He was arrested at 13. Now Saudi Arabia wants to execute him

By Muhammad Darwish, Tamara Qiblawi and Ghazi Balkiz, CNN

‘The last fight for Hong Kong’: activists gear up over extradition law

I’ll simply assume that everyone is aware that revolting Guaidó, err… the Guaidó Revolt, is nothing more than a CIA Op because the U.S. doesn’t want a scary “Socialist” leading any nations in the Western Hemisphere. There are plenty of corrupt Dictators in Latin America (see Brazil) and we do nothing. Venezuela is a special case.

In secret recording, Pompeo opens up about Venezuelan opposition, says keeping it united ‘has proven devilishly difficult’
By John Hudson, Washington Post
June 5, 2019

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo offered a candid assessment of Venezuela’s opposition during a closed-door meeting in New York last week, saying that the opponents of President Nicolás Maduro are highly fractious and that U.S. efforts to keep them together have been more difficult than is publicly known.

“Our conundrum, which is to keep the opposition united, has proven devilishly difficult,” Pompeo said in an audio recording obtained by The Washington Post. “The moment Maduro leaves, everybody’s going to raise their hands and [say], ‘Take me, I’m the next president of Venezuela.’ It would be forty-plus people who believe they’re the rightful heir to Maduro.”
…
Pompeo said he was confident Maduro would eventually be forced out, but “I couldn’t tell you the timing.”

He said the difficulty of uniting the opposition has not only played out in “public for these last months, but since the day I became CIA director, this was something that was at the center of what President Trump was trying to do.”

“We were trying to support various religious . . . institutions to get the opposition to come together,” he said.

He expressed regret that during a failed April 30 bid to incite a military uprising, competing interests among Maduro’s enemies and rivals prevented the socialist dictator’s swift exit.

“You should know, [Maduro] is mostly surrounded by Cubans,” Pompeo said. “He doesn’t trust Venezuelans a lick. I don’t blame him. He shouldn’t. They were all plotting against him. Sadly, they were all plotting for themselves.”

The remarks represent a sharp departure from the Trump administration’s official line touting the unity and strength of the opposition led by Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly leader recognized by some 60 countries as interim president.

“This is the first senior official I’ve heard be so publicly candid about the opposition’s weakness and how it may make bringing democracy back to Venezuela so much harder,” said Shannon O’Neil, a Venezuela expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“It is a sobering but accurate view,” she added. “They remain divided over how to take on the Maduro regime — whether or not to enter into dialogue, whether or not to engage with the military, whether or not to run a presidential candidate or boycott elections. They don’t even retweet each other.”

They don’t RE-TWEET! Quelle horreur ! Très gauche!

Pompeo also conveyed how difficult it would be to bring change to Venezuela even in the event that Maduro were ousted.

“Maduro’s departure is important and necessary but completely insufficient,” he said.

Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, said Pompeo’s remarks were surprisingly unguarded but “absolutely true.”

“The sad truth is that too many in the opposition are more interested in setting themselves up to be the Nelson Mandela figure than in finding a pragmatic path forward,” he said.

A representative of Guaidó disputed the characterization of disunity and said the young leader has brought together a diverse democratic movement.

“Guaidó is the most popular local figure in the country right now. Any poll will tell you that,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Pompeo’s off-the-record remarks. “He’s been able to coalesce a movement to put the fight against Maduro and achieve change. That’s the current status now.”
…
Pompeo said that solidifying Guaidó’s position has taken a long time but that the situation remained “tenuous.”

“We’ve been working, and it took this long to get to where we are today, where you have a leader — tenuous as it may be — who could’ve been arrested while we’re sitting in this room, who has managed to cobble together the opposition,” he said.
…
As the effort to remove Maduro has dragged on, the humanitarian situation has worsened, with a health system in “utter collapse with increased levels of maternal and infant mortality,” according to an April report by Human Rights Watch. The group tracked an uptick in vaccine-preventable diseases, including measles and diphtheria, and “high levels of food insecurity and child malnutrition” — all factors that have contributed to an exodus of more than 3.4 million Venezuelans in recent years.

Venezuela’s current economic condition is due in no small part to U.S. Sanctions and bad mouthing.

