Editor’s Note: Michael D’Antonio is the author of the book “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success” (St. Martin’s Press). The opinions expressed in this commentary are his. Michael D'Antonio: America faces two Trumps: "Scripted Trump" (with teleprompter) and "Reckless Trump" (without) He says previous presidents have displayed strong personalities while remaining stable leaders. Trump fails to do this Bill Clinton could be both Bubba on the front porch and the pastor who bound the nation’s wounds after the Oklahoma City bombing.  George W. Bush was able to gently declare Islam a religion of peace after the 9/11 terror attacks and, on the eve of war with Iraq, say: “We’ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.” Barack Obama was comfortable rousing partisans with jabs at the GOP at a convention and singing “Amazing Grace” in Charleston, South Carolina. Think back to FDR and it’s easy to recognize that modern presidents have often shown the world different sides depending on the moment, but always in the context of a steady personality. Then there is Donald Trump, who also has shown two sides, most dramatically in the past 10 days. After giving a measured statement last week condemning hatred and violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, he struck a wildly different tone in an exchange with reporters the next day, drawing widespread condemnation by appearing to equate the far right protesters in that city with those rallying against bigotry. Related video Trump taunts McCain over health care vote Then this Monday, he swung back to his earlier tone when, in a speech on his new Afghanistan policy, he condemned hatred and division. Finally, having apparently strained to act appropriately on Monday, Donald Trump returned from his bad boy timeout Tuesday to address a Phoenix crowd as the familiar, raging and erratic character who appears at his rallies. He once again bashed the mainstream press and senators in his own party. Then he distorted his record on the racial tragedy in Charlottesville, reminding the world that he lacks the moral core that has allowed previous presidents to display strong personalities while keeping faith with a nation that needs a stable leader. How is this playing across the country? Not well, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll Wednesday: 62% of respondents said President Trump is doing more to divide the country, and when it comes to the President’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, 60% disapprove of his response to Charlottesville compared with 32% who approve. Related article Jen Psaki: Trump can stay sane for approximately 24 hours The fact is, many presidents have been adept at showing different sides to different audiences, but all in the service of a sensible set of goals. Trump’s wild tacking from one personality to the other is self-destructive. The campaign that put Trump in the White House was a manic circus held in a hall of mirrors, and his presidency has brought more of the same. Rather than moderating, he has swung between two poles. On rare occasions he looks and sounds almost presidential as he proposes legislation and meets with diplomats. But more frequently he is the Andrew Dice Clay of chief executives: irresponsible and anxiety-provoking without much regard for the consequences. If an instrument were devised to measure Trump’s mood – call it a Trumpometer – it would generally register on the far right-hand side of the scale. This is where “Reckless Trump” muses about the “very fine people” who joined the recent march of the racists in Charlottesville, which culminated in a deadly vehicular attack on anti-hate demonstrators. Heather Heyer died, many more were injured. On the other side of the meter is “Scripted Trump,” who we saw address the country on Monday with a call for healing the wounds he had helped open with his callous response to the events in Virginia. Scripted Trump appears when the President is persuaded to accept a little discipline – and a teleprompter. His first State of the Union speech was delivered with the aid of the machine and he got generally positive reviews. Related video Trump's full speech to crowd in Poland He also used a teleprompter for a speech in Poland, where he called on Russia to “join the community of responsible nations,” and to “cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere.”  Just hours before, however, Reckless Trump refused to accept the national security community’s assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, insisting instead that “I think it was probably other people and/or countries.” By denying the facts about Russia’s effort to influence the election, Trump neglected his duty to defend American democracy and respect the intelligence services that help safeguard the nation.  He did, however, soothe his concern that others might see his election as tainted, and his ego requires this comfort. When Reckless Trump is in the room, it is easy to see that ego is his main concern. It was Reckless Trump who told Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that he had fired FBI Director James Comey, calling him a “nut job.” The Trumpometer was also reading “Reckless” when Trump attacked Sen. Mitch McConnell, whom he needs to get legislation passed, and tried to bully Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who helped doom his health care proposal. Although Reckless Trump often sabotages his own agenda, he causes the greatest damage when he indulges himself on an issue that is vital to both public safety and national unity. Related video Trump: Does the 'alt-left' have any guilt? The train wreck of a press conference he conducted at Trump Tower after the Charlottesville tragedy is the most vivid example of this brand of Trump. Irritable and combative – he often cut others off with “Excuse me!” and complained of “fake news” – Trump refused to judge the white nationalists on a “moral plane” and repeated his argument that blame for the ugliness should be distributed among both the racists and anti-racists. The Trump Tower performance was a wild swing away from the more reasonable statement he had made just the day before. It also fit a pattern. When Trump has chosen to moderate himself, to be more like other presidents, he has often snapped back almost immediately to his more combative identity. For his Monday Afghanistan speech, he pulled himself together for the teleprompter session, which included a reminder that, “loyalty to our nation demands loyalty to one another. Love for America requires love for all of its people.” After all, this is the man who likes to keep people in suspense, wondering which version of him will appear, which  has the effect of casting doubt upon every statement. Indeed, as if to prove he’s not to be trusted, Trump followed his Monday peacemaking remarks with a trip to Phoenix, where local officials had asked him to stay away because they feared violent protests. Related video President Trump teases pardon of Joe Arpaio What were people upset about? Well, Trump was reportedly considering a pardon for recently convicted ex-sheriff Joseph Arpaio, whose anti-immigrant demagoguery has made him a living symbol of prejudice for many Americans. Trump didn’t announce an Arpaio pardon (although he essentially predicted it would happen) but his rally appearance marked a return of the performer who prefers ad-libbed assertions and insults to unifying leadership – and discouraged anyone who’d hoped for better from the 45th president. Of course Trump has never made a secret of who he really is. He answered the question in 2016 when he said, on the subject of teleprompters: “I’ve started to use them a little bit. They’re not bad. You never get yourself in trouble when you use a teleprompter. You know, the problem is, it’s too easy. We have a president who uses teleprompters. It’s too easy. We should have non-teleprompter speeches only when you’re running for president. You find out about people. The other way you don’t find out about anybody.”


Editor’s Note: The following is an edited excerpt from “The secret costs of Islamophobia,” first published in September 2016. The idea of vetting Muslims didn’t start with Donald Trump, or even with the 9/11 attacks. It goes back to this country’s earliest days. Well before the Pilgrims landed in “New Jerusalem,” Columbus had set sail on a mission to find riches to retake “old” Jerusalem from the Ottoman Empire. Centuries later, when colonists sought to unite the States, Anti-Federalists railed against the Constitution. Nothing in the new document, they fumed, would prevent a Muslim from becoming president. The first Muslims to arrive en masse came in chains. Scholars estimate that some 10,000 to 20,000 slaves from West Africa were Muslims. A few were granted preferential treatment because they could read and write Arabic and looked “whiter” than other slaves. They were paraded across the country like prized pets until they started advocating for their emancipation. This series explores the lives of Muslims in the age of ISIS and Islamophobia. “Such is the bloodthirsty, tyrannical Mahometan negro, who is now travelling himself and suite, up and down through the free states in pomp, with the President’s passport in his pocket,” snarled one Southern newspaper about a Muslim slave freed by President John Adams. Within a few generations, African Islam was extinguished, snuffed out by plantation owners who converted their slaves to Christianity. In the 1880s, Muslim immigrants from the tottering Ottoman Empire began to arrive. Before they were allowed into the country, they were required to sign oaths swearing that they owed no loyalty to the empire’s Sultan. Even then, most were not allowed to become citizens. The United States was committed to the idea that its future depended on its identity as a white Christian nation, said Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, author of “A History of Islam in America.” “The presumption has been that all Muslims are considered suspect until proven otherwise.” During his campaign, Trump continued that presumption, saying that “Islam hates us,” accusing Muslims of refusing to report terrorists in their midst and arguing that “there’s no way to tell” whether Syrian refugees “have love or hate in their heart.” Still, Trump and his administration insist that his new executive order is not a “Muslim ban,” even though it halts immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries for three months, bars Syrian refugees (most of whom are Muslim) indefinitely and gives preference to non-Muslim refugees. Instead of a religious test, Trump calls his plan “extreme vetting.” “This is not about religion,” he said in a statement. “This is about terror and keeping our country safe.” Like Trump’s executive order, American laws have rarely barred Muslims by name, which would be unconstitutional. But to many courts and customs officials, the intent of the laws were clear. So were their effects. The Naturalization Act of 1790 allowed only “free white persons” to become US citizens. After the Civil War, “persons of African descent” were added to the list. By the classifications of the era, most Muslim immigrants were neither. The Supreme Court’s suspicions of Islam were evident in a decision about foreign courts in 1891, in which one justice lamented “the intense hostility of the people of the Moslem faith to all other sects.” Laws passed in 1917 and 1924 made it even harder for Asian and Middle Eastern Muslims to immigrate and become citizens. In 1942, a Michigan judge denied a Yemeni man’s case for citizenship. Apart from the man’s dark skin, he ruled, it was “well-known” that Arabs “are part of the Mohammedan world … and a wide gulf separates their culture from the predominantly Christian peoples of Europe.” Those Christian peoples, of course, trace their religious roots to the Middle East – the very region the judge deemed irremediably “Mohammedan.” By that logic, Muslim immigrants argued, Jesus himself could not be an American citizen. The judge was not persuaded. Even Muslims born and raised in the United States were considered suspicious, especially if they were not white. As thousands of blacks embraced new, Islam-inspired movements such as the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation of Islam in the mid-20th century, the FBI kept a nervous watch. “Though it did not produce peer-reviewed scholarship,” writes scholar Edward Curtis, “the FBI was by far the most prolific student of Muslim groups in the first half of the 20th century.” The FBI’s report on the Nation of Islam fretted that black Muslims demonstrate “fearless and outspoken anti-white, anti-Christian attitudes. … As long as racial inequity continues, the militant and arrogant manner of cult members remains a potential threat of violent action.” In 1965, the United States eased immigration restrictions, opening the door to nearly 3 million immigrants, many of them economic refugees from countries with sizable Muslim populations. Today, no one knows exactly how many Muslims live in the United States. Former President Barack Obama said there are nearly 7 million, then corrected himself and said 5 million. Many scholars estimate between 6 million and 8 million. Most media cite the nonpartisan Pew Research Center’s estimate of around 3.3 million. Pew says that number will climb past 8 million by 2050, when Muslims will become the second-largest religious group in the United States, a surge driven by immigration, large families and the relative youth of American Muslims (their median age in 2010 was 23). Even in 2050, though, Muslims will only make up 2% of the US population. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration enacted a “special registration” program that disproportionately targeted Arabs and Muslims and was a point of contention between rights groups and the federal government for nearly a decade. Sources close to the Trump administration say it’s possible he could revive the program, known as NSEERS, setting up Muslims in the United States for another round of “extreme vetting.”

