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October 21, 2018 , , ,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets supporters at a ceremony in Istanbul on Sunday
Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets supporters at a ceremony in Istanbul on Sunday
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Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped up the pressure on Saudi Arabia over the death of Jamal Khashoggi on Sunday, casting doubts on Riyadh’s claims that the journalist died in a fist fight and saying he would reveal what happened in “full detail”. Saudi Arabia finally admitted at the weekend that Khashoggi was killed in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul this month after two weeks of denials. It said it had detained 18 unidentified Saudis over the incident. But Riyadh has changed its story several times and its claims that the 60-year-old columnist was killed in a fight have been widely condemned as lacking credibility. Turkish officials have previously said they believe Khashoggi was killed by a 15-man Saudi hit team that flew into Istanbul and later dismembered his body. Mr Erdogan, who has been restrained in his comments over the past two weeks, referred to that version of events in a speech yesterday. “Why did 15 people come here; why were 18 people detained?” All of this must be explained in full detail,” he said. “On Tuesday, these things will be explained in a very different way at the group meeting [of Turkey’s ruling party]. There I will go into these details.” A Turkish official told the Financial Times that Ankara had successfully “shamed” Riyadh into an admission of guilt. “Now we have to get the full story. We will refute the claim that a fist fight caused this mess.” If Mr Erdogan reveals the details of Khashoggi’s death on Tuesday, it would coincide with the opening of Saudi Arabia’s flagship investor conference in Riyadh. A growing list of western government ministers and executives have withdrawn from the gathering because of the crisis.

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 Western leaders have also demanded that Riyadh provide more details on the death of Khashoggi, one of the Middle East’s most prominent journalists who was living in self-exile in the US. Riyadh, grappling with its biggest diplomatic crisis since the September 11 attacks on the US in 2001, has provided no evidence to back its claims and it is still not clear where Khashoggi’s body is. Faced with a growing backlash in the US, Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, appeared on Fox News to defend his government’s actions. He called Khashoggi’s murder an “aberration” and a “criminal act” that was the result of a “rogue operation” by individuals who exceeded their powers and then tried to cover it up. He said Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince, had no knowledge of the assassination, which was now being investigated. Asked if he knew the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains, he said: “We are working on this with our Turkish colleagues, the public prosecutor is continuing his line of questioning. We are intent on determining what happened, we are intent on uncovering all of the facts that exist in this case, we want to make sure we know what happened.” In a joint statement on Sunday, the foreign ministers of the UK, France and Germany “stressed that more efforts are needed and expected towards establishing the truth in a comprehensive, transparent and credible manner”. The statement added that “nothing can justify this killing and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms”. “We will ultimately make our judgment based on the credibility of the further explanation we receive about what happened and our confidence that such a shameful event cannot and will not ever be repeated,” the statement said. After initially hinting that he would accept Saudi Arabia’s claim, US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he was “not satisfied” with its explanation for the death of the journalist, who wrote a column for the Washington Post. “I am not satisfied until we find the answer,” Mr Trump told reporters, adding he was considering imposing sanctions on Riyadh, the main Arab ally of the US. Political pressure in the US is mounting on Mr Trump to take a tougher line, with lawmakers of both parties pinning the blame for Khashoggi’s murder on the highest echelons of the monarchy.

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 “In Saudi Arabia, you do not do something of this magnitude without having clearance from the top. We need to find out who that is and hold him accountable,” Thom Tillis, a Republican senator from North Carolina, said on NBC on Sunday. “If the facts lead to what we all suspect they will, I think it will be very problematic for our relationship, going forward.” Peter King, a senior Republican in the House of Representatives, added: “I would ask the president to try to thread the needle here . . . whether it involves imposing sanctions, whether it involves delaying arms sales, making a clear statement of condemnation at the end but still not hurt ourselves.” Dick Durbin, a Democratic senator from Illinois, said the crown prince had his “fingerprints all over this” and called on the Trump administration to expel the Saudi ambassador to the US until a “third-party investigation” on the murder was completed. “We should call on our allies to do the same. Unless the Saudi kingdom understands that civilised countries around the world are going to reject this conduct and make sure that they pay a price for it, they’ll continue doing it,” Mr Durbin said. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said the US should suspend military sales and “certain security assistance” to Saudi Arabia, as well as impose sanctions on the perpetrators of the murder. “This really ought to be something that causes us to do a re-examination of our relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Mr Schiff told ABC news. In a sign that Prince Mohammed will not bear any responsibility for the crisis, his father, King Salman, named the 33-year-old crown prince to head a committee to restructure the intelligence services within 30 days. Turkey and Saudi Arabia already have strained relations and vie for influence in the Middle East. Riyadh was annoyed by Ankara’s support for Qatar after Saudi Arabia and its allies imposed a regional embargo on the Gulf state. It also considers Turkey as sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that the kingdom describes as a terrorist group.
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May 20, 2017 ,
Richard Rojas told police he had been smoking marijuana laced with the hallucinogenic drug PCP, a court heard
Richard Rojas told police he had been smoking marijuana laced with the hallucinogenic drug PCP, a court heard
A man with a history of drunken driving has been charged with murder after police say he barreled a car through the crowded sidewalks in Manhattan's Time Square, leaving one person dead and 20 injured.
Moments after barreling his car through the crowded sidewalks in Manhattan's Times Square, Richard Rojas told a traffic agent, "I wanted to kill them all," according to a criminal complaint.

A troubled man with a history of drunken driving, Rojas bolted from his maroon Honda Accord after his deadly midday rampage on Thursday that left one person dead and 20 others injured.

Rojas moved unsteadily, his eyes were glassy and his speech slurred after his car crashed to a fiery stop, the complaint said.

"I smoked," Rojas allegedly told an officer after . He later told another officer, "I smoked marijuana. I laced the marijuana with PCP," according to the complaint.

One day after allegedly making a U-turn and steering the car onto packed sidewalks for a three-block stretch, the 26-year-old suspect was arraigned on murder and other charges Friday. He did not enter a plea, and his lawyer later declined comment.

