AP News in Brief 08-29-19

Ex-Pentagon chief Mattis says bitter politics threaten US

WASHINGTON — Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is warning that bitter political divisions threaten American society, saying he views “tribalism” as a greater risk to the nation’s future than foreign adversaries.

The retired Marine general, who resigned in December 2018 in a policy dispute with President Donald Trump, said he worries about the state of American politics and the administration’s treatment of allies.

“We all know that we’re better than our current politics,” Mattis wrote in an essay adapted from his new book and published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal. “Unlike in the past, where we were unified and drew in allies, currently our own commons seems to be breaking apart.”

Mattis said the problem is made worse by this administration’s disregard for the enduring value of allies, which he alluded to in the resignation letter he gave Trump on Dec. 20.

“Nations with allies thrive,” he wrote in the Journal essay, “and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy. At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering.”

Farmers’ loyalty to Trump tested over new corn-ethanol rules

LACONA, Iowa — When President Donald Trump levied tariffs on China that scrambled global markets, farmer Randy Miller was willing to absorb the financial hit. Even as the soybeans in his fields about an hour south of Des Moines became less valuable, Miller saw long-term promise in Trump’s efforts to rebalance America’s trade relationship with Beijing.

“The farmer plays the long game,” said Miller, who grows soybeans and corn and raises pigs in Lacona. “I look at my job through my son, my grandkids. So am I willing to suffer today to get this done to where I think it will be better for them? Yes.”

But the patience of Miller and many other Midwest farmers with a president they mostly supported in 2016 is being put sorely to the test.

The trigger wasn’t Trump’s China tariffs, but the waivers the administration granted this month to 31 oil refineries so they don’t have to blend ethanol into their gasoline. Since roughly 40% of the U.S. corn crop is turned into ethanol, it was a fresh blow to corn producers already struggling with five years of low commodity prices and the threat of mediocre harvests this fall after some of the worst weather in years.

“That flashpoint was reached and the frustration boiled over, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Lynn Chrisp, who grows corn and soybeans near Hastings, Nebraska, and is president of the National Corn Growers Association.

US, Mexico widen asylum crackdown to push back all migrants

NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico — A Trump administration program forcing asylum seekers to wait in Mexico has evolved into a sweeping rejection of all forms of migrants, with both countries quietly working to keep people out of the U.S. despite threats to the migrants’ safety.

The results serve the goals of both governments, which have targeted unauthorized migration at the behest of President Donald Trump, who threatened Mexico with potentially crippling tariffs earlier this year to force action.

Some people sent to wait in the Mexican border cities of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros said they never requested asylum, including Wilfredo Alvarez, a laborer from Honduras. He crossed the Rio Grande without permission to look for work to support his seven children and was unexpectedly put into the program. He was sent back to Mexico with a future court date.

“We thought that if they caught us, they would deport us to our country, but it was not that way,” Alvarez said. “They threw us away here to Mexico, but we are not from here and it’s very difficult.”

From wire sources

Others said they were never asked if they feared persecution in Mexico, despite U.S. government rules that say migrants should not be sent there if they face that risk.

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UK’s Johnson moves to suspend Parliament ahead of Brexit

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson maneuvered Wednesday to give his political opponents even less time to block a chaotic no-deal Brexit before the Oct. 31 withdrawal deadline, winning Queen Elizabeth II’s approval to suspend Parliament. His critics were outraged.

Though Johnson previously had refused to rule out such a move, the timing of the decision took lawmakers — many of whom are on vacation — by surprise.

Johnson insisted he was taking the step so he could outline his domestic agenda, and he shot down the notion that he was curbing debate, saying there would be “ample time” to discuss Brexit and other issues.

Lawmakers reacted with fury, including John Bercow, speaker of the lower House of Commons, who was not told in advance of Johnson’s plan.

“Shutting down Parliament would be an offense against the democratic process and the rights of parliamentarians as the people’s elected representatives,” Bercow said. “Surely at this early stage in his premiership, the prime minister should be seeking to establish rather than undermine his democratic credentials and indeed his commitment to Parliamentary democracy.”

MSNBC’s O’Donnell retracts Trump story

NEW YORK — MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday retracted his story about supposed Russian ties to President Donald Trump’s finances and apologized for reporting it — just as Trump’s lawyer demanded.

O’Donnell said, however, he still doesn’t know whether or not the story is true.

His public pull-back unfolded quickly in the opening minute of “The Last Word,” where 24 hours earlier the cable news host said that a source had told him that Deutsche Bank documents showed that Russian oligarchs had co-signed a loan application for Trump.

O’Donnell reported the story, based on a single source he did not identify, even as he couched it with the qualifier “if true” and admitted it had not been verified by NBC News.

Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder, had written to NBC Wednesday afternoon, saying the story was false and defamatory and threatening legal action if it wasn’t disowned. Harder said the story could have been disproven with an internet search.

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O’Rourke campaign ejects Breitbart reporter from speech

NEW YORK — Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign said Wednesday that it ejected a Breitbart News reporter from an event at a South Carolina college because it wanted to ensure that students felt “comfortable and safe.”

The Texas Democrat’s campaign found itself in a public confrontation with the aggressive conservative web site a day after its senior editor-at-large, Joel Pollak, said he was booted from an O’Rourke speech. He said the campaign told him was being ejected because he’d been disruptive at past events.

O’Rourke spokeswoman Aleigha Cavalier said that Breitbart walks the line between being news and a perpetrator of hate speech. The campaign asked him to leave because of Pollak’s “previous hateful reporting” and the sensitivity of the topics being discussed with black students at Benedict College.

“Whether it’s dedicating an entire section of their website to ‘black crime,’ inferring that immigrants are terrorists, or using derogatory terms to refer to LGBTQ people, Breitbart News walks the line between being news and a perpetrator of hate speech,” Cavalier said in a statement.

Cavalier did not immediately outline what work from Pollak the campaign had found objectionable or whether this was a one-time action that would apply to Breitbart personnel in the future.

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Questions after US turns away Palestinian Harvard freshman

BOSTON — A Palestinian student trying to start classes at Harvard University was denied entry to the U.S. in a case that critics of the Trump administration call emblematic of overly invasive screening at border checkpoints.

Ismail Ajjawi, who had been living in Lebanon, was refused entry into the U.S. after landing Friday at Logan International Airport in Boston, university and federal officials confirmed this week. The 17-year-old freshman said the denial had to do with politically oriented social media posts by his friends.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection would not confirm that, with spokesman Michael McCarthy saying only that the decision to cancel Ajjawi’s visa was based on information discovered during an inspection. He declined to elaborate but stressed that Ajjawi was not deported, meaning he can still seek reentry.

Harvard is working to resolve the matter, university spokesman Jason Newton said. AMIDEAST, a nonprofit organization that awarded Ajjawi a scholarship, is providing legal assistance.

Federal agents detained Ajjawi at the airport for eight hours, searched his cellphone and laptop, and questioned him about his friends’ social media posts, according to a written statement Ajjawi gave to The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper.