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Census and redistricting Supreme Court’s next big decisions

Shanka Cheryl
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Census and redistricting Supreme Court’s next big decisions

Donald Trump has been vocal in his belief that the Supreme Court is “his” and will let through whatever he wants. The upcoming weeks will be the true test of this.

The Supreme Court enters its final week of decisions with two politically charged issues unresolved, whether to rein in political line-drawing for partisan gain and allow a citizenship question on the 2020 census.

Both decisions could affect the distribution of political power for the next decade, and both also may test Chief Justice John Roberts’ professed desire to keep his court of five conservatives appointed by Republican presidents and four liberals appointed by Democrats from looking like the other, elected branches of government. Decisions that break along the court’s political and ideological divide are more likely to generate criticism of the court as yet another political institution.

In addition, the justices could say as early as Monday whether they will add to their election-year calendar a test of President Donald Trump’s effort to end an Obama-era program that shields young immigrants from deportation. The court’s new term begins in October.

Twelve cases that were argued between November and April remain to be decided. They include disputes over: a trademark sought by the FUCT clothing line, control of a large swatch of eastern Oklahoma that once belonged to Indian tribes and when courts should defer to decisions made by executive branch agencies.

But the biggest cases by far involve the citizenship question the Trump administration wants to add to the census and two cases in which lower courts found that Republicans in North Carolina and Democrats in Maryland went too far in drawing congressional districts to benefit their party at the expense of the other party’s voters.

The Supreme Court has never invalidated districts on partisan grounds, but the court has kept the door open to these claims. The court has struck down districts predominantly based on race.

Now though the justices are considering whether to rule out federal lawsuits making claims of partisan gerrymandering. Conversely, the court also could impose limits on the practice for the first time. It was not clear at arguments in March that any conservative justices were prepared to join the liberals to limit partisan gerrymandering.

In the census case, the Census Bureau’s own experts say that Hispanics and other immigrants are likely to be undercounted if the census questionnaire asks everyone about their citizenship status. The last time the question appeared on the once-a-decade census was in 1950, and even then it wasn’t asked of everyone.

Democratic-led states and cities, and civil rights groups challenging the citizenship case, have argued that the question would take power away from cities and other places with large immigrant populations and reward less populated rural areas. They have more recently pointed to newly discovered evidence on the computer files of a now-dead Republican consultant that they say shows the citizenship question is part of a broader plan to increase Republican power. The administration has said the new allegations lack merit.

When the case was argued in April, it appeared that the conservative justices were poised to allow the question to be asked.

Census results determine how seats in the House of Representatives are allocated among the 50 states and how billions of dollars in federal money is distributed. The population count also forms the basis for the redrawing of districts from Congress to local governments that takes place every 10 years.

The court’s decisions in the redistricting cases will affect the tools state lawmakers can use to draw those districts, especially in states in which one party controls the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature. Republican successes in the 2010 election cycle left them completely in charge of the process in such states as Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin. In all four states, Democratic voters sued over congressional or legislative districts, and federal courts determined that the districts violated those voters’ constitutional rights.

Democrats controlled the process in Maryland, where they successfully reshaped one district to pry it from longtime Republican control.

Once the court’s work is done for the summer, the justices typically leave town to teach and travel. Justice Brett Kavanaugh will teach a course on the origins of the U.S. Constitution for George Mason University’s summer program in England, near where the Magna Carta was sealed 800 years ago.

Donald Trump vs Barack Obama fact check

Shanka Cheryl
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Donald Trump vs Barack Obama fact check

Nearly three years later, President Donald Trump continues using Barack Obama as his personal punching bag to blame things on.

Despite assailing his Democratic predecessor for waging a “cruel and heartless war on American energy,” for example, Trump can brag about U.S. energy supremacy thanks to the sector’s growth in the Obama years.

And the Obama-Trump decade is soon to yield an economic record if things stay on track a little longer — the most sustained expansion in U.S. history. Though Trump claims all the credit, the expansion started in Obama’s first year, continued through his presidency and has been maintained under Trump.

There are no fist bumps in the offing, however.

The past week saw the kickoff of Trump’s 2020 campaign with a rally in Florida. That and other events provided Trump a platform that he used to exaggerate what he’s done, take some factually challenged swipes at Obama and Democrats at large, and make promises that will be hard to keep.

A roundup of the weeks biggest Trump fact checks:

MIGRANTS

TRUMP, on separating children from adults at the Mexican border: “When I became president, President Obama had a separation policy. I didn’t have it. He had it. I brought the families together. I’m the one that brought ‘em together. Now, I said something when I did that. I’m the one that put people together. … They separated. I put ‘em together.’ — interview with Telemundo broadcast Thursday.

JOSE DIAZ-BALART, interviewer: “You did not.”

THE FACTS: Trump is not telling the truth. The separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents resulted from his “zero tolerance” policy. Obama had no such policy. After a public uproar and under a court order, Trump ceased the separations.

Zero tolerance meant that U.S. authorities would criminally prosecute all adults caught crossing into the U.S. illegally. Doing so meant detention for adults and the removal of their children while their parents were in custody. During the Obama administration, such family separations were the exception. They became the practice under Trump’s policy, which he suspended a year ago.

Before Trump’s zero-tolerance policy, migrant families caught illegally entering the U.S. were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation, unless they were known to have a criminal record. Then and now, immigration officials may take a child from a parent in certain cases, such as serious criminal charges against a parent, concerns over the health and welfare of a child or medical concerns.

DETENTION CENTERS

TRUMP on detention centers at the border: “President Obama is the one that built those prison cells.” — Telemundo interview.

THE FACTS: He has a point. Whether they are called prison cells or something else, Obama held children in temporary, ill-equipped facilities and built a large center in McAllen, Texas, that is used now.

Democrats routinely and inaccurately blame Trump for creating “cages” for children. They are actually referring to chain-link fencing inside the McAllen center — Obama’s creation.

Conditions for detained migrants deteriorated sharply during a surge of Central American arrivals under Trump, particularly in El Paso, Texas.

TRADE

TRUMP: “This will be the largest trade deal ever made, and it won’t even be close. If you take a look at the numbers, second is so far away, you don’t even call it second. So it’s very exciting. And very exciting for Mexico; very exciting for Canada.” — remarks Thursday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

THE FACTS: That’s wrong, simply by virtue of the number of trade partners involved.

The proposed new agreement, replacing the North American Free Trade agreement, covers the same three countries. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated by the Obama administration, included the three NAFTA partners — United States, Canada and Mexico — plus Japan and eight other Pacific Rim countries. Trump withdrew the United States from the pact on his third day in office.

Even the Pacific deal pales in comparison with one that did go into effect with the U.S. on board, the Uruguay Round. Concluded in 1994, the round of negotiations created the World Trade Organization and was signed by 123 countries. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said the WTO’s initial membership accounted for more than 90 percent of global economic output.

TARIFFS

TRUMP on his tariffs: “We are taking in billions and billions of dollars into our treasury. … We have never taken 10 cents from China.” — rally Tuesday in Orlando, Florida.

THE FACTS: It’s false to say the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs on Chinese goods before he took action. They are simply higher in some cases than they were before. It’s also wrong to suggest that the tariffs are being paid by China. Tariff money coming into the treasury is mainly from U.S. businesses and consumers, not from China. Tariffs are primarily if not entirely a tax paid domestically.

IRAN

TRUMP: “President Obama made a desperate and terrible deal with Iran – Gave them 150 Billion Dollars plus I.8 Billion Dollars in CASH! Iran was in big trouble and he bailed them out. Gave them a free path to Nuclear Weapons, and SOON. Instead of saying thank you, Iran yelled … Death to America. I terminated deal.” — tweet Friday.

TRUMP, on his accomplishments: “And then terminating one of the worst deals ever made, the Iran deal that was made by President Obama — paid $150 billion. Paid $1.8 billion in cash. I terminated that and Iran is a much different country.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.

THE FACTS: There was no $150 billion payout from the U.S. treasury. The money he refers to represents Iranian assets held abroad that were frozen until the international deal was reached and Tehran was allowed to access its funds.

The payout of about $1.8 billion is a separate matter. That dates to the 1970s, when Iran paid the U.S. $400 million for military equipment that was never delivered because the government was overthrown and diplomatic relations ruptured.

That left people, businesses and governments in each country indebted to partners in the other, and these complex claims took decades to sort out in tribunals and arbitration. For its part, Iran paid settlements of more than $2.5 billion to U.S. citizens and businesses.

The day after the nuclear deal was implemented, the U.S. and Iran announced they had settled the claim over the 1970s military equipment order, with the U.S. agreeing to pay the $400 million principal along with about $1.3 billion in interest. The $400 million was paid in cash and flown to Tehran on a cargo plane, which gave rise to Trump’s dramatic accounts of money stuffed in barrels or boxes and delivered in the dead of night. The arrangement provided for the interest to be paid later, not crammed into containers.

ENERGY

TRUMP: “We’ve ended the last administration’s cruel and heartless war on American energy. What they were doing to our energy should never be forgotten. The United States is now the No. 1 producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.” — Orlando rally.

TRUMP: “We’re now No. 1 in the world in energy.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.

THE FACTS: As he’s done many times before, Trump is crediting himself with things that happened under Obama.

Here’s what the government’s U.S. Energy Information Administration says: “The United States has been the world’s top producer of natural gas since 2009, when U.S. natural gas production surpassed that of Russia, and the world’s top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when U.S. production exceeded Saudi Arabia’s.”

JOBS

TRUMP: “Almost 160 million people are working. That’s more than ever before.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: True but that’s a tribute to Americans making babies and immigrants coming to the country. Population growth, in other words.

Other than during recessions, employment growth has been trending upward since 1939, when the Labor Department started counting. The phenomenon is not a marker of leadership; it has spanned successful and failed presidents.

More on point, the annual rate of job growth has been within the same range since roughly 2011. It was 1.6% through May.

Another measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still below record highs. The Labor Department says 60.6 percent of people in the U.S. 16 years and older were working in May. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7 percent in April 2000 during Bill Clinton’s administration, though higher than the 59.9 percent when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

WOMEN’S UNEMPLOYMENT

TRUMP: “Women’s unemployment is now the lowest it’s been in 74 years.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: No, the jobless rate for women of 3.1% in April was the lowest in 66 years, not 74, and it ticked up in May to 3.2%.

ECONOMY

TRUMP: “It’s soaring to incredible new heights. Perhaps the greatest economy we’ve had in the history of our country.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: The economy is not one of the best in the country’s history. It expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. That growth was the highest in just four years for the first quarter.

In the late 1990s, growth topped 4 percent for four straight years, a level it has not yet reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth even reached 7.2 percent in 1984.

The economy grew 2.9% in 2018 — the same pace it reached in 2015 under Obama — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

Trump has legitimate claim to a good economy but when it comes to records, there’s one he will have to share with Obama. The economy is on track to achieve its longest expansion ever, in July. Much of that decade-long growth came during Obama’s presidency, an achievement that Trump so far has largely sustained. Other than in its durability, the economy is far from the finest in history.

THE WALL

TRUMP: “We’ll have over 400 miles built by the end of next year.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.