One surveillance video showed the car jump the curb and slam into a group of people, sending bodies tumbling over the hood of the speeding car.

Alyssa Elsman, an 18-year-old resident of Portage, Michigan, who was visiting the city, was killed. Authorities reported another 22 people were injured, but police revised the total to 20 on Friday.

Rojas, a Bronx resident who had served in the Navy, tested positive for PCP and told police that God made him do it, a law enforcement source said.

The suspect, who suffered from "psychological issues," also told police he expected officers to shoot him, according to the source.

A history of mental health issues

Investigators are looking into the suspect's state of mind and psychological history in an attempt to determine a motive, the NYPD chief of Manhattan South Detectives William Aubry said.

"We're now hearing from family members [that Rojas] has had demonstrated mental health issues going back to childhood that ... went unaddressed even during the time he was in the U.S. military," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio told WNYC Radio Friday.

De Blasio added, "It appears to be intentional in the sense that he was troubled and lashing out. At the root of this ... is an untreated mental health issue going back probably decades."

In addition to the murder charge, Rojas also faces 20 counts of attempted murder, one count of aggravated vehicular homicide and a count of attempted murder in the second degree, according to the criminal complaint.

Three victims were in critical condition Friday, including a 38-year-old Canadian woman whom Aubry described "very critical."

The injured included Elsman's 13-year-old sister, Ava, according to Michelle Karpinski of Portage Public Schools. 

Alyssa Elsman, 18, was was killed when a speeding car plowed into pedestrians in Times Square.
Elsman was a 2016 graduate of Portage Central High School.


"Alyssa was the type of person who seemed very shy and reserved when you first met her, but once you started talking to her you realized she was smart, funny and engaging," principal Eric Alburtus said in a statement. "She will be deeply missed by the staff and students here." 


Rojas has been arrested twice in New York -- in 2015 and 2008 -- for drunken driving, New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill said.

In 2013, Rojas -- while in the Navy in Florida-- pleaded guilty to drunken driving, failure to pay a just debt, drunk and disorderly conduct and communicating a threat.

As he was arrested at the Mayport Naval Base, Rojas told officers, "My life is over," and threatened to kill police and military police, according to CNN affiliate WJXT. A military judge sentenced him to three months confinement.

Last Friday, Rojas was charged with menacing in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the Bronx after he threatened a person with a knife, according to a criminal complaint. He accused the person of trying to steal his identity.
He pleaded guilty at arraignment to second-degree harassment, a violation, and was given a conditional discharge, said Bronx district attorney spokeswoman Melanie Dostis.

There is no indication that the incident in Times Square, which unfolded just before noon, was an act of terrorism, de Blasio and other officials said.

A post shared by Stan The Man (@killakowal) on

Harrowing scene in popular tourist area

Before striking pedestrians, the 2009 Honda Accord was "out of control," an emergency management official said. 
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The speeding car jumped the sidewalk on the west side of 7th Avenue at 42nd Street and struck several pedestrians before crashing at the northwest corner of 45th Street, police said.

Witnesses described a harrowing scene that started with screeching tires and ended with screams, chaos and a fiery crash at one of the world's most visited sites.

Elizabeth Long, of Dayton, Ohio, was walking to the Hard Rock Cafe when she saw a maroon car heading toward her on the sidewalk. Hearing screams and fearing that the car would hit her, she ran to a nearby building's revolving door.

"I wasn't even all the way in when the car sped by" about 10 feet away, said Long, a 54-year-old who was in town to see a musical.

When Long went outside, she saw at least six people lying on the ground, including a woman lying face-down with blood pouring from her head.
"I'm shaken," said Long, who wasn't injured. "Two of the people I saw that were really hurt, people were beside them ... we were trying to tell (police) they were hurt."
"I felt so bad ... standing there," not being able to do anything more to help, she said.
A tourist from Argentina said that he was shocked to see the car that "was like bowling, hitting people." 

Witness: Driver was screaming and flailing his arms

Annette Proehl of Pennsylvania was in Times Square with children on a field trip when she heard the screeching tires of the vehicle and people screaming. She watched the car slam into a steel divider and catch fire, she said. 

"It was more of a surreal thing," she said. "We initially thought they were filming something." 

A wrecked car sits in the intersection of 45th and Broadway in Times Square.
A wrecked car sits in the intersection of 45th and Broadway in Times Square.
The car was lodged on a steel bollard -- of which there are more than 200 on Times Square sidewalks to stop vehicles from coming through.
The car's windshield was shattered and flames billowed from the hood.

That's when Planet Hollywood employee Kenya Brandix spotted the driver fleeing from the car. Bradix tackled Rojas to the ground.

"The person just got out of the car," Brandix told HLN. "He ran across the street, flailing his arms and screaming. No words but just screaming." 

Brandix and others have since been hailed as heroes for helping to restrain the driver.
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May 08, 2017 ,
Appeals court set to hear arguments on Trump's revised travel ban
A member of the Al Murisi family, Yemeni nationals who were denied entry into the U.S. last week because of the recent travel ban, shows the cancelled visa in their passport from their failed entry to reporters as they successfully arrive to be reunited with..
President Donald Trump's temporary travel ban on people entering the United States from six countries faces its latest legal test on Monday before a federal appeals court in Virginia.
The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear an hour of oral arguments in the Trump administration's appeal of a March 16 ruling by Maryland-based federal judge Theodore Chuang.

His decision blocked part of a March 6 order that restricted entry for 90 days from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The March order was Trump's second effort to craft travel restrictions. The first, issued on Jan. 27, led to chaos and protests at airports before being blocked by courts. The second order was intended to overcome the legal problems posed by the original ban, but was also blocked by judges before it could go into effect on March 16.

Another federal judge in Hawaii blocked the entry restrictions and part of the order that suspended entry of refugee applicants for 120 days. An appeal in that case will be considered by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 15.

The challengers in the Maryland case include six people, some of whom are U.S. citizens, who say the ban would prevent family members from entering the United States.

