President Trump's Friends Are Telling Him to Fight Robert Mueller's Russia Probe - TIME

President Trump's Friends Are Telling Him to Fight Robert Mueller's Russia Probe

Tom Lobianco & Eric Tucker / AP

Oct 10, 2017

(WASHINGTON) — Even as President Donald Trump's advisers encourage him to accept the realities of special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, longtime friends and allies are pushing Trump to fight back, citing concerns that his lawyers are naive to the existential threat facing the president.

Trump supporters and associates inside and outside the White House see the conciliatory path as risky to the maverick president's tenure. Instead, they want the street-fighting tweeter to criticize Mueller with abandon.

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The struggle between supporters of the legal team's steady, cooperative approach, and the band of Trump loyalists who yearn for a fight, comes as the Mueller probe begins lapping at the door of the Oval Office. Mueller, who is investigating the firing of former FBI director James Comey and other key actions of the Trump administration, has signaled that his team intends to interview multiple current and former White House officials in the coming weeks and has requested large batches of documents from the executive branch.

In private, Trump remains relatively calm for now, but that doesn't mean he thinks the Russia probe is legitimate, and he could return to fighting Mueller at any moment, according to a group of about 15 Trump allies, advisers and former campaign aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about private conversations with the White House.

The president still periodically flashes his anger, blasting the Senate intelligence committee's investigation in a tweet last Thursday and urging them to investigate journalists instead of his campaign and family. And in a private dinner with social conservatives last month, Trump expressed frustration over Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recusal, which helped pave the road to Mueller's appointment.

"The president respects what Bob Mueller is doing and has fully cooperated and asked everyone around him to fully cooperate with Bob," said Trump's attorney, John Dowd. "And as a result," he added, there has been for months "a very productive, professional relationship."

Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer responsible for responding to Mueller's information requests, said it's important to Trump "and the country to get this behind us."

"The White House is working diligently in full cooperation with the special counsel to complete the responses to all pending requests, and the president's frustration does not extend to the special counsel personally in any way," he added.

Lawyers have been gathering documents requested by Mueller's investigators — which include records about the brief tenure of ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn — and working to schedule interviews with aides. In recent weeks, they've also discussed a legal defense fund that could cover the cost of lower-level White House officials who may get wrapped up in the probe, and about the possibility of a single "pool counsel" to represent some aides.

But the question of cooperation is far from settled for Trump's allies, many of whom are pressing him to fight Mueller more aggressively.

That tension was apparent at a private dinner of close to a dozen conservative leaders with Trump and his top aides on Sept. 25, though accounts of the gathering vary.

In one version, one guest peppered Trump with questions about what he was going to do about the special counsel's investigation. While Trump was dismissive, the president said he was keeping his head low and such questions should be posed to Sessions himself, according to two people who were present and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private dinner.

But a third person in the room said that Trump was visibly angry with Sessions and made a flippant remark about the attorney general's decision to recuse himself from overseeing the federal Russia probe.

One former Trump campaign aide in contact with the president said Trump's feelings about Sessions have evolved in the last few months. Trump believes Sessions hurt him by not disclosing his interactions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the vetting process for attorney general.

Sessions should have been upfront with Trump and alerted him to those encounters rather than waiting for word of them to become public, the former campaign aide said. But the president's anger with Sessions also has diminished greatly in recent months, the same aide noted.

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Supporters of Trump's legal team and the discipline imposed by Chief of Staff John Kelly are hoping that Trump will remain even-keeled and not jeopardize himself with public outbursts. They consider Mueller's appointment the product of the most serious of self-inflicted wounds — Trump's firing of Comey — but are confident Trump will survive the investigation.

The president, the White House staff and others are "relieved" to have some structure inside the White House after months of chaos growing from the combative approach, said one White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks inside the White House.

But others, including many who worked closely with Trump on his successful election campaign, don't trust Mueller and believe White House lawyers are foolhardy to cooperate when the president is at risk.

The president and his team need to understand that this is a "political brawl" — not just a legal fight — and take that fight to Mueller, said the former campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions with the president and his team.