TRUMP: “We’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year. It’s moving very rapidly.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: That’s highly unlikely, and even if so, the great majority of the wall he’s talking about would be replacement barrier, not new miles of construction. Trump has added strikingly little length to barriers along the Mexico border despite his pre-eminent 2016 campaign promise to get a wall done.

Even to reach 400 miles or 640 kilometers, he would have to prevail in legal challenges to his declaration of a national emergency or get Congress to find more money to get anywhere close.

So far, the administration has awarded contracts for 247 miles (395 km) of wall construction, but that initiative has been constrained by court cases that are still playing out.

In any event, all but 17 miles (27 km) of his awarded contracts so far would replace existing barriers.

TAXES

TRUMP: “We’ve done so much … with the biggest tax cut in history.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: His tax cuts are nowhere close to the biggest in U.S. history.

It’s a $1.5 trillion tax cut over 10 years. As a share of the total economy, a tax cut of that size ranks 12th, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 cut is the biggest, followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II.

Post-Reagan tax cuts also stand among the historically significant: President George W. Bush’s cuts in the early 2000s and Obama’s renewal of them a decade later.

ENVIRONMENT

TRUMP: “Our water and our air today is cleaner than it ever was. … Our air — it’s the best it ever was.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.

TRUMP: “Our air and water are the cleanest they’ve ever been by far.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: Not true about air quality, which hasn’t gotten better under the Trump administration. U.S. drinking water is among the best by one leading measure.

After decades of improvement, progress in air quality has stalled. Over the last two years the U.S. had more polluted air days than just a few years earlier, federal data show.

There were 15% more days with unhealthy air in America both last year and the year before than there were on average from 2013 through 2016, the four years when America had its fewest number of those days since at least 1980.

The Obama administration, in fact, set records for the fewest air polluted days, in 2016.

On water, Yale University’s global Environmental Performance Index finds 10 countries tied for the cleanest drinking water, the U.S. among them. On environmental quality overall, the U.S. was 27th, behind a variety of European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia and more. Switzerland was No. 1.

FEDERAL JUDGES

TRUMP on the confirmation of federal judges: “President Obama was very nice to us. He didn’t fill the positions.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: Trump’s sarcasm aside, he does have a better success rate than Obama in filling judicial vacancies. The Republican-controlled Senate in Obama’s last two years avoided taking action on many of his nominees. Republicans still control the Senate and have been able to confirm about 120 of Trump’s picks despite their slim majority. That’s about 35 more than Obama had confirmed at this point in his presidency.

HEALTH CARE

TRUMP: “We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions. Always.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: His administration’s actions say otherwise. It is pressing in court for full repeal of Obama’s health law, which requires insurers to take all applicants, regardless of medical history, and charge the same standard premiums to healthy people and those who had medical problems before or when they signed up.

Trump and other Republicans say they’ll have a plan to preserve protections for people with pre-existing conditions, but the White House has provided no details.

ABORTION

TRUMP: “Leading Democrats have even opposed measures to prevent the execution of children after birth.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: Executing children is already a crime.

Trump is offering here a somewhat toned down version of a distorted story he’s been telling for months that falsely suggests Democrats are OK with murder.

His account arises from extremely rare instances when babies are born alive as a result of an attempted abortion. When these cases occur, “execution” is not an option.

When a baby is born with anomalies so severe that he or she would die soon after birth, a family may choose what’s known as palliative care or comfort care. This might involve allowing the baby to die naturally without medical intervention. Providing comfort without life-extending treatment is not specific to newborns. It may happen with fatally ill patients of any age.

VETERANS

TRUMP: “We passed VA Choice. …They’ve been trying to get that passed also for about 44 years.” — Orlando rally.

THE FACTS: No, Congress approved the private-sector Veterans Choice health program in 2014 and Obama signed it into law. Trump signed an expansion of it.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP: “I’m the most transparent president in history. I let Mueller have everything they wanted.” — Fox News interview Wednesday.

THE FACTS: It’s highly questionable to say Trump was fully cooperative in the Russia investigation.

Trump declined to sit for an interview with Robert Mueller’s team, gave written answers that investigators described as “inadequate” and “incomplete,” said more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in writing, and — according to the report — tried to get aides to fire the special counsel or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry.

In the end, the Mueller report found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice.

According to the report, Mueller’s team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn’t be indicted. The report instead factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, specifically leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter.

Andy Murray ready for singles life again while Marin Cilic wins Queens over

Luka Alario
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Andy Murray ready for singles life again while Marin Cilic wins Queens over

Andy Murray has been out of the tennis game for some time, but he’s been stepping back in slowly. Now the British tennis star says he is playing tennis “pretty much pain-free” and is hoping to compete in singles “at some stage this year.”

The three-time Grand Slam champion says he doesn’t want to put a time frame on when his return to singles would be.

Murray says he is “quite happy just now so I don’t need to play singles after Wimbledon or at the U.S. Open. If I can, that would be brilliant, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I think it’s going to take a bit longer.”

Murray underwent hip surgery in January, soon after a tearful news conference at the Australian Open when he said the tournament could be his last after almost two years of injury problems.

The British player is competing in the doubles with Feliciano Lopez at the Queen’s Club grass-court event next week. He then plans to play doubles at Wimbledon.

Alexander Zverev wins halle open 2019

Zverev, Khachanov Halle Open Wins

Alexander Zverev and Karen Khachanov bounced back from disappointments in Stuttgart last week to reach the second round of the Halle Open on Monday.

Second-seeded Zverev defeated Robin Haase 6-4, 7-5, while Khachanov celebrated his first match as a top-10 player with a 7-6 (5), 6-4 win over Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic.

Nine-time champion Roger Federer is the top seed at the grass-court tournament, a warm-up for Wimbledon. Federer is due to play Australia’s John Millman on Tuesday.

Both Zverev and Khachanov lost their opening matches in the Stuttgart Open. Zverev next faces American Steve Johnson, who defeated former champion Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-3, 6-3, while Khachanov awaits the winner between Jan-Lennard Struff and Laslo Djere.

Also Monday, Pierre-Hugues Herbert upset fifth-seeded Gael Monfils 7-6 (6), 6-4, while Radu Albot and Joao Sousa also won.

marin cilic wins queens club 2019

Marin Cilic Queen’s Club Win

Marin Cilic began defense of his title at the Queen’s Club grass-court event with a 6-1, 7-6 (5) win over Christian Garin in the first round on Monday.

Cilic, a Wimbledon finalist in 2017, raced through the first set in just 20 minutes before encountering more resistance from his Chilean opponent.

Cilic is the fifth seed at the main warm-up tournament for Wimbledon, which begins July 1.

Kevin Andersen, who lost to Novak Djokovic in last year’s Wimbledon final, was given a tough test by Britain’s Cameron Norrie before winning 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4.

Also advancing to the second round was fourth-seeded Daniil Medvedev of Russia, who dispatched Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 6-4 in an hour and 10 minutes.

Khachatyran Brothers Banned

Two brothers from Bulgaria have been provisionally suspended from professional tennis for corruption.

The Tennis Integrity Unity says 24-year-old Karen Khachatyran and 19-year-old Yuri Khachatyran “are ineligible to compete in or attend any sanctioned event organized or recognized” by the sport’s governing bodies. Their suspension took effect on Saturday.

The TIU did not disclose what the brothers may have done.

Karen Khachatyran has a ranking of No. 3,021 in singles. Yuri Khachatyran is No. 3,126.

Matteo Berrettini wins stuttgart open 2019

Berrettini Wins Stuttgart Open

Matteo Berrettini beat Canadian teenager Felix Auger-Aliassime 6-4, 7-6 (11) to win the Stuttgart Open and his third tour-level title on Sunday.

The Italian saved five set points in a second-set tiebreaker and clinched his first title on grass. His other titles came at Budapest in April, and Gstaad, Switzerland, last year.

The 18-year-old Auger-Aliassime previously reached championship matches in Rio de Janeiro in February and the Lyon Open in May — both on clay.

Berrettini won all 50 of his service games during the week in Stuttgart. He did not face a break point against Auger-Aliassime.

Auger-Aliassime progressed to the final in his first professional grass tournament without playing Saturday as compatriot Milos Raonic withdrew ahead of their semifinal due to back problems.

Hope Hicks ready for Democrats while Joe Biden goes where gay rights movement began

Shanka Cheryl
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Hope Hicks ready for Democrats while Joe Biden goes where gay rights movement began

Hope Hicks fought as long as she could to keep from facing the Democrats, but the former White House Communications Director forced lawmakers to keep it all behind closed doors on Wednesday. If this is what the Dems are hoping will educate Americans who haven’t bothered to read the Mueller report, this is a very sad attempt at that. Allowing witnesses to call the shots only keeps things hidden away, the way Donald Trump and the Republicans want it.

Obtaining the testimony from Hicks, a close and trusted former aide to President Donald Trump, is a significant victory for Democrats as Trump has broadly stonewalled their investigations. The committee originally subpoenaed Hicks to give public testimony, but agreed to the closed-door interview after negotiations. A transcript of the session will be released in the days afterward.

Still, it is unclear how much new information Hicks will provide. She already cooperated extensively with Mueller’s probe, and a White House lawyer who will be in the room for the interview is expected to try and block her from answering certain questions.

In a letter sent to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler on Tuesday, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote that Trump had directed Hicks not to answer questions “relating to the time of her service as a senior adviser to the president.”

Cipollone cited executive privilege, or the power to keep information from the courts, Congress and the public to protect the confidentiality of the Oval Office decision-making process. Democrats say they disagree that her answers are covered by such privilege, especially since she has already cooperated with Mueller.

The panel has also subpoenaed Hicks for documents, but she has only partially complied. She agreed to provide some information from her work on Trump’s campaign, according to the Judiciary panel, but none from her time at the White House.

Testimony from witnesses like Hicks is one step in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s methodical approach to investigating Trump. While more than 60 lawmakers in her caucus — including almost a dozen on the Judiciary panel — have called for opening an impeachment inquiry, she has said she wants committees to investigate first and come to a decision on impeachment later.

While Trump has continued to block their requests, Democrats have made some minor gains in recent weeks with Hicks’ appearance and the Justice Department agreeing to make some underlying evidence from Mueller’s report available to Judiciary members.

As one of Trump’s closest aides, Hicks was present for many of the key moments reviewed in the Mueller report, and her name is one of the most frequently mentioned in the document. Hicks was a key witness for Mueller, delivering important information to the special counsel’s office about multiple episodes involving the president. That includes the president’s role in the drafting of a misleading and incomplete statement about a 2016 Trump Tower meeting at which Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., expected to receive dirt on Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Mueller wrote in his 448-page report released in April that there was not enough evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, but he said he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice. The report examined several situations in which Trump attempted to influence or curtail Mueller’s investigation, including the drafting of that statement.

Democratic aides said Tuesday that they plan on asking Hicks about several of those episodes, including the drafting of the statement, efforts to remove Mueller from the investigation and the firing of FBI Director James Comey. The aides requested anonymity to discuss their plans for the closed-door meeting.

The aides said that lawmakers will also ask about her knowledge of hush-money payments orchestrated by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Trump — the porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal. Trump has denied the allegations. Cohen is now serving three years in prison partly for campaign violations related to the payments.

