Month: June 2017

First Lady Melania Trump has hired a new chief usher to oversee the White House residence staff, bringing in a high-level employee from the Trump Organization’s Washington hotel to fill the slot.

Timothy Harleth served as the director of rooms at the Trump hotel, and at the White House he will oversee about 90 staff members who run operations at the facility.

“I am so pleased that Timothy will be joining our team,” Trump said in a statement. “He was selected because of his impressive work history and management skills. My husband and I know he will be successful in this vital role within the White House.”

The chief usher serves as manager of the building and assists the president’s family with decorating and logistics in the residential portion.

“I am so honored at the opportunity to serve the first family in their new home,” Harleth said. “I look forward to applying my experience with hospitality, leadership, and political protocol in order to ensure the first family’s needs are met, while also protecting and preserving the rich history of the White House.”

Harleth is filling a position left open earlier this year when the White House let go of Angella Reid, who’d served as chief usher since 2011. She was the first woman to hold the position.

The White House has had a chief usher since the end of the 19th century, when a primary duty was ushering in guests to meet the president and first lady.
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So where, you may ask, is President Donald Trump most comfortable these days?

Well in his previous life as a real estate mogul, you might have guessed he was most at home safely ensconced in Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, maybe tucking into one of those with well-done steaks with ketchup on the side.

But now as president? How about Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Trump seemed very much at ease during his campaignlike rally in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday. 

“It is always terrific to be able to leave that Washington swamp and spend time with the truly hard working people,” Trump told the crowd. “We call them American patriots. Amazing people.”

Loyal supporters, yet weak polls

Trump’s happy return to his base is understandable given his standing in most public opinion polls.

Five months after taking office, the president’s approval rating hovers near 40 percent, a low mark for a president this early in his term. But numerous surveys also suggest that for the most part, Trump’s core supporters, like those who turned out in Cedar Rapids this week, are hanging with him, and the president was appreciative.

“We have made a journey together like no other, ever, in the history of this country,” Trump said. “We are straightening out through common sense and through a good heart, we are straightening out our country. We are straightening out our country.”

Trump’s rally came the day after Karen Handel gave the president and Republicans in general a boost with her special election victory in Georgia, a race Democrats thought they could win.

Trump boasted to the crowd about “the incredible progress” his administration has already made and once again put the media in his crosshairs.

“These people are being driven crazy. Crazy. I mean they have phony witch hunts going against me. They have everything going. And you know what, all we do is win, win, win.”

​Democrats question strategy

Handel’s victory in Georgia put some Democrats in a funk.

Since Trump became president, Republicans have won four of five special congressional elections. And even though Democrats have lost by smaller margins in what are usually Republican-leaning districts, many have expressed disappointment that a strategy that relies heavily on demonizing Trump does not seem to be working.

“There is tremendous unrest out there and although Democrats did not win today, 2018 is a completely different story,” Representative Joe Crowley of New York, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said.

But others vowed to keep the focus on Trump.

“Today in the White House we have perhaps the worst and most dangerous president in the history of our country,” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said.

Some Democrats believe it is time for a younger generation of Democratic leaders to take over.

“We are a party that stands up for working families and the middle class,” Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton told the Associated Press. “Yet many of them are not voting for us. So it’s time for change.”

The Democratic losses in special House races despite Trump’s weakness in the polls has sparked some soul-searching.

“I think that there is this larger quandary that the Democratic Party has in terms of it is trying to figure out how to reconcile its centrist and progressive bases,” Emory University analyst Andra Gillespie said. She expects “some really tough conversations” within the party over the next several months.

WATCH: Trump reconnects with his base

Russia probe

For their part, many Republicans are hoping that their special election victories this week in Georgia and South Carolina will help to refocus national attention on their congressional agenda, including a health care overhaul and tax reform.

But the president himself may have gotten in the way of that this week when he settled the question of whether there were any White House tape recordings of his meetings with former FBI Director James Comey.