United States immigration policy toward Muslims


Eman al-Obeidi said she was raped by Moammar Gadhafi's thugs She was given asylum in the United States But she struggled to adjust to her new life and has been sentenced to prison Eman al-Obeidi escaped Moammar Gadhafi’s dictatorship and became a symbol of freedom of the Libyan revolution. But four years later in America, she is no longer free. A Colorado judge sentenced al-Obeidi Wednesday to six years in prison for assaulting two women last year in a Boulder bar. She was facing a maximum prison term of 16 years on the felony charge, but prosecutor Jonathon Martin opted for leniency, which the courts have shown her before. Al-Obeidi, 32, who now goes by the alias Eman Ali, was supposed to have been sentenced July 31, but she refused to appear in court. In a highly unusual move, Boulder District Judge Andrew Macdonald ordered the sentencing to be held at the county jail, where al-Obeidi has been confined since January. Martin said his office took into consideration her history as a refugee fleeing a war-torn nation. “She has injured two women in a violent way, so we had to punish her,” Martin said. “But I thought she needed to be sentenced at the lower end.” Macdonald told al-Obeidi that she presented a “level of danger that needs to be addressed,” according to a report in Boulder’s Daily Camera newspaper. Al-Obeidi became known to the world on the morning of March 26, 2011, six weeks after a Libyan uprising against Gadhafi erupted in the eastern city of Benghazi. She burst into the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli, hysterical. She told foreign journalists staying at the hotel that Gadhafi’s men had raped and tortured her and she pleaded for help. A symbol of defiance in Gadhafi’s Libya, Eman al-Obeidi just wants to be left alone She personified courage as the woman who broke Libyan societal taboos in speaking openly about a horrific sex crime. She was hailed as a hero for defying Gadhafi. Several months later, she arrived in New York with the help of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and sought political asylum. She settled in Colorado, but from the very beginning her life was laced with trouble. Staffers at the refugee agency that took her case said she felt entitled and did not understand why she had to live by the rules. She failed to show up for job interviews. She abused alcohol and was arrested several times for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and assault. She refused to take advantage of court-offered treatment and counseling programs, Martin said. In February 2014, she confronted two patrons at the Bohemian Biergarten in downtown Boulder. She poured her beer on one of the customers and later threw a glass at the other, leaving a bloody gash serious enough for sutures. CNN’s attempts to speak with al-Obeidi in July were unsuccessful. She refused to take calls, even though she had been grateful earlier for the coverage the network gave her in Libya and after her arrival in the United States. At her trial in May, al-Obeidi claimed self-defense but the jury found her guilty. “I took into account the sociopolitical circumstances,” Martin said. “I think that was worth some consideration. I do think there are mental health issues that need to be addressed. And there’s an alcohol abuse issue that needs to be addressed.” Martin said al-Obeidi has demonstrated a pattern of aggressive behavior, accumulating five arrests. While she was behind bars, she attacked a fellow inmate and is facing another pending criminal charge. “She caused quite a stir back then,” Martin said. A telephone conversation she had on June 15 with a friend is revealing about al-Obeidi’s state of mind and was played in court Wednesday. The Boulder County jail recorded the call, and CNN obtained a part of it through an open records request. Al-Obeidi can be heard telling a friend about how she assaulted her cellmate a few days earlier. She laughs throughout the conversation as though she were describing a funny incident. “I was in lockdown, I just got out today …” she said. Her friend asked her why. “Because I choked a f*****g b***h. I let her sleep, then after one hour, she sleep, I jumped on her, I sit on her, on top of her, and then I put my knee in her f*****g throat. She cannot scream.” Then al-Obeidi said she put her other knee on her cellmate’s chest. “And I f*****g took her head up and down, up and down, and I put her head in the mattress. She couldn’t breathe any more.  She couldn’t call the cops. She had to say ‘hhhelllpp … hhhelllppp,’ ” al-Obeidi said, mocking the woman. Al-Obeidi’s words were a stark contrast to the woman who had described her own torture four years ago, when she told CNN about how Gadhafi’s men had beaten her for two days, sodomized her with a rifle and how frightened she was that they would kill her. Libyan symbol of freedom now facing years behind bars Given al-Obeidi’s recent history, Martin said the judge decided not to force her to be transported to court after she refused to appear in July. She will now be taken to a diagnostic facility in Denver, evaluated and eventually sent to a Colorado correctional facility to serve out her term. The prison term puts a halt to the hopes al-Obeidi said she held in her heart. Of earning a degree from the University of Colorado, getting a good job, helping her family in Libya. Her American dream is now a nightmare and even when she leaves prison, she will have to navigate life – already proven difficult for her – as a convicted felon. Alleged Libyan rape victim talked to CNN Al-Obeidi’s story is among several in the book “Now That We Have Tasted Hope,” a compilation of essays, blogs and poetry from the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring gave way to a brutal Arab Winter, plunging nations like Libya into conflict. In the shadow of that despair, al-Obeidi declared she liked nothing in Colorado. She admitted that sometimes she got so depressed she didn’t leave her apartment for days. Those who spent time with her when she first settled in Colorado said they could see she was crying out for help. But she is no longer in touch with those people, including the refugee agency in Denver that had her case. Al-Obeidi’s behavior, said Martin, has been poor. For that, she is now paying a heavy price.


President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that the US is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, arguing that remaining in the current agreement would lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. “It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” Trump said from the White House Diplomatic Room. “The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing we know exactly what will happen.” In announcing his decision, Trump said he would initiate new sanctions on the regime, crippling the touchstone agreement negotiated by his predecessor. Trump said any country that helps Iran obtain nuclear weapons could also be “strongly sanctioned.” Related article Trump announces withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal, isolating him further from world To make his case, he made a series of claims about the deal’s flaws – some true, some false and some up for debate. Here’s a look at how accurate those claims were: Trump claimed on Tuesday that the previous US administration and its partners who brokered the nuclear deal did so believing that Iran had no intention of developing a nuclear weapon. “At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction, that a murderous regime desired only a peaceful nuclear energy program,” Trump said. Yes, Iran repeatedly claimed that its nuclear program was for purely peaceful purposes. But the US and its allies pursued the Iran deal for the very opposite reason: because they believed Iran was indeed pursuing a nuclear weapon. That’s why the P5+1 countries that negotiated the deal brokered the agreement, which capped Iran’s nuclear enrichment and set up an inspections regime of Iranian nuclear sites. “Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie. Last week. Israel published intelligence documents, long-concealed by Iran, conclusively showing the Iranians’ regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons,” Trump said on Tuesday. Yes, the secret Iranian documents revealed last month by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed that Iran at one time had plans to use its nuclear program to build a nuclear weapon. But again, that had not been in doubt from the US or its European allies’ perspective. Trump is using the documents to make his case for withdrawing from the deal, but the documents obtained by Israel did not reveal facts about Iran’s past intentions that the international community did not already broadly know. And it didn’t reveal anything about Iran’s current nuclear program, though the IAEA has confirmed multiple times that Iran is complying with the deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action extended Iran’s breakout time to more than a year, meaning Iran would be at least a year away from being able to produce enough enriched material for a nuclear weapon as long as it complied with the deal. Before the deal and its restrictions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities, Iran’s breakout time was estimated to be a matter of months. Trump may believe a year is a “short period of time,” but the deal did extend Iran’s breakout time. If Iran now pulls out because of the US’ violation of the deal, it could begin to shorten its breakout time. Trump’s bigger issue is with one particular sunset provision, which only capped Iran’s nuclear activities for 10 to 25 years after the deal came into force. “The deal’s sunset provisions are totally unacceptable. If I allowed this deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Everyone would want their weapons ready by the time Iran had theirs,” Trump said on Tuesday. The President also claimed that “the deal’s inspection provisions lack adequate mechanisms to prevent, detect and punish cheating and don’t even have the unqualified right to inspect many important locations, including military facilities.” Whether the deal’s inspections mechanism is sufficient is a matter of debate among nuclear experts and supporters and opponents of the Iran deal alike. Supporters of the deal have argued that the inspections regimen set up is among the most rigorous ever brokered. But inspections of military sites have been a key point of contention – with Iran calling the sites “off limits” and rejecting past requests to inspect its military bases. Under the agreement, the IAEA can request access to military sites if it shows the basis for its concern. But critics say that process allows for a problematically long window of time 24 days before any inspection could take place. Trump railed against the deal on Tuesday for failing “to address the regime’s development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads.” “Finally, the deal does nothing to constrain Iran’s destabilizing activities, including its support for terrorism. Since the agreement, Iran’s bloody ambitions have grown only more brazen,” Trump said. On these two points, Trump is right. The Iran deal was all about the country’s nuclear program and the lifting of sanctions related to that program. The deal didn’t address Iran’s development of ballistic missiles or its support for US-designated  terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah, in the region.