Trump will remain under control, one associate noted, as long as Mueller remains focused on Flynn and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, both of whom are under investigation. If the federal probe turns back toward the Trump family and business empire, then Trump may try to fire Mueller, the associate predicted.

The lay-low strategy is a departure in style for a president accustomed to rhetorical bombast. But after a period several months ago in which his advocates discussed ways to undercut the credibility of Mueller's investigation, his attorneys now talk openly about their respect for Mueller and their desire for full cooperation.The anger inside and outside the White House stems from almost everyone in the president's orbit seeing the allegations of collusion as a "nothing burger." But, with the reality of the investigations, it's a "nothing burger" they're now acknowledging they have to deal with.

Putin Says Around 40,000 North Koreans Work in Russia, Casts Doubt on Efforts of Military Strike - Reuters

Putin Says Around 40,000 North Koreans Work in Russia, Casts Doubt on Efforts of Military Strike

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2017

Putin Says Around 40,000 North Koreans Work in Russia, Casts Doubt on Efforts of Military Strike

Russia President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that a military strike against North Korea designed to destroy its nuclear and missile program might not succeed because Pyongyang could have hidden military facilities that nobody knows about.

Putin, speaking at an energy forum in Moscow, made it clear he had serious doubts about the military efficacy of such a move, as well as other political and moral concerns.

“Can a global strike against North Korea be launched to disarm it? Yes. Will it achieve its aim? We don’t know. Who knows what they have there and where. Nobody knows with 100 percent certainty as it’s a closed country.”

Putin said Russia had more reason than most to be concerned by Pyongyang’s missile program, saying that North Korea‘s nuclear testing range was located just 200 kilometers (124.27 miles) from the Russian border.

The Russian leader also reiterated his call for diplomacy to be allowed to run its course and for all sides to dial down the bellicose rhetoric. He also said he thought Trump was listening to Russia’s views on the crisis.

More sanctions were the road to nowhere, Putin told the same forum, saying around 40,000 North Korean citizens were currently working in Russia.

Such workers are known to regularly send back part of their wages to the North Korean authorities.

In a photo taken on September 27, 2017 a child stands on a roadside in Pyongyang. (ED JONES/AFP/Getty Images)

A Fraught Double Game

Russia is already angry about a build-up of U.S.-led NATO forces on its western borders in Europe and does not want any replication on its Asian flank.

Yet while Russia has an interest in protecting North Korea, which started life as a Soviet satellite state, it is not giving Pyongyang a free pass: it backed tougher United Nations sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear tests last month.

But Moscow is also playing a fraught double game, by quietly offering North Korea a slender lifeline to help insulate it from U.S.-led efforts to isolate it economically.

A Russian company began routing North Korean internet traffic this month, giving Pyongyang a second connection with the outside world besides China. Bilateral trade more than doubled to $31.4 million in the first quarter of 2017, due mainly to what Moscow said was higher oil product exports.

At least eight North Korean ships that left Russia with fuel cargoes this year have returned home despite officially declaring other destinations, a ploy U.S. officials say is often used to undermine sanctions against Pyongyang.

So despite Russia giving lukewarm backing to tighter sanctions on Pyongyang, Putin wants to help its economy grow and is advocating bringing it into joint projects with other countries in the region.

“We need to gradually integrate North Korea into regional cooperation,” Putin told the Vladivostok summit last month.

Reuters

Bolivians honour Che Guevara 50 years after execution - Al Jazeera

Bolivians honour Che Guevara 50 years after execution

by Linda Farthing

Bolivians honour Che Guevara 50 years after execution

Vallegrande, Bolivia - In the remote corner of eastern Bolivia where Ernesto "Che" Guevara died, thousands gathered to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death at the hands of the CIA-trained Bolivian military.

All four of Che's children, along with Bolivian President Evo Morales and Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, and delegations from Venezuela and Cuba, came to pay their respects in the small town of Vallegrande on Monday.

"This is a historic moment, not just for me personally, but for all peoples who struggle for their liberation," Morales told the crowd.

"To remember the 50th anniversary of Che's death is to remember the struggle for dignity and national sovereignty, and against imperialism."