Trump’s tweet that there were no recordings came on the same day as Senate Republicans made public their health care reform proposal, complicating what they hoped would be a focused rollout of their plan.

The president wants to move past the Russia probe, but it is proving to be difficult.

“I do think it is hard when there is the drip, drip, drip of news against you to stop that,” John Fortier of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington said. “And so finding some other things to talk about and changes of staff, I think those are things that might help. But this is a serious matter at this point and they will have to deal with this for a while.”
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The Trump administration has authorized the sale of unarmed surveillance drones to India, the manufacturer said Friday, as the two nations’ leaders prepare for their first face-to-face meeting.

India initiated its request to buy 22 Guardian MQ-9B unmanned aircraft for maritime surveillance last year. The deal is estimated to be worth about $2 billion. The offer is still subject to congressional approval.

Modi visits this week

The green light from the administration marks a further deepening in defense ties as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.

Modi’s two-day visit to Washington, which starts Sunday, takes place amid uncertainty over the relationship because of differences on trade and other issues.

So far in his presidency, Trump has focused on outreach to China, India’s strategic rival, as he looks to Beijing to rein in North Korea. But Washington and New Delhi share concerns about China’s rise as a military power.

India reportedly wants the drones for surveillance of the Indian Ocean, waters that China’s navy increasingly traverses after establishing its first overseas base in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. India’s archrival Pakistan would also likely be opposed to the drone sale.

“We are pleased that the U.S. government has cleared the way for the sale of the MQ-9B Guardian to the Indian government,” Linden Blue, CEO of the manufacturer, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, said in a statement. Blue added that it would “significantly enhance India’s sovereign maritime domain awareness in the Indo-Pacific.”

Military sales date to 2008

Since 2008, India has signed more than $15 billion in U.S. defense contracts, including for C-130J and C-17 transport aircraft, P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, Harpoon missiles and Apache and Chinook helicopters.

Ashley Tellis, an expert on South Asia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the U.S. decision to offer the Guardian aircraft to India is significant as the U.S. has a standing policy of declining export of such advanced drones other than to allies involved in combined operations with U.S. forces.

There could still be pushback from Congress. While there is bipartisan support for closer U.S.-India security ties, some lawmakers remain wary of the export of U.S. drone technology to non-allies.
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A series of close encounters this month over the Baltic Sea and U.S. shoot-downs of Russian allies’ aircraft in Syria have triggered concerns among defense analysts that any direct incident between Russia and the United States, even if accidental, could quickly spiral out of control.

Reports say a Russian fighter jet and a U.S. spy plane on Monday came within two meters of each other, a situation deemed “unsafe” by the U.S. military.

The Russian SU-27 flew at a high rate of closure speed and the pilot exercised poor control, said a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Risk of accidents

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance plane made a provocative move toward the other jet.

Another close encounter came Wednesday. Moscow said a NATO fighter jet buzzed Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s plane as he headed to the Russian military enclave of Kaliningrad, nestled between NATO members Poland and Lithuania. Russian state media reported a Russian SU-27 fighter jet “chased away” the Polish F-16 and published video of the incident.

There’s a danger when a plane flies within meters of another, according to defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.

“But in the Baltics, that’s a kind of pure case of creating tension out of nowhere … by both sides,” he said. “So, it’s a bit of a dangerous game. But, in reality, no one wants to fight anyone.”

New ‘Cold War’

Russian probing of NATO member airspace has increased exponentially since Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and ongoing military support for pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine.

“It’s no doubt, at least for me, that Russia and the West are in the situation of [a] new Cold War,” said defense analyst Alexander Golts, deputy editor of Yezhednevny Zhurnal [Weekly Journal] in Moscow.  “[The] Cold War is a situation when you have a problem that cannot be solved … [not] diplomatically [or] militarily. This problem is Ukraine.”

