#martin superville

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Martin Superville -- Caribbean Queen

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CHIAROSCURO beautifully sums up much of the atmosphere that one sees in the work of Martin Superville. Do try to go see the show or to check the Trinidad and Tobago Art Society web page for more information.

[ourlocalheart-blog]

Music and Dance

Martin Superville

[xtruss]

Civil Rights Icon Rep. John Lewis Lies in State at Capital!

BY BILL BARROW AND ANDREW TAYLOR

— July 27, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a solemn display of bipartisan unity, congressional leaders praised Democratic Rep. John Lewis as a moral force for the nation on Monday in a Capitol Rotunda memorial service rich with symbolism and punctuated by the booming, recorded voice of the late civil rights icon.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Lewis the “conscience of the Congress” who was “revered and beloved on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of the Capitol.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised the longtime Georgia congressman as a model of courage and a “peacemaker.”

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” McConnell, a Republican, said, quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “But that is never automatic. History only bent toward what’s right because people like John paid the price.”

Lewis died July 17 at the age of 80. Born to sharecroppers during Jim Crow segregation, he was beaten by Alabama state troopers during the civil rights movement, spoke ahead of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the nation’s first Black president in 2011.

Dozens of lawmakers looked on Monday as Lewis’ flag-draped casket sat atop the catafalque built for President Abraham Lincoln. Several wiped away tears as the late congressman’s voice echoed off the marble and gilded walls. Lewis was the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the Rotunda.

“You must find a way to get in the way. You must find a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble,” Lewis intoned in a recorded commencement address he’d delivered in his hometown of Atlanta. “Use what you have … to help make our country and make our world a better place, where no one will be left out or left behind. ... It is your time.”

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus wore masks with the message “Good Trouble,” a nod to Lewis’ signature advice and the COVID-19 pandemic that has made for unusual funeral arrangements.

The ceremony was the latest in a series of public remembrances. Pelosi, who counted Lewis as a close friend, met his casket earlier Monday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, and Lewis’ motorcade stopped at Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House as it wound through Washington before arriving at the Capitol.

The Democratic speaker noted that Lewis, frail with cancer, had come to the newly painted plaza weeks ago to stand “in solidarity” amid nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality. She called the image of Lewis “an iconic picture of justice” and juxtaposed it with another image that seared Lewis into the national memory. In that frame, “an iconic picture of injustice,” Pelosi said, Lewis is collapsed and bleeding near the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, when state troopers beat him and other Black Americans as they demanded voting rights.

Following the Rotunda service, Lewis’ body was moved to the steps on the Capitol’s east side in public view, an unusual sequence required because the pandemic has closed the Capitol to visitors.

Late into the night, a long line of visitors formed outside the Capitol as members of the public quietly, and with appropriate socially distant spacing, came to pay their respects to Lewis.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden paid his respects late Monday afternoon. The pair became friends over their two decades on Capitol Hill together and Biden’s two terms as vice president to President Barack Obama, who awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

Notably absent from the ceremonies was President Donald Trump. Lewis once called Trump an illegitimate president and chided him for stoking racial discord. Trump countered by blasting Lewis’ Atlanta district as “crime-infested.” Trump said Monday that he would not go to the Capitol, but Vice President Mike Pence and his wife paid their respects.

Just ahead of the ceremonies, the House passed a bill to establish a new federal commission to study conditions that affect Black men and boys.

Born near Troy, Alabama, Lewis was among the original Freedom Riders, young activists who boarded commercial passenger buses and traveled through the segregated Jim Crow South in the early 1960s. They were assaulted and battered at many stops, by citizens and authorities alike. Lewis was the youngest and last-living of those who spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington.

The Bloody Sunday events in Selma two years later forged much of Lewis’ public identity. He was at the head of hundreds of civil rights protesters who attempted to march from the Black Belt city to the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery.

The marchers completed the journey weeks later under the protection of federal authorities, but then-Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace, an outspoken segregationist at the time, refused to meet the marchers when they arrived at the Capitol. President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on Aug. 6 of that year.