The lawsuit said that the order violates federal immigration law and a section of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment that prohibits government discrimination on the basis of religion.

The administration said in court papers that the claims are "speculative and not ripe" with none of them being able to show a "concrete, imminent injury" traceable to the order.

Government lawyers said the court should not base its findings on comments made by Trump during the 2016 election campaign about his intention to impose a so-called Muslim ban because those statements were made before he was sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, representing the challengers, said in court papers that Trump’s comments before the election cannot be ignored.

"President Trump publicly committed himself to an indefensible goal: banning Muslims from coming to the United States," the ACLU lawyers wrote.

Whatever the court rules, the case is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, which would make the final decision.
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May 08, 2017 ,
EPA dismisses climate change scientists 'to replace them with industry reps'
'The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community'
The Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by reducing the role of academic research.
A spokesman for the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, JP Freire.

The dismissals on Friday came about six weeks after the House passed a bill aimed at changing the composition of another EPA scientific review board to include more representation from the corporate world.

President Donald Trump has directed Pruitt to radically remake the EPA, pushing for deep cuts in its budget — including a 40 per cent reduction for its main scientific branch — and instructing him to roll back major Obama-era regulations on climate change and clean water protection. In recent weeks, the agency has removed some scientific data on climate change from its websites, and Pruitt has publicly questioned the established science of human-caused climate change.

In his first outings as EPA administrator, Pruitt has made a point of visiting coal mines and pledging that his agency will seek to restore that industry, even though many members of both of the EPA’s scientific advisory boards have historically recommended stringent constraints on coal pollution to combat climate change.

Freire said the agency wanted “to take as inclusive an approach to regulation as possible.”

“We want to expand the pool of applicants,” for the scientific board, he said, “to as broad a range as possible, to include universities that aren’t typically represented and issues that aren’t typically represented.”

Science advocates denounced the move as part of a broader push by the EPA to downgrade science and elevate business interests.
 “This is completely part of a multifaceted effort to get science out of the way of a deregulation agenda,” said Ken Kimmell, the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “What seems to be premature removals of members of this Board of Science Counselors when the board has come out in favor of the EPA strengthening its climate science, plus the severe cuts to research and development — you have to see all these things as interconnected.”

The scientists dismissed from the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors received emails from an agency official informing them that their three-year terms had expired and would not be renewed. That was contrary, the scientists said, to what they had been told by officials at the agency in January, just before Trump’s inauguration.

“Most of us on the council are academic people,” said Ponisseril Somasundaran, a chemist at Columbia University who focuses on managing hazardous waste. “I think they want to bring in business and industry people.”

Courtney Flint, a professor of natural resource sociology at Utah State University who has served on the board since 2014, said she was surprised by the dismissal.

“I believe this is political,” said Flint, whose research focuses on how communities respond to major disruptions in the environment, such as exposure to toxic pollution, forest fires and climate change. “It’s unexpected. It’s a red flag.”

EPA dismisses climate change scientists 'to replace them with industry reps'
Pruitt arrives at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (Getty)
Another of the dismissed scientists made his grievances public. “Today, I was Trumped,” Robert Richardson, an environmental economist at Michigan State University, wrote on Twitter. “I have had the pleasure of serving on the EPA Board of Scientific Counselors, and my appointment was terminated today.”

The board is charged with reviewing and evaluating the research conducted by the agency’s scientists. Those studies are used by government regulators to draft rules and restrictions on everything from hazardous waste dumped in water to the emissions of carbon dioxide that contribute to climate change.

Members of the board say they have reviewed the EPA’s scientific research on the public health impact of leaking underground fuel tanks, the toxicity of the chemicals used to clean up oil spills, and the effects of the spread of bark beetles caused by a warming climate.

A larger, corresponding panel, the 47-member Science Advisory Board, advises the agency on what areas it should conduct research in and evaluates the scientific integrity of some of its regulations.

Both boards, which until now have been composed almost entirely of academic research scientists, have long been targets of political attacks. Congressional Republicans and industry groups have sought to either change their composition or weaken their influence on the environmental regulatory process.
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April 26, 2017
Husband of Mary Phillips, who was killed by executed Arkansas inmate Jack Jones, says he has no qualms about his death
James Phillips, whose wife Mary was raped and murdered in 1996 by Jack Jones, says he has no qualms about his execution.
THE husband of the woman raped and murdered by Jack Jones, one of the two men put to death at an Arkansas prison on Monday, has said he has no qualms about the execution and has hit out at those who called for mercy.
In a dignified, but gut wrenching interview, James Phillips described the night his wife Mary was killed saying he didn’t care if Jones suffered “because my wife suffered big time”.

In 1996 Jones was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Mary and attempting to murder her 11-year-old daughter.

The sentence was carried out at 7.20pm on Monday (US time), after a combination of lethal drugs was pumped into Jones at the Cummins Unit in the Arkansas Department of Correction’s death chamber in the state’s south east.

The state is in the midst of a rush on executions as its store of lethal injection drugs nears expiry at the end of the month.

The last words of Jones were: “I’m sorry.”

“I hope over time you can learn who I really am and I am not a monster,” he said in the roughly two-minute statement.

Following Jones’s execution, lawyers for Williams claimed officials spent 45 minutes trying to place an IV line in Jones’s neck before placing it elsewhere.

In a last-minute appeal, they said Jones was still conscious, moving his lips and “gulping for air” after being administered with the sedative midazolam that is supposed to render inmates unconscious, according to local media reports.

Jack Harold Jones (L) was one of two death row inmates killed on Monday. Marcel W. Williams (R) was killed a few hours later.
Jack Harold Jones (L) was one of two death row inmates killed on Monday. Marcel W. Williams (R) was killed a few hours later.
The state’s attorney general’s office disputed Williams’s legal team’s account, and US District Judge Kristine Baker decided the punishment would go ahead.

“It don’t matter if they suffered a little bit as far as I’m concerned because my wife suffered big time,” Mr Phillips told the BBC.

