Trump digs in on racist tweets: ‘Many people agree with me’
WASHINGTON— Defiant in the face of widespread criticism, President Donald Trump renewed his belligerent call on Monday for four Democratic congresswomen of color to get out of the U.S. “right now,” cementing his position as the most willing U.S. leader in generations to stoke the discord that helped send him to the White House.
Content to gamble that a sizeable chunk of the electorate embraces his tweets that have been widely denounced as racist, the president made clear that he has no qualms about exploiting racial divisions once again.
“It doesn’t concern me because many people agree with me,” Trump said at the White House. “A lot of people love it, by the way.”
The episode served notice that Trump is willing to again rely on incendiary rhetoric on issues of race and immigration to preserve his political base in the leadup to the 2020 election.
There was near unanimous condemnation from Democrats for Trump’s comments and a rumble of discontent from a subset of Republicans — but notably not from the party’s congressional leaders.
Final blast of torrential rains unleashed by weakened Barry
NEW ORLEANS— Tropical Depression Barry spared New Orleans and Baton Rouge from catastrophic flooding, but even as it weakened and moved north through Arkansas, its trailing rain bands swamped parts of Louisiana with up to 17 inches of rain and transformed part of the Mississippi Delta into “an ocean.”
As of Monday evening, with the center of the storm about 105 miles northwest of Little Rock, the National Weather Service said flash flood watches remained in effect in southeast Texas through the lower Mississippi Valley.
Forecasters said the storm was expected to produce up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) of rain — and in isolated spots as much as 8 inches (20 centimeters) — across Arkansas, western Tennessee and Kentucky, southeast Missouri, and northwest Mississippi.
No fatalities or serious injuries reported from Barry.
Some of the earliest fears that the storm posed didn’t play out: A shift in its path decreased the possibility of major Mississippi River levees being overtopped at New Orleans, where catastrophic levee breaches along canals devastated the city after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And the torrents of rain forecasters had said were possible — portending repeats of catastrophic Baton Rouge area flooding in 2016 — didn’t happen.
Trump abortion restrictions effective immediately
WASHINGTON— Taxpayer-funded family planning clinics must stop referring women for abortions immediately, the Trump administration said Monday, declaring it will begin enforcing a new regulation hailed by religious conservatives and denounced by medical organizations and women’s rights groups.
The head of a national umbrella group representing the clinics said the administration is following “an ideological agenda” that could disrupt basic health care for many low-income women.
Ahead of a planned conference Tuesday with the clinics, the Health and Human Services Department formally notified them that it will begin enforcing the ban on abortion referrals, along with a requirement that clinics maintain separate finances from facilities that provide abortions. Another requirement that both kinds of facilities cannot be under the same roof would take effect next year.
The rule is widely seen as a blow against Planned Parenthood, which provides taxpayer-funded family planning and basic health care to low-income women, as well as abortions that must be paid for separately. The organization is a mainstay of the federally funded family planning program and it has threatened to quit over the issue.
Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen said in a statement that “our doors are still open” as her organization and other groups seek to overturn the regulations in federal court. “We will not stop fighting for all those across the country in need of essential care,” Wen said.
62 border employees under internal investigation amid posts
WASHINGTON— U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Monday that 62 current and eight former Border Patrol employees are under internal investigation following revelations of a secret Facebook group that mocked lawmakers and migrants.
Most are under investigation for posts that surfaced in a secret group called “I’m 10-15,” where messages questioned the authenticity of images of a migrant father and child dead on the banks of the Rio Grande River, and depicted crude, doctored images of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., purporting to perform a sex act on President Donald Trump.
There were posts in at least one other closed group under investigation, he said.
“Messages posted on a private page that are discriminatory or harassing are not protected and violate standards of conduct,” said Matthew Klein, assistant commissioner of the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
Klein said his agency referred the case to the Homeland Security Department’s watchdog agency, which declined to investigate and sent the case back to Customs and Border Protection. He said they are now focused on fact-finding and would identify criminal behavior if there was any, but it was not considered a criminal probe.
By wire sources