The Democrats plan to use some of Hicks’ answers to those questions to inform a committee hearing to review Mueller’s report on Thursday. It’s the second in a series of hearings in which the committee is talking to expert witnesses about the report. The transcript will then be released, possibly as soon as this week, according to the aides.

Other Trump associated frequently mentioned in Mueller’s report have refused to appear before the Judiciary panel, including former White House Counsel Donald McGahn. McGahn’s former chief of staff, Annie Donaldson, was also subpoenaed for documents and an interview and has declined to provide the documents, like Hicks and McGahn. It is unclear whether Donaldson will show up for a scheduled deposition next week.

Republicans have strongly criticized the investigations and say they are unnecessary after Mueller spent two years reviewing the same material and talking to the same witnesses.

Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the panel, said Hicks’ appearance proves that Trump is not stonewalling Congress. And he said they could have probably heard from her sooner if they hadn’t taken “a scorched-earth approach to pursuing information” with subpoenas.

joe biden at stonewall in nyc gay pride month 2019

Joe Biden Goes Where Gay Rights Movement Began 50 Years Ago

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, paid a surprise visit Tuesday to the Stonewall Inn ahead of the 50th anniversary of an uprising that helped spark the gay rights movement.

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president spent about 30 minutes at the New York City tavern. He mingled with patrons, went behind the bar and took selfies with visitors.

The former vice president has been vocal in his support of the LGBTQ community on the campaign trail.

“Stopped by @TheStonewallNYC to celebrate #PrideMonth & #WorldPride where the movement began 50 years ago,” Biden said in a tweet.

The Bidens’ visit comes during Pride Month, during which the former vice president has been vocal about LGBTQ issues. In a speech to the Human Rights Campaign in Columbus, Ohio, earlier this month, he accused the Trump administration of endangering the LGBT community by failing to defend its rights and safety. He said passing the pro-LGBT Equality Act would be his top priority if elected president.

“When people had the courage to come out and stand up and speak, say who they were, all of a sudden people realized, ‘Whoa, these folks are just like me,’” Biden said. “And I’m really proud of the folks in here and the courage it took for what they did.”

“We’ve already had five, just this year, five black transgender women killed violently in 2019 — that’s outrageous. It must, it must, it must end,” Biden said during the speech. “And the fastest way to end it is, end the Trump administration.”

Biden has officiated multiple same-sex weddings. He famously made headlines in 2012 when he came out in support of same-sex marriage, putting President Barack Obama in a tough position to announce his changed stance on the issue too.

The Stonewall Inn, located in Greenwich Village, is an iconic New York City landmark, which Obama designated as the country’s first national monument to LGBT rights in 2016.

The bar made history on June 28, 1969, after violent demonstrations erupted following an early-morning police raid, prompting Stonewall patrons to fight back. LGBTQ men and women were frequently discriminated against by New York police through laws that prohibited same-sex relations at the time, and raids on gay bars were common.

Protests continued outside the bar weeks after several of the patrons were arrested. The demonstrations are considered to have sparked the larger gay rights movement in the United States.

The bar is marking the anniversary of the uprising on June 28.

A park across from the Stonewall Inn is now a national monument to gay rights.

Earlier this month, the New York City Police department formally apologized for its role in the violence that led to the riots.

Can Donald Trump campaign as a 2020 DC outsider now that he’s inside?

Shanka Cheryl
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Can Donald Trump campaign as a 2020 DC outsider now that he’s inside?

In 2016 Donald Trump campaigned hard as the ultimate DC outsider, but now that he’s become the penultimate insider, will this strategy work for his 2020 presidential campaign? His diehard supporters will take whatever scraps he has to offer them, but those that couldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 will probably see through his act this time.

Four years after launching one of the most improbably successful runs for president in history, President Donald Trump officially kicks off its sequel on Tuesday, again offering himself as a political outsider — but this time from the Oval Office.

Trump, who launched his last campaign from Trump Tower, headed for a mega-rally in Orlando, hoping to replicate the dynamics that allowed him to capture the Republican Party and then the presidency in 2016 as an insurgent intent on disrupting the status quo. It’s a more awkward pitch to make now that he’s in the White House.

The president’s advisers said he aims to connect the dots between the promise of his disruptive first-time candidacy and his goals for another term in the White House. His promise to rock the ship of state is now more than an abstract pledge, though, complicated by his tumultuous 29 months at its helm.

donald trump shirtless men supporters 2020 election
Donald Trump supporters at 2020 re-election rally in Orlando Florida.

Any president is inherently an insider. Trump has worked in the White House for two years, travels the skies in Air Force One and changes the course of history with the stroke of a pen or the post of a tweet.

“We’re taking on the failed political establishment and restoring government of, by and for the people,” Trump said in a video released by his campaign Monday.

That populist clarion was a central theme of his maiden political adventure, as the businessman-turned-candidate successfully appealed to disaffected voters who felt left behind by economic dislocation and demographic shifts. And he has no intention of abandoning it, even if he is the face of the institutions he looks to disrupt.

He underscored that on the eve of the rally in the must-win swing state of Florida, returning to the hard-line immigration themes of his first campaign by tweeting that, next week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement “will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States.” That promise, which came with no details and sparked Democratic condemnation, seemed to offer a peek into a campaign that will largely be fought along the same lines as his first bid, with very few new policy proposals for a second term.

Early Democratic front-runner Joe Biden said Tuesday that Trump’s politics are “all about dividing us” in ways that are “dangerous — truly, truly dangerous.”

But those involved in the president’s reelection effort believe that his brash version of populism, combined with his mantra to “Drain the Swamp,” still resonates, despite his administration’s cozy ties with lobbyists and corporations and the Trump family’s apparent efforts to profit off the presidency.

donald trump woman older men supporters at orlando rally
Trump supporters waiting for his arrival in Orlando.

Advisers believe that, in an age of extreme polarization, many Trump backers view their support for the president as part of their identity, one not easily shaken. They point to his seemingly unmovable support with his base supporters as evidence that, despite more than two years in office, he is still viewed the same way he was as a candidate: the bomb-throwing political rebel.

On Monday, a boisterous crowd of thousands of Trump supporters, many of them in red hats, began gathering outside the Amway Center arena in Orlando, where the campaign had organized a festival with live music and food trucks.

They spent Tuesday braving downpours and listening to a cover band playing Southern rock standards such as Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” as they waited for Trump’s arrival. Vendors sold water, as well as pins, hats and T-shirts with slogans including “Trump 2020″ and “ICE ICE Baby,” a reference to the law enforcement agency tasked with enforcing immigration laws. In the high-80s heat, some women wore “Make American Great Again” bathing suits.

“Trump has been the best president we’ve ever had,” said Ron Freitas, a retired Merchant Marine and registered Democrat from the Orlando area who sat in a lawn chair. Freitas said he was sure Trump would prevail over whomever his Democratic opponent was.

Alex Fuentes, a municipal diesel mechanic, wore a shirt that said “Make Democrats cry again.” He said he was an Iraq veteran who twice voted for Barack Obama but parted company with Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, mostly over foreign policy.

“There’s a lot of minorities that are hidden Trump supporters,” Fuentes said.

Hundreds of anti-Trump protesters clapped and took photos when a 20-foot (6-meter) blimp of a snarling Trump baby in a diaper was inflated. The blimp looks like the one that flew in London during Trump’s recent state visit but is not the same one.

“The goal is to get under his skin,” said Mark Offerman, the blimp’s handler.

Protester Shaun Noble wore a rainbow-colored sign that said “Super, Callous, Fragile, Racist, Sexist, Nazi, POTUS.”

Noble’s mother was at the Trump rally while he was at the anti-Trump protest.

“It’s really caused a divide in our relationship,” Noble said. “But it’s my right to believe what I want to believe in, and it’s her right to believe what she wants to believe.”

Some members of the far-right hate group Proud Boys were spotted marching in Orlando and at least twice tried to enter the street where the anti-Trump protest was being held. They were stopped by groups of police officers and deputies. As they walked away, a man from the Proud Boys group said, “We’re just Americans. This is a sad day.”

‘Men in Black,’ ‘Shaft’ have soft box office weekend while Keanu Reeves ‘John Wick 3’ thrives

George Cando
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‘Men in Black,’ ‘Shaft’ have soft box office weekend while Keanu Reeves ‘John Wick 3’ thrives

With Chris Hemsworth’ “Men in Black: International” and “Shaft” sequels not doing so well at the weekend box office, many are quick to say that it’s franchise fatigue again. There’s only one problem with that.

How can those same people account for Keanu Reeves’ “John Wick 3” continuing to thrive at the box office? In just 31 days, the $75 million action sequel has brought in $276.1 million worldwide. That’s now over 60 percent domestic and worldwide better than “John Wick: Chapter 2.” The Reeves film has actually bested “Captain America: Civil War” box office jump from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.”

To makes things even more confusing to those franchise fatiguers, “John Wick 3” is an original R-rated star-driven franchise that seems to have happened accidentally. There weren’t big plans on more films during the making of “John Wick,” it just happened organically. When you give theater-going audiences what they want, they will respond in kind. It’s when you just use a business model to make movies is when you’ll continue having surefire films bomb at the box office.

So rather than trying to make copies of the John Wick franchise Hollywood, come up with more originality.

keanu reeves john wick 3 thrives at box office 2019

Brand familiarity isn’t everything when it comes to attracting audiences to the multiplex, and Hollywood is learning that lesson the hard way this summer with a slew of underperforming sequels and reboots. That so-called franchise fatigue came to a head this weekend with the releases of “Men in Black: International” and “Shaft.”

The writing may have been on the wall after neither an X-Men movie (“Dark Phoenix”) nor a Godzilla movie (“Godzilla: King of the Monsters”) could get moviegoers enthusiastic enough to turn out. But this weekend, down over 50% from last year, is the worst yet.

“This was a rough weekend,” said Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “We’ve had some big franchises that are not resonating with audiences or critics.”

And there’s a common denominator between all the recent disappointments: Poor reviews. All four have been certified “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes.

“Men in Black: International” took the No. 1 spot in North America, but it’s a dubious distinction for the Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth-led reboot which isn’t exactly the franchise-revitalizer it hoped to be. Sony Pictures on Sunday estimates the F. Gary Gray-directed film earned only $28.5 million over the weekend against a reported $110 million production budget. The three previous “Men in Black” films all opened to over $50 million not accounting for inflation.

However, international audiences are helping the bottom line with the film earning $73.7 million from 36 markets, bringing its global total to $102.2 million.

The weekend’s other big new release, “Shaft,” which introduces another generation to the franchise, couldn’t even manage to carve out a place in the top five, which instead was populated mostly by holdovers.

“The Secret Life of Pets 2” got the No. 2 spot in its second weekend with $23.8 million. Disney’s “Aladdin,” now in weekend four, took third with $16.7 million. “Dark Phoenix” placed fourth with $9 million and “Rocketman” coasted to fifth with $8.8 million.

“Shaft,” a Warner Bros. release, placed sixth on the charts, with a disappointing $8.3 million.

