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Judi Dench, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep Speak Out on Harvey Weinstein
I’m sitting here, deeply upset, acknowledging to myself that, yes, for many years, I have been aware of the vague rumors that Harvey Weinstein had a pattern of behaving inappropriately around women. Harvey has always been decent to me, but now that the rumors are being substantiated, I feel angry and darkly sad.
I’m angry, not just at him and the conspiracy of silence around his actions, but also that the “casting couch” phenomenon, so to speak, is still a reality in our business and in the world: the horrible pressure, the awful expectation put on a woman when a powerful, egotistical, entitled bully expects sexual favors in exchange for a job.
Ours is an industry in which very few actors are indispensable and women are cast in far fewer roles than men, so the stakes are higher for women and make them more vulnerable to the manipulations of a predator. I applaud the monumental courage of the women who have spoken up. I hope that their stories and the reportage that gave them their voices represents a tipping point, that more stories will be told and that change will follow.
The changes must be both institutional and personal. Men and women, in positions of power, must create a work environment in which people, whose jobs depend on them, feel safe to report threatening and inappropriate behavior, like that reported in the Times. No one should be coerced into trading personal dignity for professional success. I feel the time is long and tragically overdue for all of us in the industry, women and men, to unite — calmly and dispassionately — and create a new culture of respect, equality and empowerment, where bullies and their enablers are no longer allowed to prosper.
Rollback of Clean Power Plan rule by EPA Administrator Pruitt won’t happen overnight
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Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt said Monday he’ll sign a proposed rule to withdraw the Clean Power Plan.
Video provided by Newsy
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s move to start dismantling the Clean Power Plan rule intended to curb carbon emissions that contribute to global warming will not be a quick process.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s announcement Sunday to a group of coal miners in eastern Kentucky that he plans to sign a proposed rule Tuesday rolling back the Obama-era rule is simply the first of a number of steps the agency will have to take.
Proposing a rule to undo a regulation takes the same time-consuming, pain-staking, research-based, legally-defensible process used to adopt the very rule targeted for elimination.
“Today’s proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan just begins the battle,” David Doniger, a climate change expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote in a blog Monday. “Pruitt’s EPA must hold hearings and take public comment, and issue a final repeal — with or without a possible replacement. He must respond to all legal, scientific, and economic objections raised, including the issues we lay out here.”
And then, Doniger said, “we will take Pruitt and his Dirty Power Plan to court.”
Rolling back the rule was a major plank of President Trump’s campaign last year.
He told friendly crowds in coal-producing states that lifting carbon restrictions would not only keep energy costs affordable but also help revitalize the coal industry and the communities economically ravaged by environmental regulations.
The president has called climate change a “hoax” perpetrated by China to gain a competitive advantage. And he’s vowed to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, the international accord on global warming Obama embraced through his power plan rule.
The budget outline the White House issued earlier this year called for defunding the Clean Power Plan that Obama announced in 2015, which some two dozen states are suing to overturn. Oklahoma, where Pruitt served as attorney general before joining the Trump administration, is one of those states.
Appearing in Hazard, Ky., Sunday with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Pruitt announced his plan to withdraw the rule saying Washington would no longer play favorites when it comes to energy production:
“When you think about the clean power plan it wasn’t about regulating to make things regular. It was truly about regulating to pick winners and losers and they interpreted the best system of emission reduction is generating electricity not using fossil fuels. Rule of law matters. Because rule of law is something that allows you to know what is expected of you. When you have a regulation passed inconsistent with the statute (it) creates uncertainty. That’s what happened with the past administration. We’re getting back to the basics of focusing on rule of law and acting on the authority that Congress has given us.”
The Clean Power Plan rule was finalized in 2015, mainly targeting coal-fired power plants that account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. But it remains on hold under a Supreme Court stay pending the outcome of the legal challenge from the states.