Visitors from all over the world attended the main event at the airport where the remains of Che and six comrades were found in 1997 and later repatriated to Cuba.

The nearby mausoleum and new museum show how the revolutionary icon transformed from being feared and hated by the Bolivian government to being praised by it.

Thousands from all over the world visit the Che Guevara Mausoleum at Vallegrande airport every year [Linda Farthing/Al Jazeera]

Monday's commemoration was part of five days of activities including film shows, theatre performances, photo exhibitions and talks.

"We are showing that in Bolivia, Che's thought and his work are being kept alive and that our government follows his example," said Alfredo Rada, Bolivian vice-minister of coordination with social movements.

'We wanted to fight with Che'

Che saw Bolivia as a springboard to bring revolution to South America, and particularly to his homeland, Argentina.

But the ragtag band of revolutionaries he assembled misread the political moment in rural Bolivia.

Indigenous peasant farmers, released 13 years earlier from centuries of serfdom, supported a recently installed military dictatorship in exchange for guarantees that they would not lose their small parcels of land.

Nonetheless, some 20 Bolivian radicals joined his 52-member band.

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"Many of us wanted to fight with Che, but no one knew how to contact the guerrillas," retired mining leader Felix Muruchi told Al Jazeera.

"Even though our union was outlawed by the military, we managed to assist them with a contribution from our salaries."

Fifty years on, Che has been turned into a marketable commodity - from t-shirts to fridge magnets.

This transformation meant that tourism could not be far behind.

The Che Trail

In Bolivia, the "Che Trail", a multi-day route, was created in 2004 by the lowland indigenous organisation Asamblea del Pueblo Guarani, ironically with the help of the Bolivian military.

Guarani indigenous leader Nelly Romero, one of the organisers, said she believes Che would have approved of it.

"As Che fought for the poor, indigenous and peasants, I doubt it would have bothered him to have his name and sacrifice used by us," Romero told Al Jazeera.

The loosely defined 300km trail traces the increasingly beleaguered band's trip across densely forested Andean foothills.

The more popular northern route begins three hours west of the city of Santa Cruz in the picturesque tourist town of Samaipata, where Che received medicine.

It continues southwest to Vallegrande where his emaciated corpse was displayed in the local hospital and Tania, the only woman in the group, is buried.

The laundry room in Vallegrande where Che's body was displayed. The sign above the door reads, 'Che lives on in the hearts and faces of those who demand justice' [Linda Farthing/Al Jazeera]

"Those tourists, who travel the Ruta del Che, are people who share Che's ideals," local guide Adalid Balderrama to Al Jazeera.

The final destination is the impoverished hamlet of La Higuera, where he was captured and assassinated.

Local shopkeeper Irma Rosales met Che's group when she was 20.

"We had no idea who they were," she said. "We were afraid of them because they weren't from around here."

Such distrust, combined with only token support from the Bolivian Communist Party, which favoured trade union and parliamentary work over armed struggle, ensured the group's downfall.

Che could never have envisaged that he would become a sort of local saint.

"I come to light a candle and pray," Emiliana Gutierrez, a teacher, told Al Jazeera as she stood outside the mausoleum where his remains were found.

"Che was a doctor and so his spirit has the power of healing."

Farmers in La Higuera pray to Che for help with their crops, and residents often hang his picture in their homes next to Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

Bolivia's current government is working hard to keep Che's legacy alive, as are the people in this region.

"People die but their ideas never do," said Morales as he walked to the site in La Higuera where Che was killed.

"We are in different times now, times of democratic liberation, fuelled not by the bullet but by the ballot box and the vote."

Time Travel Isn't Possible ... or Is It? - Space.com

Time Travel Isn't Possible ... or Is It?

The speed at which you move through space determines the speed at which you move through time.

by Paul Sutter / Sep.03.2017 / 10:37 PM ET

Special relativity teaches us that the three dimensions of space and the solitary dimension of time are woven together like a fabric. It's impossible to think of them as separate entities, only a singular unified entity — space-time. We can't think of motion through space without being mindful of motion through time, and vice versa. Left-right, up-down, back-forth and past-future are all on equal footing.

