, a situation that did not please the school’s dean, played by Sam Waterston. The film shows the character demanding to know why they are occupying seats that could otherwise have gone to young men.

 

“On the Basis of Sex” also looks into Ginsburg’s life as a wife and mother. At some point she was supporting her convalescent husband, who had suffered testicular cancer, by attending both her classes and his.

Daniel Stiepleman, the film’s screenwriter, is Justice Ginsburg’s nephew. He told VOA that apart from her legal acumen and advocacy for women’s rights, he wanted to share his first-hand experience of Ginsburg’s equal partnership with her husband, renowned  tax law attorney Martin Ginsburg.

“My wife and I have always looked up to Aunt Ruth and Uncle Marty as our role models for what a marriage is supposed to be like,” he explained. “They shared the load raising their kids, getting food on the table, and taking care of the house, and we knew that that’s how we wanted to be as well. And so, for me, this was an opportunity to share our good fortune to have them as role models with the rest of the country, the rest of the world.”

Actor Armie Hammer interprets Martin Ginsburg. Hammer says he felt privileged to learn about the man’s character from Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself. “We were very lucky to have time with Justice Ginsburg in her private chambers in the Supreme Court. She invited us in and she was very generous with her time. More than actually answering any of my questions, I learned everything I needed to know about the relationship, [because] the minute his name came up she started smiling. And I could feel that love was very much alive.”

Hammer predicts the film will inspire audiences, especially women during the #MeToo era. “I think it is great for women to see a movie about a woman who changed the world without needing superpowers.”

Ginsburg herself is portrayed by Felicity Jones. It was a role she found, to say the least, challenging. She told VOA, “It was nerve wracking! You don’t enter into that lightly so it was about becoming her in every single way and doing justice to her story.” She also says that though the events surrounding Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life have been dramatized for the sake of entertainment, they speak truth to power. “It is so important that it does entertain but at the same time, it’s about getting a message into this world and about saying,‘Look what men and women can achieve when they work together, when they have absolute equality.'”

RBG chronicles Justice Ginsburg’s life from her birth to an immigrant Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, to her rise as a pop culture icon known as “Notorious R.B.G.” Since 2013, when the majority of the Supreme Court justices were conservative, Justice Ginsburg became the most vocal dissenting liberal voice on the court. At that time, New York University law student Shana Knizhnik created a blog about Ginsburg’s fiery dissenting opinions against decisions by the majority conservative justices. She coined the term, “Notorious R.B.G.,” echoing the moniker of a well-known rapper — also from Brooklyn — The Notorious B.I.G. 

Knizhnik’s blog and follow-up best-selling book re-introduced the octogenarian’s pivotal role in the fight for gender equality and women’s rights for more than half a century, and established her as the bulwark of liberalism in the high court. Every time Knizhnik would write about another of Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinions, “the web would explode,” comments a young woman in the documentary.

Media strategist Frank Chi created an online graphic of the justice in her Supreme Court robe and white collar and a crown like the one worn by The Notorious B.I.G. The image caught on: tattoos, t-shirts and mugs would carry his design, and images created by others. Chocolatier Sue Cassidy says her company, Choukette, includes a portrait of Ginsburg on chocolate, as part of its Phenomenal Women line. “She has her own box, and we can’t keep them in stock. They are just selling like crazy.”

“I am 84 years old and everybody wants to take a picture with me,” says a mischievous Justice Ginsburg. She has been hailed as a pioneer for gender equality, a tenacious Supreme Court justice, determined to work as long as she can make a difference on the bench. 

In 2011, a year after the death of her husband, Justice Ginsburg spoke with VOA’s Julie Taboh about her legacy. “I hope that I will be remembered as someone who loves the law, loves her country, loved humanity, prizes the dignity of every individual, and works as hard as she can, with whatever talent she has to make the world a little better than it was when I entered it,” she said.

Justice Ginsburg has spoken highly of both films depicting her life. Filmmaker Leder says the justice offered advice for On the Basis of Sex and fact-checked it. “She saw the film and she gave me a hug and a kiss, and that alone was incredible. I feel that women will be inspired not just in this country, but all over the world by the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which is her fight for equality, inclusion, her fight against injustice.”

 
…

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is up and working as she recuperates from cancer surgery.

A spokeswoman for the court, Kathy Arberg, also says that Ginsburg remained in New York at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on Sunday. No information has been released on when Ginsburg might return home.

Ginsburg underwent surgery Friday to remove two malignant growths in her left lung. Doctors say there is no evidence of any remaining disease.

Now 85, the justice has been treated for cancer two other times. Last month she cracked three ribs in a fall at the court.

The court next meets on Jan. 7. Despite her health problems, Ginsburg has never missed arguments.
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The U.S. government is partially closed until at least Thursday – and possibly for days or even weeks beyond. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, President Donald Trump last week rejected a stopgap spending bill that did not include funds for building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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The U.S. government is partially closed until at least Thursday, and possibly for days or even weeks beyond, as President Donald Trump holds firm in demanding funds for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and Democrats remain resolutely opposed.