He described the night his wife went missing. He was away on a business trip 500 miles (800 kms) away. His son had called him saying Mary hadn’t returned home. After asking him to search to see if her car had broken down close to home, Mr Phillips told his son to stay indoors and wait for his mum to return.

“She’ll be home in a while,” he said.
Mary Phillips was raped and killed by Jack Jones in 1996.Source:Supplied
Mary Phillips was raped and killed by Jack Jones in 1996.Source:Supplied
But at 11pm, Mr Phillips received a call telling him to return home as “something just happened”.

“So I packed up my bags at the hotel, called my supervisor [and] drove 500 miles knowing nothing that happened.”

The full horror of what his wife went through still pains Mr Phillips.

Mary was at work with their daughter Lacy when they were set upon by Jones. The 11-year-old was choked and beaten until she passed out. Then Jones turned his attention to Mary.

“She was sexually abused in every way possible,” said Mr Phillips.

“As she was suffering he took a cord of a coffee pot and strangled her and I don’t know how much meaner a man can get to do something like that, ” he told the BBC.

Phillips said he isn’t moved by anti death penalty protesters.
Phillips said he isn’t moved by anti death penalty protesters.

“I know a lot of people forgiven him and all that kind of stuff. They can protest all they want, it doesn’t matter.”

Mr Phillips said he had little sympathy for those who asked for Jones’ punishment to be lessened.

“Did they marry their high school sweetheart? What would they do, how would they feel if it happened to their family?

“Would they still be defending someone like this? I don’t think they would.”

Arkansas’ execution schedule, to beat the best before dates on its stocks of drugs continues apace. There’s another execution scheduled for Thursday.
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April 25, 2017
With Ally in Oval Office, Immigration Hard-Liners Ascend to Power
Trump supporters at Los Angeles International Airport in February, a day after a federal judge blocked the president’s order suspending entry from several predominantly Muslim countries.
After sending more than 13,000 Twitter messages in less than three years, Jon Feere, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, suddenly went silent after Inauguration Day.

As a legal policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that favors significant reductions in immigration, Mr. Feere had staked out tough positions on the subject, including pushing for an end to automatic citizenship for children born in the United States.

Mr. Feere’s newfound reticence reflected not a change of heart but a new employer. He now works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency tasked with finding and deporting people living in the United States illegally.

His last Twitter post, on Jan. 20, read simply: “It’s time to make immigration policy great again.”

For years, a network of immigration hard-liners in Washington was known chiefly for fending off proposals to legalize the status of more people. But with the election of a like-minded president, these groups have moved unexpectedly from defense to offense, with some of their leaders now in positions to carry out their agenda on a national scale.

“We’ve worked closely with lots of people, who are now very well placed in his administration, for a long time,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, another hard-line group.

Julie Kirchner, who served for a decade as executive director of the organization, also known as FAIR, is now working as an adviser to the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Kellyanne Conway, before she was known for campaign work and spirited defenses of Mr. Trump on cable television, worked regularly as a pollster for FAIR.

Mr. Trump’s senior White House adviser, Stephen Miller, worked tirelessly to defeat immigration reform as a staff member for Senator Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general. Gene P. Hamilton, who worked on illegal immigration as Mr. Sessions’s counsel on the Judiciary Committee, is now a senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of the Border Patrol and ICE, where Mr. Feere is working. Julia Hahn, who wrote about immigration for Breitbart — with headlines like “Republican-Led Congress Oversees Large-Scale Importation of Somali Migrants” — has followed her former boss, Stephen K. Bannon, to the White House as a deputy policy strategist.
With Ally in Oval Office, Immigration Hard-Liners Ascend to Power
Jon Feere, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, on C-Span. He now works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Daniel Tichenor, an immigration politics scholar at the University of Oregon, called it “highly unusual” in the post-World War II era to have proponents of sharply reduced immigration in such high-ranking positions.

“You would have to go to the 1920s and 1930s to find a comparable period in which you could point to people within the executive agencies and the White House who favored significant restrictions,” Mr. Tichenor said.

Their influence is already being felt. Mr. Trump is known for his sound-bite-ready pledges to deport millions of people here illegally and to build a border wall, but some of the administration’s more technical yet critical changes to immigration procedures came directly from officials with long ties to the hard-line groups.

These include expanding cooperation between immigration agents and local law enforcement officials; cracking down on “sanctuary cities”; making it more difficult for migrants to successfully claim asylum; allowing the Border Patrol access to all federal lands; and curtailing the practice of “catch and release,” in which undocumented immigrants are released from detention while their cases plod through the courts.

Although his proposed budget slashed $1 billion from the Justice Department, Mr. Trump included $80 million to hire new judges to accelerate deportation proceedings. Mr. Sessions said at an event at the border in Arizona this month that 50 would be added to the bench this year and 75 more next year.

“Trump has put together the people who are taking this thing down to the operating-instruction level,” Mr. Stein said.

Even those who have labored for decades to scale back immigration did not expect such a dramatic change. “This is inconceivable a year ago,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “Frankly, it’s almost inconceivable six months ago.”

When Mr. Feere asked him for a leave of absence to work on the Trump campaign, Mr. Krikorian said he granted it without necessarily expecting it to lead anywhere. “Honestly, I didn’t think that would pan out,” he said, but recalled telling Mr. Feere, “Look, you know we’ve always got a job for you if it doesn’t work out.”

With Ally in Oval Office, Immigration Hard-Liners Ascend to Power
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, testifying in 2013 before a Senate committee.
The groups’ growing influence has also brought renewed scrutiny to their inflammatory statements and shared nativist roots. The Center for Immigration Studies, FAIR and another group, the grass-roots organizer NumbersUSA, all were founded or fostered in their early stages by the activist John Tanton, a Michigan ophthalmologist who had an outsize influence on the immigration debate through his organizing efforts.