And yet, time does seem a little different. We have complete freedom of movement within space, but we cannot avoid our future. Time seems to have an "arrow," whereas the spatial dimensions are ambidextrous. Given the unity between time and space, it leads to the obvious question: Is time travel, of any sort, possible? Under any circumstances? At all?

INTO THE FUTURE: SURE

Oddly enough, the answer is yes! We cannot avoid moving into our futures, but we can control the rate that we move through time. This is a consequence of another lesson from relativity: Not all clocks are the same.

The speed at which you move through space determines the speed at which you move through time. In the succinct phrase: Moving clocks run slow.

Many science fiction stories explore humanity's desire to travel back in time. Is such a thing really possible in our universe? Universal

IF you could build a big enough rocket (don't ask me how, that's an engineering problem) to provide a constant acceleration of 1g (9.8 meters per second per second; the same acceleration as provided by the Earth's gravity at its surface), you could reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy — a healthy 20,000 light-years away — in just a couple decades of your personal time.

You could stop for a few hours, have a picnic near Sagittarius A* (the black hole at the center of the galaxy), and then hop back in to your rocket and come back to Earth.

By the time you return you'll be eligible for retirement benefits, if the institution providing those benefits is even around, because while you only traveled for a few decades according to the clock on your ship, about 40,000 years would've passed on the Earth.

CLOSING THE LOOP

Time is relative, but it still flows in the same direction for everyone. To ask if we can go into reverse is the domain of general relativity (GR) — this is the mathematical language we use to not only understand gravity, but the full connection between space-time and motion.

In GR, we ask a slightly more technical question: Is there any arrangement of matter and energy (the stuff that warps space-time) to permit the existence of closed time-like curves, or CTCs? I know this is jargon but it's a fun phrase to toss around at parties. "Curve" here means a path, "time-like" means you never go faster than the speed of light, and "closed" means it returns to its starting point — in other words, its own past.

So, Oracle of Einstein, are CTCs permitted? Yes! Well….

Creators of science fiction love to play with time travel, but is such a thing possible in the real universe? BBC

THE POSSIBILITIES ARE FINITE

There are about half a dozen known configurations of space-time that allow CTCs, or time travel into the past. For example, Kurt Gödel (of Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem fame) discovered that if the expansion of the universe was accelerating (which it is) and the universe is also rotating, CTCs would be allowed and we could travel into our past on a whim.

As far as I can tell, Gödel used this solution to point out to Albert Einstein that perhaps GR wasn't all it was cracked up to be — I mean, come on, shouldn't any self-respecting theory of the natural world avoid such an obviously absurd solution?

But Gödel's point was moot — all observations indicate that the universe is not rotating, so that particular solution does not apply to our universe, and time travel into the past is verboten.

Ah! But what if we were to construct an infinitely long massive cylinder and set it spinning on its axis near the speed of light. It would drag on space-time around it, and certain paths around that spinning cylinder would end up in their own past. Good thing there are no infinitely long massive cylinders in the universe, or we might have to worry.

Wait, I've got one: If you make a wormhole (a shortcut between two distant locations in space-time) and send one end racing off near the speed of light and bring it back, the normal time-dilation effects would put one end in the "future" of the other, so you could waltz right through the wormhole throat and end up in your past. What's that? Wormholes require "negative mass" to exist, and negative mass does not exist in the universe? Well, hmm.

INTO THE PAST: NOPE

It's the same story every time (pardon the too-hard-to-resist pun). For every scenario we concoct in general relativity to allow CTCs and time travel into our own past, nature finds a way to confound our plans and rule out the scenario.

What's going on? General relativity allows — in principle — time travel into the past, but it appears to be ruled out in every case. It seems like something funny is afoot, that there ought to be some fundamental rule to disallow time travel. But there isn't one. We can't point to any particle interaction at the subatomic level that clearly prevents the formation of CTCs.

This story was originally published on Space.com.

Trump challenges Tillerson to battle of IQ tests over reported 'moron' jab - Fox News

Trump challenges Tillerson to battle of IQ tests over reported 'moron' jab

White House denies tension between Trump and Tillerson

Nan Hayworth and Dennis Kucinich discuss the latest from the White House.

