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It’s Trump Who’s Obsessed With Russia

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WASHINGTON -- Overreach and overkill are two of the most common errors in politics. A week after the release of Attorney General William Barr's gloss on Robert Mueller's report, it's clear that President Trump's characteristic response -- to lash out at enemies and entangle his party in his obsessions -- has prevented Republicans from using the end of the special counsel's investigation as a pivot point.

It's also obvious that Democratic presidential hopefuls, like the party's House candidates in 2018, are largely ignoring the noise around the Russia scandal. Instead they're piling up rafts of proposals on subjects close-to-home: education, child care, infrastructure and economics. They are talking to the voters who will decide the 2020 election in a way Trump isn't.

By now, no one ever expects Trump to be gracious. But his inability just to declare victory and move on after Barr's favorable summary of Mueller's findings has frozen public opinion where it was before the latest news. This is not good for the GOP.

After the attorney general issued his letter, Trump escalated his long-running war against Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee. On Thursday, all its Republican members decided to join his campaign, signing a letter asking Schiff to step down. It was a big mistake. They afforded the California Democrat the opportunity to broadcast his epic rebuttal, recounting the connections between the president, his campaign and Russia.

Schiff invoked the Republican committee members' unanimity to tie them all into an across-the-board apologia for Trump. Over and over, Schiff deployed the formulation "You might think it's OK" to suggest that the GOP was indifferent to a long list of Trump's Russia-linked transgressions. He concluded: "But I don't think it's OK. I think it's immoral. I think it's unethical. I think it's unpatriotic. And yes, I think it's corrupt."

Schiff's profile, along with the reach of his devastating denunciation, was further enhanced that evening when Trump unleashed a vicious, profane attack on his adversary at a campaign-style rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Trump belittled Schiff's appearance -- appearances being everything to Trump -- and claimed "complete vindication" on the "collusion delusion."

Of course, even Barr's pro-Trump account of Mueller's report conceded that the special counsel went out of his way to say that his inquiry "does not exonerate" Trump on obstruction of justice. But the larger problem is that Trump's inability to let go of the Russia controversy kicks away the opportunity he and his party might have exploited to reset the public conversation.

At least some Republicans know how foolish this is. Karl Rove, George W. Bush's political maestro, offered an almost plaintive Wall Street Journal column under the headline "Move on from Robert Mueller, Mr. President." Trump recklessly went exactly the other way in Michigan. Rove urged Trump "to pivot to issues, like the economy and the opioid crisis, that matter to swing voters" and cited a Fox News poll underscoring that the energy in politics is still on the side of Trump's opponents: Only 27 percent of voters strongly approve of Trump, while 42 percent strongly disapprove.

Rove's instincts about the need for a new narrative were confirmed Friday morning with the release of a March 25-27 NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll finding 54 percent of Americans saying they definitely plan to vote against Trump in 2020, while only 35 percent saying they would definitely vote for him. The survey also found that 75 percent back the core Democratic demand that the full Mueller report be made public, a warning to Barr that excessive redactions could incite public discontent. Only 36 percent said the report cleared Trump of any wrongdoing. This is not a man who should still be playing to his base by stoking the Russia story.

If anyone is listening to Rove's counsel, it's Democratic presidential candidates. Last week, while Washington was consumed by Mueller news, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., rolled out a detailed plan on infrastructure -- the quintessential middle-of-the-road concern. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., added to her impressive compendium of policy innovations with an approach to agriculture stressing the interests of small farmers over those of agribusiness. For her part, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., offered a Washington Post opinion piece highlighting her proposal to raise teacher pay across the country.

In other words, the Democrats who would be president are paying far more attention to questions that resonate in Iowa, New Hampshire, and the industrial Midwest than to what transpired in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Trump's biggest problem may be his difficulty in doing the same.

(c) 2019, Washington Post Writers Group

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Homeless man hailed a hero after finding puppies minutes after being tossed into dumpster

Several puppies tossed in a dumpster in California last week may not have been found had it not been for a homeless man digging for bottles to recycle.

The man, who has not been identified, was rummaging through the dumpster in Coachella on April 20 when he found a plastic bag filled with the palm-sized newborn pups. Minutes earlier, police said surveillance video caught Deborah Sue Culwell, 54, getting out of a jeep and throwing the dogs into the trash on a scorching day.