Directed by Tim Story, “Shaft” features Samuel L. Jackson reprising his role from almost 20 years ago and Jessie T. Usher as his son. It was made for around $30 million.

Although critics did not praise the film, audiences who turned out (54% of whom were women) were more enthusiastic, giving the film an A CinemaScore.

Even some originals had a tough time this weekend. Amazon Studios expanded its Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson comedy “Late Night,” which it acquired the North American rights to for a Sundance record of $13 million, to 2,220 theaters where it earned $5.1 million.

“The real bright spots have been the smaller indies,” Dergarabedian said. “We think of summer as blockbuster season, but it’s turned into indie film season.”

Jim Jarmusch’s star-studded zombie comedy “The Dead Don’t Die” mostly survived its mixed reviews and opened to $2.35 million from 613 locations.

Documentaries like “Echo in the Canyon” and “Pavarotti” have been making a modest mark in limited release, and the acclaimed drama “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” expanded to 36 locations and earned $361,120. It expands further next weekend.

But the marketplace is hurting and it’s not a problem with the weekend, which last year saw “Incredibles 2” open to over $182 million, but with the major movies themselves.

The disappointments have come, mostly, from “movies that just don’t deliver,” according to Dergarabedian.

But it’s too simplistic to fault all franchises and next weekend the marketplace will be singing a different tune when “Toy Story 4” opens.

″‘Toy Story 4’ is going to erase the memory of this very tough weekend,” Dergarabedian said.

North American Box Office

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Men in Black: International,” $28.5 million ($73.7 million international).

2. “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” $23.8 million ($8.5 million international).

3. “Aladdin,” $16.7 million ($47.5 million international).

4. “Dark Phoenix,” $9 million ($24.2 million international).

5. “Rocketman,” $8.8 million ($8.5 million international).

6. “Shaft,” $8.3 million.

7. “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” $8.1 million ($14.1 million international).

8. “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum,” $6.1 million ($6.2 million international).

9. “Late Night,” $5.1 million ($255,000 international).

10. “Ma,” $3.6 million ($2.3 million international).

Worldwide Box Office

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada), according to Comscore:

1. “Men in Black: International,” $73.7 million.

2. “Aladdin,” $47.5 million.

3. “Dark Phoenix,” $24.2 million.

4. “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” $14.1 million.

5. “My Best Summer (Zui Hao De Wo Men),” $8.7 million.

6. “The Secret Life of Pets 2” and “Rocketman,” $8.5 million.

7. “Parasite,” $7.8 million.

8. “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum,” $6.2 million.

9. “A City Called Macau,” $4.1 million.

10. “Chasing the Dragon 2: Wild Wild Bunch,” $3.4 million.

We’ll soon learn where Chief Justice John Roberts stands on issues

Shanka Cheryl
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We’ll soon learn where Chief Justice John Roberts stands on issues

Supreme Court Justice John Roberts will now become a deciding vote on many issues important to both sides of the political spectrum. Now now the Supreme Court is back in session, we’ll soon learn where he stands on several issues that could affect the United States for decades to come.

With a deadline for nearly 30 cases looming and weighty issues of religion, gerrymandering and the 2020 census pending, Chief Justice John Roberts took his black leather chair at the bench this week and said three decisions were ready to be announced.

It was a paltry total for a week in June, the final month of the annual session. What’s more, two of the three were by unanimous votes and none made big headlines.

But the term won’t end this way. And much of the weight of this momentous session is on Roberts’ shoulders.

This is the first time in Roberts’ 14 years as chief justice that he will likely be the deciding vote on several final, tense cases — a total of 24 over the next two weeks. Roberts landed in the ideological center of the court last year when Justice Anthony Kennedy retired after a three-decade tenure. And because Roberts has long been to the right of centrist conservative Kennedy, the court is primed to make a sharp conservative turn.

Last Friday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court’s senior liberal, warned of a spate of 5-4 rulings to come and said Kennedy’s retirement would be “of greatest consequence” for pending cases.

While close observers of the court have forecast that for nearly a year, such a prediction is of a different magnitude coming from a justice who has witnessed firsthand the court’s private votes in its closed conference room. Ginsburg knows where the majority is headed.

Two of the most politically charged cases awaiting resolution, testing 2020 census questions and partisan gerrymanders, could lead to decisions favoring Republican Party interests and reinforce the partisan character of a court comprising five GOP appointees and four Democratic ones.

That is a signal Roberts — always insisting the court is a neutral actor — does not want to send, despite past sentiment that would put him on the Republican side in both.

“People need to know that we’re not doing politics,” he said in a February appearance at Belmont University in Nashville. “They need to know that we’re doing something different, that we’re applying the law.”

Conflicts over such interpretations of the law, and the churning environment of the nation’s capital, are no doubt adding to protracted disagreements behind the scenes.

Among the most awaited cases are those testing whether the Trump administration may validly add a citizenship question to the 2020 census; whether judges will be allowed to curtail partisan gerrymanders that make it nearly impossible to unseat the controlling party in a state; and whether a 40-foot cross, a World War I memorial known as the Peace Cross, may remain on public land in Maryland.

Predictions at this stage can be fraught but based on oral arguments and other signs from the justices, the answer to all three questions may be yes. It is certain the nation is headed for more 5-4 rulings. It is also likely that the 64-year-old chief justice, concerned about the place of the high court in these volatile times, will try to neutralize any appearance of politics.

In June 2018, when Roberts wrote the five-justice decision upholding President Donald Trump’s travel ban on nationals from certain majority-Muslim countries, he deferred to the executive and insisted (over a dissent from the four liberals): “This is an act that could have been taken by any other president.”

Decider on the census

June is always arduous as the justices finish opinions in the toughest cases and decide which pending appeals should be scheduled for arguments in the upcoming term, which begins in October.

Roberts has said that he tries to persuade colleagues to decide cases as narrowly as possible, with an opportunity for greater consensus. Some cases defy that goal, sometimes because of the chief justice’s own interest.

In the dispute over a citizenship question on the census, Roberts appeared ready during April oral arguments to accept the government’s assertion that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross wanted the question added to help the Department of Justice enforce the Voting Rights Act.

The state of New York and Democrat-dominated challengers reject those grounds as contrived and point to Census Bureau analyses that predict such a question would diminish the response rate from noncitizens and Hispanics. That could have consequences for political power and government money across the US. The decennial count is used to apportion seats in the US House and allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal and state funds.

Since those April arguments, the American Civil Liberties Union and others that joined the legal challenge against the Trump administration said they had found new evidence that the Commerce Department was trying to help Republicans. They cited a newly disclosed 2015 study written by Dr. Thomas Hofeller, a Republican redistricting expert, that using only the citizen voting-age population for redistricting purposes would be “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.”

The Supreme Court has not responded to the revelation, which was relayed to the justices in a letter. But Roberts had made clear, during oral arguments, that he did not believe the justices should consider material that was not part of the earlier lower court record in the case.

In public appearances, Roberts has downplayed his role at the helm of the nation’s top court. “There have been 17 chief justices, and I’d be very surprised if people in here could name” them, he said at Belmont University. “My point is that you’re not guaranteed to play a significant role in the history of your country, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you don’t.”

But now he is not only in the center chair, presiding. He is also positioned to decide the outcome of cases. It is not yet known how he will balance his institutional and ideological interests.

Supreme Court justices can be inscrutable, and on Monday, nothing in Roberts’ nor his colleagues’ courtroom demeanor revealed what to expect between June 17 (when the nine are scheduled to return to the bench) and the end of the month.

In her New York speech last Friday, Ginsburg intimated that the court was about to drop a series of contentious decisions, and that the absence of Kennedy’s steadying influence would be consequential.

Ginsburg pointed to comparisons between the census dispute and last term’s “travel ban” case.

She referred to the deference that the Roberts majority had shown the Trump administration in the latter and closed her discussion of the former with this observation: The challengers “in the census case have argued that a ruling in Secretary Ross’s favor would stretch deference beyond the breaking point.”

What to read into Ginsburg’s speech? Irrespective of whether she intended it, Ginsburg has a reputation for dropping sly hints outside the courtroom.

In mid-June 2012, she said in a speech that, “The term has been more than usually taxing.” That was just before a narrow majority of justices, with Roberts casting the deciding vote, upheld the Affordable Care Act based on the surprising rationale of congressional taxing power.

Supreme Court Frequently Asked Questions

How many Supreme Court Justices has there been in history?

As of October 2018, there have been 114 Justices.

How long does a Justice serve?

The average number of years that Justices have served is 16.

Which Chief Justice has served the longest?

The longest-serving Chief Justice was Chief Justice John Marshall who served for 34 years, 5 months and 11 days from 1801 to 1835.

Which Chief Justice served the shortest term?

The shortest serving Chief Justice was John Rutledge who was appointed under a temporary commission because the Senate was in recess. He served for 5 months and 14 days before the Senate reconvened and rejected his nomination.

Which Associate Justice served the longest term?

The longest-serving Justice was William O. Douglas who served for 36 years, 7 months, and 8 days from 1939 to 1975.

Which Associate Justice served the shortest term?

John Rutledge served the shortest tenure as an Associate Justice at one year and 18 days, from 1790 to 1791. The next shortest tenure was that of James F. Byrnes who served 1 year, 2 months, and 25 days from 1941 to 1942. For many years, Justice Thomas Johnson was thought to have been the shortest serving Justice but under a temporary recess appointment he served a total of 1 year, 3 months and 28 days.

Who was the youngest Chief Justice?

John Jay (1789-1795) was 44 years old when he took his oath of office.

Who was the oldest Chief Justice?

Harlan F. Stone (1941-1946) was 68 years old when he took his oath of office.

Who was the oldest Associate Justice?

Horace Lurton (1910-1914) was 65 years old when he took his oath of office. Who was the oldest Associate Justice?

Who was the oldest person to serve on the Supreme Court?

The oldest person to serve as a Supreme Court Justice was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., (1902-1932) who was 90 when he retired from the Court.

Were any Justices born outside of the United States?

Six Justices were born outside the United States. They are:
James Wilson (1789-1798) born in Caskardy, Scotland
James Iredell (1790-1799) born in Lewes, England
William Paterson (1793-1806) born in County Antrim, Ireland
David J. Brewer (1889-1910) born in Smyrna, Turkey
George Sutherland (1922-1939) born in Buckinghamshire, England
Felix Frankfurter (1939-1962) born in Vienna, Austria

Has a President ever served as a Chief Justice?

William Howard Taft is the only person to have served as both President of the United States (1909-1913) and Chief Justice of the United States (1921-1930).

Who was the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice?

Associate Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1916-1939).

Who was the first African American Supreme Court Justice?

Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall (1967-1991).

Who was the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice?

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor (2009-Present).

Who was the first woman to serve as a Supreme Court Justice?

Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (1981-2006).

Did any Supreme Court Justices have the same name?

Two Associate Justices were named John Marshall Harlan. The first served from 1877 to 1911. The second, his grandson, served from 1955 to 1971.

What law schools have the current Justices graduate from?

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. – Harvard (J.D.)
Justice Clarence Thomas – Yale (J.D.)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Columbia (LL.B)
Justice Stephen G. Breyer – Harvard (LL.B)
Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. – Yale (J.D.)
Justice Sonia Sotomayor – Yale (J.D.)
Justice Elena Kagan – Harvard (J.D.)
Justice Neil M. Gorsuch – Harvard (J.D.)
Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh – Yale (J.D.)