Dr. Tanton came under sharp criticism for corresponding with white nationalists and for couching the fight to reduce immigration as a racial and demographic struggle. “For European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that,” Dr. Tanton once wrote to a friend, elsewhere expressing his fear of a “Latin onslaught.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been quick to point out how the Center for Immigration Studies has circulated articles “penned by white nationalists, Holocaust deniers, and material from explicitly racist websites,” and added the immigration center to its list of active hate groups. Mr. Krikorian has spoken out against the label, saying it served only to shut down legitimate debate on immigration.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has long been especially critical of FAIR, which had in the past received money from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation that has financed research on the relationship between race and intelligence. Mr. Stein of FAIR rejected the attacks as politically motivated, prompted by the group’s success in helping defeat an immigration overhaul in Congress.

This month, FAIR filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service accusing the Southern Poverty Law Center of committing “flagrant and intentional” violations of its tax-exempt status by criticizing Republican candidates during the 2016 presidential race.

Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said it never crossed the line into improper political activity. “I think we have an obligation to expose hate not just in the dark corners of our society but also in the mainstream,” Mr. Cohen said. “We’ve gotten under FAIR’s skin many times, and now they feel like they have allies in the administration and they’re going for it.”

Although immigration advocates call them xenophobic, people at all three groups say they do not like to be labeled anti-immigrant; the Center for Immigration Studies uses the motto “low immigration, pro-immigrant” on its website. They say they just expect to see the nation’s immigration laws enforced and that those living here illegally are caught and deported.

They also say they want legal immigration brought down to what they view as more sustainable levels, in particular to help buoy the wages of lower-income Americans who compete with unskilled migrants on the bottom rungs of the work force.
With Ally in Oval Office, Immigration Hard-Liners Ascend to Power
Roy Beck, the founder of NumbersUSA. The group exhorted members to overwhelm senators with faxes during a 2007 debate over a bill offering a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants.
“The average American basically likes the idea of immigration, maybe loves the concept — it’s played an important historic role in our history — but would be perfectly fine if we didn’t have another immigrant for 50 years,” Mr. Stein said.

FAIR lobbies members of Congress and their staff from its offices on Massachusetts Avenue, a short walk from Capitol Hill, while maintaining strong contacts with talk-radio hosts. There is even a radio studio in the group’s office.

With roughly two dozen staff members and fellows, the Center for Immigration Studies provides research, filling the traditional think-tank role.

NumbersUSA is perhaps best known for exhorting members to overwhelm senators with faxes — more than a million were sent — during an effort in 2007 to pass a bill offering a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants and creating a new temporary worker program. The group likes to point out that it has “activists in every congressional district,” as the group’s founder, Roy Beck, put it in a recent interview at its office in Arlington, Va. NumbersUSA now claims eight million “participants” between its Facebook followers and email lists.

All three receive small donations from individuals but also millions of dollars in recent years from the Colcom Foundation, a Pittsburgh-based organization founded by Cordelia Scaife May, a Mellon banking heiress, which has given heavily to anti-immigration causes. Her brother, Richard Mellon Scaife, was well known for bankrolling conservative causes and attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Despite their recent policy victories, the groups remain wary as to whether the administration will follow through on all its promises. In particular they point to Mr. Trump’s failure to immediately end President Barack Obama’s policy of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, allowing the so-called Dreamers who came illegally as children to remain in the country, as well as his choice of a pro-immigation economist to lead his Council of Economic Advisers.

“We feel like we are going to continue to need to bring grass-roots influence on this administration because there’s a lot of competing interests,” said Mr. Beck of NumbersUSA.

At the same time, he pointed to a list of 10 priorities that NumbersUSA put out last summer for strengthening enforcement, and noted that the Trump administration had already addressed eight of them. One of the other two is ending birthright citizenship for children whose parents are not citizens, a controversial idea that would most likely require a constitutional amendment.

“The biggest enemy we face right now is complacency,” Mr. Stein of FAIR said, “because Trump’s people have our ideas.”
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April 20, 2017
Trump hails a great upset win … and also salutes New England Patriots
Donald Trump holds a jersey given to him by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, right, and head coach Bill Belichick, left, alongside members of the team.
Donald Trump is not the first politician to bask in the reflected glory of a winning sports team. But as ever with the 45th president, it’s complicated.

Trump welcomed an American football team, the New England Patriots, to the White House on Wednesday, declaring: “No team has been this good for this long.” Inevitable comparisons were made between his shock election victory and the Patriots’ come-from-behind win in this year’s Super Bowl.

Yet star quarterback Tom Brady was a no-show, lending the occasion a Hamlet-without-the-prince air. Brady cited a “personal family matter” and posted a photo of his parents on Instagram, wishing them a happy anniversary.


Trump has often described Brady as a friend, and one of his campaign’s “Make America Great Again” hats was spotted in the player’s locker in 2015, though Brady never explicitly endorsed him. Trump mentioned several players by name but did not cite Brady during a 19-minute reception.

Numerous other team members stayed away, some for overt political reasons. Defensive back Devin McCourty, for example, had told Time magazine: “I don’t feel accepted in the White House. With the president having so many strong opinions and prejudices I believe certain people might feel accepted there while others won’t.”

The boycott illustrated the difficulties facing Trump as he takes on a less scrutinised aspect of the presidency, that of a social host; on Monday he and his wife, Melania, welcomed thousands of people to the annual Easter egg roll. His personality and policies are so incendiary that it is hard to imagine writers or Hollywood actors flocking to the White House as they did under Barack Obama.

That said, with sport Trump is on surer footing. During the election he was endorsed by the head of Nascar and retired basketball coach Bob Knight. Patriots owner Bob Kraft was one of at least seven NFL team owners who gave $1m each to Trump’s inaugural committee, according to the Associated Press. He has spent a decent chunk of his presidency on the golf course.

Speaking on the South Lawn on a grey day, with Patriots players standing behind him in suits and ties, Trump recalled how the team rallied from 25 points down to defeat the Atlanta Falcons in February. It was their fifth Super Bowl title since 2002.

“With your backs against the wall, and the pundits – good old pundits; boy, they’re wrong a lot, aren’t they – saying you couldn’t do it, the game was over, you pulled off the greatest Super Bowl comeback of all time, one of the greatest comebacks of all time – but the greatest Super Bowl comeback of all time,” he said. “And that was just special. I think I looked at odds and they gave you less than one half of 1% of winning the game.”