The man took the bag and set it in view of a nearby NAPA Auto Parts store. A customer brought it inside and store employees called authorities.

“The dumpster is on the side of our store, no one ever goes back there,” NAPA employee Jazzy Espino told the Daily Mail. “If it wasn’t for the homeless guy digging through the trash minutes later, they wouldn’t have been found.”

The dogs – five males and two females -- were found malnourished and dehydrated, Riverside County Animal Services said.

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Culwell was arrested at her home, which contained 38 dogs who were all taken to a nearby shelter. She is charged with felony animal cruelty and faces seven years in prison.

Source: Fox News National

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Kentucky tops Wofford on Magee’s miserable day

NCAA Basketball: NCAA Tournament-Second Round-Wofford vs Kentucky
Mar 23, 2019; Jacksonville, FL, USA; Wofford Terriers forward Keve Aluma (24) reaches for a rebound while under pressure by Kentucky Wildcats forward EJ Montgomery (left) and forward Reid Travis (right) during the second half in the second round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament at Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena. The Kentucky Wildcats won 62-56. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports

March 24, 2019

Reid Travis scored 14 points, including a pair of clutch free throws, as No. 2 seed Kentucky fended off No. 7 Wofford 62-56 in an NCAA Tournament Midwest Region second-round game Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville, Fla.,

It took a miserable outing from one of the country’s all-time great shooters to help the Wildcats pull out the victory.

Kentucky (29-6) goes to the Sweet 16 on Friday night in Kansas City, Mo., to face either third-seeded Houston or No. 11 Ohio State.

Freshman Ashton Hagans racked up 12 points for Kentucky, while classmates Keldon Johnson and Tyler Herro both had nine.

Nathan Hoover scored 19 points and Cameron Jackson added 11 for Wofford (30-5), which saw its school-record 21-game winning streak end. Hoover hit 4 of 5 from 3-point range, accounting for half of the Terriers’ successful 3-pointers.

Wofford’s Fletcher Magee, the NCAA’s leader in career 3-point baskets, was 0 for 12 from beyond the arc, including eight misses in the second half. The Southern Conference Player of the Year finished with eight points.

Herro’s 3-pointer and Nick Richards’ free throw nudged Kentucky to a 58-51 lead with 3:36 remaining, but the Wildcats then went more than three minutes without scoring.

Wofford pulled within 58-56 on Keve Aluma’s tip-in at the 40-second mark.

With 18 seconds to play, Travis connected on a pair of free throws to help seal the outcome. He also pulled in a game-high 11 rebounds, matching Aluma’s total.

Wofford opened the second half with a 9-4 run for a 35-32 lead, but once the Wildcats went back on top moments later they never trailed again.

Wofford led 21-15 even though Magee hadn’t registered a point. He didn’t score until the final 30 seconds of the half.

Kentucky played for the second game in a row without team scoring and rebounding leader PJ Washington, a 6-foot-8 sophomore who had his left foot in a cast from an injury sustained in last week’s Southeastern Conference tournament.

Magee’s 3-point total ends at 509.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Wisconsin school ends cheerleading awards for body parts

A Wisconsin school district official says its high school will no longer hand out cheerleading awards that are based on a girl's physical attributes, including largest breasts or buttocks.

The American Civil Liberties Union says an annual banquet has been held at Tremper High School in the Kenosha Unified School District that recognizes the most improved or hardest working cheerleaders. But the ACLU says special gag awards are also given to a cheerleader with the largest buttocks, called "Big Booty Judy" and the biggest breasts, called "Big Boobie Strube."

The ACLU says it obtained correspondence from Tremper Principal Steve Knecht telling a parent that the gag awards were meant to be funny. District spokeswoman Tanya Ruder says these awards won't be made at future cheerleading banquets.

Source: Fox News National

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Militants blamed in Sri Lanka attacks had incendiary leader

The purported leader of an Islamic extremist group blamed for an Easter attack in Sri Lanka that killed over 320 people began posting videos online three years ago calling for non-Muslims to be "eliminated," faith leaders said Tuesday.

Much remains unclear about how a little-known group called National Thowfeek Jamaath allegedly carried out six large nearly simultaneous suicide bombings striking churches and hotels on Sunday.