Aimed squarely at coal-fired power plants, the regulation requires existing power plants to cut harmful emissions compared to 2005 levels. By 2030, the reduction would be 32% for carbon, 90% for sulfur dioxide and 72% for nitrogen oxides.
The rule was developed over years to cut “significant amounts of power plant carbon pollution and the pollutants that cause the soot and smog that harm health, while advancing clean energy innovation, development and deployment, and laying the foundation for the long-term strategy needed to tackle the threat of climate change,” according to an explanation from Obama’s EPA Web site.
Obama officials also touted the rule as key to protecting public health “because carbon pollution comes packaged with other dangerous air pollutants.” Having the rule in place, it says, would prevent 3,600 premature deaths, 1,700 heart attacks, 90,000 asthma attacks and 300,000 missed work days and school days each year.
“This is a reckless retreat that will hurt our children and grandchildren,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, echoing environmental activists and public health advocates.
Obama officials depicted the rule as one that gives states and utilities “ample flexibility and the time needed to achieve these pollution cuts … while expanding the capacity for zero- and low-emitting power sources.”
But opponents do not see it that way.
States are suing because they contend Washington does not have the authority to enact such a sweeping measure that they said would lead to higher electricity costs and reduced reliability of the nation’s power grid.
When the rule was implemented in 2015, New Jersey Commissioner of Environmental Protection Bob Martin called the rule “unprecedented regulatory overreach (that was) uncommonly cumbersome, difficult and costly to implement, could undermine reliability, and would yield insufficient results.”
Paul Bailey, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, applauded the president earlier this year when he signed an executive order directing the EPA to begin the process of reviewing and rescinding the controversial rule.
“The Clean Power Plan is the poster child for regulations that are unnecessarily expensive and would have no meaningful environmental benefit,” Bailey said. “We look forward to working with EPA Administrator Pruitt to develop sensible policies that protect the environment without shutting down more coal-fueled power plants, one of our most resilient and affordable sources of electricity.”
Environmentalists have vowed to do what they can to block Pruitt’s rollback.
“The EPA’s announcement is the start, not the end of the process,” Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote on the organization’s Web site:
We must continue to make the case for lowering carbon pollution from power plants and accelerating the transition to clean energy, and put Pruitt’s EPA through the wringer for abandoning this key tool. At the same time, we must push for actions by states, cities, businesses, and others to accelerate the transition to clean energy, regardless of what EPA ultimately does. And finally, one hopes that the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which still has jurisdiction over this case, sees through this gambit and does its job—decide this legal dispute once and for all, the sooner, the better.
EPA officials say the proposed repeal will be conducted in a “robust, open, and transparent way, presenting a wide range of analysis scenarios to the public.”
Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the agency, said any rule the administration proposes “will be done carefully and properly within the confines of the law.”
Contributing: Doyle Rice of USA TODAY
More: President Trump’s executive order will undo Obama’s Clean Power Plan rule
More: Harvey, Irma and global warming. We have to talk.
Five things to know about Trump’s immigration principles
The White House is putting a high price on any deal that would allow young immigrants who entered the United States illegally to stay in the country and work.
In exchange for legislation that would turn the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program into law, the Trump administration wants money for the president’s proposed border wall, sweeping border security measures, crackdowns on so-called “sanctuary cities” and new measures to curb the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border.
Democrats are unlikely to agree to the set of demands, raising real questions about the path forward for DACA, the Obama-era program Trump began to wind down last month.Here are five things to know about the White House’s proposal:
Dead on arrival?
The White House demands were quickly condemned by Democrats.
Sen. Charles Schumer
Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerOvernight Health Care: Schumer calls for tying ObamaCare fix to children’s health insurance | Puerto Rico’s water woes worsen | Dems plead for nursing home residents’ right to sue Crying on TV doesn’t qualify Kimmel to set nation’s gun agenda Trump knocks ‘fake’ news coverage of his trip to Puerto Rico MORE (N.Y.) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the top Democrats in the Senate and House, were particularly irked that the proposal included several so-called poison pills that were not a part of last month’s talks with Trump — especially the border wall funding.