President Trump, after seemingly patching things up with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson following a report that he once called the president a “moron” and considered quitting, has challenged the top diplomat to “compare IQ tests” if he indeed said that.

The president made the comments in an interview with Forbes, for a story published Tuesday.

"I think it's fake news, but if he did that, I guess we'll have to compare IQ tests. And I can tell you who is going to win," Trump said.

Tillerson scrambled last week to counter an NBC News report claiming that Vice President Pence had to intervene over the summer to help convince him not to resign – and that Tillerson called the commander-in-chief a “moron.”

Tillerson adamantly denied he considered resigning, while a spokeswoman later pushed back on the “moron” anecdote, though reporters stood by the account.

Tillerson’s public pushback seemed to calm the waters.

Trump on Saturday denied a frayed relationship with Tillerson but said he sometimes wishes Tillerson would be “tougher.”

Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are scheduled to have lunch with Trump Tuesday.

Trump wall: New proposal ties Dreamer plan to border clampdown - BBC News

Trump wall: New proposal ties Dreamer plan to border clampdown

Dreamer supporters rallied outside Trump Tower in New York last week

The White House has tied any new deal on young undocumented immigrants to a clampdown on illegal immigration, including a border wall with Mexico.

US President Donald Trump is asking for funding for the wall, speedier deportations and the hiring of thousands of new immigration officials.

Last month he ended the Obama-era "Dreamer" programme which had protected some 690,000 immigrants.

Leading Democrats in Congress have rejected the latest proposals.

They accused Mr Trump of backtracking on a commitment not to include the border wall in negotiations over the status of young immigrants, who are mostly from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) programme, set up in 2012 under President Barack Obama, is due to expire in March, casting doubt on the future of those protected.

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What are Trump's demands?

The list of "principles" delivered by the White House to Congress on Sunday includes:

Constructing the border wall with Mexico

Employing 10,000 additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 1,000 lawyers for the agency

Hiring an extra 370 immigration judges and 300 federal prosecutors

Banning immigrants from bringing their extended family members to the US

Penalising "sanctuary cities" that have resisted the Trump administration's efforts to crack down on illegal immigrants

Having companies use an E-Verify programme to keep illegal immigrants from getting jobs

"These findings outline reforms that must be included as part of any legislation addressing the status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients," Mr Trump wrote in a letter to Congress accompanying the list.

His legislative affairs director, Marc Short, said the priorities were "essential to mitigate the legal and economic consequences of any grant of status to Daca recipients".

Last month, Mr Trump told Congress, which is dominated by his Republican party, it had six months to agree new legislation to help the Dreamers.

Who are the Dreamers?

They are young people who were brought to the US illegally as children and as such faced deportation.

Under Mr Obama's policy, they were able to apply for work and study permits but critics said the scheme amounted to an amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Since the scheme was introduced, about 100,000 recipients have seen their status lapse or change, leaving about 690,000 recipients today.

Media captionWhere do America's undocumented immigrants live?

In order to qualify for Daca, applicants under the age of 30 submitted personal information to the Department of Homeland Security.

They had to go through an FBI background check and have a clean criminal background, and either be in education, have recently graduated or have been honourably discharged from the military.

In exchange, the US government agreed to "defer" any action on their immigration status for a period of two years.

What do the Democrats say?

"The administration can't be serious about compromise or helping the Dreamers if they begin with a list that is anathema to the Dreamers, to the immigrant community and to the vast majority of Americans," House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement.

"The list includes the wall, which was explicitly ruled out of the negotiations. If the president was serious about protecting the Dreamers, his staff has not made a good faith effort to do so."

Mr Schumer and Ms Pelosi said after a meeting with Mr Trump last month that he had told them funding for the wall would not be part of a Daca deal.

However, Mr Trump said later no such commitment had been made, the New York Times reported.

Will the wall actually be built?

Media captionMore than 200 companies are believed to have submitted designs for the proposed border wall.

It was one of Mr Trump's most controversial election pledges but debate has raged over how it will be funded.

The US leader insisted Mexico itself should pay but the authorities there have rejected the idea.

Meanwhile, a prototype was erected near San Diego, California, last week.