Golts said the issue is that Russia, from its point of view, cannot pull back from its “secret war” in Ukraine, yet until it does so, NATO cannot restore cooperation. Meanwhile, saber-rattling on both sides risks escalation of military conflict.

The United States this week issued new sanctions against Russian entities over their involvement in Ukraine, while the EU agreed to extend its own sanctions against Moscow.

The added sanctions came as Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko visited President Donald Trump at the White House. Poroshenko later said the U.S. soon would sign some defense deals with Kyiv, but he gave no details. The U.S. so far has provided only training and nonlethal military equipment to Kyiv in an effort to stay out of any direct military conflict with Russia.  

Military buildup?

Shoigu said Russia would build up its military forces on its western borders, citing a worsening security situation due to what he called NATO’s “anti-Russia course.” The Russian defense chief said its military would form 20 new units on its western front this year in response to NATO drills in the Baltic states and Poland.

The formerly occupied and Soviet states raised concerns about Russian aggression after Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. NATO responded with stepped-up deployment of rotational defense forces. Meanwhile, in September, Russia and Belarus are holding large-scale military exercises that simulate a NATO invasion.

The NATO defense alliance deployment is modest compared with Russia’s response, said Golts. “And, what is real now — there is no gray zone between these forces. They stand up against each other. And, again, it means any accident can be continued with [a] big war.”

Thoughts have turned from potential U.S.-Russia cooperation back to reducing risks of new confrontation, Golts said.

“I think everybody has to forget, for [a] very, very long period of time, the possibility of some kind of cooperation with Russia,” he said. “It’s more or less clear [that] because of all this scandal with Russian interference in [the] American election, Trump will never approach Mr. Putin,” Golts said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Syria bluster

Meanwhile, a proxy war in Syria intensifies as Russia and Iran support their ally in Damascus against U.S.-backed Syrian rebels. All sides claim to be fighting Islamic State terrorists.

The U.S.-led coalition in Syria shot down a Syrian warplane this month, as well as two Iranian-made drones that were nearing American-backed troops. Russia condemned the action and said it would treat any plane or drone from the U.S.-led coalition flying west of the Euphrates River as a target.

Moscow also suspended, again, a memorandum aimed at avoiding accidents in the skies over Syria. The first such announced suspension occurred after a U.S. missile strike in April on a Syrian air base that Washington said Damascus used to launch chemical weapons attacks that had killed more than 80 civilians. Russia condemned the U.S. attack and blamed the chemical weapons on Syrian militants.

While many of Russia’s implied threats against the U.S.-led coalition in Syria appear to be bluster, the risk of direct conflict between the two sides is increasing, Golts said. “If you just repeat your complaints and your threats, sooner or later, nobody will pay attention. So, it’s a problem how to make statements tougher and don’t move at the same time closer to [a] condition of war.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law Friday a bill that will make it easier to fire Department of Veterans Affairs employees, a development that has union officials concerned the measure could be misused for political purposes.

The signing is the latest step in an effort by the Trump administration to strengthen an agency that provides health care and other services to millions of military veterans.

“Our veterans have fulfilled their duty to this nation and now we must fulfill our duty to them,” the president said at a White House signing ceremony.

Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to improve health care services for veterans and the efficiency of the agency, which was rocked by scandal several years ago.

At the VA medical center in the southwestern city of Phoenix, Arizona, some veterans died in 2014 while awaiting treatment. Other scandals that year involved long wait times for medical treatment and attempted cover-ups by agency employees.

“What happened was a national disgrace,” Trump said, “and yet some of the employees involved in these scandals remained on the payrolls.”

The president signed the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017, which enjoys broad bipartisan support and was approved in the Senate on June 6.

The measure makes it easier to fire workers for misconduct and provides additional protections for whistleblowers. It lowers the standard of evidence needed to fire employees.

Unions representing some VA workers, including the American Federation of Government Employees, are concerned the measure could be abused for political reasons.

