In Canada we need picture ID to vote and I don’t hear of folks having difficulty getting the proper ID.
In Canada we need picture ID to vote and I don’t hear of folks having difficulty getting the proper ID.
Latina press officer Helen Aguirre Ferre leaves White House
Associated Press
Published:
August 9, 2018
Updated:
August 9, 2018 2:21 PM EDT
(Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Helen Aguirre Ferre, one of the most prominent Latinos serving in the White House, has left her job as director of media affairs.
White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said Thursday that Aguirre was taking up a new position as director for strategic communications and public affairs at the National Endowment for the Arts. She said Aguirre would start her new job in the next two weeks.
In a statement, Aguirre said she looks forward to “continuing to advance the President’s agenda in support of American communities through the National Endowment for the Arts which provides support to non-profit cultural institutions nationwide.”
Aguirre had held the White House job since the start of the Trump administration after serving as the Republican National Committee’s director of Hispanic communications. During her tenure, the White House removed the Spanish-language content from its website, a departure from the two previous administrations.
President Donald Trump’s engagement with Latinos has been complicated. During his campaign, Trump turned off many Latinos with his harsh anti-immigration rhetoric, including disparaging Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists. He criticized rival Jeb Bush for answering a reporter’s question in Spanish, saying the former Florida governor “should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States.”
Aguirre’s departure follows that of another high-profile Latino, Carlos Diaz-Rosillo, who in June left his job at the White House as deputy assistant to the president and director of policy and interagency co-ordination to become a senior deputy chairman at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Before joining the administration, Diaz-Rosillo had taught at Harvard in the Government Department. He did not reply to a message from the AP requesting comment.
The recent changes leave these Latinos serving closest to Trump: Mercedes Schlapp, White House director of strategic communications; Jennifer Korn, special assistant to the president and deputy director for the Office of Public Liaison; Juan Cruz, senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council.
http://torontosun.com/news/world/lat...es-white-house
putin portrait prank in colorado capitol leads to punishment for aide
associated press
published:
August 18, 2018
updated:
August 18, 2018 6:43 pm edt
russian prime minister vladimir putin attends a meeting outside moscow in novo-ogarevo on march 31, 2010. (alexey nikolsky/afp/getty images)
denver — an adviser to a democratic legislative leader in colorado has been punished for helping a progressive group put a picture of russian president vladimir putin on brief display at the state capitol building near a spot reserved for a portrait of president donald trump.
The prank, which made international news, happened in late july after reports that republicans hadn’t raised the $10,000 needed to commission a presidential portrait.
Aide katie march used her security badge to allow a member of progressnow colorado into the capitol with the picture of putin, kusa-tv reports . A tour guide removed it soon after a democratic state senator tweeted a picture.
House speaker crisanta duran of denver said march’s actions were “not sanctioned by the house leadership office.”
she “has been spoken to by state patrol and our office, and disciplinary action has been taken,” duran said.
March apologized.
“i saw this as a harmless prank but didn’t think through the potential impact of my actions on our building security,” march said in a written statement. “i sincerely apologize to my colleagues and to state patrol for my actions.”
soon after, republicans raised the money needed for the trump portrait. But senate president kevin grantham was not amused.
“this building belongs to all the people of colorado and i’m frankly shocked that anyone who works on staff here — and works for the top democrat in the house, no less — would be a party to something as inappropriate and over the line as this,” grantham said in a statement.
March also lost the credentials that allowed her to enter the capitol without going through security, duran said.
Progressnow colorado executive director ian silverii said the putin portrait was meant to raise public awareness of the danger of russian influence over trump.
http://torontosun.com/news/world/put...hment-for-aide
Former PM Chretien slams Trump: 'The true end of the American Empire'
Canadian Press
Published:
October 10, 2018
Updated:
October 10, 2018 8:19 AM EDT
OTTAWA — Jean Chretien says Donald Trump is “unspeakable” and his rise to the U.S. presidency heralds the decline of the American empire.
Chretien unleashes that unflattering opinion of Trump in a new book of anecdotes from his 10 years as Canada’s prime minister.
Although it’s entitled “My Stories, My Times,” Chretien, who retired from politics in 2003 after winning three majority mandates, does not shy away from opining on current events — most notably on Trump.
In the preface, Chretien says writing the book over the past year helped him recover his serenity when he got “tired of observing the surrealist vagaries of President Trump and of listening to his nonsense.”
“It’s been very sad to observe the monumental error our neighbours to the south made in November 2016,” he writes in a later chapter, in which he recounts happy times he and his wife, Aline, have spent with former U.S. president Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, who was defeated by Trump.
“I fear that Hillary’s defeat, and the arrival of the fanatical Trump, mark the true end of the American Empire.