Lewis spoke of those critical months for the rest of his life as he championed voting rights as the foundation of democracy, and he returned to Selma many times for commemorations at the site where authorities had brutalized him and others. “The vote is precious. It is almost sacred,” he said again and again. “It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.”

The Supreme Court scaled back the seminal voting law in 2012; an overhauled version remains bottle-necked on Capitol Hill, with Democrats pushing a draft that McConnell and most of his fellow Republicans oppose. The new version would carry Lewis’ name.

Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the last time Sunday on a horse-drawn carriage before an automobile hearse transported him to the Alabama Capitol, where he lay in repose. He was escorted by Alabama state troopers, this time with Black officers in their ranks, and his casket stood down the hall from the office where Wallace had peered out of his window at the citizens he refused to meet.

After the memorial in Washington, Lewis’s body will return to Georgia. He will have a private funeral Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which King once led.

— Barrow reported from Birmingham, Ala. Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Darlene Superville contributed to this report from Washington.

[5millionfriends]

Trump: Postal Service must charge Amazon more, or no loan President Donald Trump says he won’t approve a $10 billion loan for the U.S. Postal Service unless the agency raises charges for Amazon and other big shippers to four to five times current ratesBy MARTIN CRUTSINGER and DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated PressApril 24, 2020, 11:17 PM3 min read3 min readShare to FacebookShare to TwitterEmail this articleWASHINGTON --

[plusorminuscongress]

New story in Politics from Time: ‘The Postal Service Is a Joke.’ Trump Says No Stimulus Loan for USPS Unless Pricing for Amazon Shipments Increases

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Friday that he won’t approve a $10 billion loan for the U.S. Postal Service unless the agency raises charges for Amazon and other big shippers to four to five times current rates.

“The Postal Service is a joke because they’re handing out packages for Amazon and other internet companies and every time they bring a package, they lose money on it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Read more: Postal Workers Were Already Worried About Getting Sick — Now Their Jobs Could Be on the Line, Too

The president was responding to a question about reports his administration plans to force major changes in postal operations as the price for approving a $10 billion loan that was included in the government’s $2 trillion economic rescue package.

Under the rescue package legislation, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin must approve the loan before the Postal Service can receive the money. Officials at the Postal Service had no immediate reaction to Trump’s comments.

Trump said the changes the administration will insist on will make it a “whole new ballgame” at the Postal Service. He said the Postal Service did not want to make the changes because they did not want to offend Amazon and other companies.

Looking at Mnuchin, who was with him in the Oval Office, the president said, “If they don’t raise the price of the service they give … I’m not signing anything and I’m not authorizing you to do anything.”

Mnuchin told reporters that he had Treasury officials working with the Postal Service on the terms of the loan if postal officials decide they need more money.

“We are going to post certain criteria for (a) postal reform program as part of the loan,” Mnuchin said. He said the Postal Service board is already conducting a search for a new postmaster general to run the agency and undertaking reforms of operations.

The Washington Post, which first reported the administration’s push for changes at the Postal Service, quoted unnamed officials as saying that senior Postal Service officials have been told the administration wants to use the $10 billion loan as leverage to influence how much the agency charges for delivering packages and how it manages its finances.

Trump has complained for years that the Postal Service was being exploited by Amazon and other shippers and that was the reason the agency was losing so much money.

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER and DARLENE SUPERVILLE / AP on April 24, 2020 at 04:49PM

[mikemortgage]

Unhappy with deal, Trump still doesn’t expect a new shutdown

WASHINGTON — Under mounting pressure from his own party, President Donald Trump appears to be grudgingly leaning toward accepting an agreement that would head off a threatened second government shutdown but provide just a fraction of the money he’s been demanding for his Mexican border wall.

Trump said Tuesday he would need more time to study the plan, but he also declared that he was not expecting another shutdown this weekend when funding for parts of the government would run out. He also strongly signalled he planned to scrounge up additional dollars for the wall by raiding other federal coffers to deliver on the signature promise of his presidential campaign.