Faced with the dire circumstances, some countries that initially pledged support for Guaidó have begun exploring negotiations with Maduro, ignoring U.S. calls against dialogue. Leaders of European and Latin American countries met at the United Nations on Monday and issued a communique supporting Guaidó, as well as efforts to find a negotiated solution and increase contacts with all sides in Venezuela.

Meanwhile, the United States is stepping up pressure against Venezuela’s backer Cuba, issuing regulations Tuesday that place new restrictions on travel to the country.

In his remarks, Pompeo stressed his view that “Cubans are at the heart of the economic woes” in Venezuela. “I think we’ve got to find a way to disconnect them from Venezuela,” he said. “We’re working our tail off to try and deliver that.”

Recent thoughts from Pravda and Izvestia.

Here are seven reasons Trump should be impeached
By Max Boot, Washington Post
June 3, 2019

Article 1. Donald J. Trump, in violation of his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has obstructed the administration of justice:

1. He attempted to fire Mueller. The Mueller report found “substantial evidence . . . that the President’s attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel’s oversight of investigations that involved the President’s conduct.”

2. Trump attempted to curtail Mueller’s investigation. Mueller found “that the President’s effort to have [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct.”

3. He ordered White House counsel Donald McGahn to falsify the record to conceal his attempts to fire Mueller. Mueller found that Trump “acted . . . in order to deflect or prevent further scrutiny of the President’s conduct.”

4. He fired FBI Director James B. Comey, Mueller found, because of “Comey’s unwillingness to publicly state that the President was not personally under investigation.” Moreover, Mueller wrote, by firing Comey “the President wanted to protect himself from an investigation into his campaign,” because he knew “that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns.” Trump showed awareness of guilt by advancing “a pretextual reason to the press and the public for Comey’s termination.”

5. He tried to dissuade Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, and other witnesses from cooperating with the government. The non-cooperation of Manafort and Stone, in particular, made it impossible to establish the exact nature of the relationship between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Article II. Donald J. Trump, in violation of his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, failed to defend America from foreign election interference. As a candidate, he welcomed Russian intervention in the 2016 election and refused to notify the proper authorities of contacts between his campaign and representatives of Russia and WikiLeaks. As president, he denied that the Russian attack had even occurred, accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s false denials of responsibility, and showed no interest in determining the full scale of the attack. He repeatedly called the Russia investigation a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” even though Mueller determined “that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election” and that “the matters we investigated were of paramount importance.”

Article III. Donald J. Trump, in violation of his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, attempted to investigate and prosecute his political opponents. On three occasions, Mueller found, Trump asked the Justice Department to initiate investigations of Hillary Clinton. More recently, Trump and his attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, attempted to initiate an investigation of Joe Biden.

Article IV. Donald J. Trump, in violation of his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, and to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, failed to produce papers and testimony as duly directed by Congress. Trump obstructed at least 20 inquiries relating to his taxes, business records, the Mueller investigation and other matters.

Article V. Donald J. Trump, in violation of federal campaign finance laws, conspired with his attorney Michael Cohen in order to conceal alleged relationships with adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Playboy playmate Karen McDougal before the 2016 election.

Article VI. Donald J. Trump, in violation of his oath to uphold Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution (“No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law”), attempted to misuse his emergency powers to spend funds on a border wall that Congress did not appropriate.

Article VII. Donald J. Trump, in violation of his oath to uphold the emoluments clauses (which forbid the president from accepting benefits from foreign and state governments without the permission of Congress) retains ownership of a global business empire which allows him to benefit from dealings with foreign and state governments.

That Trump is guilty of these offenses – and more – is not necessarily an argument for moving forward with impeachment. That could backfire politically if it results, as it surely would, in a failure to convict by the Republican-controlled Senate. But don’t pretend, as do 249 out of 250 Republican members of Congress, that there is insufficient evidence to even open an impeachment inquiry. Trump has committed more criminal and unconstitutional conduct than any previous president in U.S. history. If they refuse to impeach him, members of Congress will violate their own oaths to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

That goes for you too Nancy.