Why do Supreme Court Justices wear black robes?

Judicial robes have long been thought to bring dignity and solemnity to judicial proceedings. Following the custom of English judges, some American colonial judges adopted the wearing of robes along with many other customs and principles of the English common law system. When the Supreme Court first met in 1790, the Justices had not settled on whether to wear robes, but in February 1792 they did appear in a standard set of robes for the first time, which one reporter referred to as “robes of justice.” These robes are thought to have been black, trimmed with red and white on the front and sleeves. They were only used for a few years before the Justices adopted all black robes.

Getting Donald Trump’s facts right on North Korea, Iran, and tariffs

Shanka Cheryl
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Getting Donald Trump’s facts right on North Korea, Iran, and tariffs

Donald Trump continues his four-year-long cycle of wash, rinse and repeat when it comes to saying outrageous things which is followed by an outraged press. Then he follows that with another outrageous claim knowing the press will pounce on that forgetting his original comment. This has worked for him during his campaign and the entire length of his being president.

That Washington Post reported that he is nearing 11K lies in the past three years. He knows this, and he is an expert on wearing people down. That has happened to many Americans who just don’t know what to focus on as he keeps uttering new ‘facts’ while also stating things that continue breaking down the norms we have grown accustomed to when it comes to our presidents.

According to Trump, he has made it so Iran no longer cries out “death to America,” while the border wall with Mexico is proceeding according to his plans. The estate tax has been lifted off the backs of farmers, the remains of U.S. soldiers from North Korea are coming home and China is opening its wallet to the U.S. Treasury for the first time in history.

A closer look at Donald Trump’s facts:

IRAN:

TRUMP, speaking about Iranians “screaming ‘death to America’” when Barack Obama was in the White House: “They haven’t screamed ‘death to America’ lately.” — Fox News interview Friday.

THE FACTS: Yes, they have. The death-to-America chant is heard routinely.

The chant, “marg bar Amreeka” in Farsi, dates back even before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Once used by communists, it was popularized by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution’s figurehead and Iran’s first supreme leader after the U.S. Embassy takeover by militants.

It remains a staple of hard-line demonstrations, meetings with current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, official ceremonies, parliamentary sessions and main Friday prayer services in Tehran and across the country. Some masters of ceremonies ask audiences to tone it down. But it was heard, for example, from the crowd this month when Khamenei exhorted thousands to stand up against U.S. “bullying.”

In one variation, a demonstrator at Tehran’s Quds rally last month held a sign with three versions of the slogan: “Death to America” in Farsi, “Death to America” in Arabic,” ″Down with U.S.A.” in English.

WAGES and TAXES

TRUMP: “Wages are growing, and they are growing at the fastest rate for — this is something so wonderful — for blue-collar workers. The biggest percentage increase — blue-collar workers.” — remarks Tuesday in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

THE FACTS: He’s claiming credit for a trend of rising wages for lower-income blue-collar workers that predates his presidency.

Some of the gains also reflect higher minimum wages passed at the state and local level; the Trump administration opposes an increase to the federal minimum wage.

With the unemployment rate at 3.6%, the lowest since December 1969, employers are struggling to fill jobs. Despite all the talk of robots and automation, thousands of restaurants, warehouses, and retail stores still need workers.

They are offering higher wages and have pushed up pay for the lowest-paid one-quarter of workers more quickly than for everyone else since 2015. In April, the poorest 25% saw their paychecks increase 4.4% from a year earlier, compared with 3.1% for the richest one-quarter.

Those gains are not necessarily flowing to the “blue collar” workers Trump cited. Instead, when measured by industry, wages are rising more quickly for lower-paid service workers. Hourly pay for retail workers has risen 4.1% in the past year and 3.8% for hotel and restaurant employees. Manufacturing workers — the blue collars — have seen pay rise just 2.2% and construction workers, 3.2%.

ESTATE TAX AKA DEATH TAX

TRUMP: “And to keep your family farms and ranches in the family, we eliminated the estate tax, also known as the ‘death tax,’ on the small farms and ranches and other businesses. That was a big one. … People were having a farm, they loved their children, and they want to leave it to their children. … And the estate tax was so much, the children would have to go out and borrow a lot of money from unfriendly bankers, in many cases. And they’d end up losing the farm, and it was a horrible situation.” — remarks in Council Bluffs.

THE FACTS: There still is an estate tax. More small farms may be off the hook for it as a result of changes by the Republican-controlled Congress in 2017 but very few farms or small businesses were subject to the tax even before that happened.

Congress increased the tax exemption — temporarily — so fewer people will be subject to those taxes.

Previously, any assets from estates valued at more than $5.49 million, or nearly $11 million for couples, were subject to the estate tax in 2017. The new law doubled that minimum for 2018 to $11.2 million, or $22.4 million for couples. For 2019, the minimums rose to $11.4 million, or $22.8 million for couples. Those increased minimums will expire at the end of 2025.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, only about 80 small farms and closely held businesses were subject to the estate tax in 2017. Those estates represent about 1 percent of all taxable estate tax returns.

NORTH KOREA

TRUMP: “I think we’re going to do very well with North Korea over a period of time. I’m in no rush. … Our remains are coming back; you saw the beautiful ceremony in Hawaii with Mike Pence. We’re getting the remains back.” — joint news conference Wednesday with Poland’s president.

THE FACTS: The U.S. is not currently getting additional remains of American service members killed during the Korean War.

With U.S.-North Korea relations souring, the Pentagon said last month it had suspended its efforts to arrange negotiations this year on recovering additional remains of American service members. The Pentagon said it hoped to reach agreement for recovery operations in 2020.

The Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency said it has had no communication with North Korean authorities since the Vietnam summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in February. That meeting focused on the North’s nuclear weapons and followed a June 2018 summit where Kim committed to permitting a resumption of U.S. remains recovery; that effort had been suspended by the U.S. in 2005.

The agency said it had “reached the point where we can no longer effectively plan, coordinate, and conduct field operations” with the North during this budget year, which ends Sept. 30.

Last summer, in line with the first Trump-Kim summit in June, the North turned over 55 boxes of what it said were the remains of an undetermined number of U.S service members killed in the North during the 1950-53 war. So far, six Americans have been identified from the 55 boxes.

U.S. officials have said the North has suggested in recent years that it holds perhaps 200 sets of American war remains. Thousands more are unrecovered from battlefields and former POW camps.

The Pentagon estimates that about 5,300 Americans were lost in North Korea.

BORDER WALL

TRUMP: “We’re building a wall … And by next year, at the end of the year, we’re going to have close to 500 miles of wall.” — remarks Tuesday at the Republican Party of Iowa annual dinner.

TRUMP: “We’re going to have close to 500 miles of wall built by the end of next year. That’s a lot. And we’re moving along very rapidly. We won the big court case, as you know, the other day. And that was a big victory for us.” — remarks Monday with Indianapolis 500 champions.

THE FACTS: He’s being overly optimistic. It’s unclear how Trump arrives at 500 miles (800 km), but he would have to prevail in legal challenges to his declaration of a national emergency or get Congress to cough up more money to get anywhere close. Those are big assumptions. And by far the majority of the wall he’s talking about is replacement barrier, not new miles of construction.

So far, the administration has awarded contracts for 247 miles (395 km) of wall construction, but more than half comes from Defense Department money available under Trump’s Feb. 15 emergency declaration. On May 24, a federal judge in California who was appointed by Obama blocked Trump from building key sections of the wall with that money. In a separate case, a federal judge in the nation’s capital who was appointed by Trump sided with the administration, but that ruling has no effect while the California injunction is in place.

Even if Trump prevails in court, all but 17 miles (27 km) of his awarded contracts replace existing barriers.

The White House says it has identified up to $8.1 billion in potential money under the national emergency, mostly from the Defense Department.

Customs and Border Protection officials say the administration wants Congress to finance 206 miles (330 km) next year. The chances of the Democratic-controlled House backing that are between slim and none.

TRADE

TRUMP: “Right now, we’re getting 25% on $250 billion worth of goods. That’s a lot of money that’s pouring into our treasury. We’ve never gotten 10 cents from China. Now we’re getting a lot of money from China.” — remarks Monday.

TRUMP: “We’re taking in, right now, billions and billions of dollars in tariffs, and they’re subsidizing product.” — remarks Tuesday in Council Bluffs.

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect. The tariffs he’s raised on imports from China are primarily if not entirely a tax on U.S. consumers and businesses, not a source of significant revenue coming into the country.

A study in March by economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia University and Princeton University, before the latest escalation, found that the public and U.S. companies were paying $3 billion a month in higher taxes from the trade dispute with China, suffering $1.4 billion a month in lost efficiency and absorbing the entire impact.

It’s also false that the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs before he took action. Tariffs on goods from China are not remotely new. They are simply higher in some cases than they were before. Tariffs go back to the beginning of the U.S. and were once a leading source of revenue for the government. Not in modern times. They equate to less than 1% of federal spending.

TRADE DEFICITS

TRUMP: “Look, without tariffs, we would be captive to every country, and we have been for many years. That’s why we have an $800 billion trading deficit for years. We lose a fortune with virtually every country. They take advantage of us in every way possible.” — CNBC interview Monday.

THE FACTS: Trump isn’t telling the whole story about trade deficits.

When he refers to $800 billion trade gaps, he’s only talking about the deficit in goods such as cars and aircraft. He leaves out services — such as banking, tourism and education — in which the U.S. runs substantial trade surpluses that partially offset persistent deficits in goods. The goods and services deficit peaked at $762 billion in 2006. Last year, the United States ran a record $887 billion deficit in goods and a $260 billion surplus in services, which added up to an overall deficit of more than $627 billion.

The U.S. does tend to run trade deficits with most other major economies. But there are exceptions, such as Canada (a nearly $4 billion surplus last year), Singapore ($18 billion) and Britain ($19 billion).

Mainstream economists reject Trump’s argument that the deficits arise from other countries taking advantage of the United States. They see the trade gaps as the result of an economic reality that probably won’t bend to tariffs and other changes in trade policy: Americans buy more than they produce, and imports fill the gap.

U.S. exports are also hurt by the American dollar’s status as the world’s currency. The dollar is usually in high demand because it is used in so many global transactions. That means the dollar is persistently strong, raising prices of U.S. products and putting American companies at a disadvantage in foreign markets.

FRENCH WINE TARIFFS

TRUMP: “You know, France charges us a lot for the wine and yet we charge them little for French wine. So the wineries come to me and they say — the California guys, they come to me: ‘Sir, we are paying a lot of money to put our products into France and you’re letting – meaning, this country is allowing this French wine which is great, we have great wine, too, allowing it to come in for nothing. It is not fair.’” — interview Monday with CNBC.

THE FACTS: Trump, who’s been in the wine business, is technically wrong about France applying tariffs. The European Union does.

He’s right about a disparity in wine duties.

Tariffs vary by alcohol content and other factors. A bottle of white American wine with 13 percent alcohol content imported into the EU carries a customs duty of 10 euro cents (just over 11 U.S. cents). A bottle of white wine from the EU exported to the United States has a customs duty of 5 U.S. cents.