“I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled,” Trump said of the proposed deal. “But the wall is getting built, regardless. It doesn’t matter because we’re doing other things beyond what we’re talking about here.”

Trump sounded more conciliatory in a Tuesday night tweet, thanking “all Republicans for the work you have done in dealing with the Radical Left on Border Security.”

Accepting the deal, worked out by congressional negotiators from both parties, would be a disappointment for a president who has repeatedly insisted he needs $5.7 billion for a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying the project is paramount for national security. Trump turned down a similar deal in December, forcing the 35-day partial shutdown that left hundreds of thousands of federal workers without paychecks and Republicans reeling. There is little appetite in Washington for a repeat.

Lawmakers tentatively agreed to a deal that would provide nearly $1.4 billion for border barriers and keep the government funded for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. Filling in the details has taken some time, as is typical, and aides reported Wednesday that the measure had hit some snags, though they doubted they would prove fatal.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said that the bill-writers were “still tinkering” with the legislation’s language and that the president was awaiting a final version.

“We want to see the final piece of legislation, and we’ll make a determination at that point,” she said Wednesday.

Still, she said that, while “the president isn’t fully happy” with everything in the bill, “there are some positive pieces of it.”

Trump has made clear in phone calls since the deal was announced that he had wanted more money for the wall. And he has expressed concern the plan is being spun as a defeat for him in the media, according to a Republican familiar with the president’s interactions but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations. Still, many expected him to sign on nonetheless.

The agreement would allow 55 miles (88 kilometres) of new fencing — constructed using existing designs such as metal slats– but far less than the 215 miles (345 kilometres) the White House demanded in December. The fencing would be built in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

Full details were not expected to be released until later Wednesday as lawmakers worked to translate their verbal agreement into legislation. But Republican leaders urged Trump to sign on.

“I hope he signs the bill,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who joined other GOP leaders in selling it as a necessary compromise that represented a major concession from Democrats.

Lawmakers need to pass some kind of funding bill to avoid another shutdown at midnight Friday and have worked to avoid turning to another short-term bill that would only prolong the border debate.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, Trump he didn’t think another shutdown was going to happen, but he also made clear that, if he does sign the deal, he is strongly considering supplementing it by moving money from what he described as less important areas of government.

“We have a lot of money in this country and we’re using some of that money — a small percentage of that money — to build the wall, which we desperately need,” he said.

The White House has long been laying the groundwork for Trump to use executive action to bypass Congress and divert money into wall construction. He could declare a national emergency or invoke other executive authority to tap funds including money set aside for military construction, disaster relief and counterdrug efforts.

Previewing that strategy last week, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said, “We’ll take as much money as you can give us, and then we will go off and find the money someplace else — legally — in order to secure that southern barrier.” He said more than $5.7 billion in available funds had been identified.

McConnell, who had previously said he was troubled by the concept of declaring a national emergency, said Tuesday that Trump “ought to feel free to use whatever tools he can legally use to enhance his effort to secure the border.”

The framework now under consideration contains plenty to anger lawmakers on both the right and left — more border fencing than many Democrats would like and too little for conservative Republicans — but its authors praised it as a genuine compromise that would keep the government open and allow everyone to move on.

Trump was briefed on the plan Tuesday by Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and sounded more optimistic after their discussion.

“Looking over all aspects knowing that this will be hooked up with lots of money from other sources,” he tweeted, adding, “Regardless of Wall money, it is being built as we speak!”

A Shelby aide, who was not authorized to describe the conversation by name and who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the senator described the wall money in the agreement to Trump as a down payment. Shelby did not ask whether Trump would sign the measure, but Trump told him he would study it.

The aide said the measure contains $22.5 billion for border security programs, including programs run by Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The measure and most of its details have so far been closely held.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged Trump to accept the package to avert another shutdown, calling the tentative accord “welcome news.”

But the proposal was met with fury by some on the right, including Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, a close friend of the president, who slammed it as a “garbage compromise.”

And Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, released a scathing statement saying she and others had been “hoodwinked.”

Conservative Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., a close ally of the president, said that if Trump does agrees to the deal he could be spared a “conservative uproar because everyone expects executive action to follow.”