Trump said Kraft, an old friend, and longtime coach Bill Belichick, had “built a culture dedicated to winning”. He added: “Whether you’re trying to win a Super Bowl or rebuild our country, as coach Belichick would say, there are no days off.”

As so often at public events, Trump made reference to his own election battle and told how Belichick had sent him a “beautiful letter” congratulating him on his success in the Republican primaries. Trump called Belichick, he recalled, to ask if he could read out the letter at a stadium rally. Belichick said no, he would give the candidate a new one.

“Now, immediately to me, that means he’s going to tone it down because what he said was so nice. And you know what he did? He toned it way up. It was much better. It was much better. He made that the greatest letter, and I did very well in that state. Thank you, coach. That was very good.

“So the Patriot coaches and these great players have delivered iconic American sports moments that will last forever. We’re going to watch that game over and over and over. That game will last forever.”
 
Trump hails a great upset win … and also salutes New England Patriots
Members of the New England Patriots, including tightend Robert Gronkowski, top center right, listen as Donald Trump speaks during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House.
Kraft then came to the lectern with Trump standing directly behind him. The Patriots owner said: “A very good friend of mine for over 25 years, a man who is as mentally tough and hard-working as anybody I know, launched a campaign for the presidency against 16 career politicians, facing odds almost as long as we faced in the fourth quarter.”

Kraft turned to look at Trump, who smiled. “He persevered to become the 45th president of the United States.”

There was polite applause. Kraft added: “It’s a distinct honour for us to celebrate what was unequivocally our sweetest championship with a very good friend and somebody whose mental toughness and strength I greatly admire.”

He then presented the commander-in-chief with a Patriots jersey that said “Trump 45”. The president held it and grinned.

It is not the first such event that Brady has missed. He was also absent in 2015, making reference to a “family commitment”. There was speculation he declined because of comments an Obama spokesman made about the so-called “deflategate” scandal.

Earlier, Patriots player Rob Gronkowski paid a surprise visit to the West Wing briefing room during the televised press conference. The tight end jokingly asked the press secretary, Sean Spicer, if he needed help. Looking startled for a moment, Spicer, a Patriots fan, replied: “I think I got this. But thank you.”

The Patriots’ visit to the White House coincided with the news that Aaron Hernandez, the team’s former star tight end, had been found dead in his prison cell. Hernandez, who played for the Patriots from 2010 to 2012, was serving a life sentence for a murder conviction. The 27-year-old former tight end was recently acquitted in a second murder case. 
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April 12, 2017

President declined to give specifics about changes to trade pact; he also said he wants to overhaul government’s computers

President Donald Trump speaks to a gathering of chief executives Tuesday as Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Blackstone Group CEO



WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump promised “some very pleasant surprises” to come on the North American Free Trade Agreement, in a gathering with U.S. chief executives in which he also said he wants to overhaul the federal government’s computer systems to make them more secure and up-to-date.

The president sounded upbeat notes at the gathering at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, but offered few specifics on his plans for Nafta, the trade pact he frequently attacked on the campaign trail. He is expected to seek mainly modest changes to the agreement in coming negotiations with Mexico and Canada.

“It’s been a disaster from the day it was devised and we’ll have some very pleasant surprises for you on that one, I can tell you,” he said.

Mr. Trump also highlighted his hopes to upgrade the federal government’s computers, saying he would work with Ginni Rometty, the CEO of International Business Machines Corp. , and others on the overhaul.

“We have a computer system in this country that’s 40 years old, so when you hear we’re hacked...we’re like easy targets,” he said.

“We’re working with a very, very wonderful woman from IBM...and others, and others, many others,” he added to laughter, saying that it was like when he had previously praised Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet fighters but had to point out quickly that he also liked Boeing Co.’s F-18s.

Citing the high cost of maintaining the existing computer system, Mr. Trump said: “I think we can buy a whole new system for less money, what do you say?” When Ms. Rometty appeared to say “sure,” Mr. Trump quipped back: “We’ll give you 10 billion right now.”

IBM declined to comment on the gathering.

Mr. Trump also spoke several times of his efforts to boost job creation, made a passing reference to his tax proposals by saying he would reduce taxes, and said of his environmental policy that “we’re going to be very, very careful on the environment, it’s very important to me” but that cutting regulations in his early weeks in office has already freed up companies to step up production.

Mr. Trump has prioritized regulatory rollbacks, particularly retarding the energy industry, though their immediate impact hasn’t been enough to change long-term trends such as the decline of the coal industry.

He said that in all, he believed he was a quarter of the way through his plans to cut regulations, and would continue to focus on the Dodd-Frank financial rules in particular, “keeping some obviously, but getting rid of many.”

Mr. Trump held an initial meeting of CEOs, many of them picked by Blackstone Group LP’s Stephen Schwarzman, in February. Others who came then returned Tuesday, including PepsiCo ’s Indra Nooyi, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Toby Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic, Mary Barra of General Motors Co. and IBM’s Ms. Rometty.

Also in attendance were Jim McNerney, who used to head Boeing, and Jack Welch, the retired CEO of General Electric Co.

Mr. Trump was joined in the meeting by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, who “has the easiest job” in Washington, Mr. Trump joked.

An alumnus of the House of Representatives, Mr. Mulvaney was unable to cajole the hard-line conservative bloc of which he had once been a member to back GOP leaders’ bill to overturn the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Now, Mr. Mulvaney is working on budget negotiations designed to avert a government shutdown.

Cleveland Clinic’s Mr. Cosgrove characterized the conversation as “totally unscripted, totally capable of bringing original, innovative things to the fore” and said the president was “incredibly engaged.”

“I thought the emphasis was around creating the jobs and stimulating the economy. A tremendous number of interesting, innovative ideas came out of this,” he said.
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April 12, 2017
President Donald Trump is now sounding all-in when it comes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
President Donald Trump is now sounding all-in when it comes to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump will stress to the secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Wednesday that the U.S. is “100% committed” to the alliance and its expansion, said senior administration officials.