However, warnings about growing radicalism in the island nation off the coast of India date to at least 2007, while Muslim leaders say their repeated warnings about the group and its leader drew no visible reaction from officials responsible for public security.

"Some of the intelligence people saw his picture but they didn't take action," said N.M. Ameen, the president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka.

Tension coursed through Colombo on Tuesday as the military took on emergency war-time powers, allowing them to conduct warrantless searches and detain suspects for up to two weeks before a court hearing.

Such powers haven't been invoked since Sri Lanka's bloody civil war, when people feared that unclaimed bags or debris could hide a bomb. On one commuter train Tuesday morning, panicked passengers shouted over one unclaimed piece of luggage until its owner was found.

Authorities have blamed National Thowfeek Jamaath for the attack. Its leader, alternately known as Mohammed Zahran or Zahran Hashmi, became known to Muslim leaders three years ago for his incendiary speeches online.

"It was basically a hate campaign against all non-Muslims," said Hilmy Ahamed, the Muslim council's vice president. "Basically, he was saying non-Muslims have to be eliminated."

Zahran's name was on one intelligence warning shared among Sri Lankan security forces, who apparently even quietly took their growing concerns to international experts as well.

Anne Speckhard, the director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, said a Sri Lankan intelligence official approached her at a conference in February with a surprising question. She was worried about what she described as a violent, homegrown jihadi group that "would just disappear" when the government tried to crack down on them.

"The intel person kind of came up to me and said, 'You know, we're kind of worried about this new group and there's some activity going. What do you think?'" Speckhard told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "It just kind of blows my mind that's who it was."

As far as the planning, Speckhard noted that Sri Lanka was "a part of the world that developed suicide vests" during the civil war against the Tamil Tigers, a secular, nationalist group that once was the world's top suicide attacker. But the style of Sunday's attacks, targeting churches on Easter and hotels frequented by foreigners, followed that of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

"It is a simple attack that is well thought out," Speckhard said. "I do believe well thought out is a product of being in touch with someone from the outside."

That's a feeling shared by the Austin, Texas-based private intelligence firm Stratfor.

"The degree of sophistication in the making of the bombs indicates that the attackers did in fact have help from outside Sri Lanka, which could have come via coordination with external militant groups such as al-Qaida or the Islamic State, from Sri Lankan fighters returning from battlefields in Iraq and Syria, or from a combination of the two," a Stratfor analysis said Tuesday. "Clarity on the nature of such networks, however, will have to wait for the emergence of more details about the attacks."

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Sri Lanka attack via its Aamaq news agency on Tuesday, but offered no photographs or videos of attackers pledging their loyalty to the group. Such material, often showing suicide bombers pledging loyalty before their assaults, offers credibility to their claims.

___

Follow Jon Gambrell and Bharatha Mallawarachi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap and www.twitter.com/bharatha77

Source: Fox News World

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Israel says it struck 100 Hamas targets after rocket attack

The Israeli military says it struck 100 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight in response to rocket fire.

The army said early Friday that targets included an office complex in Gaza City, an underground complex that served as Hamas' main rocket-manufacturing site, and a center used for a Hamas drone program.

The airstrikes followed a rare rocket attack on the Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv late Thursday. Israel says Hamas fired the rockets, though Hamas and a smaller militant group, Islamic Jihad, both denied involvement.

The fighting broke out amid Egyptian efforts to broker an expanded cease-fire deal between the bitter enemies, who last fought a war in 2014.

Several barrages of rocket fire continued during the night.

Source: Fox News World

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South Korea’s Moon pushes for summit with North Korea’s Kim despite nuclear standoff

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Trump welcomes South Korea’s President Moon to the White House in Washington
FILE PHOTO: South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in sits takes part in a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 11, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

April 15, 2019

By Hyonhee Shin

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said on Monday he will pursue “in earnest” another summit with Kim Jong Un despite the North Korean leader’s recent criticism of Seoul’s self-proclaimed role as a mediator in stalled nuclear talks.

Moon has been eager to regain momentum in talks with North Korea since Kim’s second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, in Vietnam in February, failed due to conflicting demands by Pyongyang for sanctions relief and by Washington for sweeping North Korean measures to abandon its nuclear program.

Kim said in a speech on Friday that he was willing to hold another summit with Trump if the United States changed its calculation and offered a “proper attitude and a methodology”, setting a year-end deadline.

While North Korea and the United States have been discussing the North’s denuclearization, U.S. ally South Korea has been taking steps to improve its ties with its old rival.

Moon and Kim have held three meetings over the past year, and Moon’s administration has been keen for a fourth, possibly to mark the anniversary of the first one on April 27.

Moon, who visited Washington to meet Trump last week, said Kim’s latest address “set the stage” for a fourth inter-Korean summit, which could be a “stepping stone for an even bigger opportunity and a more significant outcome”.

“Now is the time to begin the preparations in earnest,” Moon told a meeting with senior secretaries, noting that as soon as the North Koreans were ready, he was willing to meet Kim “regardless of venue and form”.

In his first public remarks since Kim’s address, Moon said he “very much welcomed” that speech, saying it showed Kim’s “unwavering” commitment toward denuclearization and the reopening of negotiations.

But Moon did not specifically respond to Kim’s criticism that South Korea was too subservient to the “anachronistic arrogance and hostile policy of the United States”, and that the South’s military persisted in “veiled hostility” by conducting exercises with U.S. forces.

Kim said South Korea should not “pose as a meddlesome ‘mediator’ and ‘facilitator'” between the North and the United States.

North Korea’s state media on Saturday issued a commentary criticizing South Korea’s purchase of fighter jets, including two recently delivered F-35A jets from the United States, calling it a “serious provocative act” that could intensify tension on the Korean peninsula.

However, Kim said he remained committed to improving relations with South Korea if it showed its “sincerity by practical action, not by words”.

Any significant improvement in ties between the two Koreas could depend on progress between North Korea and the United States on the North’s denuclearization and that looks doubtful, with neither side showing willingness to make concessions.

Trump emphasized during last week’s talks with Moon that he was willing to meet Kim again but would not lift sanctions until the North took meaningful steps to dismantle its nuclear programs.

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Editing by Josh Smith and Robert Birsel)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei's factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province
FILE PHOTO: The Huawei logo is pictured outside its Huawei’s factory campus in Dongguan, Guangdong province, China, March 25, 2019. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Britain must get to the bottom of the leak of confidential discussions during a top-level security meeting about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in 5G network supply chains, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.

News that Britain’s National Security Council, attended by senior ministers and spy chiefs, had agreed on Tuesday to bar Huawei from all core parts of the country’s 5G network and restrict its access to non-core elements was leaked to a national newspaper.

The leak of secret discussions has sparked anger in parliament and amongst Britain’s intelligence community. Britain’s most senior civil servant Mark Sedwill has launched an inquiry and written to ministers who were at the meeting.

“My understanding from London (is) that an investigation has been announced into apparent leaks from the NSC meeting earlier this week,” said Hammond, speaking on the sidelines of a summit on China’s Belt and Road initiative in Beijing.

“To my knowledge there has never been a leak from a National Security Council meeting before and therefore I think it is very important that we get to the bottom of what happened here,” he told Reuters in a pooled interview.

British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday he could not rule out a criminal investigation. The majority of the ministers at the NSC meeting have said they were not involved, according to media reports.

Hammond said he was unaware of any previous leak from a meeting of the NSC.

“It’s not about the substance of what was apparently leaked. It’s not earth-shattering information. But it is important that we protect the principle that nothing that goes on in national security council meetings must ever be repeated outside the room.”

Allowing Huawei a reduced role in building its 5G network puts Britain at odds with the United States which has told allies not to use its technology at all because of fears it could be a vehicle for Chinese spying. Huawei has categorically denied this.

There have been concerns that the NSC’s conclusion, which sources confirmed to Reuters, could upset other allies in the world’s leading intelligence-sharing network – the Five Eyes alliance of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

However, British ministers and intelligence officials have said any final decision on 5G would not put critical national infrastructure at risk. Ciaran Martin, head of the cyber center of Britain’s main eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, played down any threat of a rift in the Five Eyes alliance.

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: OANN

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President Trump on Friday said “no money” was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, after reports that the U.S. received a $2 million hospital bill from Pyongyang for the late American prisoner’s care.

“No money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier, not two Million Dollars, not anything else. This is not the Obama Administration that paid 1.8 Billion Dollars for four hostages, or gave five terroist[sic] hostages plus, who soon went back to battle, for traitor Sgt. Bergdahl!” Trump tweeted Friday.