US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal


Russia, at a United Nations Security Council meeting, warned the British government Thursday it was “playing with fire” with accusations that Moscow was behind the poisoning of a Russian former spy and his daughter in the United Kingdom. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia blasted the UK, calling the allegations against Russia a “fake story.” The Russian UN diplomat warned “we have told our British colleagues that they are playing with fire and they will be sorry.” Asked after the meeting what he meant by saying the UK would be sorry, Nebenzi replied that if the UK’s accusation was untrue, “a normal person should be sorry for that.” He accused the United Kingdom of turning other countries against Russia. “You started a wave that even reached New York,” he said. Moscow, emboldened after the UK was forced to withdraw a claim that its scientists had pinned the blame on Russia for the attack, further attempted to embarrass Britain in front of its international allies. But the UN ambassador from the UK, Karen Pierce, said she would not be lectured by Russia, which she said had blocked inquiries into the use of chemical weapons in Syria. “Everything we have done … has been consistent with the Convention on Chemical Weapons,” she said. Russia refused to help when the UK asked early in the investigation, Pierce said. Pierce told the Council “we all know why that investigation is underway. It’s because a military-grade nerve agent was used in an attempt to kill civilians on British soil. It was carried out recklessly and it was carried out without regard for public safety.” She questioned the need for Thursday’s meeting, saying the chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, has yet to release its report on the incident. A month after former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in the English city of Salisbury, the United Kingdom and Russia remain locked in a battle over who is to blame. UK Prime Minister Theresa May has said it was “highly likely” the attack was ordered by the Russian government. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the accusation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that the affair was a “pretext” for the expulsion of Russian diplomats around the world. On Wednesday, Moscow failed in its efforts to persuade OPCW to allow a joint UK-Russia investigation into the attack. The OPCW is already carrying out an independent investigation at the UK’s request, and expects to receive the results of its analysis within a week. Britain is also carrying out its own inquiry, with support from the OPCW. Attention has turned to the United Nations. It was the second time the Security Council discussed the poisoning. At a March 15 meeting that was called by the UK, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley blasted the Russian government for the attack and called for a firm international response. Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, remain in Salisbury District Hospital following the attack on March 4. Sergei Skripal is described as in a critical but stable condition. Related article Yulia Skripal issues statement: 'My strength is growing daily' Yulia Skripal announced Thursday that she had woken up “over a week ago” and that her “strength is growing daily.” “I am grateful for the interest in me and for the many messages of goodwill that I have received,” Skripal said in a statement released on her behalf by London’s Metropolitan Police. “I have many people to thank for my recovery and would especially like to mention the people of Salisbury that came to my aid when my father and I were incapacitated. Further than that, I would like to thank the staff at Salisbury District Hospital for their care and professionalism,” she said. “I am sure you appreciate that the entire episode is somewhat disorientating, and I hope that you’ll respect my privacy and that of my family during the period of my convalescence,” she added. Pierce said the UK has relayed a request for a visit from a Russian consular official to Skripal. “We await her response,” Pierce said. A Russian state television station reported Thursday that Viktoria Skripal, the cousin of Yulia Skripal, said she had spoken to Yulia by phone. UK experts believe the Skripals were poisoned with a Russian-made nerve agent, Novichok. The Times of London, citing unnamed sources, reported on Thursday that UK security services had pinpointed the location of the Russian laboratory that manufactured the nerve agent. On Wednesday, speaking at a trilateral summit with Turkey and Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters he wanted to see “a healthy political process” based on international law. “We are not expecting anything but common sense to prevail; international relations will not tolerate the recent damage done,” he said. The UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats in the wake of the attack, sparking a wave of similar moves by UK allies around the world. The US expelled 60 Russian diplomats as part of the international effort. Moscow responded by kicking out diplomats from at least 23 countries, including 60 American diplomats. It also ordered the closure of the US consulate in St. Petersburg. Lavrov said Thursday that Russia wants “to find the truth” about the poisoning in Salisbury and that “provocations are being arranged” in the Skripal case to demonize Russia. Related article UK government deletes tweet about Russian spy's poisoning He claimed that many countries had been pressured into supporting the UK and described the mass expulsion of Russian diplomats as “an open mocking of diplomatic ethics” that had not seen for a long time. Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Alexander Yakovenko told a news conference Thursday that Russia has “no information about Yulia Skripal, we don’t know about Sergei.” Speaking to reporters at the Russian Embassy in London, Yakovenko said Yulia’s cousin Viktoria was “waiting for the visa in Moscow, a British visa. We will see what will be the outcome of that visit.” He repeated Russia’s complaint that Britain is not allowing it access to its citizens, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, or to the British investigation into their poisoning. The UK government must be “transparent” about the evidence, he said. Yakovenko said Russia would accept the result of the OPCW investigation – but suggested that its validity would depend on which nations’ experts were involved. “These results should be confirmed by the international community, so we want to see who are the experts,” he said. Questions continue to dog the investigation into the attack on the Skripals, who were found slumped on a bench at an outdoor shopping complex in Salisbury. UK police believe they came into contact with the military-grade nerve agent on Skripal’s front door. On Tuesday, UK scientists said that while they had identified the nerve agent as Novichok, they were unable to say exactly where it had been manufactured. Related article Source: Britain believes nerve agent attack likely had Kremlin approval “We have not identified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific info to government, who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions you have come to,”  Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the UK government laboratory at Porton Down, told Sky News on Tuesday. Further complicating the picture, the UK Foreign Office confirmed on Wednesday it had deleted a tweet that claimed that British chemical weapons experts believed Russia had produced the nerve agent. The Foreign Office said the tweet was “truncated and did not accurately report” a briefing by the British ambassador to Moscow last month. The British government says the scientific analysis from Porton Down forms only part of the picture. It insists that only Russia had the capability to carry out the attack, that Moscow had identified former double agents as legitimate targets, and was known for its involvement in state-sponsored attacks in the past. In its report on Thursday, the Times of London cited security sources claiming that the location for the manufacture of the Novichok had been identified “using scientific analysis and intelligence in the days after the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal a month ago.” The Times said security sources didn’t have “100% certainty” but there was a high degree of confidence in the location. The UK government had known about the facility’s existence before the attack on March 4, it added. The UK Foreign Office refused to comment on The Times’ report. “We have nothing more to add to that story,” a spokesman told CNN. CNN’s Tony Marco and Sebastian Shukla contributed to this report.