“Two things are clear: We will not have a shutdown of the government, and executive action to reprogram additional border security dollars is required,” Meadows said.

——

Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2BxLKrK via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

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              Thanks goes out to @martinsuperville8248 and the staff of @the_art_gallery_tobago_ for allowing Christo Art Caribbean to be apart of “Osmosis” Art Exhibition.

The 3 paintings from Christo Art Caribbean that is being featured in the exhibition: Buccoo mix media on canvas. Sheltered oil on canvas. My Blue Jay acrylic on canvas.

We are excited and honored to showcase our beautiful artwork… Be sure to check out “Osmosis” Art Exhibition being held @the_art_gallery_tobago_ from now until November 7th, 2022. 

Get a chance to meet and chat  with the Artists on Sunday 6th & Monday 7th November, 2022 between the hours of 4pm-7pm !! 

We look forward to meeting with you !!!

[ourlocalheart-blog]

Bele Dancers 

Martin Superville

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HOUSTON — George H.W. Bush, who shaped history as America’s 41st president and patriarch of a family that occupied the White House for a dozen years, is going to his final rest Thursday in Texas.

More than 11,000 people paid their respects to Bush as his casket lay in repose all night at a Houston church where his family worshipped. Some visitors waited for hours to pay tribute to Bush, who will be buried following a funeral at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church.

Thursday’s service began with “America the Beautiful” and a robust rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

It attracted local sports stars including Houston Texans defensive end J.J. Watt and was featuring eulogies from Bush’s grandson, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, the only member of the famous family still holding elected office, and James Baker, his former secretary of state and a close friend for decades. Hymns being sung were chosen and loved by the former president, said the church’s pastor, Rev. Russell J. Levenson Jr.

Performing were some of Bush’s favorite country music stars including the Oak Ridge Boys doing “Amazing Grace” and Reba McEntire offering “The Lord’s Prayer” as three days of official ceremonies in Washington gave way to more personal touches for the former president in Texas.

As a military band played, pallbearers carried the flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush into Houston’s St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, where the Bush family regularly worshipped. (Dec. 5)

The nation’s capital bid him goodbye Wednesday in a Washington funeral service that offered high praise for the last of the presidents to have fought in World War II — and a hefty dose of humor about a man whose speaking delivery was once described as a cross between Mister Rogers and John Wayne.

Bush’s casket returned for the services in Houston, a ride on a special funeral train and eventual burial at his family plot on the presidential library grounds at Texas A&M University in College Station. His final resting place is alongside Barbara Bush, his wife of 73 years, and Robin Bush, the daughter they lost to leukemia at age 3.

In the service at Washington National Cathedral, three former presidents and President Donald Trump looked on as George W. Bush eulogized his father as “the brightest of a thousand points of light.”

The cathedral service was a tribute to a president, a patriarch and a faded political era that prized military service and public responsibility. It was laced with indirect comparisons to Trump but was not consumed by them, as speakers focused on Bush’s public life and character — with plenty of cracks about his goofy side, too.

“He was a man of such great humility,” said Alan Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming. Those who travel “the high road of humility in Washington, D.C.,” he added pointedly, “are not bothered by heavy traffic.”

Trump sat with his wife, a trio of ex-presidents and their wives, several of them sharp critics of his presidency and one of them, Hillary Clinton, his 2016 Democratic foe. Apart from courteous nods and some handshakes, there was little interaction between Trump and the others.

George W. Bush broke down briefly at the end of his eulogy while invoking the daughter his parents lost in 1953 and his mother, who died in April. He took comfort in knowing “Dad is hugging Robin and holding Mom’s hand again.”

It was a family that occupied the White House for a dozen years — the 41st president defeated after one term, the 43rd serving two. Jeb Bush stepped up to try to extend that run but fell short when Trump won the 2016 Republican primaries.

The elder Bush was “the last great-soldier statesman,” historian Jon Meacham said in his eulogy, “our shield” in dangerous times.