NORTH KOREA GAVE US $2M HOSPITAL BILL OVER CARE OF AMERICAN OTTO WARMBIER, SOURCES SAY

The Washington Post first reported that North Korean authorities insisted the U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier, 21, who was a student of the University of Virginia, sign a pledge to pay the bill before allowing Warmbier’s comatose body to return to the United States. Sources confirmed the bill and the amount to Fox News on Thursday.

Sources told the post that the envoy signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions from the president, but a source told Fox News that the U.S. did not ever pay money to North Korea.

The White House declined to comment when asked on the bill, with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders saying in a statement that: “We do not comment on hostage negotiations, which is why they have been so successful during this administration.”

Meanwhile, the president added: “’President[sic] Donald J. Trump is the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States. 20 hostages, many in impossible circumstances, have been released in last two years. No money was paid.’ Cheif[sic] Hostage Negotiator, USA!”

Warmbier was on tour in North Korea when he allegedly stole a propaganda sign from a hotel. He was arrested in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor in March 2016. Warmbier, for unknown reasons, fell into a coma while in custody and was held in that condition for an additional 17 months.

North Korean officials did not tell American officials until June 2017 that Warmbier had been unconscious the entire time. He died less than a week after he returned to the U.S. North Korean officials, though, have repeatedly denied accusations that Warmbier was tortured, instead claiming that he had suffered from botulism and then slipped into a coma after taking a sleeping pill.

AMERICAN PRISONERS HELD IN NORTH KOREA ON THEIR WAY HOME AFTER POMPEO VISIT, TRUMP SAYS

Fred and Cindy Warmbier sued North Korea over their son’s death and in December were awarded $501 million in damages – money that the Hermit Kingdom will probably never pay.

While the Warmbiers blamed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump has said he believes Kim’s claims that he did not know about the student’s treatment.

Trump and Kim have met in two separate summits. The most recent, held in February, ended without an agreement on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told Fox News: “Otto Warmbier was mistreated by North Korea in so many ways, including his wrongful conviction and harsh sentence, and the fact that for 16 months they refused to tell his family or our country about his dire condition they caused.  No, the United States owes them nothing. They owe the Warmbier family everything.”

Last year, the Trump administration was also able to save three American prisoners held by North Korea. Kim Dong Chul, Tony Kim, and Kim Hak Song were all detained in North Korea. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought the three Americans home last May, and said they were all in “good health.”

Fox News’ John Roberts, Rich Edson, Nicholas Kalman, and Mike Emanuel contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon
Park Yoo-chun, a K-pop idol singer, arrives at the Suwon district court in Suwon, South Korea, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

April 26, 2019

SEOUL (Reuters) – K-pop and drama star Park Yu-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around five times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park’s contract with his management agency had been canceled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park’s management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes and secret chat about rape led at least four other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport in Washington
FILE PHOTO: An American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight from Los Angeles taxis after landing at Reagan National Airport shortly after an announcement was made by the FAA that the planes were being grounded by the United States over safety issues in Washington, U.S. March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – American Airlines Group Inc cut its 2019 profit forecast on Friday, saying it expected to take a $350 million hit from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes after cancelling 1,200 flights in the first quarter.

The company said it now expects its 2019 adjusted profit to be between $4.00 per share and $6.00 per share.

Analysts on average had expected 2019 earnings of $5.63 per share, according to Refinitiv data.

The No. 1 U.S. airline by passenger traffic said net income rose to $185 million, or 41 cents per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $159 million, or 34 cents per share, a year earlier.

Total operating revenue rose 2 percent to $10.58 billion.

(Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage

April 26, 2019

By James Oliphant

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (Reuters) – Four years ago, Donald Trump campaigned in small towns like Marshalltown, Iowa, vowing to restore economic prosperity to the U.S. heartland.

In his bid to replace Trump in the White House, Pete Buttigieg is taking a similar tack. The difference, he says, is that he can point to a model of success: South Bend, Indiana, the revitalized city where he has been mayor since 2012.

The Democratic presidential contender has vaulted to the congested field’s top tier in recent weeks, drawing media and donor attention for his youth, history-making status as the first openly gay major presidential candidate and a resume that includes military service in Afghanistan.