“Although marketed as a bill to make it easier to fire bad employees, the proposals are designed to kill off and bury the apolitical Civil Service,” AFGE President David Cox, Sr. said at a May 17 Senate hearing. “It makes it just as easy to fire a good employee, an innocent employee, as it will be to fire a bad employee.”

The legislation aims to accelerate the process of disciplining and firing workers. The House Committee on Veterans Affairs says it currently takes up to one year to dismiss a permanent federal employee.

The act will also create a new Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection in response to concerns the new law may be used to inappropriately discipline whistleblowers, who helped expose the VA’s scandals in 2014.

Supporters and opponents of the bill believe civil servants in other government agencies could use it as a model as they seek to hold employees accountable for misconduct.
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Ron Finley has been called a “guerrilla gardener” and the “gangsta gardener,” an edgier description of a man who once defied local authorities to bring nature to the inner city.

Finley’s efforts to plant edible gardens on public property have earned him court citations, but they also brought a victory two years ago when Los Angeles city officials approved community gardens on public parkways, the narrow strips of land between the street and sidewalk.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

Many mornings, Finley can be seen tending the dense vegetation in the sliver of a garden outside his house.

“This is a food forest,” he said, pointing to lemon trees, sunflower plants and tomato vines. “There’s fruit trees, there’s also weeds that are edible in here. And I want to educate people to the fact that there’s food all around you.”

From figs and Swiss chard to edible nasturtiums, Finley grows fruits and vegetables that are rare in the inner city, where he says residents have better access to fast food and liquor stores than to healthful produce.

He spends much of his time doing public speaking and urging people to start community gardens. But many in Los Angeles were already on board with the concept before he became involved.

A few miles from Finley’s garden in South Los Angeles, Tamiko Nakamoto walks through plots of edible plants tended by 22 gardeners.

This community garden is not far from the epicenter of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and Nakamoto said the community activist who set it up shortly afterward wanted “a place of peace and an oasis in this city that’s surrounded by turmoil.”

There are “collard greens, sugar cane, bananas, tomato trees (vines), cabbage,” said one gardener, a towering immigrant from the Virgin Islands who uses his Rastafarian name, Makado. He is here most days weeding and watering.

Los Angeles is now dotted with dozens of gardens and small strips of vegetation outside the homes of residents.

Others are being planted. Los Angeles officials are in the process of approving tax breaks for owners of vacant lots if the land is used for community gardens. The City Council gave preliminary approval to the measure this month.

“I want them to do more,” Finley said of city officials. “I want them to advocate for this. I want them to put bulletin boards up. I want them to have workshops showing people how to do this.”

Slowly, patches of greenery and color are appearing amid the concrete, and Finley said these gardens make residents feel “healthy all over, not just your body, your mind-set, everything because looking at this, smelling this affects every sense in your body.”

Just as importantly, he said, these gardens are putting fresh fruits and vegetables on the tables of local families.
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The wait for visitor visas to the United States could get a little longer, after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday revoking an Obama-era guideline on processing times at consulates.

The brief order, which was issued without comment from the White House or State Department, deletes a subsection of a 2012 order that sought to expedite the processing time for non-immigrant visas, including those needed by students and tourists.

The original order issued by then-President Barack Obama called on the State Department to “ensure that 80 percent of non-immigrant visa applicants are interviewed within 3 weeks of receipt of application.”

The new order comes amid months of efforts by the Trump administration to wield executive powers over certain immigration policies and implement what officials refer to as “extreme vetting.”

A White House official told VOA the amendment “removes an arbitrary requirement.”

“The president expects careful, accurate vetting of visa applicants, not a rushed process to accommodate an arbitrary deadline,” the official said Thursday.

The administration recently expanded the visa application process to include social media handles used during the last five years, and additional biographical information for the last 15 years — meaning the consular officials can ask for a would-be visitor’s Facebook profile, and a list of everywhere they’ve traveled for more than a decade.