But he also said that Bush, campaigning in a crowd in a department store, once shook hands with a mannequin. Rather than flushing in embarrassment, he simply cracked, “Never know. Gotta ask.”

Meacham recounted how comedian Dana Carvey once said the key to doing an impersonation of Bush was “Mister Rogers trying to be John Wayne.”

None of those words would be a surprise to Bush. Meacham read his eulogy to him, said Bush spokesman Jim McGrath, and Bush responded to it with the crack: “That’s a lot about me, Jon.”

The congregation at the cathedral, filled with foreign leaders and diplomats, Americans of high office and others touched by Bush’s life, rose for the arrival of the casket, accompanied by clergy of faiths from around the world. In their row together, Trump and former Presidents Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton stood with their spouses and all placed their hands over their hearts.

Simpson regaled the congregation with stories from his years as Bush’s friend in Washington. More seriously, he recalled that when he went through a rough patch in the political game, Bush conspicuously stood by him against the advice of aides. “You would have wanted him on your side,” he said.

Simpson said Bush “loved a good joke — the richer the better. And he threw his head back and gave that great laugh, but he never, ever could remember a punchline. And I mean never.”

George W. Bush turned the humor back on the acerbic ex-senator, saying of the late president: “He placed great value on a good joke, so he chose Simpson to speak.”

Meacham praised Bush’s call to volunteerism — his “1,000 points of light” — placing it alongside Abraham Lincoln’s call to honor “the better angels of our nature” in the American rhetorical canon. Meacham called those lines “companion verses in America’s national hymn.”

Trump had mocked “1,000 points of light” last summer at a rally, saying “What the hell is that? Has anyone ever figured that one out? And it was put out by a Republican, wasn’t it?”

Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney praised Bush as a strong world leader who helped oversee the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union and helped bring about the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, signed into law by his successor, Clinton.

With Trump, a bitter NAFTA critic, seated in the front row, Mulroney hailed the “largest and richest free trade area in the history of the world.” The three countries have agreed on a revised trade agreement pushed by Trump.

On Wednesday morning, a military band played “Hail to the Chief” as Bush’s casket was carried down the steps of the U.S. Capitol, where he had lain in state. Family members looked on as servicemen fired off a cannon salute.

His hearse was then driven in a motorcade to the cathedral ceremony, slowing in front of the White House. Bush’s route was lined with people much of the way, bundled in winter hats and taking photos.

Waiting for his arrival inside, Trump shook hands with Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, who greeted him by saying “Good morning.” Trump did not shake hands with Bill and Hillary Clinton, who looked straight ahead.

Bill Clinton and Mrs. Obama smiled and chatted as music played. Carter was seated silently next to Hillary Clinton in the cavernous cathedral. Obama cracked up laughing at someone’s quip. Vice President Mike Pence shook Carter’s hand.

Trump tweeted Wednesday that the day marked “a celebration for a great man who has led a long and distinguished life.” Trump and his wife took their seats after the others, briefly greeting the Obamas seated next to them.

Bush’s death makes Carter, also 94 but more than 100 days younger, the oldest living ex-president.

By WILL WEISSERT, NOMAAN MERCHANT and CALVIN WOODWARD – Dec 6. 2018 – 11:18 AM EDT ___

Weissert reported from Austin, Texas. Woodward reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman, Ashraf Khalil and Darlene Superville in Washington and Juan A. Lozano and David J. Phillip contributed to this report.

Texas Bids Bush Farewell With Sports Stars, Funeral Train HOUSTON — George H.W. Bush, who shaped history as America’s 41st president and patriarch of a family that occupied the White House for a dozen years, is going to his final rest Thursday in Texas.

[mystlnewsonline]

New Post has been published on https://www.stl.news/trump-goes-after-dem-who-surfaced-immigration-remark/68053/

Trump goes after the Dem who surfaced his immigration remark

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. /January 15, 2018 (AP)(STL.News) — President Donald Trump turned his Twitter torment Monday on the Democrat in the room where immigration talks with lawmakers took a famously coarse turn, saying Sen. Dick Durbin misrepresented what he had said about African nations and Haiti and, in the process, undermined the trust needed to make a deal.