But Buttigieg’s main argument for his candidacy is that he is a turnaround artist in the mold of Trump, although the Democrat does not expressly invoke the comparison with the Republican president.

“I’m not going around saying we’ve fixed every problem we’ve got,” Buttigieg, 37, said after a house party with voters in Marshalltown. “But I’m proud of what we have done together, and I think it’s a very powerful story.”

Critics argue improving the fortunes of a Midwestern city of 100,000 people does not qualify Buttigieg, who has never held national office, for the presidency of a country of 330 million. Others say South Bend still has pockets of despair and that minorities, in particular, have failed to benefit from its growth.

Buttigieg has told crowds in Iowa and elsewhere that his experience in reviving a struggling Rust Belt community allows him to make a case to voters that other Democratic candidates cannot. That may give him the means to win back some of the disaffected Democratic voters who turned their backs on Hillary Clinton in 2016 to vote for Trump.

Watching Buttigieg at a union hall in Des Moines last week, Rick Ryan, 45, a member of the United Steelworkers, lamented how many of his fellow union workers voted for Trump. The president turned in the best performance by a Republican among union households since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Ryan said he hoped someone like Buttigieg could return them to the Democratic fold.

“He’s aware of the decline in the labor force in America, not just in Indiana or Des Moines or anywhere else,” Ryan said. “Jobs are going overseas. We need a find to way to bring that back.”

Randy Tucker, 56, of Pleasant Hill, Iowa, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said Trump appealed to union members “desperate for somebody to reach out to them, to help them, to listen to their voice.”

Buttigieg could do the same, he said. “In my heart right now, he’s No. 1.”

PAST VS. FUTURE

Buttigieg stresses a key difference in his and Trump’s approaches.

Trump, he tells crowds, is mired in the past, promising to rebuild the 20th century industrial economy. Buttigieg argues the pledge is misleading and unrealistic.

Buttigieg says his focus is on the future, and he often talks about what the country might look like decades from now.

“The only way that we can cultivate what makes America great is to look to the future and not be afraid of it,” Buttigieg said in Marshalltown.

Buttigieg knows his sexual preference may be a barrier to winning some blue-collar voters. But he notes that after he came out as gay in 2015, he won a second term as mayor with 80 percent of the vote in conservative Indiana.

Earlier this month, he announced his presidential bid at the hulking plant in South Bend that stopped making Studebaker autos more than 50 years ago. After lying dormant for decades, the building is being transformed into a high-tech hub after Buttigieg and other city leaders realized it would never again attract a large-scale industrial company.

“That building sat as a powerful reminder. We hoped we would get back that major employer that would fix our economy,” said Jeff Rea, president of the regional Chamber of Commerce.

Buttigieg is praised locally for spurring more than $100 million in downtown investment. During his two terms, unemployment has fallen to 4.1 percent from 11.8 percent.

But a study released in 2017 by the nonprofit group Prosperity Now said not all of the city’s residents had shared in its rebound. The median income for African-Americans remained half that of whites, while the unemployment rate for blacks was double.

Regina Williams-Preston, a city councilor running to replace Buttigieg as mayor, credits him for the revitalized downtown. But she said he had a “blind spot” when it came to focusing on troubled neighborhoods like the one she represents and only grew more engaged after community pressure.

“He understands it now,” she said. “The next step is figuring out how to open the doors of opportunity for everyone.”

‘ONE OF US’

Trump touts the fact that the United States added almost 300,000 manufacturing jobs last year as evidence he made good on his promise to restore the industrial sector. But that growth still left the country with fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2008.

The robust U.S. economy is likely the president’s greatest asset in his re-election bid, particularly in states he carried in 2016 such as Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He won Buttigieg’s home state by 19 points over Clinton in 2016.

Sean Bagniewski, chairman of the Democratic Party in Polk County, Iowa, said Buttigieg would be well positioned to compete with Trump in the Midwest.

“People love the fact that he’s a mayor,” said Bagniewski, who has not endorsed a candidate in the nominating contest. “If you can talk about a positive future, and if you actually have experience that can do it, that’s a compelling vision in Iowa.”

Nan Whaley, the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, which faces many of the same challenges as South Bend, agreed.

“He’s one of us,” Whaley said. “That helps.”

(Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney)

Source: OANN

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