“The most important way to stop gangs, drugs, human trafficking and massive crime is at our Southern Border,” Trump tweeted late Sunday. “We need Border Security, and as EVERYONE knows, you can’t have Border Security without a Wall.”

“At midnight, President Trump decided to shut down the government over his demand for a medieval border wall,” the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, tweeted Saturday, the first day of the shutdown. “This is senseless and cruel.”

This marks the fourth time in the last five years that Congress and the White House have been unable to agree on how much money the federal government should spend and for which objectives, failing to meet a funding deadline that causes non-essential services and operations to be halted.

Last Wednesday, a shutdown seemed unlikely as the Republican-led Senate unanimously passed a temporary funding bill. The White House originally signaled support for the bill, which boosted overall border security funding but did not set aside funds for a wall. But Trump ultimately rejected it, demanding $5.7 billion for wall construction.

“Our great country must have border security … with a wall or a slat-fence or whatever you want to call it,” the president said in a video message Friday.

The Republican-led House of Representatives has approved a spending bill with wall funding, but the measure does not have enough votes to pass the Senate, where Democrats have lined up in fierce opposition.

‘Abandon the wall’

“It will never pass the Senate. Not today, not next week, not next year,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said. “So Mr. President, President Trump: If you want to open the government, you must abandon the wall. Plain and simple.”

Most Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have rallied around Trump’s demand.

“One would think that securing our homeland, controlling our borders and protecting the American people, would be bipartisan priorities … a core duty of any nation’s government,” Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.

McConnell adjourned the chamber on Saturday, with no votes expected until Thursday, December 27 at the earliest.

In the past, Democrats have been flexible on additional border security funding, including for a wall, as part of a larger deal on thorny immigration issues.

Earlier this year, Democrats were willing to support wall funding in return for protections for undocumented immigrants brought to America as children  a deal Trump initially hailed but later abandoned.

In 2013, the Senate passed bipartisan legislation to dramatically boost border security funding as part of a comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration laws. But that bill died when the Republican-led House refused to consider it.

Now Trump is demanding wall funding while so far offering nothing Democrats want in return. On Sunday, White House officials hinted that could change.

“The president has made it very clear, however, that he is willing to discuss a larger immigration solution,” incoming acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said on ABC’s This Week program.

Mulvaney also suggested in a separate interview on Fox News Sunday that the Trump administration had stepped back from it’s demand for $5.7 billion in wall funding, saying it offered a compromise somewhere between that figure and $1.3 billion in border security funding offered by Democrats.

Campaign promise

Throughout the 2016 campaign, then-candidate Trump repeatedly pledged that Mexico would pay for a border wall. Now, the White House says Mexico is contributing, indirectly, as a result of economic benefits to America stemming from a renegotiated free trade accord between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Democrats have repeatedly reminded Trump of his promise.

“We arrived at this moment because President Trump has been on a destructive two-week temper tantrum demanding the American taxpayer pony up for an expensive and ineffective border wall that the president promised Mexico would pay for,” Schumer said.
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The U.S. federal government entered the second day of its partial shutdown Sunday.

The move affects a quarter of the government, encompassing more than 800,000 federal employees, more than half of whom will continue to work without pay.

It will be after Christmas before Congress and President Donald Trump agree to a resolution to their funding impasse because Monday and Tuesday are federal holidays and the U.S. Senate is not scheduled to meet again until Thursday.

​Sticking point: border wall

The sticking point is money for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. The president wants Congress to allocate $5.7 billion toward a southern border wall. Trump promised during his successful presidential campaign in 2016 that Mexico would pay for the wall.

Congress had refused the president’s request for a down payment on the $20 billion wall the U.S. leader says will thwart illegal immigration.

Mexico says it will never pay for the wall’s construction.

Trump is hunkering down in the White House during the impasse and tweeted Saturday, “I am in the White House, working hard.” 

He canceled his Florida holiday vacation. First Lady Melania Trump already had traveled to Mar-a-Lago with their son, Baron, for the holiday, but the two plan to return to the White House for Christmas.

Shortly before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the Senate would adjourn until Thursday, reporters said Vice President Mike Pence had arrived at the Capitol to speak with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

McConnell said the Senate would meet in a “pro forma” session Monday, but those sessions are brief, sometimes lasting just minutes.

Earlier Saturday, Trump discussed border security with Republican lawmakers and senior aides at the White House to discuss a spending bill that would include money for his proposed wall.

During a conference call Saturday with reporters, a senior administration official was asked why Democrats were not present at the White House meeting when Trump has repeatedly said they are responsible for the shutdown.

“It’s important that Senate Democrats come to the table and begin to negotiate with us. Conversations last night did occur. We hope those continue this day, tomorrow and into the future. But it is important for them to acknowledge that border security, physical barriers need to be part of this package,” the official said.