“This list goes so far beyond what is reasonable,” the two leaders said in a joint statement.
It also has the potential to divide Republicans, who could balk at cuts to legal immigration that were included in the plan. GOP lawmakers from border states are also skeptical of Trump’s proposal to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
Advocates on both sides of the immigration debate expressed pessimism that a deal could be reached, but stressed the talks are not over yet. Lawmakers could pick and choose parts of Trump’s wish list in an effort to craft a viable proposal.
Doug Andres, a spokesman for Speaker Paul Ryan
Paul RyanThe Hill Interview: Budget Chair Black sticks around for now Gun proposal picks up GOP support GOP lawmaker Tim Murphy to retire at end of term MORE (R-Wis.), said House members “will review these principles” and continue to consult with the administration on a bill.
Let’s make a deal
The million-dollar question surrounding the plan is whether Trump sees it as a final offer or the beginning of a negotiation.
Trump signaled his willingness to make a deal to protect DACA recipients when he gave Congress a six-month window to broker a solution.
Despite his hard-line rhetoric on immigration, Trump has long spoken favorably about young undocumented immigrants who benefit from the plan. He said in February he wanted to treat them “with heart.”
But since then, his team has driven a hard bargain, sparking talk that immigration restrictionists inside the administration are trying to regain control and ensure DACA is permanently quashed.
The proof could come if or when Trump draws any red lines. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said he cannot envision a scenario in which Trump backs away from the wall money.
“The president has boxed himself in on the wall issue,” he said.
Groups that favor strict immigration controls also say a new requirement that employers use E-Verify, which is used to verify employees’ immigration status, is nonnegotiable for them.
Both measures, however, would be deal-breakers for Democrats, whose votes Trump will need to pass a DACA fix through Congress.
The citizenship question
Another major fault line is whether DACA recipients would be allowed to become U.S. citizens.
Democrats, and some Republicans, have long called for a path to citizenship for “Dreamers,” a group of roughly 1.5 million young undocumented immigrants. Around 800,000 people benefit from DACA.
But a White House official indicated citizenship could be off the table, telling The Washington Post that the administration is “not interested in granting a path to citizenship” in a DACA deal.
Under that model, DACA recipients could live in the U.S. and receive work permits, but without any assurance they could remain long term.
That would satisfy many immigration hard-liners who worry making them citizens could spark a wave of so-called “chain migration” — with DACA recipients’ relatives coming to the U.S. to join them.
But immigrant-rights advocates say it’s a nonstarter, arguing citizenship for all “Dreamers” is well within the GOP mainstream. Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, pointed to a bill drafted by Sens. James Lankford
James Paul LankfordRepublicans jockey for position on immigration Tillis-Lankford amnesty proposal is a betrayal of the American people This week: Congress gets ball rolling on tax reform MORE (Okla.) and Thom Tillis
Thomas (Thom) Roland TillisRepublicans jockey for position on immigration Overnight Cybersecurity: Trump proclaims ‘Cybersecurity Awareness Month’ | Equifax missed chance to patch security flaw | Lawmakers await ex-CEO’s testimony | SEC hack exposed personal data Tillis-Lankford amnesty proposal is a betrayal of the American people MORE (N.C.) that essentially offers them a 15-year path to citizenship.
The Stephen Miller factor
The administration said many government agencies weighed in with policy recommendations, including the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Control.
But White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller is said to have spearheaded the effort to draft the principles and push them on Capitol Hill. He was joined by Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsIntel leaders: Collusion still open part of investigation Republicans jockey for position on immigration Biden to Alabama: No more extremist senators MORE, his former boss during their days in the Senate.
Both have long pushed for aggressive measures to curb the flow of illegal immigration and tough new measures to apprehend those living illegally in the U.S.
Miller has solidified his influence inside the West Wing and the principles are one of the clearest examples yet of his ability to shape the administration’s stance on an issue about which he cares deeply.