The gap in duties is narrower for red wine with an alcohol content of 14.5 percent.

Bulk wines are another story. The U.S. tariff is double the EU one, a break for American producers because bulk wine represents 25% of the volume of U.S. wine coming into the EU, according to the French wine exporter federation.

The value of wine imported by France has jumped 200% over a decade. Americans are the top consumers of French wine exports.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

TRUMP, on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report: “The Mueller report spoke. … It said, ‘No collusion and no obstruction and no nothing.’ And, in fact, it said we actually rebuffed your friends from Russia; that we actually pushed them back — we rebuffed them.” — remarks Wednesday in Oval Office.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong to repeat the claim that the Mueller report found no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign; it’s also false that his campaign in 2016 denied all access to Russians. Nor did the special counsel’s report exonerate Trump on the question of whether he obstructed justice.

Mueller’s two-year investigation and other scrutiny revealed a multitude of meetings with Russians. Among them: Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer who had promised dirt on Clinton.

On collusion, Mueller said he did not assess whether that occurred because it is not a legal term.

He looked into a potential criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and said the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges on that front.

Mueller noted some Trump campaign officials had declined to testify under the Fifth Amendment or had provided false or incomplete testimony, making it difficult to get a complete picture of what happened during the 2016 campaign. The special counsel wrote that he “cannot rule out the possibility” that unavailable information could have cast a different light on the investigation’s findings.

In an interview broadcast Wednesday with ABC News, Trump said if a foreign power offered dirt on his 2020 opponent, he’d be open to accepting it and that he’d have no obligation to call in the FBI. “I think I’d want to hear it,” Trump said. “There’s nothing wrong with listening.”

LINDSEY GRAHAM DEFENSE

REPUBLICAN SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, Judiciary Committee chairman, in response to Trump’s comments that he’d be open to accepting political dirt from foreign adversaries like Russia: “The outrage some of my Democratic colleagues are raising about President Trump’s comments will hopefully be met with equal outrage that their own party hired a foreign national to do opposition research on President Trump’s campaign.” — tweet Thursday.

THE FACTS: Graham is making an unequal comparison.

He seeks to turn the tables on Democrats by pointing to their use of a dossier of anti-Trump research produced by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, that was financed by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Graham also insists on “equal outrage” over Democrats using that information from a former intelligence officer of Britain, an ally with a history of shared intelligence with the U.S. That’s a different story from a foreign adversary such as Russia, which the Mueller report concluded had engaged in “sweeping and systematic” interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Moreover, Steele was hired as a private citizen, though one with intelligence contacts.

The Mueller report found multiple contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and the report said it established that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

Trump and his GOP allies typically point to the Steele dossier as the basis for the Russia probe. But the FBI’s investigation began months before it received the dossier.

RUSSIA COOPERATION

TRUMP: “The Democrats were very unhappy with the Mueller report. So now they’re trying to do a do-over or a redo. And we’re not doing that. We gave them everything. We were the most transparent presidency in history.” — Oval Office remarks Wednesday.

THE FACTS: It’s highly dubious to say Trump was fully cooperative in the Russia investigation.

Trump declined to sit for an interview with Mueller’s team, gave written answers that investigators described as “inadequate” and “incomplete,” said more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in writing, and — according to the report — tried to get aides to fire Mueller or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry.

In the end, the Mueller report found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice.

According to the report, Mueller’s team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn’t be indicted. The report instead factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, specifically leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter.

FEDERAL RESERVE

TRUMP: “We have people on the Fed that really weren’t, you know, they’re not my people, but they certainly didn’t listen to me because they made a big mistake.” — CNBC interview.

THE FACTS: Actually, most of the members on the Fed’s Board of Governors owe their jobs to Trump.

In addition to choosing Jerome Powell, a Republican whom Obama had named to the Fed board, to be chairman, Trump has filled three other vacancies on the board in his first two years in office. Lael Brainard is the only Democrat on the board.

There are still two vacancies on the seven-member board. Trump had earlier intended to nominate two political allies — Herman Cain and Stephen Moore — but both later withdrew in the face of sharp opposition from critics.

AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

TRUMP: “Tariffs are a great negotiating tool, a great revenue producer and, most importantly, a powerful way to get … companies to come to the U.S.A., and to get companies that have left us for other lands to come back home. We stupidly lost 30% of our auto business to Mexico.” — tweets Tuesday.

TRUMP: “They took 30% of our automobile companies. They moved into Mexico. All of the people got fired.” — interview Monday with CNBC.

THE FACTS: He’s incorrect that Mexico took 30% of the U.S. automobile business in the years since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994.

In 2017, 14% of the vehicles sold in the U.S. were imported from Mexico, according to the Center for Automotive Research, a think tank in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Parts imported from Mexico exceed 30%.

HIGHER TARIFFS

TRUMP: “If the Tariffs went on at the higher level, they would all come back.” — tweet Tuesday.

TRUMP: “What will happen is the companies will move into the United States, back where they came from. … They would all move back if they had to pay a 25% tax or tariff.” — interview Monday with CNBC.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong to assume that auto companies in Mexico would immediately move back to the U.S. if there were a 25% tariff on Mexican-made vehicles and parts.

It takes three years or four years minimum to plan, equip and build an auto assembly plant, so there would be little immediate impact on production or jobs. Auto and parts makers are global companies, and they would also look to countries without tariffs as a place to move their factories. The companies could also just wait until after the 2020 election, hoping that if Trump is defeated, the next president would get rid of the tariffs.

“They’re not going to invest in duplicative capacity in response to short-term policy incentives,” said Kristen Dziczek, a vice president at the Center for Automotive Research.

It is possible that some production could be shifted back to the United States. General Motors, for instance, makes about 39% of its full-size pickup trucks at a factory in Silao, Mexico, mainly light-duty versions, according to analysts at Morningstar. If the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff on assembled automobiles, GM could shift some production to a factory in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that also makes light-duty pickups. But there are limits. That plant already is running on three shifts and is almost near its maximum capacity.

Tariffs on Mexico probably would cost auto jobs in the U.S., too, because Mexico would almost certainly retaliate with tariffs of its own. Tariffs on both sides would raise prices of vehicles, because automakers probably would pass the charges onto their customers.

Industry experts say higher prices would cause more buyers to shift into the used-vehicle market, cutting into new-vehicle sales. Tariffs could be higher than 25% because parts go back and forth across the border multiple times in a highly integrated supply chain.

Vehicles built in Mexico get 20% to 30% of their parts from the U.S., so the tariffs would drive up prices there. That would hit lower-income people hard because automakers produce many lower-priced new vehicles in Mexico to take advantage of cheaper labor. About 62% of U.S. vehicle and parts exports go to Canada and Mexico, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

Tariffs would add $1,300 to $4,500 to the price of vehicles based just on the cost of parts, the center estimated.

Rafael Nadal kept Dominic Thiem at bay for French Open 12th title

Luka Alario
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Rafael Nadal kept Dominic Thiem at bay for French Open 12th title

Rafael Nadal got what he came to the 2019 French Open for. A 12th title. For fans expecting to see him win that against Novak Djokovic, it was a bit of a disappointment, but his match against Dominic Thiem was well worth it.

It all took a toll on Thiem, both physically and mentally, and that left him in no condition to do what it would take to beat Rafael Nadal in the French Open final.

Just to earn the right to face Nadal for the title at Roland Garros for the second year in a row Sunday, Thiem needed to end No. 1 Novak Djokovic’s 26-match Grand Slam winning streak. That took five sets over 4 hours, 13 minutes spread over two rain-interrupted days.

Then, less than 24 hours after that one concluded, Thiem needed to step on court for the fourth consecutive day to try to deal with Nadal and everything that entails. For the final’s opening two sets, Thiem was able to hang with the man known as the King of Clay. And then?

“I had a little drop, which is, against most of the players, not that bad,” Thiem said, “but he took the chance and stepped right on me.”

Nadal reeled off 16 of the initial 17 points in the third set on the way to taking 12 of the last 14 games in a 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 victory over Thiem. That gave Nadal his 12th French Open title and 18th Grand Slam trophy overall, while denying Thiem what would have been his first major championship.

There was no doubt for Thiem what played a role.

After all, he was trying to do something only three men have in the professional era, which began in 1968: beat the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds at Roland Garros.

“Beating Novak over two days, with all the interruption,” said Thiem, a 25-year-old Austrian who was seeded No. 4, “it leaves traces on the body and also on the mind.”

That, especially, is not an ideal way to face Nadal on the red clay of Paris, where the guy has won 93 of 95 career matches.

Still, Thiem gave it a go over the first 100 minutes, hanging with Nadal on exciting exchanges from the baseline that seemingly wouldn’t end, just because both men are so adept at covering the court so well. By match’s end, there were 46 points that lasted at least 10 strokes, and Nadal and Thiem both won 23.

Only one of them was able to sustain the high level of focus and stamina for the third and fourth sets, though.

“Maybe,” acknowledged Thiem’s physical trainer, Alex Stober, “he was running out of fuel a little at the end.”

During the trophy ceremony, Nadal repeatedly praised his opponent, saying that he expects — and hopes — that Thiem will one day hoist aloft that silver symbol of excellence.

So, too, of course, does Thiem himself.

He kept talking about next year.

And he shouldn’t feel too bad about losing back-to-back finals at Roland Garros to Nadal. Thiem is in good company: Roger Federer (2006, 2007, 2008, 2011) and Djokovic (2012, 2014) also each lost multiple French Open finals to the guy.

“I’m on the right way. And I failed today, but my goal and my dream is still to win this tournament or to win a Grand Slam tournament. I will try my best next year again,” Thiem said. “I gave everything I had in these two weeks.”

novak djokovic defeated by domnic thiem french open 2019
Novak Djokovic, Dominic Thiem

Dominic Thiem Blocks Novak Djokovic From Rafa Final

Novak Djokovic’s 26-match Grand Slam winning streak ended with a dramatic 6-2, 3-6, 7-5, 5-7, 7-5 loss Saturday to Dominic Thiem in a rain-interrupted French Open semifinal that spanned more than four hours over two days.

Thiem wasted two match points with quick unforced errors when serving for the victory at 5-3 in the fifth, but he made his third chance count, smacking a forehand winner to break Djokovic in the last game.

“It’s never easy to go on, go off, put the system on 100 percent and go down to zero percent in the locker,” Thiem said. “But if you win, everything is good.”

The top-ranked Djokovic had trouble with Thiem, to be sure, but also with the weather, with the chair umpire and with his odd propensity for heading to the net much more often than usual, including some serve-and-volleying that often failed.

“Look, there is always something large at stake when you’re one of the top players of the world and play in the biggest tournaments,” Djokovic said. “These kind of matches, one or two points decide a winner.”

He was stopped two victories short of collecting his fourth consecutive major championship, a run that began on the grass at Wimbledon last July, then continued on the hard courts of the U.S. Open and Australian Open.

Instead, it is Thiem, an Austrian ranked No. 4, who now gets a chance to win his first Grand Slam trophy on the red clay of Roland Garros.

