Trump's budget plan includes $5bn more for US-Mexico border wall than for the opioid crisis - Independent ( source ; Associated Press ? Reuters )

12/2/2018

Trump's budget plan includes $5bn more for US-Mexico border wall than for the opioid crisis

Proposal needs to be rewritten after President signs $300bn spending deal to end government shutdown

Staff and agencies

Mr Trump is to unveil his 2019 budget proposal on Monday AP

Donald Trump has unveiled his second budget proposal including $13bn (£9.4bn) over two years to tackle the US opioid crisis – and $18bn to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

The Republican’s 2019 spending proposal will also roll out his long-touted infrastructure plan designed to use $200m of federal funds to stimulate $1.5tn (£1.08tn) in local and private spending on roads, bridges and other projects.

But it will land in Congress just days after the President signed a $300bn budget pact to end a government shutdown, meaning it will have to be rewritten.

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That agreement included $165bn in defence spending and $131bn for non-military domestic matters and, combined with Mr Trump’s flagship tax cuts, is set to increase the annual deficit.

Government employee quits rather than help deport immigrants

The President’s budget plan is likely to be criticised by conservatives who fear Republicans are embracing deficit spending. During the campaign Mr Trump repeatedly insisted that Mexico would pay for his border wall, but the country refused.

Last autumn he declared the opioid crisis a “public health emergency”, urging Americans to be “the generation that ends the opioid epidemic”. He has already directed federal agencies to use all resources possible to tackle the problem and the proposed $13bn increase will go towards addiction prevention, treatment and long-term recovery.

Mr Trump’s $4tn budget proposal would take the annual budget deficit to more than $1tn, double what his last plan had predicted for 2019, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget watchdog group.

Presidential budgets are viewed largely as suggestions by Congress, which has the constitutional authority to decide spending levels.

Mick Mulvaney, head of the Trump administration’s budget office, said in a statement the proposal would recommend cuts that would lower the deficit by $3tn over 10 years.

“The budget does bend the trajectory down,” Mr Mulvaney told the Fox News Sunday programme. “It does move us back towards balance. It does get us away from trillion-dollar deficits.”

“These are spending caps,” he added. “They are not spending floors. You don’t have to spend all that.”

Mr Trump’s proposal would again spare Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare as he promised during the 2016 campaign.

And while it would reprise last year’s attempt to scuttle Obamacare and cut back the Medicaid programme for the elderly, poor and disabled, his allies on Capitol Hill have signalled there is no interest in tackling hot-button health issues during an election year.

It promises 3 per cent economic growth, continuing low inflation, and low interest yields on US Treasury bills despite a large amount of new borrowing.

AP/Reuters

U.S. urges home countries to take back foreign fighters caught in Syria - CBS News

February 12, 2018, 4:19 AM

U.S. urges home countries to take back foreign fighters caught in Syria

Last Updated Feb 12, 2018 4:33 AM EST

ROME -- The United States is urging allied nations to help deal with the growing number of foreign fighters that are being held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, saying the militants should be turned over to face justice in their home countries.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is expected to raise the issue during a meeting in Rome this week with other members of the coalition that is fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in both Syria and Iraq.

The SDF is currently holding thousands of ISIS detainees, including hundreds of foreign fighters from a number of nations. The issue became more prominent in recent days, after the announcement that the SDF had captured two notorious British members of an ISIS cell who were commonly dubbed the Beatles and were known for beheading hostages.

U.S. officials have said putting the two in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility is not an option. And British leaders have suggested they don't want the two men returned to Britain.

"We're working with the coalition on foreign fighter detainees, and generally expect these detainees to return to their country of origin for disposition," said Kathryn Wheelbarger, the principal deputy assistant defense secretary for international security affairs. "Defense ministers have the obligation and the opportunity to really explain to their other ministers or their other Cabinet officials just the importance to the mission, to the campaign, to make sure that there's an answer to this problem."

