Fact check: Trump administration departs from reality on wall, census, Amazon
April 1, 2018 by admin
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President Donald Trump hailed the start of his long-sought U.S.-Mexico border wall this past week, proudly tweeting photos of the “WALL!” Actually, no new work got underway. The photos showed the continuation of an old project to replace 2 miles of existing barrier.
And on Saturday, he ripped Amazon with a shaky claim that its contract with the post office is a “scam.”
Trump and his officials departed from reality on a variety of subjects in recent days: the census, Amazon’s practices and the makeup of the Supreme Court among them. Here’s a look at some statements and their veracity:
TRUMP: “Great briefing this afternoon on the start of our Southern Border WALL!” — tweet Wednesday, showing photos of workers building a fence.
TRUMP: “We’re going to be starting work, literally, on Monday, on not only some new wall — not enough, but we’re working that very quickly — but also fixing existing walls and existing acceptable fences.” — Trump, speaking the previous week after signing a bill financing the government.
THE FACTS: Trump’s wrong. No new work began on Monday or any other time this past week. And the photos Trump tweeted were misleading. They showed work that’s been going on for more than a month on a small border wall replacement project in Calexico, California, that has nothing to do with the federal budget he signed into law last week.
The Calexico project that began Feb. 21 to replace a little more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of border wall was financed during the 2017 budget year. A barrier built in the 1990s mainly from recycled metal scraps is being torn down and replaced with bollard-style barriers that are 30 feet (9.1 meters) high.
Ronald D. Vitiello, acting deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, defended the president’s statements, saying Friday “there’s construction” underway.
U.S. Postal Service’s financial situation and the contract that has the post office deliver some Amazon orders. Federal regulators have found that contract to be profitable for the Postal Service.
People who buy products sold by Amazon pay sales tax in all states that have a sales tax. Not all third-party vendors using Amazon collect it, however.
As for the post office, package delivery has been a bright spot for a service that’s lost money for 11 straight years. The losses are mostly due to pension and health care costs — not the business deal for the Postal Service to deliver packages for Amazon. Boosted by e-commerce, the Postal Service has enjoyed double-digit increases in revenue from delivering packages, but that hasn’t been enough to offset declines in first-class letters and marketing mail, which together make up more than two-thirds of postal revenue.
While the Postal Service’s losses can’t be attributed to its package business, Trump’s claim that it could get more bang for its buck may not be entirely far-fetched. A 2017 analysis by Citigroup concluded that the Postal Service was charging below-market rates as a whole for parcels. The post office does not use taxpayer money for its operations.
Trump is upset about Amazon because its owner, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post, one of the targets of his “fake news” tweets.
TRUMP: “Because of the $700 $716 Billion Dollars gotten to rebuild our Military, many jobs are created and our Military is again rich. Building a great Border Wall, with drugs (poison) and enemy combatants pouring into our Country, is all about National Defense. Build WALL through M!” — tweets Sunday and Monday.
THE FACTS: Trump is floating the idea of using “M” — the Pentagon’s military budget — to pay for his wall with Mexico. Such a move would almost certainly require approval from Congress and there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical about the notion of diverting military money for this purpose.
Only Congress has the power under the Constitution to determine federal appropriations, leaving the Trump administration little authority to shift money without lawmakers’ approval.
Pentagon spokesman Chris Sherwood referred all questions on the wall to the White House. Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to reveal specifics, but said Trump would work with the White House counsel to make sure any action taken was within his executive authority.
DAVID SHULKIN, citing reasons Trump fired him as Veterans Affairs secretary: “I have been falsely accused of things by people who wanted me out of the way. But despite these politically based attacks on me and my family’s character, I am proud of my record and know that I acted with the utmost integrity.” — op-ed Thursday in The New York Times.
THE FACTS: His statement that he and his family were subjected to politically based attacks is disingenuous, though politics contributed to his dismissal.
White House support for Shulkin eroded after a blistering report in February by VA’s internal watchdog, a non-partisan office. The inspector general’s office concluded that he had violated ethics rules by accepting free Wimbledon tennis tickets. The inspector general also said Shulkin’s chief of staff had doctored emails to justify bringing the secretary’s wife to Europe with him at taxpayer expense.