By advancing these principles, Miller could also make it more difficult for Trump to get a deal on DACA — and thus more likely for the program to disappear.
Campaign promises
Trump has taken heat for months over his inability to secure a legislative victory or whittle down a lengthy list of unfulfilled campaign promises, including the wall.
But Trump has checked a lot of boxes on immigration.
In addition to his decision to scrap DACA, he has issued new directives that dramatically increase the number of immigrants considered priorities for deportation.
The administration has threatened to withhold federal aid to “sanctuary cities” that refuse to help federal authorities enforce immigration law.
It has claimed the measures have resulted in a major spike in border apprehensions, and that a surge of new immigration judges are helping to close cases faster.
The latest proposal is an indication that the Trump administration wants to step up its hard-line approach, and not go in the other direction.
Wildfires in Northern California Kill at Least One and Destroy Hundreds of Buildings
The fires began at about 10 p.m. Sunday and were fanned by wind gusts moving faster than 50 miles an hour, Ms. Upton said. The cause remained under investigation on Monday afternoon.
The worst fires in Northern California tend to hit in October, when dry conditions prime them to spread fast and far as heavy winds, known as north winds or diablo winds, buffet the region.
Ms. Upton said that conditions were critically dry, given the lack of moisture in the air and the buildup of grass, brush and trees.
Credit
Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Combined, that’s a recipe for disaster,” she said.
Smoke billowed into the Bay Area, but the Marin County Fire Department reported that there were no separate fires in the area.
aerial footage of the #NapaFire pic.twitter.com/haqpyBlRxz
—
Adam Housley (@adamhousley)
Oct. 9, 2017
Reports suggested that residents in the region were caught unaware, many of them fleeing the area in cars and on foot as firefighters rushed to contain the outbreak. A number of roadways, including highways, were blocked by a fire.
Neighborhoods in Santa Rosa, the county seat of Sonoma, were evacuated, according to the city manager, who said the Kaiser Permanente and Sutter hospitals were being cleared out.
The fires raged through the hills that are home to some of the country’s most prized vineyards. The main north-south highway that connects San Francisco to the northernmost parts of California was closed Monday as fire engulfed both sides of the freeway. Santa Rosa is a hub for tours into wine country. At least two large hotels that cater to the wine tourism trade were destroyed by the fires.
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North of Santa Rosa’s downtown, residents of the Overlook, a hilltop apartment complex, used fire extinguishers to put out flames engulfing cypress trees planted along a building’s edge. Minutes later, the flames returned. At least three engines and ladder trucks arrived but could not stop flames on one of the buildings from spreading to the roof.
“It looks like they’re giving up on that one,” said Derek Smith, a Santa Rosa resident watching the blaze whose house was several blocks away.
When Mr. Smith awoke at 2:30 a.m. Monday to prepare to leave for work as an installer of laboratory equipment, he noticed very high winds and smelled smoke.
“It’s weird — I didn’t get any warnings or messages,” he said. “I left the house and then went back to get my mother’s jewelry.”
“The fire is everywhere now,” he said.
Traffic lights at multiple intersections in Santa Rosa were not functioning. Columns of black smoke could be seen in the evergreen forests on the northern outskirts of the city. A pall of white smoke across the city blotted out the sun.
Lisa Kaldunski, an operator at Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, said around 6:30 a.m. local time that the facility was being evacuated and that patients were being taken to other hospitals.
#BREAKING: Unbelievable wildfires in NorCal are wiping out homes. Alyssa O’Gorman shot this in Calistoga. Evacuations also in Santa Rosa. pic.twitter.com/DpOuYITLsM
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Brandi Hitt (@ABC7Brandi)
Oct. 9, 2017
Marc Brown, a spokesman for Kaiser Permanente, said about 130 patients had been evacuated from the Santa Rosa medical center because of the fires.
The Lake and Mendocino County sheriffs’ offices ordered evacuations. The Butte County sheriff announced that there were two fires in the area and listed neighborhoods where evacuation was mandatory.