The Articles of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump: A Draft
By Ian Prasad Philbrick, Editorial Staff of The New York Times
6/5/19

Article I

The Russian government engaged in a sophisticated campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. On May 17, 2017, a special counsel was appointed to investigate Russian interference, including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign. The special counsel was also given “the authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the special counsel’s investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses.” Subsequent thereto, Donald J. Trump, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede and obstruct the investigation of such Russian contacts and potential obstruction of justice; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.

The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following:

• withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative employees of the United States, including congressional committees;
• approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and encouraging witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;
• interfering or endeavoring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of the special counsel, and congressional committees;
• endeavoring to misuse the Department of Justice, an agency of the United States;
• making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Trump 2016 campaign, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct; or
• endeavoring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favored treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony or endeavoring to intimidate individuals who offered testimony.

In all of this, Donald J. Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore Donald J. Trump, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

Article II

Using the powers of the office of president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of president of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purpose of these agencies.

This conduct has included one or more of the following:

• He misused the Department of Justice, and other executive personnel, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office.
• He has failed to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates endeavoured to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted executive, judicial and legislative entities concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election, and the cover-up thereof.
• In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Department of Justice, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

In all of this, Donald J. Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Article III

In his conduct of the office of president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, contrary to his oath faithfully to execute the office of president of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has failed without lawful cause or excuse to produce papers and things as directed by duly authorized subpoenas issued by the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives on April 19, 2019, April 22, 2019, and May 21, 2019; the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the House of Representatives on April 15, 2019; the Committee on Financial Services of the House of Representatives on April 15, 2019; the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives on April 15, 2019, and May 8, 2019; and the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives on May 10, 2019, and willfully disobeyed such subpoenas. The subpoenaed papers and things were deemed necessary by the committee in order to resolve by direct evidence fundamental, factual questions relating to presidential direction, knowledge or approval of actions demonstrated by other evidence to be substantial grounds for impeachment of the president. In refusing to produce these papers and things Donald J. Trump, substituting his judgment as to what materials were necessary for the inquiry, interposed the powers of the presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, thereby assuming to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the sole power of impeachment vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.

In all of this, Donald J. Trump has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice, and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, Donald J. Trump by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office.

Calls for President Trump’s impeachment are getting louder. Since the release of Robert Mueller’s report, White House stonewalling of congressional subpoenas and Mr. Mueller’s first public comments, almost 60 House Democrats, a quarter of the caucus, have said they support an impeachment inquiry.

If Democrats do move to impeach Mr. Trump, the articles of impeachment drafted against past presidents will probably guide them. The Constitution leaves “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the term that describes impeachable offenses, vague, notes the historian Timothy Naftali, a co-writer of a recent book on impeachment. “So if you are doing your constitutional duty as an elected member of Congress, how do you define high crimes and misdemeanors?” he asked. “One of the ways you do it is by looking at past practice.”
…
Impeachment is often said to be a political process. But when you assess Mr. Trump’s conduct by the bar for impeachment set by past Democratic and Republican lawmakers for past presidents of both parties, the results are striking. The pathway to a possible Trump impeachment is already mapped out.
…
These rewritten articles against Mr. Trump don’t include other potentially impeachable offenses that lack a clear precedent in the Nixon and Clinton cases, such as hush-money payments to women or possible violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
…
(T)here is no question that by the standards for high crimes and misdemeanors applied to past presidents in living memory, Donald J. Trump has committed impeachable offenses.

Clio calls.

June 6th, 1944, it was a day, The Longest Day according to some because (of course) advance units were already in motion on June 5th.

I duly bemoan the sad state of Historical Pedagogy (minds out of the gutter folks, could have used “instruction” but I like to be obnoxious) that allows the Atlantic Powers (I’m looking at you England and France too) to imagine that it was in any way (except one I shall mention at the end) pivotal and critical to the defeat of the European Axis Powers.

Nazi Germany was already beaten and had been for years.

Comrades! Allow me to send you greetings from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Worker’s Paradise! Each Independent Republic is a Representative Democracy of the Proletariat with a delegation in the United Federation. Political Parties? There is only one Political Party, just the way Madison and Jefferson intended.

WE ARE NOT RUSSIA!