On a day of remembrance for Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump spent time at his golf course with no public events, bypassing the acts of service that his predecessor staged in honor of the civil rights leader on the holiday. Instead Trump dedicated his weekly address to King’s memory, saying King’s dream and America’s are the same: “a world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from.”

That message was a distinct counterpoint to words attributed to Trump by Durbin and others at a meeting last week, when the question of where immigrants come from seemed at the forefront of Trump’s concerns. Some participants and others familiar with the conversation said Trump challenged immigration from “shithole” countries of Africa and disparaged Haiti as well.

Without explicitly denying using that word, Trump lashed out at the Democratic senator, who said Trump uttered it on several occasions.

“Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting,” Trump tweeted, using a nickname to needle the Illinois senator. “Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.”

He was referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young people who came to the U.S. illegally as children. Members of Congress from both parties are trying to strike a deal that Trump would support to extend that protection.

Durbin said Monday the White House should release whatever recording it might have of the meeting.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the six senators in the meeting with Trump on Thursday, supported Durbin’s account. As well, Durbin and people who were briefed on the conversation but were not authorized to describe it publicly said Trump also questioned the need to admit more Haitians.  They said Trump expressed a preference for immigrants from countries like Norway, which is overwhelmingly white.

Republican Sens. David Perdue of Georgia and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who also attended, initially said they did not hear Trump utter the word in question, then revised their account to deny he said it at all. Trump said Sunday: “I’m not a racist.”

Durbin addressed reports that Trump might have said countries of Africa were “shithouse” nations instead of “shithole” ones — and that such a distinction might have given Trump’s defenders a narrow out to dispute reports of the meeting.

“I am stunned that this is their defense,” he told WBEZ. “I don’t know that changing the word from ‘hole’ to ‘house’ changes the impact.”

The reverberations kept coming Monday.

Martin Luther King III, King’s elder son, said: “When a president insists that our nation needs more citizens from white states like Norway, I don’t even think we need to spend any time even talking about what it says and what it is.”

He added, “We got to find a way to work on this man’s heart.”

A sizeable crowd of expatriate Haitians, waving their country’s flag, gathered near the foot of a bridge leading to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, to jeer at Trump as the motorcade returned from the golf club where the president capped his weekend before returning later Monday to Washington.

The Haitians and their supporters shouted, “Our country is not a shithole,” according to video posted by WPEC-TV, and engaged in a shouting match with the pro-Trump demonstrators who typically gather on the other side of the street.

On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence, who worshipped at a Baptist church in Maryland, listened as the pastor denounced Trump’s use of vulgarity.

Maurice Watson, pastor of Metropolitan Baptist Church in Largo, called the reported remark “dehumanizing” and “ugly” and said “whoever made such a statement … is wrong and they ought to be held accountable.” Worshippers stood and applauded as Watson spoke.

Durbin said after the Oval Office meeting that Trump’s words to the senators were “vile, hate-filled and clearly racial in their content.”

A confidant of Trump told The Associated Press that the president spent Thursday evening calling friends and outside advisers to judge their reaction to his remarks. Trump wasn’t apologetic and denied he was racist, said the confidant, who wasn’t authorized to disclose a private conversation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Afterward Trump insisted in a tweet that he “never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems.” Trump wrote, “I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians.

The contentious comments came as Durbin was presenting details of a compromise immigration plan that had money for a first installment of the president’s long-sought border wall.

Trump took particular issue with the idea that people who’d fled to the U.S. after disasters hit their homes in places such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti would be allowed to stay as part of the deal, according to the people briefed on the conversation.

When it came to talk of extending protections for Haitians, Durbin said Trump replied, “We don’t need more Haitians.'”

“He said, ‘Put me down for wanting more Europeans to come to this country. Why don’t we get more people from Norway?'” Durbin said.

Word of Trump’s comments threatened to upend delicate negotiations over resolving the status of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children. Trump announced last year that he will end the Obama-era program unless lawmakers come up with a solution by March.