Thiem will face 11-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal on Sunday in a rematch of last year’s final. Nadal won that one, part of an 8-4 lead for the Spaniard in their head-to-head series.

“All the time, if someone reaches the finals here, it’s against Rafa,” Thiem said with a laugh.

It will be the fourth straight day that Thiem is in action because of postponements, whereas Nadal will be well-rested, having played his quarterfinal Tuesday and his semifinal Friday, when he beat Roger Federer 6-3, 6-4, 6-2.

The women’s final followed Thiem-Djokovic at Court Philippe Chatrier on Saturday, with No. 8 seed Ash Barty of Australia against unseeded 19-year-old Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic. Neither had ever participated in a major singles final.

On Friday, Thiem had just broken Djokovic to go up a break at 3-1 in the third set when their match was suspended because of a shower. They resumed 18½ hours later, in dry, breezy conditions. The wind that was so fierce Friday — spreading loose, rust-colored clay dust from the court surface all over the place, making for something that seemed like a sandstorm — was much more manageable Saturday. It rippled players’ shirts but did not cause havoc with serve tosses and shots the way it had the evening prior.

They repeatedly engaged in long and entertaining baseline exchanges that lasted 10 shots, 20 shots or more. They used speed and anticipation to track down each other’s shots. They walloped the ball from all angles.

The very longest of these tended to go Djokovic’s way: He won 37 of 61 points (61 of nine or more strokes.

For whatever reason, Djokovic felt compelled to try to shorten points on occasion, hardly his usual strategy.

So that led to this key statistic: He won only 35 of 71 points when he went to the net. Thiem, meanwhile, took 18 of 20 on his more judicious forays forward.

The most glaring examples of this came at the end of the third set, when it appeared Djokovic might really be letting the whole match get away.

Serving at 15-all while down 6-5, Djokovic was agitated by a warning from chair umpire Jaume Campistol for letting the serve clock expire and wouldn’t let it go, complaining during the game and, more vociferously, at the changeover, so much so that he was called for unsportsmanlike conduct.

The lack of focus drifted into his choices during points, too, including a mediocre volley that let Thiem deposit a backhand passing winner for a fourth set point. Yet another serve-and-volley attempt came next, and Thiem produced a low forehand return right at Djokovic’s feet to end the set.

All match, Djokovic kept digging a hole, then climbing out. Could he do it again?

He was three points from defeat while serving at love-15, down 5-4 in the fourth set, but came through there to hold, broke in the next game when Thiem double-faulted, and forced a fifth.

Then Djokovic got broken to trail 3-1 in the deciding set when he missed a volley, and Thiem held for 4-1.

At deuce in the ensuing game, a shower came. Shortly before they came back to play, Djokovic tried to stay loose by playing soccer with a tennis ball while Thiem did sprints in a stadium hallway.

On the first point when they returned, Djokovic paused, thinking a shot by Thiem landed out. Campistol ruled it was in. Djokovic eventually took that game. But he was a point from losing when Thiem served at 5-3, 40-15. Except, Thiem just couldn’t close. Couldn’t do much of anything.

Dumped a backhand into the net. Pushed a backhand wide. Sent a forehand long. Slapped a backhand into the net. None should have been all that difficult.

That could have been it for him. Hard to recover from that sort of collapse, especially against someone like Djokovic.

But Thiem regrouped in time. It was Djokovic who faltered, something not seen on a Grand Slam stage since the 2018 French Open quarterfinals.

Millions of American students still without home internet in 2019

Jeffrey Lang
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Millions of American students still without home internet in 2019

It’s hard to believe that in 2019 there are several million students who don’t have internet access at home. For a country that prides itself on being the most advanced, the United States has failed miserably when it comes to technology for everyone. Many rural areas still have no broadband.

With no computer or internet at home, Raegan Byrd’s homework assignments present a nightly challenge: How much can she get done using just her smartphone?

On the tiny screen, she switches between web pages for research projects, losing track of tabs whenever friends send messages. She uses her thumbs to tap out school papers, but when glitches keep her from submitting assignments electronically, she writes them out by hand.

“At least I have something, instead of nothing, to explain the situation,” said Raegan, a high school senior in Hartford.

She is among nearly 3 million students around the country who face struggles keeping up with their studies because they must make do without home internet. In classrooms, access to laptops and the internet is nearly universal. But at home, the cost of internet service and gaps in its availability create obstacles in urban areas and rural communities alike.

In what has become known as the homework gap, an estimated 17% of U.S. students do not have access to computers at home and 18% do not have home access to broadband internet, according to an analysis of census data.

Until a couple of years ago, Raegan’s school gave every student a laptop equipped with an internet hot spot. But that grant program lapsed. In the area surrounding the school in the city’s north end, less than half of households have home access.

School districts, local governments and others have tried to help. Districts installed wireless internet on buses and loaned out hot spots. Many communities compiled lists of wi-fi-enabled restaurants and other businesses where children are welcome to linger and do schoolwork. Others repurposed unused television frequencies to provide connectivity, a strategy that the Hartford Public Library plans to try next year in the north end.

Some students study in the parking lots of schools, libraries or restaurants — wherever they can find a signal.

The consequences can be dire for children in these situations, because students with home internet consistently score higher in reading, math and science. And the homework gap in many ways mirrors broader educational barriers for poor and minority students.

Students without internet at home are more likely to be students of color, from low-income families or in households with lower parental education levels. Janice Flemming-Butler, who has researched barriers to internet access in Hartford’s largely black north end, said the disadvantage for minority students is an injustice on the same level as “when black people didn’t have books.”

Raegan, who is black, is grateful for her iPhone, and the data plan paid for by her grandfather. The honors student at Hartford’s Journalism and Media Academy tries to make as much progress as possible while at school.

“On a computer — click, click — it’s so much easier,” she said.

student with internet at home vs without 2019 images

Classmate Madison Elbert has access to her mother’s computer at home, but she was without home internet this spring, which added to deadline stress for a research project.

“I really have to do everything on my phone because I have my data and that’s it,” she said.

Administrators say they try to make the school a welcoming place, with efforts including an after-school dinner program, in part to encourage them to use the technology at the building. Some teachers offer class time for students to work on projects that require an internet connection.

English teacher Susan Johnston said she also tries to stick with educational programs that offer smartphone apps. Going back to paper and chalkboards is not an option, she said.

“I have kids all the time who are like, ‘Miss, can you just give me a paper copy of this?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, no, because I really need you to get familiar with technology because it’s not going away,’” she said.

A third of households with school-age children that do not have home internet cite the expense as the main reason, according to federal Education Department statistics gathered in 2017 and released in May. The survey found the number of households without internet has been declining overall but was still at 14 percent for metropolitan areas and 18 percent in nonmetropolitan areas.

A commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission, Jessica Rosenworcel, called the homework gap “the cruelest part of the digital divide.”

In rural northern Mississippi, reliable home internet is not available for some at any price.

On many afternoons, Sharon Stidham corrals her four boys into the school library at East Webster High School, where her husband is assistant principal, so they can use the internet for schoolwork. A cellphone tower is visible through the trees from their home on a hilltop near Maben, but the internet signal does not reach their house, even after they built a special antenna on top of a nearby family cabin.

A third of the 294 households in Maben have no computer and close to half have no internet.

Her 10-year-old son, Miles, who was recently diagnosed with dyslexia, plays an educational computer game that his parents hope will help improve his reading and math skills. His brother, 12-year-old Cooper, says teachers sometimes tell students to watch a YouTube video to help figure out a math problem, but that’s not an option at his house.

On the outskirts of Starkville, home to Mississippi State University, Jennifer Hartness said her children often have to drive into town for a reliable internet connection. Her daughter Abigail Shaw, who does a blend of high school and college work on the campus of a community college, said most assignments have to be completed using online software, and that she relies on downloading class presentations to study.

“We spend a lot of time at the coffee shops, and we went to McDonald’s parking lot before then,” Abigail said.

At home, the family uses a satellite dish that costs $170 a month. It allows a certain amount of high-speed data each month and then slows to a crawl. Hartness said it’s particularly unreliable for uploading data. Abigail said she has lost work when satellites or phones have frozen.

Raegan says she has learned to take responsibility for her own education.

“What school does a good job with,” she said, “is making students realize that when you go out into the world, you have to do things for yourself.”

Joe Biden vs Donald Trump Round 1 plus Nancy Pelosi no impeachment talk

Shanka Cheryl
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Joe Biden vs Donald Trump Round 1 plus Nancy Pelosi no impeachment talk

Joe Biden and Donald Trump went their first round in Iowa, but in separate parts of the state. The president and 2020 Democratic president hopeful spent Tuesday trading insults — sometimes in virtual real-time — as they stumped across Iowa in split-screen moments that could preview a ferocious fight ahead if the two face off for the presidency next year.

Biden is atop the massive Democratic presidential field because of his frequent attacks on Trump, the president said. He also more explicitly linked Biden to his 2016 foe, Hillary Clinton.

“People don’t respect him,” Trump said after touring a renewable energy facility in Council Bluffs. “Even the people that he’s running against, they’re saying: ‘Where is he? What happened?’”

With a dose of exaggeration, the president added: “He makes his stance in Iowa once every two weeks and then he mentions my name 74 times in one speech. I don’t know. That reminds me of crooked Hillary. She did the same thing.”

At almost the same moment in Mount Pleasant, Biden noted that his criticisms of Trump from earlier in the day were playing on TV screens when Air Force One landed in Iowa.

“I guess he’s really fascinated by me,” said Biden, who mentioned Trump by name about a dozen times during his first two events in Iowa. “I find it fascinating.” He started to say more but then stopped himself, quipping: “My mother would say: ‘Joey, focus. Don’t descend. Stay up.’”

Pressed later by reporters about his earlier, repeated assurances that he wouldn’t openly criticize Trump while campaigning, Biden said, “By not talking about him personally — talking about where I disagree with him on the issues, why he’s doing such damage to the country — that’s totally different than attacking his character or lack thereof.”

Still, the back-and-forth laid bare the rising political stakes for each man, even with the election about 17 months away. Trump has zeroed in on Biden as a potential threat to his re-election chances and is testing themes to beat him back. Biden, meanwhile, is campaigning as a front-runner, relishing the one-on-one fight with Trump while making sure he doesn’t ignore the demands of the Democratic primary.

“I’d rather run against Biden than anybody,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before flying to Iowa. “I think he’s the weakest mentally and I like running against people that are weak mentally.”

Biden began the day in Ottumwa, the heart of Wapello County, a meat-packing and agricultural manufacturing center Trump was the first Republican to carry since Dwight D. Eisenhower. It’s part of Biden’s dual track approach: campaigning for the caucuses while projecting himself as someone who can win in territory Trump snatched from Democrats in 2016, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

There, the former vice president hit Trump on the economy — an issue the president often promotes as his chief strength in a time of low unemployment.

“I hope his presence here will be a clarifying event because Iowa farmers have been crushed by his tariffs toward China,” Biden said. “It’s really easy to be tough when someone else absorbs the pain, farmers and manufacturers.”