NEW: "The situation is desperate," Doctors Without Borders official says At least 15 people are dead and up to 40 are wounded after strikes in Azaz In a separate attack, seven people are killed at a hospital in Idlib province Rescuers wearing hard hats searched through rubble for survivors in northern Syria Monday after airstrikes hit two hospitals and a school building. The attacks killed at least 22 people, according to reports. Eight others are missing and presumed dead. Amnesty International said the hospital attacks amounted to war crimes. Critics of the Syrian government warned that the latest violence is yet another troubling sign that a planned “cessation of hostilities” in the war-ravaged country is far from taking hold. Russian and Syrian forces must end deliberate attacks on hospitals, including @MSF https://t.co/PdvJKBS5bx h/t @P4HR pic.twitter.com/J1JduBo1YY Fifteen people were killed when a hospital and a school building that was housing displaced people were struck in Azaz, in Syria’s Aleppo province, according to a hospital worker on the scene. Up to 40 other people were wounded. In Aleppo, one man’s story of fear, defiance and survival Staff members were evacuating the wounded after the first strike on the Women and Children’s Hospital when the complex and a road leading to the Turkish border were struck again, a hospital employee known as Moudhar told CNN. Women and children were among the dead, he said. Another projectile hit the nearby school building, he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung that “in the current situation” she would support the creation of a no-fly zone in Northern Syria to create a safe haven for fleeing families, which could offer at least a partial solution to Europe’s refugee crisis. “In the current situation, it would be helpful if there were areas there, where no party to the war flew bombing missions – in other words a kind of no-fly zone,” she said in response to a direct question from a reporter about her position on exclusion zones. “We can’t negotiate with the terrorists from ISIS. But if it were doable to come to such an agreement with the anti-Assad coalition and the Assad supporters, it would be helpful.” Turkey has long advocated the creation of a no-fly zone in northern Syria, despite bombing Kurdish positions in the region. In a separate attack about 100 km (62 miles away), another horrifying scene played out at a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders at Maarat al-Numan in Syria’s Idlib province. Missiles struck the hospital four times within minutes, the medical humanitarian organization said. Images from the scene showed the hospital reduced to mostly twisted metal and other rubble. At least seven people were killed and eight others were missing and presumed dead, the organization said. The dead consisted of five patients, a caretaker and a hospital guard, while eight staff members were missing. Patients were also unaccounted for, the statement said, but it’s not clear how many. “The situation is desperate,” said Massimiliano Rebaudengo, Doctors Without Borders’ head of mission. “This appears to be a deliberate attack on a health structure, and we condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms,” Rebaudengo said “The destruction of the hospital leaves the local population of around 40,000 people without access to medical services in an active zone of conflict,” he said. Officials around the world traded accusations over who was behind the attacks. The U.S. State Department condemned the airstrikes, blaming the Syrian regime headed by President Bashar al-Assad for the attack on Azaz. The Syrian government has not made a statement about the incident. Speaking in Kiev, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed Russia for the strikes in Azaz, which is close to the Turkish border, claiming Moscow had targeted the complex with ballistic missiles fired from the Caspian Sea. Turkish defense minister: ‘No intention’ of sending ground troops into Syria Moscow did not immediately respond to the accusation. Doctors Without Borders officials said Syrian government-led coalition forces carried out the strikes on the facility in Idlib. Syria’s ambassador to Russia blamed the United States and coalition forces for the Idlib attack. Ambassador Riad Haddad said there is “intelligence information” that proves that coalition warplanes raided the hospital. The United States has said it carried out no military operations in the areas that were hit. Airstrikes earlier this month killed three people and wounded at least six at a Doctors Without Borders-supported hospital in Daraa governorate, southern Syria, on February 5, the aid group said. Northern Syria has been the scene of intense fighting recently, with Syrian regime forces, backed by Russian air power, pursuing a major offensive on the key city Aleppo, and Turkey bombarding Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, near Azaz over the weekend. Related video Turkish strikes on YPG Kurds complicate Syrian chaos Turkey said it was a response to shelling from YPG positions. Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz said Sunday that his country had no intention of sending ground troops into Syria, amid international concern about Ankara’s actions. The United States and France called on Ankara to halt the bombardment, which killed two Kurdish fighters and wounded seven others, according to a London-based monitoring group, and Syria complained to the U.N. Security Council about the Turkish shelling. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group, while the United States backs it in the fight against ISIS. Western powers have also been critical of Russia’s actions in Syria, saying it was undermining the prospects of implementing a recently agreed upon cessation of hostilities by bombing civilians. Moscow denies the allegations. “The intensified bombings, the displacement, the fact that civilian entities have been hit by the regime and its backers, is of grave concern,” U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice told reporters Monday. “It does call into question Russia’s willingness or ability to implement the agreements achieved in Munich.” CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh, Stephanie Halasz, Nicole Gaouette, Catherine E. Shoichet, Hande Atay, Marilia Brocchetto, Ben Brumfield and Euan McKirdy contributed to this report.


Pope Francis was expected to use visit to highlight the plight of the Rohingya He did not use the world Rohingya in public, drawing criticism The Vatican is pushing back against criticism aimed at Pope Francis for not speaking out against Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya Muslims during his historic visit to the southeast Asian country. Foreign diplomats, including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, have called what Myanmar’s military is doing to the Rohingya ethnic cleansing, a charge that its leadership and the country’s defacto ruler Aung San Suu Kyi deny. However, the Vatican said the trip – the first ever by a sitting Pontiff – was organized before the refugee crisis occurred, and was never considered a “refugee trip,” like the Pope’s visit to the Greek island of Lesbos last year. “This was about diplomatic relations,” said Greg Burke, the director of the Holy See Press Office and the Vatican’s spokesperson. He spoke to reporters in Yangon on Wednesday after the Pope gave Mass to a crowd of 150,000 worshipers. “This trip could be summed up in one word, not the word you are thinking … it’s unity,” Burke said. The other word he was referring to was “Rohingya,” which activists had hoped he would utter while he was on Burmese soil as a sign of support for the persecuted minority. Since August, fighting between Muslim militants and the Myanmar military has prompted a mass exodus of Rohingya Muslims from their villages and camps in southwestern Rakhine State into neighboring Bangladesh. Once in the relative safety of the border camps, the refugees have described systematic rape, murder and the razing of their homes and villages at the hands of the Myanmar military. Aung San Suu Kyi has only ever used the term “Rohingya” publicly when referring to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army or ARSA, the militant group active in the region that the government holds responsible for the current conflict. The majority of Burmese don’t consider the Rohingya to be citizens of Myanmar, referring to them as “Bengalis,” a slur term that is often used as shorthand for illegal immigrants. The Pope’s cardinal in Myanmar had advised him not to use the term. Burke said the Pope, who has in the past referred to the “persecution of our Rohingya brothers and sisters,” cannot be questioned on his moral authority because of things he didn’t say publicly. “The Pope himself won’t tell you what happens in private conversations. They remain private. Having said that, if you watched the Pope, he is a very free man,” Burke said. “Diplomacy by its nature is debatable. If you watch how the Pope moves, he is not afraid of minefields. Whether in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) or not literal minefields, more diplomatic. The trip was on and it remained on. And he is happy to be here.” Pope Francis will have spent three days in Myanmar before traveling to Bangladesh on Thursday. There, in the capital of Dhaka, he is expected to meet a small group of Rohingya refugees. The last pope to visit Bangladesh was Pope John Paul II in 1986. During Wednesday’s Mass, Pope Francis focused his sermon on “healing,” urging “forgiveness and compassion.” “I know that many in Myanmar bear the wounds of violence, wounds both visible and invisible,” he told the crowd. “We think that healing can come from anger and revenge. Yet the way of revenge is not the way of Jesus.” On Thursday, he conducted mass with for a congregation of young people in St Mary’s Cathedral in Yangon, before departing for Bangladesh, where he’s expected to meet with Rohingya refugees. Burke said people were free to criticize the Pope’s diplomatic methods. “I find it very hard to say the moral authority of the Pope is diminished. People don’t expect him to solve impossible problems,” Burke said. “You’ll see him go ahead and you can criticize what he said, what was not said, but his moral authority is not questioned here.”


UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Friday it was “overwhelmingly likely” that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally gave the order to use a nerve agent to attack a former double spy in what’s the most direct accusation yet against Russia’s leader. Prime Minister Theresa May announced this week that 23 Russian diplomats would be expelled from Britain after concluding it was highly probable that Moscow was behind the poisoning, but she stopped short of pointing the finger directly at Putin. The ex-spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia remain in a critical condition after the March 4 attack in the English city of Salisbury. UK officials believe they were exposed to a nerve agent known as Novichok that was developed in Russia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov slammed Johnson’s remark in a comment to CNN. Related article The UK's weak actions are unlikely to hurt Putin -- or his cronies “We have said on different levels and occasions that Russia has nothing to do with this story,” he said. “Any reference or mentioning of our President is nothing else but shocking and unpardonable diplomatic misconduct.” Russia has repeatedly dismissed the UK’s accusations as “unfounded” and warned it would retaliate over the expulsion of its diplomats. Speaking alongside his Polish counterpart at the Battle of Britain Bunker in outer London, Johnson said the UK and its allies were waiting for a serious response from Russia about the nerve agent attack. “The quarrel of the UK government is not with Russian people – it is not with Russians living here in this country. We have nothing against the Russians themselves. There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what has happened,” he said. “Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin and with his decision – and we think it is overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision – to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the UK, on the streets of Europe, for the first time since the Second World War.” Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz expressed his “full solidarity” with the UK, adding he was prepared to work with other European Union and NATO countries to protest against Russia’s behavior. “We condemn this unprecedented attack by Russia on the territory of the United Kingdom. This use of chemical weapons is a clear violation of the international law,” he said. Russia has insisted it is ready to cooperate in investigating the attack in Salisbury if Britain reciprocates by sharing the evidence it holds – and has dismissed accusations against it as “propaganda” by the UK government. Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow’s ambassador to the United Nations, even suggested at an emergency session of the UN Security Council that the UK might have been responsible for the attack in an attempt to smear Russia. Related article Former Soviet chemist shares details of the nerve agent Novichok On Friday, Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had launched its own criminal proceedings in connection with the “attempted murder of a Russian citizen, Yulia Skripal” in Salisbury and what it called the “murder” of Nikolai Glushkov in London. Glushkov, a Russian exile who had links to compatriots who died in mysterious circumstances in the UK, was found dead in his London home this week. London’s Metropolitan Police said Friday it had launched a murder investigation into Glushkov’s death following the results of a post-mortem exam, which gave the cause of death as “compression to the neck.” Counterterrorism police are leading the investigation “because of the associations Mr. Glushkov is believed to have had,” a police statement said. “At this stage there is nothing to suggest any link to the attempted murders in Salisbury, nor any evidence that he was poisoned.” In an online post, the Russian committee said the attempt on Yulia Skripal’s life was “committed in a dangerous manner endangering other people, in Salisbury.” The investigation will be carried out in accordance with “Russian and international law,” it said, adding that “investigators are ready to work together with competent authorities in Great Britain.” The statement made no mention of Sergei Skripal. On Thursday, the United States issued a joint statement with France, Germany and the UK condemning the nerve agent attack as “an assault on UK sovereignty” and saying there was “no plausible alternative explanation” than that Russia was responsible. Related article Nerve gas attack unsettles residents in English cathedral city Meanwhile, British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said Moscow had made a “deliberate political decision” to poison Skripal. He accused Russia of “ripping up the international rulebook” and “attempting to “subvert, undermine and influence” countries around the world. “Russia should shut up and go away,” Williamson said. “It’s often described as a cool war that we are entering – I would say it is feeling exceptionally chilly at the moment.” UK-Russia relations have been fractious ever since the assassination of another former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, in 2006. A UK inquiry found that two Russian agents poisoned Litvinenko at a London hotel bar in 2006 by spiking his tea with highly radioactive polonium-210, and that Putin “probably approved” Litvinenko’s killing. The Kremlin has always denied the accusation. Sergei Skripal was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006 for spying for Britain, according to Russian state media accounts of the closed hearing. Russian court officials at the time said he’d received at least $100,000 for his work for MI6, the British intelligence service. He was granted refuge in the UK after a high-profile spy exchange between the United States and Russia in 2010. CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen, Darya Tarasova and Sebastian Shukla contributed to this report.