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Belia Ramos, the chairwoman of the Napa County board of supervisors, said the county was dealing with three main fires. One has threatened more than 10,000 acres in northern Napa County, another has endangered 8,000 to 12,000 acres, and a third has affected about 2,000 acres, she said.
Ms. Ramos said the fires were moving quickly and unpredictably. She said she did not know how many people had been evacuated early Monday, but added that the areas being evacuated were large and densely populated.
“Certainly we know that the numbers are high,” she said. “As day breaks and we get a better handle on this situation, we’ll be able to update those numbers.”
California was hit by fires throughout the summer. Late last month, several blazes led to the evacuation of about 1,000 people in Southern California.
“I’ve been with the department for 31 years and some years are notorious and they’re burned in your memory,” Ms. Upton said. “I’m afraid that 2017 is going to be added to that list now.”
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Google Finds Accounts Connected to Russia Bought Election Ads
The ads appeared mainly alongside Google’s search results or on websites that use Google ads outside the search company’s own sites. It was not clear whether the ads appeared on YouTube or the Gmail email service, the person said.
There is a chance that Google may find other ads from Russian-linked accounts, the person familiar with the investigation said.
Google has been called to testify at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Nov. 1. But it has so far escaped the intense scrutiny confronting Facebook after the social network admitted that it discovered 470 profiles and pages to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company with ties to the Kremlin.
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, said it should not be surprising that Russians were using Google as well as Facebook and Twitter. The only thing that is surprising, he said, is that it took so long for Google to find the activity.
“It will take more time and length and breadth to know what Russia did on social media,” Mr. Schiff said. “But the themes are consistent across platforms: the desire to help Donald Trump, to hurt Hillary Clinton and the desire to set Americans against each other.”
Facebook has said the Russian company had placed 3,000 ads on its network at a cost of about $100,000. Last month, Twitter said it had found about 200 accounts that appeared to be linked to a Russian campaign to influence the election.
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Google is the only company that sells more digital advertising than Facebook, and its role in the coordinated Russian campaign has been a source of intense speculation in Washington and Silicon Valley. The Washington Post reported earlier that Google has found that Russian agents hoping to spread misinformation had spent tens of thousands of dollars on the company’s advertising platforms.
But Google’s investigation hasn’t found the same type of targeted advertising that Russian agents conducted on Facebook. The social network allows advertisers to target its audience with more specificity than Google, including users with a wide range of political leanings.
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The 2016 presidential election marked the first time that Google allowed targeting by political leanings and it allowed two categories — left-leaning and right-leaning.
However, Google has not found any evidence that the ads from the accounts suspected of having ties to the Russian government used these political categories or geographic parameters to target specific groups, the person familiar with the company’s investigation said. The ads were much more broad, aimed at English-language queries or any users in the United States, for example.
A Google spokeswoman, Andrea Faville, said the company had a policy that limits political ad targeting and prohibits targeting based on race and religion.
“We are taking a deeper look to investigate attempts to abuse our systems, working with researchers and other companies, and will provide assistance to ongoing inquiries,” Ms. Faville said.
On Facebook, fake Russia-linked accounts — in which fictional people posed as American activists — promoted inflammatory messages on divisive issues. Those accounts bought advertising to promote those messages and reach a bigger audience within the Facebook universe, while promoting the incendiary posts to different locations or people with established political leanings for maximum impact.
While the Russian-linked accounts did not target ads based on political affiliation, it raises the question of why Google allowed such targeting for the 2016 election when it hadn’t done so in the past. The only location where Google allows ad targeting by political affiliation is the United States.
Google is working with Jigsaw, a think tank owned by its parent company, Alphabet. Jigsaw has been doing research for 18 months on fake news and misinformation campaigns and it is using some of those findings in the investigation into Russian election meddling, the person said. It is also working with other technology companies like Facebook and Twitter, in addition to independent researchers and law enforcement.