___

Associated Press writer Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, by Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (Z.S)

___

[plusorminuscongress]

New story in Politics from Time: President Trump Blames the Federal Reserve for Holding Back Economic Growth in 2018

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump says the economy would have grown much faster last year if the Federal Reserve had not been tightening credit last year.

In a broadcast interview, Trump said without the Fed’s rate hikes last year and moves to trim its bond holdings, the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, would have grown by over 4 percent.

The GDP on an annualized basis grew by a solid 2.9 percent last year and when measured from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018, growth was an even stronger 3.1 percent.

Trump’s comments came in an interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. The network released excerpts and the interview will be broadcast Friday.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its expectations for future rate hikes from two this year to none and also announced a plan to end shrinking its balance sheet in September.

Asked if he felt he had an impact on these decisions, Trump said he had been right but whether his criticism had been a factor in the Fed’s decision “it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if I influenced or not.”

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has said the Fed’s major shift from hiking interest rates to declaring a long pause in further rate hikes was prompted by a slowing global economy and rising risks to U.S. growth with Trump’s pressure having no impact.

Trump on Thursday also held a closed-door meeting with top business executives at the headquarters of the Business Roundtable near the Capitol. The association was holding its quarterly meeting with an estimated 100 chief executive officers from businesses across the United States.

In a statement, the association said the discussion was “constructive and wide-ranging” and covered a variety of issues including ways to make further progress on regulatory reform and winning congressional passage of the United States-Canada-Mexico trade agreement.

The head of the Business Roundtable is Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase. Dimon had boasted last year that he could beat Trump in a presidential race, prompting Trump to label Dimon as someone not smart enough to run the country. Their recent statements, however, have been less harsh.

By Darlene Superville & Martin Crutsinger / AP on March 21, 2019 at 09:29PM

[npb-en]

U.N. berates N. Korea over latest launch

#npb #KenTakahashi [Arkansas Online]Lederer, Kim Tong-Hyung, Foster Klug, Mari Yamaguchi, Deb Riechmann, Darlene Superville, Laurie Kellman and Ken Thomas of The Associated Press ... Emi Nobuhiro, Maiko Takahashi, Peter Martin, Kanga Kong and David Tweed of Bloomberg News.

[mikemortgage]

Darkening clouds start to overhang global economic expansion

WASHINGTON — After galloping along for the past two years, the global economy is showing signs of weakening, with the United States, China and Europe all facing the rising threat of a slowdown.

Few economists foresee an outright global recession within the next year. But the synchronized growth that powered most major economies since 2017 appears to be fading. The risks have been magnified by the trade war raging between the United States and China, the strife dividing Britain over an exit from the European Union and the Federal Reserve’s continuing interest rate hikes.

It’s all been enough to contribute to a broad retreat in global stock markets. Counting Tuesday’s deep losses, U.S. stock indexes, once up around 10 per cent for the year, have surrendered all their 2018 gains.

The Fed is expected next month to raise its key short-term rate for the fourth time this year. The central bank’s rate hikes help control inflation. But they also make loans costlier for consumers and businesses. And for countries that borrowed in U.S. dollars, the Fed’s hikes make debts harder to bear. Argentina, for one, has slid into recession as its cost of repaying its debt has surged.

“We can’t continue to grow this fast for much longer without risking inflation,” Adrian Cooper, chief executive of Oxford Economics, said of the still-solid U.S. economy. “That’s ultimately what the Fed is trying to achieve with its steady movement in interest rates. The skill is to do so in ways that don’t create a big downturn.”

The concerns have grown enough that Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, on Tuesday dismissed the worries roiling the markets.

“Recession is so far in the distance I can’t see it,” Kudlow told a group of reporters outside the White House. “Keep the faith. It’s a very strong economy.”

The collective growth of the world’s major economies in the past two years was broadly welcomed after a feeble recovery from the 2008 financial crises. Yet few economists saw accelerated growth as sustainable — or even desirable — over several years.

The concern is that a prolonged global expansion could ignite inflation or speculative investing that would inevitably send vulnerable economies into a downturn. Compounding the challenge, the world’s economies are linked more than ever through trade, finance and investment — to the point that a rupture in one major nation tends to spread across the globe.