Natural arches around the world are made of rock, with a hole formed by natural forces Natural bridges are arches where water is the force making the hole Stunning natural bridges can be found all over the world Don’t try to drive over these bridges. These rocky natural spans were formed over millennia by the flowing waters of a stream or other water source, which slowly eroded away the rock to create the shape of a bridge. But are they arches or bridges? The Natural Arch and Bridge Society, whose Indiana Jones-like members go hunting for these rock formations around the world, makes this distinction: A natural arch is made of rock, with a hole formed by natural forces, they say. A natural bridge is a type of arch, where water is the natural force making the hole. Erosion created these magnificent structures, and erosion will eventually take them down. One such wonder was Aruba’s Natural Bridge, which was first formed by pounding surf eroding its coral limestone. The 100-foot-span gave way and collapsed in 2005.  (The smaller Baby Bridge is still standing nearby.) Here are 15 spectacular natural bridges around the world. America’s crazy rock formations One of the most famous spots in Wales, the Green Bridge of Wales and the rocky Pembrokeshire coastline, are part of a national park. Nearby you can also spot the Stack Rocks, known as the Elegug Stacks in Welsh. Eventually it’s expected that the ocean will wear away the Green Bridge and the middle will collapse, turning it into stacks. Visitors who continue along the coast to see Pen-y-Holt Stack should note that it’s in a British Army range and must be visited through walks organized by the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority. Not all the glory of Wyoming is found at its two internationally famous Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in the northwestern part of the state. Less well-known but worth the visit is the majestic Ayres Natural Bridge in eastern Wyoming, about 40 miles east of Casper. The 50-foot tall, 100-foot-long natural bridge over LaPrele Creek is the star of this 22-acre park. As streams cut into the canyon walls and flash floods further weakened them, the three mighty bridges at Natural Bridges National Monument in the southeastern corner of Utah were carved over millions of years. The area was declared a national monument in 1908, and the three bridges were given the Hopi names “Owachomo,” “Kachina” and “Sipapu” in 1909. Further erosion has made the once thick and mighty Owachomo Bridge more delicate. While still massive and strong, Kachina Bridge did lose 4,000 tons of rock in 1992. A natural bridge formed by the Ardeche River in the south of France, the Pont d’Arc has a world-famous neighbor: the Chauvet cave paintings, the world’s oldest known such works, which date back 36,000 years. Discovered in 1994, the site was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site this year. But the region’s natural beauty is also a national treasure. Classified as a French national heritage site in 1982, the 54-meter-long (177-foot-long) natural arch is the only French example of a natural bridge spanning a still-flowing river. It’s also a gateway to the river canyon. Top 25 amusement parks around the world A famous natural bridge anchors this Santa Cruz beach, which is best known for its tide pools – go exploring at low tide – and seasonal monarch butterfly residents. Up to 100,000 monarchs typically move into the state beach’s Monarch Grove in mid-October, and they depart the following January or February. There’s a party in October to welcome them, and seasonal tours are available. Australia’s Port Campbell National Park is best known for the Twelve Apostles, towering limestone rock stacks carved by the Southern Ocean. The ocean is still working on the rock, with seven of eight formations still standing. But there’s another gem in this park about 275 kilometers west of Melbourne: London Bridge, a natural offshore rock span that partially collapsed in 1990 and became a bridge without a connection. (People standing on the rocks were stranded when the middle collapsed and had to be rescued via helicopter.) It’s a good idea to stay on the accessible walking paths and scenic drives along the coast. Spectacular waterfalls around the U.S. China has quite a collection of natural bridges, including one that experts say has the longest span of any natural bridge in the world. The Fairy Bridge (Xianren Qiao), in southwestern China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region near the border with Vietnam, has a 400-foot span. Not that the bridge made of limestone karst is easy to measure. Members of the Natural Arch and Bridge Society took a boat to the site in 2010 and used laser equipment to measure the span, calling it the “longest known natural arch in the world, by a wide margin.” Hans Christian Andersen wrote part of “The Snow Queen” in Bohemian Switzerland, and several scenes from the Chronicles of Narnia were shot here. It’s no wonder: The fairytale landscape of this region, now part of the Czech Republic, is magical. Go see its most well-known symbol: the Pravcicka Brana, a natural bridge standing tall in Bohemian Switzerland National Park, now part of the Czech Republic. While there are many rock formations rising up amid the forests and valleys in the park, Pravcicka Brana is the largest stone bridge on the European continent, with a span of 27 meters (nearly 90 feet) and a height of 21 meters (nearly 70 feet). Bedouin tribes still live in goat-hair tents in the Wadi Rum Protected Area of southern Jordan, which is 720 square kilometers (about 278 square miles) of mostly desert wilderness. Among the sandstone and granite mountains and valleys are natural bridges rising up to greet you. Although visitors can take private cars or hike on foot to explore the bridges and the region, Bedouin cooperatives offer tours via basic Jeep or pickup trucks. And if you want a real adventure, book a camel ride to explore the area and overnight in a Bedouin camp. Cliffside beaches around the world While many nature loving explorers head to Canada’s famous Banff National Park, there are tall peaks, amazing waterfalls and a spectacular natural bridge to be found to the west at Yoho National Park. Located on the western slopes of the Canadian Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, Yoho definitely lives up to its name (a Cree expression of awe and wonder). Travelers can witness Kicking Horse River still carving its path through this natural bridge. It’s true that southeastern Algeria’s Tassili n’Ajjer, named a World Heritage Site in 1982, is better known for more than 15,000 drawings and engravings dating back to 6,000 B.C. The drawings record climate change and human life in the region. But tucked away in this tense region at the edge of the Sahara, near the border with Libya, Mali and Niger, this spot was also recognized as a UNESCO site for its remarkable collection of natural bridges and rock formations dense enough to be called “rock forests.” The eroding sandstone “forests of rock” document the environmental changes, marking major climate change and geological transformation over the millennia. Water and wind have shaped this magical, lunar-like landscape. Long considered sacred by the Monacans, Virginia’s Natural Bridge was one of this English colony’s earliest recognized natural wonders. The bridge was created by an underground stream flowing through a cave, whose roof collapsed, according to the arch society. It even had a famous owner: Thomas Jefferson bought the surrounding land and bridge from King George III of England in 1774, before the young republic’s founding. A National Historic Landmark, the land in Rockbridge County remained in the hands of private owners for centuries. Now the state of Virginia has announced plans to turn the land into a park by the end of 2015. In the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio lies the Cueva de los Portales, a cavernous area near the Parque Nacional La Guira. The Río Caiguanabo flows beneath a natural bridge, which is connected to a cave that served as one of revolutionary  leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s hideouts during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The area is now popular with birdwatchers. When Wildlife Conservation Society researchers traveled to Afghanistan in 2010 to conduct a wildlife survey in the troubled country, they discovered an enormous natural bridge that may be one of the largest in the world. They returned to Hazarchishma Natural Bridge, in the central highlands of Afghanistan, in 2011 to take measurements. The bridge, which is named after a local village, is more than 60 feet high, has a span of more than 200 feet across its base and rises more than 3,000 meters (nearly 10,000 feet) above sea level. It was created over the millennia by the then-flowing waters of the dry Jawzari Canyon. Is it a natural bridge? A cornerstone of Great Basin National Park in Nevada, the Lexington Arch may actually be a bridge. There’s evidence to suggest that the waters of Lexington Creek flowed through a cave in the canyon wall long ago, expanding the tunnel that’s now Lexington Arch. Debate the question as you marvel at one of the few natural arches in the west made of limestone rather than sandstone. Natural wonders in the United States that set records 12 national parks in 12 months – a son’s journey 50 states, 50 natural wonders