Mr. Trump will also repeat his calls for all NATO member states to increase military spending to 2% of their economic output to strengthen the alliance’s long-term capabilities.

“We expect the president will reaffirm the strong commitment of the United States to NATO and the value he places on the trans-Atlantic bond in general,” a senior U.S. official said about Mr. Trump’s planned meeting Wednesday afternoon with the secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg.

The White House’s rhetoric on NATO marks a U-turn from last year’s presidential campaign, in which Mr. Trump repeatedly questioned the long-term utility of the trans-Atlantic alliance.

But his administration has voiced growing support for NATO, particularly as relations with Russia have soured over the war in Syria and a range of other national-security issues.

This week, Mr. Trump formally approved Montenegro’s ascension to NATO, a move the Kremlin has vigorously opposed. And U.S. officials said the Trump administration could be open to support more countries joining the alliance.

“Montenegro’s membership will increase stability and security in the western Balkans,” said the senior U.S. official.

Referring to Russia’s opposition to Montenegro, the official said: “No third country has a veto over another country’s sovereignty.”

Trump administration officials said the president will also discuss Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine and the need to maintain Western sanctions on Moscow until it implements an international agreement calling for the demobilization of military forces there.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Stoltenberg will also discuss counterterrorism and NATO military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The two men are scheduled to hold a news conference this afternoon after their meeting.
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April 10, 2017 , ,
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson speaking with reporters at Palm Beach International Airport on Thursday. Mr. Tillerson’s comments on Sunday were far more critical of the Russian government under President Vladimir V. Putin than anything President Trump has said publicly.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson is taking a hard line against Russia on the eve of his first diplomatic trip to Moscow, calling the country “incompetent” for allowing Syria to hold on to chemical weapons and accusing Russia of trying to influence elections in Europe using the same methods it employed in the United States.

Mr. Tillerson’s comments, made in interviews aired on Sunday, were far more critical of the Russian government than any public statements by President Trump, who has been an increasingly lonely voice for better ties with Russia. They seemed to reflect Mr. Tillerson’s expectation, which he has expressed privately to aides and members of Congress, that the American relationship with Russia is already reverting to the norm: one of friction, distrust and mutual efforts to undermine each other’s reach.

“This was inevitable,” said Philip H. Gordon, a former Middle East coordinator at the National Security Council who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Trump’s early let’s-be-friends initiative was incompatible with our interests, and you knew it would end with tears.” The Russians’ behavior has not changed, Mr. Gordon added, and they “are using every means they can — cyber, economic arrangements, intimidation — to reinsert themselves around the Middle East and Europe.”

Mr. Tillerson made it clear he agreed with that view, sweeping past Mr. Trump’s repeated insistence, despite the conclusion of American intelligence agencies, that there was no evidence of Russian interference in last year’s election. The meddling “undermines any hope of improving relations,” Mr. Tillerson said on ABC’s “This Week,” “not just with the United States, but it’s pretty evident that they’re taking similar tactics into electoral processes throughout Europe.”

Such tough talk will make Mr. Tillerson’s job even harder when he arrives Tuesday for the first visit to Moscow by a top Trump administration official. While he must offer sharp warnings to Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and to President Vladimir V. Putin, if they meet — it was unclear whether such a meeting had been quietly arranged — he must also find a way forward with them to counter the Islamic State and then deal with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

Yet as Mr. Tillerson arrived in Italy to meet with foreign ministers before going to Moscow, the administration was sending conflicting signals about its policy on Syria and the extent to which it would hold the country’s patron Russia responsible for continued violence.

Mr. Tillerson and the new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said the American attack last week on a Syrian air base was intended solely to halt future chemical attacks, not to destabilize or overthrow the Assad government.

“What’s significant about the strike is not that it was meant to take out the Syrian regime’s capacity or ability to commit mass murder of its own people,” said General McMaster, who is new to the Sunday television circuit, “but it was to be a very strong signal to Assad and his sponsors that the United States cannot stand idly by as he is murdering innocent civilians.”

Neither man would commit to further military action in Syria even if Mr. Assad continued to kill civilians in large numbers by conventional means rather than with the chemical weapons that prompted Mr. Trump to reverse his stance on intervention. Instead, Mr. Tillerson said that defeating the Islamic State remained the first priority. Only then, he said, would he turn to a cease-fire process leading to elections, so that “the Syrian people can decide the fate of Assad.”

But the American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley, suggested that such a process was doomed as long as Mr. Assad was in power. “We know there’s not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime,” she said on CNN. “If you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad.”

That statement stood in contrast not only to Mr. Tillerson’s comments but also to Ms. Haley’s own remarks a week ago — before Mr. Assad carried out his latest chemical weapons attack on civilians — in which she insisted that his departure from office was not a diplomatic priority for the United States.

Still, the overall tone of suspicion and condemnation of Russia’s actions in Syria indicated that Mr. Trump’s top national security advisers were nudging him back to a more traditional Russia policy. During his days as the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, Mr. Tillerson received a friendship award from Mr. Putin, and he is aware of the suspicions surrounding those ties and has gone the furthest in the administration in separating himself from the Russian leader.

The challenges have only multiplied in recent days. The Russians, angry about the attack on the air base, have threatened to cut off a communication line that the American and Russian militaries have used to notify each other about air operations in Syria. And the attack has forced Mr. Putin into a tighter relationship with Mr. Assad, perhaps tighter than the Russian leader wants.

Ms. Haley, who, like Mr. Tillerson, is new to diplomacy, has also apparently concluded that a hard line toward Russia is the safest course. The contrast between her remarks and Mr. Trump’s warm words for Mr. Putin on the campaign trail — as well as his refusal to acknowledge Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election — has been striking.