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Palestinians Seek Protection as Israel Blasts `Terrorist’ March
April 1, 2018 by admin
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Israeli and Palestinian leaders blamed each other for the deaths of at least 16 Palestinians who were part of a mass protest along the Gaza border, with each side lobbing threats of escalating the violence.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel was “fully responsible” for killing his countrymen on Friday, and a video appearing to show an unarmed teenager being gunned down by Israeli sniper fire circulated on Palestinian media.
The Israeli army argued that Gazan militants were using civilian protesters as cover as they fired at soldiers and tried to lay explosives near the border fence. The protest, which peaked at 30,000 participants on Friday and will run for the next six weeks, is “an organized terrorist operation,” the Israeli army said in a tweet on Saturday. Hamas said Friday that five of the dead were members of its military wing.
“What we saw yesterday were attempts to launch rockets, attempts to carry out live attacks, Molotov cocktails, attempts to set fire to the security fence, and a lot of terrorist activity,” the Israel Defense Force said in separate tweets. “Nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed. We are only interested in terrorists who are trying to disrupt Israeli life; we only act against them.”
Increased Force
The Israeli army warned that it would increase its response should the violence continue. Abbas said Palestinians needed international protection from Israel, and U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for an independent inquiry into Friday’s deaths.
The protests come amid growing tensions over President Donald Trump’s December recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, as well as a yet-to-be-released U.S. peace plan that Abbas has already pledged to reject. Abbas severed all official Palestinian contact with the White House in December after Trump announced plans to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Hamas planned the protests against the Palestinian displacement resulting from Israel’s founding in 1948 to culminate with the date of U.S. embassy move. The demonstrations began Friday with tent camps set up a half-mile from Gaza’s 25-mile (40-kilometer) frontier with Israel. The climax is to come in mid-May with a mass march to the border, which Israel fears will become an attempt to breach its territory.
Protest Escalates
Hamas leaders presented the initiative as a peaceful effort, though they conceded that it could get out of hand. The army said riots broke out at five locations along the border. Palestinian eyewitnesses said that in one spot, about 90 people cut through the security fence and confronted soldiers, with many being shot in the legs. Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said 16 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,400 injured Friday, while another three Palestinians were hurt in continued skirmishes Saturday.
Violence against Israel has surged in recent weeks. Palestinians, who want the eastern part of Jerusalem as their own capital, have been storming the Gaza fence and planting bombs targeting Israeli soldiers, drawing retaliatory fire and air strikes. At least five Israelis have been killed in stabbing and car-ramming attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank in recent weeks.
‘Hostile March’
Jason Greenblatt, who is helping spearhead the U.S. peace effort, accused Hamas of instigating a “hostile march” to spark a confrontation.
“Hamas should focus instead on desperately needed improvements to the lives of Palestinians in Gaza instead of inciting violence against Israel that only increases hardship and undermines chances for peace,” Greenblatt tweeted.
Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, appearing at the tent camps Friday, presented the march as a rebuke to the U.S. peace effort and said it marks the beginning of the Palestinian return to all of what is now Israel.
“The Great March of Return is a message to Trump that his deal and all those who support it, that there is no concession on Jerusalem, no alternative to Palestine, and no solution but to return,” Haniyeh said. The Palestinians “will not agree to keep the ‘Right of Return’ only as a slogan.”
Israel views the demand for a mass return of Palestinians as a bid to eradicate Israel as a Jewish state.
The Gaza protests correspond with red-letter dates on the Palestinian calendar. Friday was “Land Day,” marking the 1976 killing of six Arab citizens by Israeli security forces during demonstrations against land expropriations. It’s also the beginning of the week-long Jewish Passover holiday.
The main march to the fence on May 15 will commemorate the Palestinian “Nakba,” or the catastrophe of their displacement at Israel’s founding. It takes place a day after the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem is slated to open, on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s independence. Ramadan, the Muslim holy fasting month that often sees a surge in Palestinian attacks, also begins May 15.
— With assistance by Yaacov Benmeleh