Editor’s Note: Alice Stewart is a CNN political commentator and former communications director for Ted Cruz for President. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. Alice Stewart: Some Democrats refuse to comply with election integrity commission Election irregularities are viewed through partisan lenses, she writes Despite his own reservations about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, President Donald Trump defied critics and pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin on the issue during their private meeting in Germany.  Not surprisingly, Putin denied any meddling.  Their 2-hour meeting may have ended, but the Russia probe is far from over. As with all things political, election irregularities are viewed through a number of partisan lenses: Democrats point to voter suppression, Republicans claim voter fraud, and many focus on Russian interference in our election process.  The reality is, none of these are mutually exclusive.  The only way to put all those fears to rest is to fully investigate the 2016 election and work to restore integrity to the process and encourage voter participation. President Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity is taking steps to uncover voting irregularities and make necessary changes. The bipartisan commission aims to review election issues in places like Russia, Ohio, while also shedding light on possible Russian meddling. The FBI, CIA and National Security Agency have concluded Russia meddled in the 2016 election, and the panel’s review of voting networks across the country would provide valuable insight on outside interference. Having worked as Deputy Secretary of State in Arkansas, I know the awesome responsibility shared by each state’s designated chief election official, and overseeing elections according to law.  Their role is to ensure the integrity of the voting process. Related article Demand for voter rolls shows ugly truth about Trump's voter fraud commission The Election Commission’s initial step in studying the registration and voting processes was to seek data from Secretaries of State across the country.  Vice Chairman and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, requested that each state provide “publicly available voter roll data” as allowed under each state’s laws. While protecting state-level authority in our federalist system is important, assisting federal authorities in their efforts to bring about free and fair elections is paramount. Commission Chair Vice President Mike Pence says the goal is to preserve the principle of one person, one vote; a clean, verifiable voter database is a critical part of that process. As of now, the Vice President’s office reports that 36 states are providing the data or reviewing what data they can provide.  The other 14 states, mostly led by Democratic election officials, are refusing to comply with the request, citing privacy concerns.  The problem with that is, the requested information is available to the public already.  Anyone, at virtually anytime, can obtain this data. To quote Hillary Clinton’s 2015 speech on voting rights, “What part of democracy are they afraid of?” Related article Forty-five states and DC have refused to give certain voter information to Trump commission Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez calls it a “Trump propaganda factory.”  He encouraged election officials not to provide the information that would help in the effort to restore election integrity.  The obvious question is: What do Democrats have to hide? It could be the news that a Virginia student pleaded guilty last week to registering dead people for Democrats. Maybe it’s the story of 12 people in Indiana connected with a Democratic group last month charged with submitting falsified voter registration applications. Democrats say the commission is a large-scale effort aimed at voter suppression. I don’t buy that; no one deprives an American citizen of the right to vote except the person himself. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook Americans are blessed with the freedom to vote.  As Thomas Paine said: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” That goes for identifying election problems and correcting them. Choosing not to help uncover irregularities is not a stand on principle or a form of rebellion; it’s surrender.  Surrendering is more of the same.  If we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it.  It’s time to vote like your right to vote depends on it.


The US Air Force is expected to fly its “radiation sniffer” jet off the Korean Peninsula to take air samples to determine if a nuclear event occurred in North Korea. The Air Force WC-135 jet, dubbed the “Constant Phoenix,” will look for distinctive elements a nuclear test of any type would emit into the air. The collected samples can be analyzed to determine exactly what occurred. Japan’s Air Self Defense Force also said it was sending four jets to collect airborne dust for radiation samples. The US Air Force’s four-engine Boeing jets are equipped with external devices that collect radioactive material from the atmosphere on filter paper. The planes also have “a compressor system for whole air samples collected in holding spheres,” according to an Air Force fact sheet. The Air Force has two of the WC-135 jets that operate out of Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. The United States also has ground stations in the area that will also be taking samples. The Constant Phoenix program originated with Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1947. The then-Army Air Forces, which would later become the Air Force, used WB-29s, variants of the B-29 bomber model, to try to detect evidence of Soviet nuclear tests, according to the Air Force. The WB-29s were replaced by WB-50s beginning in 1950, with the current WB-135s coming on line in 1965. The radiation-sniffing planes have been used to monitor compliance with nuclear weapons treaties, and also monitored effects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in the Soviet Union, the Air Force says.


On Monday night, Trump announced his plan for the US in Afghanistan Prior to Trump's announcement, an unconventional approach Prince proposed had been floated Erik Prince, founder of the controversial military contracting firm Blackwater, doesn’t think President Donald Trump’s conventional Afghanistan strategy of “more troops and more money” will be enough. In fact, Prince predicted that in three to six months, the US will have to reevaluate its new plan for the US’ longest war. “I think in six months, even three months, the President is going to see the conventional approach that’s already been tried and failed for 16 years – there’s got to be some other things considered,” the former Navy SEAL said Tuesday on CNN’s “Newsroom.” On Monday night, Trump announced his plan for the US in Afghanistan and South Asia, which includes shifting to a conditional-based approach and an increased number of troops. The US currently has about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan. Trump is the third President to hold office while the US has been involved in Afghanistan – a war that has now lasted more than 16 years. “Sadly the President was backed into a bad decision last night,” Prince told CNN’s Pamela Brown on Tuesday afternoon. “The Pentagon never gave him any other realistic options other than more troops and more money.” Prior to Trump’s announcement, an unconventional approach Prince proposed had been floated by various White House officials. Prince, in a plan he detailed in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in June, has proposed that the US shift to primarily using the private sector in its Afghanistan military operations. His plan included the use of a viceroy – a term that recalls colonialism – to lead US efforts in the country, and would utilize more contractors. Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon reached out to Prince after the WSJ op-ed published, Prince told CNN in an previous interview on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront”. Prince noted in the same August 7 interview that White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster was opposed to the idea. The weekend following Bannon’s firing, Trump and his national security team made the final decision for their plan, and Prince’s proposal ultimately lost out. “The presidency as itself is in a bubble,” Prince said, adding that there are many “conventional” generals “in that bubble.” Prince founded Blackwater, a private defense contractor that provoked international outrage after a deadly 2007 shooting in Iraq. Blackwater lost a $1 billion contract with the State Department to protect American diplomatic personnel in 2009, after the Iraqi government refused to renew the company’s operating license. The company was later renamed and sold, and now operates as Academi.


Martin Sellner is a key figure in Austria's far-right Identity Movement "We see ourselves as patriots, not neo-Nazis," he says But he has spoken out against the "Islamization" of Austrian society At the stroke of midnight in Vienna city center, members of Austria’s so-called Identity Movement slipped on high-visibility vests and boarded a crane to pull off an audacious political prank: Draping a huge black cloth resembling a giant niqab – the Islamic face veil – onto a 90-meter-tall statue of the Habsburg ruler, Empress Maria Theresa. In case their political motivations were in any doubt, they also tacked up a sign that read “Islamization. No thank you!” and signed it with the symbol of the Identity Movement. Vienna police were less than amused to wake up to the sight of a national monument draped in such a provocative political protest – but no one has been arrested for the stunt. Martin Sellner, however, was pleased: “We try to teach patriots in Europe methods of non-violent action. That’s our main principle. No violence. No real hate speech.” A clean-cut 27-year-old graphic designer, wearing black-framed glasses and brightly-colored shirts advertising Identity Movement slogans such as “Europa Nostra” – “Our Europe” – Sellner has been called the “hipster” of the far-right. “We see ourselves as patriots, not neo-Nazis,” he says. “We don’t hate immigrants. But we also don’t want to see the country change and end up minorities in our countries. We wanted to express this opinion without anti-Semitism, without the racism of the old right.” It is a carefully cultivated image: a sunny veneer masking a political ideology centered on a white Christian identity which rejects immigration and globalization. READ MORE: What does the alt-right do now? “My generation was never asked if we want this mass immigration, this Islamization and population replacement in this country,” he explains over several cups of Viennese coffee. “We were born into a society that believes we are racist for simply saying that we are becoming a minority in our own country.” In a series of posts on YouTube, Sellner suggests white Christians are on the verge of “extinction,” increasingly marginalized by growing numbers of migrants in what he calls the “Great Replacement.” Related video Wave of nationalism could sway European elections “My biggest fear is that at some point demographics could kill democracy,” he says, “that our society by mass immigration becomes such an ethnically fragmented society that a real democracy is not possible anymore because there is no common ground of values, history and identity.” But that fear isn’t supported by the numbers. While an estimated 15% of Austria’s population are foreign citizens, approximately half of those come from within the EU. For Sellner, intra-European migration – white and Christian – is acceptable. Non-European residents in Austria are outnumbered 10 to one. Still, Sellner is not alone: Worries about migration reached fever pitch last year when more than a million asylum seekers crossed into Europe, at least 700,000 of them via Austria. Many were from Syria and Afghanistan, and while most were simply passing through on their way to Germany, Sweden and elsewhere, an estimated 90,000 opted to stay and claim asylum in Austria. READ MORE: Can Europe survive the Trump effect? The Austrian government responded by erecting border fences, decreeing that only 3,200 migrants would be allowed to enter the country each day, and capping resettlement claims to 80 a day until an annual limit of 37,500 was reached. Related video Populism: What next after Trump and Brexit? Across Europe, the tide of new arrivals has prompted waves of anti-immigrant sentiment; far-right parties such as France’s National Front and Austria’s Freedom Party are seeing a surge in support. Sellner is a big fan of US President-elect Donald Trump, whom he calls “God Emperor.” He hopes Trump’s election victory – on a platform that included plans to build a wall along the Mexican border and a ban on Muslim immigrants – will further inspire the far-right across the continent. The Identity Movement began in France, but has since spread to Austria, Denmark and Germany. It appeals to a younger generation seeking to distance itself from the openly racist, xenophobic far-right parties of the past. Sellner insists that the movement is not racist but “ethno-pluralist” – it doesn’t believe that white Christian culture is superior, he says, but that globalization is forcing countries to adopt a multiculturalism that destroys the ethnic and cultural values of individual states. “We are not fighting against diversity. We don’t think that people need to be racially pure,” he says, adding that the group rejects “anti-Semitism or (anything) that identifies the problem with a certain people.” READ MORE: Holocaust survivor: Don’t let far-right win Yet the Identity Movement does single out one group: Muslims. Only an estimated 7% of Austrians are Muslim. But in Vienna and its suburbs – where Sellner grew up – Muslims make up more than 12% of the population, and some neighborhoods are majority Muslim. Sellner claims this is “Islamization” and that the Muslim religion is incompatible with Austrian values – but even he admits Islam has a long history in Vienna. “After all,” he says, gesturing to the mirrored salon of the Viennese cafe we are talking in. “We are drinking coffee brought by the Turks!” Related video Van der Bellen: Nationalism in Europe is at its height Given Europe’s history, its 20th-century slide into fascism, the great wars that killed millions and singled out Jews and other minorities for genocide, isn’t Sellner worried that the Identity Movement may be one step on a slippery slope to repeating that dark past? No, he says: “I feel a kind of fatherly responsibility for young Austrian patriots not to let them go into these extreme subcultures that are driven by hate and crazy ideologies.” Instead he claims, perhaps counterintuitively, “I think the entire movement is the strongest force against far-right extremism in Austria.” It’s difficult to know just how many support the Identity Movement, but Sellner hopes far-right anti-immigrant candidate Norbert Hofer will be voted into power in Sunday’s presidential election. READ MORE: Who is Austria’s Norbert Hofer? And while that may not change Austrian policy immediately – the Austrian president’s role is largely ceremonial – it would be proof of what Sellner believes is a “silent majority” in the country who share his beliefs. “The main idea of equality and opportunity is great. No one would object to that. But the problem is egalitarianism. People are different. We look different. We have different cultures, languages and traditions. Politics and policies need to reflect that,” he says. “I think every society has only a certain capacity for integration. I think we have gone far beyond that capacity in Europe.”