Trump issued a temporary travel ban in March that would have restricted travelers from six countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — on the grounds of national security.

Parts of that executive order were suspended following lawsuits against the government that claimed Trump discriminated against Muslims by singling out those countries, which are all Muslim-majority nations.

The case is now at the U.S. Supreme Court which is deciding whether or not to take the case.

VOA White House correspondent Pete Heinlein contributed to this report.
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Japanese authorities said Thursday they have obtained a data recording device from a container ship to help determine why it collided with a U.S. destroyer, killing seven American sailors.

Japanese transport safety officials said they obtained the voyage data recorder, similar to an airplane’s “black box,” from the Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal, which is currently docked in Yokohama near Tokyo.

Investigators are examining the ship’s movements, including its location, direction, speed and other data to determine the cause of its collision with the USS Fitzgerald early Saturday off Izu Peninsula, west of Tokyo.

“By analyzing the data, we should be able to determine the circumstances of how it crashed,” Transport Safety Board spokesman Katsunori Takahashi said.

The safety board is focusing on the cause of the collision and the lessons to be learned, while Japan’s coast guard is investigating possible professional negligence in the accident.

U.S. Navy and Coast Guard officials are investigating the destroyer at its home port, Yokosuka naval base.
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More than 500 Muslim volunteers gathered on a hot day on Skid Row, the notorious Los Angeles street best-known for its thousands of homeless people.

The volunteers distributed clothes, hygiene essentials, food, water, and other necessities to the people who live their lives on the street. Backpacks and school supplies were also provided.

Health screenings, including free HIV tests and dental checks were offered.

Many of the Muslim volunteers were observing the Ramadan fast, which requires that they abstain from food and water during daylight hours. 

For 18 years, the Muslim community of Los Angeles has done this kind of outreach to help the homeless toward the end of Ramadan. They say that as Americans what happens in their cities and the country matters to them. 

“As a Muslim, it’s important that we treat mankind correctly, the way that we are guided in the Koran,” said Umar Hakim of the ILM Foundation, which organized the event. “The Koran is the holy book of Islam, and in this book, it tells us to provide neighborly needs. So this is a way that we show charity. We provide neighborly needs for those who are in need of it.”

Organizers say that it’s important for the media to cover events like this that show Muslims serving their communities.

“Because that’s what essentially is not being captured in the media,” said Usman Khan, a volunteer at the event. “We’re being scapegoated, and all the Muslims in the media are being scapegoated in the media in a negative way.”

Since 1999, the Muslim community in the United States has helped 80,000 homeless people across the country, according to organizers. For them, it’s all about working for the greater good.

“I mean, in society, you think about, you know, your cab driver is a Muslim, your doctor is a Muslim, your nurse is a Muslim. I’m a pharmacist, I’m a Muslim, you know,” said volunteer Rayesa Gheewala. “We’re here, spread in the fabric of society, giving and serving and doing our best. And we’re just like every human being on this Earth. We want to contribute, we want to make a difference, we want to have a good life, and we want to participate in that definition of what it means to have an American dream.” 

The Skid Row event coincided with World Humanitarian Aid Day. 
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President Donald Trump is headed Wednesday to the Midwestern farm state of Iowa, where he is scheduled to tour an agricultural program at a community college and then hold a political rally.

It is his first visit to the rural state in the U.S. heartland since he won it in last November’s election on his way to a four-year term in the White House.

Trump has made several forays to states that he won over Democrat Hillary Clinton for political rallies reminiscent of his 2016 campaign.

Trump, who already has said he plans to run for re-election in 2020, has basked in the cheers of thousands of his supporters at the rallies.

The president has appeared to enjoy the respite from official Washington, where congressional committees and a special prosecutor are investigating Russian meddling in last year’s election aimed at helping him win, and whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey, who was leading the Russia investigation at the time Trump ousted him.

 
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