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Melania Trump filling out her agenda as first lady
WASHINGTON — It was a moment eight months in the making: Melania Trump bounding down the White House lawn to the vegetable garden made famous by her predecessor.
Clad in a red plaid shirt, her eyes obscured by dark sunglasses, she greeted members of the local Boys and Girls Club who came to help her harvest and plant new crops. One skeptically asked, “Are you Melania Trump?”
“Yes, I’m the first lady” came her cheerful reply. It included two words Mrs. Trump has been using more often lately: first lady.
She says “my platform” a lot more, too.
As Mrs. Trump becomes more comfortable with her new role, she is speaking out about how she envisions using that platform to help children. She’s going beyond cyberbullying, which she’d identified during the presidential campaign as an issue that she would tackle if her husband became president but on which she has yet to announce any formal plan of action.
In a recent flurry of solo public appearances from the United Nations to an international sports event in Canada to the White House, Mrs. Trump has provided clues about her plans in a role that has thrust her into a spotlight far different from the bright lights she grew accustomed to during her career as a fashion model. She tweeted Monday that she’ll be in West Virginia on Tuesday to visit a care center for babies born addicted to opioids.
The first lady called on attendees at a U.N. luncheon last month to set good examples for children. She invited experts and people affected by drug addiction and opioid abuse, including a recovered addict, to the White House for a listening session and told them she plans to “use my platform as first lady” to help as many kids as possible.
During a visit to storm-ravaged Puerto Rico with her husband, Mrs. Trump told Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress that she was “passionate” about trying to help more communities on the island and asked how she might be able to do that, according to Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón.
The first lady also took her first solo trip — to Canada — to cheer Americans participating in an athletic competition for wounded service members and veterans.
And, on that sunny afternoon in the garden that was the brainchild of former first lady Michelle Obama, she encouraged the children helping her to make healthy eating a priority.
“I’m a big believer in healthy eating because it reflects on your mind and your body,” she said before telling the group to “come with me and have some fun.” She later pulled leeks from the ground and clipped an artichoke from a nearby plant. “I encourage you to continue and eat a lot of vegetables and fruits so you grow up healthy and take care of yourself. … It’s very important.”
The first lady showed some pique Monday when Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, referred to herself as “first lady” in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Ivana Trump said she tries not to call her ex-husband too much because “I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that because I’m basically first Trump wife. I’m first lady, ok?”
Melania Trump’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, called that comment “attention-seeking and self-serving noise.”
Mrs. Trump is a unique first lady: a native of Slovenia and former fashion model fluent in several languages. But like her predecessors, she’s still going through an adjustment period.
She was rarely seen in the weeks after the inauguration, and was usually at Trump’s side when she did appear in public. In an unusual move for modern first ladies, she and Barron, the couple’s now-11-year-old son, lived at the family’s Trump Tower penthouse in New York for several months after the inauguration so he wouldn’t have to switch schools in the middle of the year.
They joined Trump at the White House in June, and Barron startd sixth grade at a private school in Maryland after Labor Day.
“I still have a feeling she looks at this and says, ‘Am I really in this position?’” said Myra Gutin, a professor at Rider University who writes about first ladies.
Others attribute the first lady’s more visible, though still low, profile to her satisfaction that her only child is OK after the big move.
“The more comfortable she becomes in the position, the more great work she’s going to be able to do,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump campaign aide.
Melania is the most popular Trump in the White House, according to a recent CNN survey in which 44 percent of those polled said they have a favorable opinion of the first lady. Mrs. Trump bested the president, stepdaughter Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Ms. Trump’s husband, in the late-September poll.
It’s typical for first ladies to be more popular than their husbands, who are called upon to sound off on a host of difficult issues. Christopher Ruddy, CEO of the Newsmax website and one of the president’s longtime friends, said he thinks the American people respect the fact that the first lady put her son’s needs first.
“She wasn’t just going to rush down to Washington because her husband was elected,” Ruddy said.