Oxford Economics predicts that the growth of the global economy, as measured by its gross domestic product, will slip from 3.1 per cent this year to 2.8 in 2019. Such a slowdown is enough to crimp corporate profits and business investment, Cooper said. Still, most American and European workers probably wouldn’t feel the pain, he said, in part because of a resilient job market and lower oil prices.

“2019 is still going to look pretty good — your job is going to be safe, and your wages are going to rise,” Cooper predicted while adding that he thinks the slowdown will worsen in 2020.

In the meantime, though, stock markets have endured waves of jittery selling as investors have tried to factor in a slowdown that could depress the growth of company profits.

“Financial markets have become a little more volatile and anxious of late, worried about slowing global growth, trade tensions, Brexit woes and concerns that the U.S. may not be able to sustain its current cyclical sweet spot,” said Josh Feinman, chief economist at Deutsche Asset Management.

Over the next two years, most forecasts suggest that U.S. growth, after cresting above 3 per cent this year — its best performance since 2005 — will weaken. Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged in a speech last week that the strong worldwide growth of 2017 is in retreat.

“You see signs of a gradual slowdown,” Powell said.

Goldman Sachs foresees annual U.S. growth slowing to 1.75 per cent by the end of 2019. The predicted weakening stems, in part, from the front-loaded stimulus of the tax cuts Trump pushed through Congress. The boost from the tax overhaul is expected to wane by 2020.

One continuing threat for the U.S. economy is Trump’s trade war with China. The president has imposed a 10 per cent tax on $200 billion of Chinese goods — a tariff that’s set to escalate to 25 per cent in 2019. He’s also threatened to add tariffs on $250 billion more in Chinese goods.

A prolonged trade crisis would depress the global exchange of goods and, therefore, economic growth. Trump is set to meet with President Xi Jinping at a Group of 20 international meeting in Argentina next week. But prospects for a breakthrough seem to have dimmed.

“Both countries appear to be far apart on the trade dispute and unwilling to back down at this point,” said Scott Anderson, chief economist at the Bank of the West.

Similarly, political ruptures threaten to slow the pace of Europe’s five-year expansion. Britain is struggling to finalize its exit from the European Union, and uncertainty surrounding Prime Minister Theresa May’s government has roiled markets.

In Italy, tensions have flared over a government that wants to increase its borrowing in defiance of rules about deficits among the 19 countries that share the euro currency. Mounting debt could cause Italian interest rates to reach levels that would stifle growth and strain the eurozone.

Yet the biggest risk of all might be China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States and the leading engine of global growth for several decades. Its economy was already cooling before Trump raised tariffs in hopes of shrinking the U.S. trade gap with Beijing and protecting U.S. technology.

Among companies and economists, the question isn’t whether Chinese growth will slow further; it’s how much. In September, year-over-year economic growth reached a post-global crisis low of 6.5 per cent. This followed a regulatory clamp-down on bank lending to curb surging debt. Forecasters expect the decline to deepen at least through mid-2019.

The ruling Communist Party wants slower, more self-sustaining growth driven more by consumer spending and less by trade and investment. But the slump has been sharper than expected. In response, Beijing has cut taxes, eased lending controls and pumped money into building projects.

October auto sales fell 13 per cent from a year ago, putting vehicle sales in China — the industry’s No. 1 market — on track to shrink this year for the first time in three decades. Housing sales and bank lending have dropped, and spending on factories and other manufacturing assets has decelerated.

“Further action” is needed to “put a floor beneath economic growth,” Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a report.

Finding that floor could prove problematic if the trade war with the Trump administration diminishes the exports that propelled China’s economy to manufacturing dominance. Analysts at UBS put the likelihood as high as 20 per cent that China could suffer a much sharper slowdown because of the escalating tensions with the United States.

“In this environment, contagion in global markets could not be avoided,” UBS analysts wrote.

——

McDonald contributed from Beijing. AP writers Martin Crutsinger and Darlene Superville in Washington also contributed to this report.

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