Editor’s Note: Michael Mazarr is a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. The views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. This article was originally published October 5, 2017. Michael Mazarr: Past foreign policy mistakes illustrate what not to do in North Korea It is when unfounded assumptions and magical thinking come to guide US policies that disasters occur, he writes The powerful recent PBS documentary on the Vietnam War offers a timely lesson about the sources of foreign policy disasters. They often follow a common, tragic script, built around two fundamental mistakes: untested assumptions about the need to act, and wishful thinking about magical schemes to act without consequences. And what’s so disturbing today is that the US seems to be following the same script in the unfolding Korea crisis. Modern foreign policy fiascos – whether the war in Vietnam or the US invasion of Iraq or even the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan – often begin with a sense of false urgency. In Vietnam, it was the domino theory (the theory that a communist takeover in one nation would lead to the collapse of other pro-Western governments nearby) and the obsession with defending every inch of global ground in the Cold War contest for supremacy. In Iraq, it was the post-9/11 conviction that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was cooperating with terrorists. In the case of Moscow’s lurch into Afghanistan, part of the motivation was a sudden and obsessive conviction that the CIA was trying to topple the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. All of these assumptions turned out to be wrong. Vietnam’s fall did not trigger a line of communist dominoes. Saddam had no WMDs and feared al Qaeda almost as much as the United States. The CIA had a very limited role in Afghanistan in 1979. In each case, more precise facts and interpretations were widely available even at the time. But facing strategic and political imperatives to act, national leaders did not take the time to assess them. Once a nation is convinced of the need to do something fast, it then often makes a second mistake on the way to disaster: It brushes aside the risks and costs of the escapade by concocting some scheme to avoid the worst outcomes. In Vietnam, the scheme eventually became graduated escalation: Successive US administrations put their faith in hitting North Vietnam progressively harder until it buckled, which it surely would – long before the US got dragged into a quagmire. In Afghanistan and then in Iraq, Moscow and Washington used versions of the same basic scheme: We’re going to go in, displace the government, and then get out, fast and clean. Related article The road to diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula Foreign policy disasters are often the sum of these two basic errors: Embracing exaggerated claims about the need to act, and inventing a conceptual magic wand to wish away potential consequences. Both are increasingly apparent in US policy toward North Korea’s nuclear aspirations. The assumption driving the perceived need to act is that a nuclear-armed North Korea with missiles that can reach the US is unacceptable. This could be true – if Kim Jong Un hoped to start a war once he got them, or if his control of the arsenal was so flimsy that missiles might be fired at random. There is little evidence to support either of those propositions, however. Related article North Korea launches ballistic missile North Korea has actually been mostly restrained since the infamous 2010 attack on a South Korean navy corvette and subsequent artillery attacks, with the exception of a 2015 land-mine incident, and most experts believe that the main obsession of North Korean leaders is regime survival. A reckless drive south, using the nuclear arsenal as a sort of geopolitical suicide vest, would destroy that goal. In fact, there is good historical reason to believe that an alternative approach can work: Deterrence, combined with a long-term effort to transform the regime in the North. That was the US Cold War strategy, adopted after Washington rejected heated demands for pre-emptive war against either the Soviet Union or China. Deterrence has worked in Korea since 1953. With help from China and Russia – in the limited but critical sense of broadcasting zero tolerance for North Korean aggression – it should be able to work in the future. Related article 'Rocket man' is awkward Dad Trump's attempt to be cool The second mistake is then to invent a scheme that wishes away the risks of pre-emptive action. In the case of Korea, the analogy to graduated escalation or the quick-exit proxy strategy is a notion of “limited” military strikes, attacks that would degrade the North’s nuclear capabilities and send a message without provoking general war. Such a scheme could work. One of the problems in recognizing an unfolding disaster is that there is always a chance the wishful plan could actually succeed. But the idea of limited strikes in Korea depends on a range of uncontrollable forces, from the reaction of local North Korean military officers to Kim Jong Un’s emotions. It is a shot in the dark rather than a strategy whose means and ends are tightly linked. Much like graduated escalation in Vietnam, it depends on largely untested, and ultimately unverifiable, assumptions about the adversary. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook At a minimum, the existence of these two symptoms of an emerging tragedy demands a far more intense national debate before the United States acts. And it suggests that two especially critical questions should be at the forefront of that debate: Is the alternative to action really unacceptable? And will the proposed course of action truly sidestep calamitous results? The consequences of a new war in Korea – especially if the North employs nuclear weapons – could be more catastrophic, both in terms of human life and international politics, than Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and a dozen other fiascoes put together. If there was ever a time to insist upon a deeper examination of proposed options, this is it. Because it is when unfounded assumptions and magical thinking come to guide US policies that disasters occur.


Couch attorney says "whether he was involuntarily or voluntarily taken to Mexico" is under review A hearing on moving Couch's case from juvenile to adult court is rescheduled for February 19 Did Ethan Couch go to Mexico because someone made him? One of his U.S.-based attorneys raised that possible scenario in a Fort Worth courtroom Tuesday and later to reporters after a hearing about Couch’s status as a juvenile was rescheduled for next month. In court Tuesday morning, Couch’s attorney Scott Brown argued the hearing to transfer the case to adult court shouldn’t be allowed to proceed because there was no proof that Couch “voluntarily absented himself” from being at the hearing. When asked by CNN whether Couch, the so-called “affluenza” teenager, was taken against his will to Mexico, Brown replied, “I don’t think that’s what I said. As far as Ethan being taken against his will, we are examining the facts, investigating the facts. “This is an evolving process, and whether he was involuntarily or involuntarily taken to Mexico is something that’s being investigated.” Before heading to Mexico with his mother, Couch was on probation in Texas for killing four people in a 2013 drunken-driving accident when he was 16. In mid-December, a warrant was issued for Couch, who’s now 18, to be taken into custody after his probation officer couldn’t reach him. He appeared to have dropped off the radar after a video emerged that allegedly showed him at a party where alcohol was consumed. Stephanie Patten, an attorney for his mother, Tonya Couch, acted surprised when reporters said her son’s lawyer hinted she may have taken him out of the country against his will. “I haven’t seen any evidence that that happened,” said Patten, adding she hadn’t heard this suggestion until reporters told her about it. Patten has said her client would plead not guilty to a charge of hindering the apprehension of a felon. Brown also said Couch is giving up his legal battle to stay in Mexico. Brown told reporters that Couch’s Mexican attorney, Fernando Benitez, filed a document that would “release an injunction and let the (transfer) process go forward.” CNN has reached out to Benitez for comment on whether the documents have been filed. Benitez earlier sought to block Couch’s transfer to the United States. A Mexican judge granted the teen a temporary stay two weeks ago, halting transfer proceedings. Couch and his mother were caught December 28 in the Pacific resort city of Puerto Vallarta after going missing a few weeks earlier. His probation officer had not been able to reach him. Related video 'Affluenza' teen's mom arraigned in court Tonya Couch was almost immediately transferred to Los Angeles and later to Texas, where she has yet to enter a plea. She was released last week after posting a $75,000 bond and agreeing to abide by certain requirements such as wearing an electronic ankle monitor. Her son resisted calls to leave Mexico. Benitez said earlier that his client could remain there for “a couple of months.” He said the teen had “committed no crime at all in Mexico” though the lawyer didn’t know whether his client had entered the country on a tourist visa. Ethan Couch could face possible jail time for failing to live up to the terms of his probation and slipping out of the country with his mother. His case attracted national attention and outrage in 2013 when a judge sentenced him to probation instead of jail time in the deadly drunken-driving accident. During the trial, a psychologist testified that Couch suffered from “affluenza,” suggesting he was too rich and spoiled to understand the consequences of his actions. ‘Affluenza’: Is it real? Brown, Patten and prosecutors appeared Tuesday in a Fort Worth court for what was to be a hearing about transferring Ethan Couch’s case from juvenile to an adult court. That hearing didn’t happen – at least in part because his parents weren’t officially notified about the legal proceeding. It was rescheduled for February 19, according to the Tarrant County criminal district attorney’s office. The delay upset those who have been advocating for the victims in the 2013 crash. “We are upset and disappointed it wasn’t able to proceed today,” said Jason Derscheid, executive director of the North Texas affiliate of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. “It’s going to draw out a painful and difficult time for all the victims trying to grieve.” Outrage, no surprise teen went on the lam Couch’s attorneys have not spelled out why they believe he was in Mexico, where the U.S. Marshals Service tracked the teen using a cell phone linked to him, according to an official briefed on the investigation. There was speculation that he fled after video surfaced on social media showing him playing beer pong, which would have violated his probation. The teen, who turns 19 in April, was found with a new look; his reddish blond hair and goatee had been dyed a dark color. CNN’s Ed Lavandera reported from Fort Worth, and CNN’s Greg Botelho and Steve Almasy reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN’s Jason Morris, Shawn Nottingham and Evan Perez contributed to this report.