Even Trump, who has experienced some of the lowest public approval ratings of a first-year president, has called attention to his wife’s popularity.
“She’s become very, very popular, I’ll tell you that,” Trump said after she introduced him at a recent event at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. He said she has become an “incredible emissary” for the American people. “Very proud of her.”
But the higher profile brings sharper scrutiny, too.
On Trump’s first trip to Texas after the hurricane, the first lady’s decision to wear stilettos as she left the White House was panned on social media. Many criticized her footwear as inappropriate for the circumstances, leading Grisham to lament the focus on shoes during a natural disaster. Mrs. Trump changed into sneakers for the arrival of Air Force One in Corpus Christi.
Trump defended his wife’s shoe choice, saying in an interview with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Trinity Broadcasting Network Saturday that she has “taken tremendous abuse.”
“She wants to look, out of respect for the White House, wants to look good leaving the front entrance to the White House. So she dresses up, she puts on formal shoes, high-heels, and she leaves the White House going to Texas,” Trump said.
___
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
___
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Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Feinstein, poised for another Senate run, says she’s ‘ready for a good fight’
Feinstein accused of ‘anti-Catholic bigotry’
Catholic nominee questioned about religion
Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Sunday gave her strongest indication so far that she’ll seek re-election, amid speculation the senior California Democratic senator will retire amid a potential 2018 challenge from her party’s progressive wing.
“I’m ready for a good fight. I’ve got things to fight for,” the 84-year-old Feinstein said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I’m in a position where I can be effective. And, hopefully, that means something to California.”
Feinstein, who had a pacemaker implanted in January, joined the Senate in 1992 after winning a special election. She is now the oldest U.S. senator and would be 91 at the end of another six-year term, if re-elected in November 2018.
The senator has been pressed recently by reporters about whether she’ll run again.
“Well, we will see, won’t we?” she also said Sunday, when asked about another Senate campaign.
Progressives are purportedly frustrated enough about her views on President Trump, DACA and single-payer health care to mount a challenge for her seat.
She recently upset progressives when the Trump administration announced in September the dismantling of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era executive order that protects young illegal immigrants from deportation.
Feinstein said she supports DACA, but acknowledged the administration’s argument that the order is on shaky legal ground.
Her analysis came several days after being criticized at a town hall meeting in San Francisco for expressing optimism about Trump becoming “a good president.” The remark resulted in so much Democratic backlash that she issued a clarification about being “under no illusion” about Trump.
California Democrats until recently appeared on a nearly endless wait to rise in political circles — with Feinstein and fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer as the state’s long-standing U.S. senators and fellow party member Jerry Brown serving four straight terms as governor.
However, Boxer’s retirement allowed former state Attorney General Kamala Harris last year to win that Senate seat. And Brown leaves in January after his fourth, and final, term.
Feinstein also has continuously expressed reservations about the so-called single-payer health care plan championed by many progressives, including Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and a potential 2020 challenger.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
‘We will keep coming back:’ Richard Spencer leads another torchlight march in Charlottesville
White nationalist groups marched with torches through the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville on Aug. 11. (Mykal McEldowney/The Indianapolis Star via AP, File)
Richard Spencer, who in August led white nationalists and white supremacists in a torchlight march across the University of Virginia campus that touched off a weekend of deadly clashes, returned Saturday night to Charlottesville.
Spencer, a white nationalist, posted video on social media of followers carrying torches to the statue of Robert E. Lee, which the city has sought to remove.
Back in Charlottesville https://t.co/0iwH1CT8sT
— Richard ☝Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) October 7, 2017
Charlottesville 3.0 was as success. pic.twitter.com/c18ktP0MWD
— Richard ☝Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) October 8, 2017
The march coincided with the university’s celebration of its bicentennial.
“It was a planned flash mob,” Spencer said in an interview Saturday night. “It was a great success. We’ve been planning this for a long time.”