McConnell said any agreement would first need to be approved by the president and congressional leaders before it would come to a vote.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi issued a joint statement Saturday saying, “Democrats have offered Republicans multiple proposals to keep the government open, including one that already passed the Senate unanimously, and all of which include funding for strong, sensible, and effective border security — not the president’s ineffective and expensive wall. If President Trump and Republicans choose to continue this Trump Shutdown, the new House Democratic majority will swiftly pass legislation to re-open government in January.”

VOA White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State group, has resigned in protest over President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, a U.S. official said, joining Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in an administration exodus of experienced national security figures.

Only 11 days ago, McGurk had said it would be “reckless” to consider IS defeated and therefore would be unwise to bring American forces home. McGurk decided to speed up his original plan to leave his post in mid-February.

Appointed to the post by President Barack Obama in 2015 and retained by Trump, McGurk said in his resignation letter that the militants were on the run, but not yet defeated, and that the premature pullout of American forces from Syria would create the conditions that gave rise to IS. He also cited gains in accelerating the campaign against IS, but that the work was not yet done.

His letter, submitted Friday to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, was described to The Associated Press on Saturday by an official familiar with its contents. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter before the letter was released and spoke on condition of anonymity.

In a tweet shortly after news of McGurk’s resignation broke, Trump again defended his decision to pull all of the roughly 2,000 U.S. forces from Syria in the coming weeks.

“We were originally going to be there for three months, and that was seven years ago – we never left,” Trump tweeted. “When I became President, ISIS was going wild. Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!”

Although the civil war in Syria has gone on since 2011, the U.S. did not begin launching airstrikes against IS until September 2014, and American troops did not go into Syria until 2015.

McGurk, whose resignation is effective Dec. 31, was planning to leave the job in mid-February after a U.S.-hosted meeting of foreign ministers from the coalition countries, but he felt he could continue no longer after Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria and Mattis’ resignation, according to the official.

Trump declaration of a victory over IS has been roundly contradicted by his own experts’ assessments, and his decision to pull troops out was widely denounced by members of Congress, who called his action rash and dangerous.

Mattis, perhaps the most respected foreign policy official in the administration, announced on Thursday that he will leave by the end of February. He told Trump in a letter that he was departing because “you have a right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours.”

Trump defended his decision Saturday to order the troop withdrawal, tweeting, “Now ISIS is largely defeated and other local countries, including Turkey, should be able to easily take care of whatever remains. We’re coming home!”

The withdrawal decision will fulfill Trump’s goal of bringing troops home from Syria, but military leaders have pushed back for months, arguing that the IS group remains a threat and could regroup in Syria’s long-running civil war. U.S. policy has been to keep troops in place until the extremists are eradicated.

Among officials’ key concerns is that a U.S. pullout will leave U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces vulnerable to attacks by Turkey, the Syrian government and remaining IS fighters. The SDF, a Kurdish-led force, is America’s only military partner in Syria

A second official said McGurk on Friday was pushing for the U.S. to allow the SDF to reach out to troops allied with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government for protection. McGurk argued that America had a moral obligation to help prevent the allied fighters from being slaughtered by Turkey, which considers the SDF an enemy.

McGurk said at a State Department briefing on Dec. 11 that “it would be reckless if we were just to say, ‘Well, the physical caliphate is defeated, so we can just leave now.’ I think anyone who’s looked at a conflict like this would agree with that.”

A week before that, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. had a long way to go in training local Syrian forces to prevent a resurgence of IS and stabilize Syria. He said it would take 35,000 to 40,000 local troops in northeastern Syria to maintain security over the long term, but only about 20 percent of that number had been trained.

McGurk, 45, previously served as a deputy assistant secretary of state for Iraq and Iran, and during the negotiations for the landmark Iran nuclear deal by the Obama administration, led secret side talks with Tehran on the release of Americans imprisoned there.

McGurk, was briefly considered for the post of ambassador to Iraq after having served as a senior official covering Iraq and Afghanistan during President George W. Bush’s administration.

A former Supreme Court law clerk to the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, McGurk worked as a lawyer for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and joined Bush’s National Security Council staff, where in 2007 and 2008, he was the lead U.S. negotiator on security agreements with Iraq.

Taking over for now for McGurk will be his deputy, retired Lt. Gen. Terry Wolff, who served three tours of active duty in Iraq.

Jim Jeffrey, a veteran diplomat who was appointed special representative for Syria engagement in August, is expected to stay in his position, officials said.

IS militants still hold a string of villages and towns along the Euphrates River in eastern Syria, where they have resisted weeks of attacks by the U.S.-supported Syrian Democratic Forces to drive them out. The pocket is home to about 15,000 people, among them 2,000 IS fighters, according to U.S. military estimates.

But that figure could be as high as 8,000 militants, if fighters hiding out in the deserts south of the Euphrates River are also counted, according to according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict through networks of local informants. Military officials have also made it clear that IS fighters fleeing Euphrates River region have found refuge in other areas of the country, fueling concerns that they could regroup and rise again.

The SDF said Thursday: “The war against Islamic State has not ended and the group has not been defeated.”

VOA contributed to this report.
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