There were mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, husbands, fathers, brothers and sons; their ages ranged from those in strollers to people with walkers and they were united in a message of solidarity with women around the world. On Saturday, thousands demonstrated in London, marching from the US embassy on Grosvenor Square to Trafalgar Square, to send a message to the incoming administration that “women’s rights are human rights,” according to organizers. Speakers told crowds at Trafalgar Square that at least 100,000 people had turned out. London’s Metropolitan Police do not provide crowd estimates, but aerial footage showed large numbers of people in the square. The protest – a “sister march” to demonstrations in the US – attracted a diverse crowd with a variety of concerns. Here are some of their voices: Flight attendant Tanya Jahnke-Baxter, 59, from California told CNN she was marching in London because of women’s reproductive rights. “I was 13 years old when they legalized abortion in our country. I’m 59. It’s still a subject that we’re debating, which I just find abhorrent.” “For me it’s been depressing,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine that my fellow countrymen wouldn’t come out to vote and we would end up with someone like Donald Trump as the president of our country.” Khan, 23, a publicist from Birmingham, told CNN she was marching because she wants people regardless of where they are from to be heard and appreciated. Women should “have the right to be in this world without fear,” she said. When asked about Trump’s statements about Muslims, Khan described them as “aged, and old, and ridiculous.” “To have such an ignorant point of view he must not have ever appreciated a woman who is more than just what she wears,” she said. “It makes him less of a man.” Author Natalie Le Brun, 34, from West Yorkshire told CNN she decided to march because she’s concerned “as a disabled person and an LGBT person.” “Things are genuinely scaring me at the moment and things need to change across the board (on) both sides of the pond,” Le Brun, whose girlfriend lives in Alabama, told CNN. “The government doesn’t seem to understand the disability issue, it doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not giving disabled people enough help…we’re being classed as lazy.” Nurse and mother-of-three Anna Webber told CNN she was marching with her seven-year-old daughter Freya because she wanted to “protest against the racism” that Trump “stands up for.” “I want to demonstrate and say that we’re against that…for our children and future generations.” Webber said that after Brexit she’s worried “that we’re becoming really inward looking.” “That’s not what we want,” she added. Natalie Tellwright, 26, a sustainable fisheries and marine conservation officer told CNN she was at the march with her girlfriend because they believe very strongly in “the environmental movement” and “LGBTQ rights.” “Hopefully people will listen and our rights are not taken away,” said Tellwright. Girlfriend Ruthie Musker, 28, originally from California, said she wanted to be at the march to “unite with the rest of the world.” Rachel Callender a lawyer born in Trinidad and Tobago, raised in Venezuela and educated in the US told CNN she was marching because there’s a “patriarchy that needs to be smashed.” “Inclusion is really important in these women’s issues,” she said. “Everyone is looking at America but it’s a global problem and by standing in solidarity with Washington today, I think that message will be sent.” “Women’s rights are everyone’s rights,” said 38-year-old Ben Dickson a commodity trader living in London. “We’re not happy that somebody like Trump can be elected. We can understand that democracy is what we have, but democracy also allows you to express your displeasure” Dickson said he felt lucky to be able to protest. “This is not a right that everyone has,” he said. Video by Sarah Delgrossi and Susie East, CNN


Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University and the editor of “The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment.” He’s also the co-host of the “Politics & Polls” podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @julianzelizer. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. The big myth about the 2016 presidential election was that economic suffering drove most of Donald Trump’s “base” directly into his hands in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The story goes that while Democrats were tied in knots about identity politics, Trump’s attacks on China, free trade and open-ended immigration appealed to struggling workers who believed he could bring back their jobs. The problem with the narrative is that we keep learning it is not true. Related article Why Trump and the GOP are gaining Some Democrats have responded to the widely circulated misconception about why Clinton lost by insisting that the party needs to move away from identity politics – issues revolving around gender equality and racial justice – and focus in on economic issues. Instead, Democrats should be basing their 2020 election strategy on what is actually true. A just-published study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by the political scientist Diana Mutz found that white, Christian, male voters were attracted to Trump out of fear that their social status keeps dwindling. It was, in fact, Trump who was focused on identity politics, not simply the Democrats. Mutz’s research found that members of Trump’s base believed they faced more discrimination as white males than most other groups, such as Muslims. “For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country, white Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race,” she writes. Related video Sources: Allies telling Trump his base thinks he's softening on immigration To play off of Bill Clinton’s 1992 famous campaign slogan, “It’s the economy, Stupid,” we might say: “It’s the culture, Stupid.” Mutz’s research offers a window into understanding why President Trump can promote a Reaganesque economic agenda that is so clearly at odds with his campaign promises. While the President keeps talking about the common man and woman, most of his economic policies, such as his tax overhaul or financial deregulations, have aimed to provide relief to corporations, investors, and families in the upper income brackets. But it is key to understand that his legislative actions are happening simultaneously with his continued rhetoric – attacks on immigrants, civil rights, gender equality, and anyone who dares to stand up for the ideas that he likes to deride as “political correctness” – that secured the support of his base to begin with. Related video Trump's female base holds despite allegations So, although these attacks are sometimes seen as a “distraction,” they are the main show, as Mutz’s research demonstrates – and they seem to be working. The nation is in the middle of a battle over what this country is about. Trump’s attacks on immigrants and other groups seem to sit well with white male voters who fear that other segments of society are gradually displacing them. And they still believe Trump is the only politician in Washington who truly understands the way their communities are suffering. Democrats certainly need to pay more attention to economic issues. And historically the party has implemented polices – which could now provide an alternative approach to appealing to anxious white, Christian men – that have done so. During the 1930s and early 1940s, President Franklin Roosevelt provided hard-working Americans some of the economic security they desired. FDR launched massive public works programs that created jobs for those who were unemployed, and he erected social safety-net programs – like unemployment insurance and Social Security – that protected working Americans from the vicissitudes of the market. Related article Trump just put himself in a political red zone In the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson launched a “War on Poverty” that aimed to provide struggling Americans, white and black, with the tools they needed to become economically self-sufficient. Those tools also included health care programs, like Medicare and Medicaid, to ensure that elderly Americans could receive care without facing economic ruin. Johnson and the Democratic Congress poured money into secondary and higher education to give working families an opportunity to advance their status. But this kind of economic liberalism today might only go so far in winning over Trump’s supporters. So, Democrats should be extremely wary about jettisoning the core social and cultural principles – civil rights and gender equity – that have animated their own base since the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Studies suggest that some of Trump’s voters will not change their minds in response to any kind of economic policies. The only way for Democrats to win those voters over would be to turn their backs on core constituencies, like college-educated, working women, African-Americans, and immigrants, who have been vital to the party for decades. Sign up for CNN Opinion’s new newsletter.Join us on Twitter and Facebook So, rather than trying to appease the cultural anxieties of white male voters, Democrats should instead focus on offering them economic solutions to their challenges, such as pushing for a robust infrastructure program (polling showed that 53% of white males in states won by Hillary Clinton support an infrastructure initiative), while energizing, organizing, and mobilizing the millions of Americans who were part of the coalition that Barack Obama successfully wove together in 2008 and 2012. It was a coalition that understood that the diversity of this country is its strength, not its weakness. Ultimately, the goal for Democrats should be to convince Trump’s base that this is the only viable future for the democracy. They might remember Hubert Humphrey, who told “States’ Rights” Democrats at the 1948 party convention: “To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.” In the short-term, Humphrey took a lot of heat for making that speech, which cost Democrats Southern votes. But in the long-run, he was on the right side of history.