Speaking to reporters traveling with Mattis to Europe, Wheelbarger said the key goal is to keep the fighters off the battlefield and unable to travel to other cities.

"The capacity problem is very real," Wheelbarger said, noting that at one point the SDF was capturing as many as 40 militants a day. "Success in the campaign means you get more people off the battlefield. ... These facilities are eventually going to be full."

U.S. military officials have confirmed that El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, who grew up in London, were captured in early January in eastern Syria.

U.S. officials have interrogated the men, who were part of the ISIS cell that captured, tortured and beheaded more than two dozen hostages, including American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and American aid worker Peter Kassig.

Hundreds of foreign citizens fought alongside ISIS as it took control of large parts of Syria, raising concerns that they will bring terrorism with them if they ever return home.

The legal issues are daunting. Most nations, including the U.S., would be unwilling to take back detainees unless they have the evidence to prosecute them, and that often is difficult to collect in such battlefield captures.

While officials say that Guantanamo is not a viable option for the two British insurgents, questions remain about any potential use of the facility. President Donald Trump issued an executive order last month that keeps the prison open, prompting speculation that additional detainees could be brought in.

A number of allies, however, have openly criticized the use of Guantanamo, where detainees have been held for years without trial. And experts have argued that the facility serves as a recruiting tool for extremist groups.

Former ISIS hostages and families of the group's victims are saying that Elsheikh and Kotey should be brought to trial.

French journalist Nicolas Henin, who was held by the men and their comrades for 10 months, said he wants justice, and that the men should be tried in Britain, not shipped to Guantanamo Bay, because revenge will just breed more violence.

"What I'm looking for is justice and Guantanamo is a denial of justice," he told The Associated Press.

Wheelbarger said the detainee problem is just one of the issues the defense ministers will discuss during the meeting.

ISIS has been largely defeated in Iraq and is near destruction in Syria, where pockets of insurgents still operate along the Euphrates River, near the Iraq border and in other scattered locations. As a result, the coalition is shifting from an emphasis on combat operations to stabilization.

"There are numerous questions about what's next," said Mattis.

He said that will include ensuring that explosive devices are found and eliminated, getting schools re-opened and making sure clean water is available.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Says the #MeToo Movement Is Here to Stay - TIME

12/2/2018

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Says the #MeToo Movement Is Here to Stay

By ELI MEIXLER 4:44 AM EST

The #MeToo movement that has seen women come forward to expose pervasive sexual harassment has “staying power” and will not succumb to a backlash, according to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The reckoning that has toppled alleged sexual predators from positions of power in the entertainment industry, media and government is “too widespread” to risk a “serious backlash,” Ginsburg said in an interview with CNN’s Poppy Harlow at Columbia University on Sunday. “It’s amazing to me that, for the first time, women are really listened to,” she said. “Because sexual harassment had often been dismissed as, ‘Well, she made it up,’ or ‘She’s too thin-skinned.’ So I think it’s a very healthy development.”

Ginsburg, 84, spoke with Harlow in a wide-ranging and sometimes personal dialogue that touched on her own experiences of sexism, the 2016 presidential campaign, and the Equal Rights Amendment, for which Ginsburg is a vocal proponent.

Ginsburg said that “sexism played a prominent part” in the 2016 presidential race, where a “macho atmosphere” created an unequal disadvantage for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who Ginsburg said “was criticized in a way … no man would have been criticized.”

Ginsburg, who has given several speaking engagements during the Court’s winter recess, avoided making a direct reference to President Donald Trump. But the Supreme Court Justice defended some of the institutions that have come in for particular criticism during his administration, including a free press, which she said “is of tremendous importance to a society,” and an independent judiciary, which she said is one of the country’s “hallmarks,” but one that requires lawyers and other figures to defend its integrity against attacks.

Ginsburg publicly clashed with Trump in July 2016 after she told CNN that the then Republican presidential candidate, was a “faker.” Trump responded by calling for Ginsburg to resign, saying her mind was “shot.” Ginsburg later said she regretted the comments.