The Trump administration’s Syria policy has been difficult to parse. Mr. Tillerson, in his first television appearances since taking office, seemed to describe two different strategic objectives: halting chemical attacks and ultimately negotiating a cease-fire. But he made it clear that he had no intention of backing a military intervention that would overthrow Mr. Assad. That suggested that as long as the dictator used conventional means to kill his own people — barrel bombs instead of sarin gas — the United States would keep its distance.

“I think what the United States and our allies want to do is to enable the Syrian people to make that determination” about Mr. Assad’s fate, Mr. Tillerson said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” — a line that was often used by his predecessor in the Obama administration, John Kerry. “You know, we’ve seen what violent regime change looks like in Libya and the kind of chaos that can be unleashed.”

Those remarks indicate that Mr. Trump does not yet have a grander strategy for Syria. Longtime Middle East experts said that might be a good thing.

“I for one am glad he does not have a fully thought-through strategy on Syria, because if he did, he’d probably get it wrong,” said Ryan C. Crocker, perhaps the most experienced American career diplomat in the region, and dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.

“There are too many variables, too many unknowns,” he said, among them the expectation of American allies, including Saudi Arabia, that Mr. Trump should emphasize getting rid of Mr. Assad over defeating the Islamic State. 
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April 08, 2017 , , ,
Nikki Haley, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, and Volodymyr Yelchenko, left, representative of Ukraine, at a Security Council meeting on April 7.
It has been a head-spinning week watching the Trump administration stumble into its first international crisis only to emerge with a transformed policy on the use of force in the Middle East, announced on Thursday with the unleashing of 59 sea-launched cruise missiles against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
While the limited missile strike was a commendable and overdue response to the use of chemical weapons and to countless other war crimes perpetrated by the regime in Damascus, the public performance of President Trump and his team throughout this tragic episode hardly inspires confidence. On the contrary, the administration demonstrated a dangerous degree of incoherence and inconsistency.
Consider the chronology. The debacle began with a remark by the new United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, in New York at the end of March. Despite a brutal six-year civil war in which Mr. Assad’s forces have been responsible for the deaths of about 200,000 civilians, and despite near universal opposition to his rule by leaders of the civilized world, Ms. Haley thought it was the right time to send a signal to Mr. Assad and his allies, Russia and Iran, that the new American president’s priority “is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed this new view, which Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, described as a simple recognition of “political reality.” Intentionally or not, American policy with respect to the world’s worst military and humanitarian crisis had been changed dramatically.
The unsurprising consequence of this shift was a newfound confidence within the Assad regime that it need not worry about paying a heavy price if its forces committed new acts of barbarity aimed at demoralizing the nation’s remaining rebels. And sure enough, the Syrian Air Force soon began dropping nerve gas on civilian neighborhoods in an insurgent-held town in Idlib province.
Stunned by this atrocity, Mr. Trump and his team then reversed course. For months they have suggested that “America First” meant that the country should not become mired in the region’s civil wars and violent upheavals. But this week, Mr. Trump suddenly decided that the Assad regime’s latest outrage required a military response.
This was yet another dramatic turnabout. After having criticized President Barack Obama for over-involving the United States in Syria’s problems, President Trump, by using military force against the regime, has now gone further than Mr. Obama was willing to go.
Syria represents the most consequential public reversal by the administration to date, but it is certainly not the only one. Even before his inauguration, Mr. Trump raised doubts about the longstanding “one China” policy, only to endorse it weeks later. As a candidate and as president, Mr. Trump has made contradictory statements about NATO, even as his foreign policy team has busily reassured European leaders that the United States values its alliances with them. There had been talk of scrapping the Iran nuclear accord, but now there is talk of maintaining it, at least for now. Where the administration stands on any number of major issues can depend on the day of the week.
The administration’s inability or refusal to articulate — or even formulate — an overarching foreign policy beyond Mr. Trump’s nationalistic slogan “America First” and his plans to spend billions rebuilding the military are the major sources of the problem. But there are bureaucratic problems as well. The departure of Michael T. Flynn as Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser just weeks after the inauguration no doubt slowed the formulation of a coherent set of policies. Delays in filling senior leadership positions in the State Department and Pentagon surely haven’t helped.
The apparent disconnect between Nikki Haley, Mr. Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, and the White House has also added to the disarray. Ms. Haley has articulated politically popular positions that conflict with the White House, taking a harder line on Russia and emphasizing the importance of human rights even as the White House has downplayed the issue. Whatever her motivations, the messages have been mixed. And that can only give heart to dictators who view inconsistency as weakness.
Most troubling is the way Mr. Trump has allowed, or perhaps encouraged, the creation of confusing lines of authority and alternative centers of power within the White House. Despite his recent removal from the National Security Council, Stephen Bannon, Mr. Trump’s top political adviser, remains an influential figure who is viewed warily by senior intelligence and national security officials. And Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, has emerged as the president’s foreign policy troubleshooter, playing a prominent role in the administration’s talks with China, visiting Iraq on a fact-finding trip and taking over the Middle East peace portfolio. These are jobs traditionally given to seasoned diplomats, something Mr. Kushner is not.
Regardless of which of these factors is most to blame for the incoherence of administration foreign policy, it is imperative that the president address the problem as soon as possible. Unlike in domestic policy, where nuances often matter less, small changes can have big consequences in foreign affairs. The White House needs not only to clarify its policies, but also to establish and enforce better controls over the public explanation of those policies, before more damage is done to the country’s reputation and alliances.
Fixing this problem is a straightforward matter of political power, will and discipline. The stock of the new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, is almost certainly sky high in the White House right now, given the bipartisan plaudits Mr. Trump has received for the missile attack, arguably the administration’s first unadulterated policy success. In normal circumstances, the national security adviser should be able to enforce the articulation of a consistent and coherent national security policy. But in this administration, General McMaster has his work cut out for him.
So does Mr. Trump. During the campaign and his first months in office, he has put down America’s moral leadership in the world while talking up dictators and strongmen, from Asia to the Middle East to Europe. Might his reprisal against the Assad regime for waging chemical warfare be a sign of a new respect for democracy? The world can only hope so.
James P. Rubin served as assistant secretary of state for public affairs during the Clinton administration.

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