Biden added that Trump “backed off his threat of tariffs to Mexico basically because he realized he was likely to lose” in manufacturing states such as Michigan and Ohio. He broadly branded Trump “an existential threat to this country” and said his behavior is beneath the office of the presidency.

For Trump, the biggest concern in this state dominated by agriculture interests is trade. In Council Bluffs, he toured a plant that produces and sells the corn-based fuel additive ethanol.

“I fought very hard for ethanol but you proved me right,” Trump said, adding that he fought “for the American farmer like no president has fought before.” But he then again mocked Biden.

“He was some place in Iowa today,” the president said, “and he said my name so many times that people couldn’t stand it.”

Later Tuesday, Trump was addressing an Iowa GOP dinner in Des Moines. He’s expected to highlight his efforts to help farmers hurt financially from Chinese tariffs on U.S. agriculture products, measures that were imposed last year after Trump slapped levies on Chinese imports.

Trump also is expected to try to sell farmers on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade deal, which remains to be ratified by lawmakers in each country. Supporters of the deal, which is an update to the North American Free Trade Agreement, feared that Trump’s recent threat to impose tariffs on Mexico over illegal immigration would jeopardize the pact’s passage by U.S. lawmakers. But Trump announced an agreement with Mexico late last week and delayed the tariffs for the time being.

The president, however, has been stung by criticism that what he announced Friday resembled steps Mexico had already agreed to take. Trump predicted in Council Bluffs that the U.S. would soon be increasing its corn exports to its southern neighbor: “Mexico’s going to be doing a lot of buying.”

nancy pelosi not impeaching yet prison instead

Far From Impeachment

Brushing back calls for impeachment, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday “it’s not even close” to having enough support in the House, while Democrats pushed forward on other fronts to investigate President Donald Trump.

The House voted 229-191 to approve a resolution that will allow Democrats to accelerate their legal battles with the Trump administration over access to information from the Russia investigation.

At the same time, they’re convening hearings this week on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in an effort to boost public interest in the findings of the Trump-Russia probe while digging into a legal strategy aimed at forcing Attorney General William Barr, former White House counsel Don McGahn and others into compliance with congressional oversight.

“We need answers to the questions left unanswered by the Mueller report,” Pelosi said on the House floor ahead of voting.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy countered that the Democratic maneuvers are all “just a desperate attempt to relitigate the Mueller investigation.” He called it “an impeachment effort in everything but name.”

Earlier in the day, Pelosi all but ignored questions about impeachment during a policy conference, saying the Democrats’ strategy is “legislating, investigating, litigating” — in that order.

Pressed about Trump, she said: “I’m done with him. I don’t even want to talk about him.”

The House’s far-reaching resolution approved Tuesday empowers committee chairs to sue top Trump administration officials to force compliance with congressional subpoenas, including those for Mueller’s full report and his underlying evidence. They now no longer need a vote of the full House.

The Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, urged his colleagues to support the legislation “so we can get into court and break the stonewall without delay.”

After the vote, Nadler said he would go to court “as quickly as possible” against McGahn, who at the behest of the White House has defied subpoenas for documents and his testimony.

The chairman also said he is prepared to go to court to enforce subpoenas against former White House communications director Hope Hicks and Annie Donaldson, a former McGahn aide, if they don’t show up for scheduled interviews this month.

And Nadler added new names to the list, saying he is also interested in hearing from Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt, who served as former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff, and former White House aide Rick Dearborn. Both are mentioned frequently in the Mueller report.

“Either work with us and comply with subpoenas or we’ll see you in court,” said Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., the chairman of the Rules Committee.

House leaders have signaled they will hold off on suing Barr, for now, after the committee struck a deal with the Justice Department to receive some underlying materials from Mueller’s report. Nadler has called these some of Mueller’s “most important files” and said all members of the committee will be able to view them. They include redacted portions of the report pertaining to obstruction of justice. Some staff have already started viewing the files.

However, Nadler said the committee will likely sue for access to the report’s secret grand jury information.

The chairmen of several oversight committees said after the vote that Tuesday’s action extends beyond the Russia investigation into other aspects of Trump’s administration, including their subpoena for the president’s tax returns.

“This is not just about Russia, this is a broad, coordinated campaign to stall more investigations across the board,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the chairman of the Oversight Committee. “We are here in a fight for the soul of our democracy and we will use every single tool that is available to us to hold this administration accountable.”

It’s not clear if that will be enough, though, for the dozens of House Democrats who say it’s beyond time to start impeachment proceedings.

Pelosi has resisted those efforts so far, preferring to build the case in the courts, and in the court of public opinion.

The No. 2 Democrat, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, downplayed the tensions, saying Tuesday he doesn’t get the impression the caucus is “embroiled by this issue and divided by this issue. We have differences of opinion, but I don’t think that we are divided.”

The ramped-up actions this week are intended to mollify some of the impatient members, while also seeking to deepen the public’s understanding of Mueller’s findings.

Mueller wrote in his 448-page report released last month that there was not enough evidence to establish that there was a criminal conspiracy between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, but he also said he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice. The report examined several episodes in which Trump attempted to influence or curtail Mueller’s investigation.

On Monday, the Judiciary panel heard testimony from John Dean, a White House counsel under Richard Nixon who helped bring down his presidency. Dean testified that Mueller has provided Congress with a “road map” for investigating Trump.

The focus on Mueller will continue Wednesday, when the House Intelligence Committee is scheduled to review the counterintelligence implications of Russia’s election interference, as detailed in Mueller’s report. The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., is scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Also Wednesday, the Oversight Committee will consider new contempt citations against Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross over the administration’s pursuit of citizenship questions on the U.S. Census.

Republicans have criticized the hearings as a waste of time and have called for Democrats to move on.

‘Secret Life of Pets 2,’ ‘Dark Phoenix’ top box office but no winners

George Cando
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‘Secret Life of Pets 2,’ ‘Dark Phoenix’ top box office but no winners

Just because you come in first place doesn’t always mean you’re a winner as this weekend’s top 2 films “The Secret Life of Pets 2” and X-Men entry “Dark Phoenix” proved at the box office. Both films fell far from expectations, meaning they won’t last long on the charts.

Many franchise titles have done well this summer such as “Avengers: Endgame,” “Aladdin” and “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum,” but sequels don’t always far so well. Godzilla proved that last weekend when it opened in the top slot, underperformed and has already slipped into the fourth spot.

After nearly 20 years and a dozen films, the current manifestation of X-Men movies is going out with a whimper.

Scorched by poor reviews, the $200 million “Dark Phoenix” earned a franchise low of $33 million from 3,721 North American locations over the weekend for a second place finish, according to studio estimates Sunday. First place went instead to “The Secret Life of Pets 2.”

The Universal Pictures and Illumination sequel, featuring the voices of Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish and Harrison Ford in his first animated role, grossed an estimated $47.1 million in ticket sales. The film was heavily marketed which only ups the ante on it performing well to recoup some serious loss. Although less than half of what the first film opened to in 2016, it’s still a major win for the studio, considering the production budget was around $80 million. Including international grosses, its global total is already sitting at $97 million.

The sequel brings back many of the characters from the original, including a tabby cat voiced by Bell and a rabbit voiced by Hart. Patton Oswalt voices the central character, Max, a Jack Russell terrier portrayed in the original by Louis C.K., who fell from favor after revelations of sexual misconduct.

Unenthusiastic reviews (the movie currently holds a 54 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and competition in the family-friendly category — particularly from “Aladdin” — presumably contributed to the disappointing figures.

“It’s a fantastic result,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic theatrical distribution. “We couldn’t be more proud to partner with (CEO) Chris Meledandri and everyone at Illumination.”

He noted that this is the ninth No. 1 opening for Illumination, the animated arm responsible for the “Despicable Me” movies.

With decidedly less stellar results, “Dark Phoenix” trailed behind the talking animals. Directed by longtime X-Men scribe Simon Kinberg, it focuses on Jean Grey who is played by Sophie Turner fresh off of her “Game of Thrones” run as Sansa Stark. It also brings back James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence. It’s the de facto conclusion to the modern X-Men movies that started in 2000, and also the first major 20th Century Fox film to be released by the Walt Disney Co. following the acquisition.

But the quality wasn’t there and it scored even worse reviews overall than the widely-disparaged “X-Men: Apocalypse.” Audiences who showed up seemed to concur with the critics, giving it a deadly B- CinemaScore.

“It’s softer than we hoped,” said Cathleen Taff, Disney’s president of theatrical distribution. “While the film didn’t open the way we wanted, we think the legacy of the X-Men series is important and it’s more important than how one film opens. We’re trying to keep it in perspective.”

Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore noted even with the lackluster North American debut and reception, that internationally “Dark Phoenix” was No. 1 with $107 million from 53 territories including China. Globally, its earned $140 million.

“In the international marketplace, it seems like the spectacle and the brand wins out,” Dergarabedian said.

Also, the X-Men characters, which had been licensed to Fox, are now expected to be integrated with Disney’s stable of characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Plus, Disney has another winner in its books in “Aladdin,” which coasted to third place in its third weekend with another $24.5 million. Globally it has earned $604.9 million to date.

Warner Bros.′ “Godzilla: King of The Monsters” had a titan-sized second weekend fall, however, down 67% with $15.5 million.

And the acclaimed Elton John biopic “Rocketman,” from Paramount Pictures, rounded out the top five with $14 million.

While wide-releases are having mixed results lately, independent and platform releases are finding healthy audiences. After “Booksmart” failed to make a major dent going wide out of the gates, Amazon Studios opened its Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson comedy “Late Night” in four theaters, where it earned a healthy $249,654 this weekend, before expanding nationwide next week.

Employing a similar strategy, A24′s ”The Last Black Man in San Francisco ” also scored in seven locations with $230,744.

Also, overall the box office is healthy. The weekend is up 37% from last year when “Ocean’s 8” opened and the year to date deficit improved again. The year is now down 5.9%.

“Some movies may have not lived up to expectations but the marketplace is knocking down the year to date deficit at a really fast pace,” Dergarabedian said.

North American Box Office

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” $47.1 million ($16 million international).

2. “Dark Phoenix,” $33 million ($107 million international).

3. “Aladdin,” $24.5 million ($67.6 million international).

4. “Godzilla: King of the Monsters,” $15.5 million ($47.1 million international).

5. “Rocketman,” $14 million ($13 million international).

6. “Ma,” $7.8 million ($3 million international).

7. “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum,” $7.4 million ($10.1 million international).

8. “Avengers: Endgame,” $4.8 million ($3.8 million international).

9. “Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” $3 million ($7.1 million international).

10. “Booksmart,” $1.6 million ($206,000 international).

Worldwide Box Office

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada), according to Comscore:

1. “Dark Phoenix,” $107 million.

2. “Aladdin,” $67.6 million.

3. “Godzilla: King of Monsters,” $47.1 million.

4. “My Best Summer (Zui Hao De Wo Men),” $22.7 million.

5. “Chasing the Dragon 2: Wild Wild Bunch,” $22.4 million.

6. “Parasite,” $20.8 million.

7. “The Secret Life of Pets 2,” $16 million.

8. “Rocketman,” $13 million.

9. “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parbellum,” $10.1 million.

10. “Pokémon Detective Pikachu,” $7.1 million.

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