“We wanted to prove that we came in peace in May, we came in peace in August, and we come again in peace,” he said.
Their message, he said, is that, “Our identity matters. We are not going to stand by and allow people to tear down these symbols of our history and our people – and we’re going to do this again.”
Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer sent a tweet denouncing the march: “Another despicable visit by neo-Nazi cowards. You’re not welcome here! Go home! Meantime we’re looking at all our legal options. Stay tuned.”
Wes Gobar, the leader of the U-Va. Black Student Alliance, who was trying to finish a paper for class when he learned of the rally, said it was difficult balancing studies while bracing for the next burst of hatred that might seize Charlottesville. On Saturday, some members of his group knelt in protest during the National Anthem and the school’s “Good Old Song.”
[The day white Virginia stopped admiring Gen. Robert E. Lee and started worshiping him]
Spencer, a U-Va. graduate, said he was unaware that the school was marking its bicentennial. They have been planning this “for a long time.”
WVIR-TV reported that Spencer and his group arrived at Emancipation Park, which is not on the university campus, about 7:45 p.m., and departed 15 minutes later.
White nationalists now chanting – “We will be back”. About 3 dozen supporters in Emancipation Park. Plenty of police on standby in park. pic.twitter.com/LuJEsAgxQy
— Matt Talhelm (@MattTalhelm) October 7, 2017
The video Spencer posted show him and his crowd chanting, “You will not replace us.”
They promised to keep returning to Charlottesville, which they argued had become symbolic of their right to speak and also had come to symbolize the tearing down of symbols of the nation’s history.
“You will not erase us.”
“We are about our heritage. Not just us Virginians. Not just as Southerners. But as white people . . . we’ll take a stand.
“You’ll have to get used to us.
“We’re going to come back again and again and again.”
Then they began singing about Dixie.
They also chanted: “The South will rise again. Russia is our friend. The South will rise again. Woo-hoo! Wooo.”
Officials with the Charlottesville police department did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday night.
Spokesmen for the University of Virginia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The August march at U-Va. — with people chanting “Jews will not replace us!” — touched off violence between demonstrators and counterprotesters the next day. A man drove into a crowd, killing one woman and injuring others, and two police officers who were monitoring the protests died when their helicopter crashed.
In the days that followed, several public universities denied Spencer a platform.
Last week, the University of Florida reluctantly agreed to allow Spencer to speak later this month, saying it had no choice because as a state institution, it must allow expression of all viewpoints.
The university, in Gainesville, Fla., is charging the National Policy Institute, which Spencer leads, $10,000 to rent a campus facility and to provide security inside the university’s performing arts center.
Trump: ‘One of the greatest terms I’ve come up with is ‘fake”
In a new interview, President Trump praised his use of the word “fake,” saying he thinks it’s “one of the greatest” terms he’s used.
“I think one of the greatest of all terms I’ve come up with is ‘fake,’ ” Trump said in an interview with TBN host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R). “I guess other people have used it, perhaps over the years, but I’ve never noticed it.”
Trump has often used the term in reference to the media and news coverage throughout his campaign and presidency.
Trump’s remarks came as he defended his administration from criticism following the response to the crisis in Puerto Rico. He said the media coverage of the trip was unfair. Pointing to a specific example, he defended tossing paper towels into a crowd at a church during the visit.“They had these beautiful, soft towels, very good towels. And I came in and there was a crowd of a lot of people, and they were screaming and they were loving everything,” Trump said. “I was having fun, they were having fun.”
“They said, ‘throw ‘em to me! Throw ‘em to me Mr. President!’ ” Trump said, before pantomiming shooting a basketball in the same way he tossed the paper towels.
“So the next day they said, ‘oh it was so disrespectful to the people.’ It was just a made-up thing. And also when I walked in, the cheering was incredible,” he continued.
Trump also accused the media of “taking away the spirit of the country” in the interview.
Trump previously told Puerto Ricans “don’t believe the fake news” about his administration’s response to the storm.