Perish the thought.

The Red Steamroller

On June 22nd, 1941, Germany launched an attack on the Soviet Union. Poorly organized and led after recent purges and armed with slightly inferior equipment for the same reason, the Soviets suffered defeat after defeat as the Germans seemed able to attack at will.

The thing is though, the USSR is big, really big, and there are many distractions. The German offensive ground to a halt in the Fall rain and mud.

On December 2nd a German Combat Engineer Patrol reached Khimki. Scouts claimed they could see the Domes of the Kremlin. It was the closest they would get.

On December 5th the Red Army began the Moscow Strategic Offensive Operation.

What the Soviets had learned from their chief spy in Tokyo, Richard Sorge, in mid-September, was that Japan was committing a maximum effort to it’s Offensive on the United States and Britain in the Pacific (the action actually started with the Bombardment of Kota Bharu, 50 minutes before Pearl Harbor). They took 18 divisions, 1,700 tanks, and over 1,500 aircraft away from Siberian border where they had been held in Reserve (Japanese thrashed spineless corrupt Romanov oppressors in 1905) and transferred them West.

The Germans were taken by complete surprise and hampered by exceptionally low temperatures. In late December the Luftwaffe was able to achieve at least parity with the Red Army Air Force after ceding control of the Air for weeks. German lines stabilized about 62 – 155 miles behind their initial positions. Operations ceased around January 7th, 1942.

There were more purges, German ones, and Hitler assumed direct control of the Military, bypassing his General Staff which was populated by reliable yes-men.

Here’s another date- February 2nd, 1943. That was the end of Stalingrad, a place of no strategic importance whatsoever until Hitler decided to make a statement and lost a reinforced Army or two. Where are my Legions Varus? To be fair Hitler was no more strategically misdirected than the norm (consider Churchill’s “soft underbelly”), though he was remarkably persistent which is not an advantage if you have limited resources.

How about August 23rd, 1943? That was the end of the Battle of Kursk. Germany was never again able to mount an Offensive Campaign in the East.

June 6th, 1944? Important to be sure but mostly in that Conan sense-

What is best in life?

Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear their lamentations.

The Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation began on January 12th, 1945 with the Vistula–Oder Offensive. By April 30th Hitler was dead and by May 3rd the German garrison surrendered.

Had Operation Overlord failed Germany still would have fallen.

Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that Bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.

Pivotal

I did mention there was a way in which the Invasion at Normandy was pivotal and that is this-

Without it you would have Vodka and Borscht as well as Vin and Baguettes in the Café on the Champs-Élysées.

D-day 75th anniversary: ceremonies in Normandy – live news

Follow live updates as world leaders join veterans to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings in Normandy

Pope: ‘peace is based on respect for each person’

Aung San Suu Kyi finds common ground with Orbán over Islam

Hannah Ellis-Petersen

Thu 6 Jun 2019 06.12 BST

From her failure to speak out against ethnic cleansing to imprisoning journalists, the reputation of Aung San Suu Kyi in the west has taken a battering in recent months.

But the leader of Myanmar has found a new ally in far-right, staunchly anti-immigrant Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.

In a rare trip to Europe, state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace prize laureate who was once the figurehead of the fight for democracy in Myanmar, met Orbán in Budapest. There, the two leaders found common ground on the subject of immigration and Islam .

Sudan: Security forces ‘hiding corpses’ of protesters dumped in the Nile and ‘raping doctors’ amid brutal crackdown

Khartoum now a ‘ghost town gripped by fear’ after 101 people killed in surge of violence

Bel TrewMiddle East Correspondent @beltrew

The bodies of dozens of slain protesters have been pulled from the Nile in Khartoum and taken to an unknown location, opposition activists have claimed, after 101 people were killed across Sudan during a deadly crackdown on pro-democracy rallies.

Feared paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) allegedly retrieved at least 40 corpses from the river on Tuesday, according to Sudan Doctors’ Committee, who organised the main sit-in in the capital that was cleared the day before.

Protesters separately told The Independent they witnessed the paramilitaries hurling corpses into the river in the capital after opening fire on civilians.

Plastic Surgery and BotoxThe Pressure to Be Beautiful in South Korea

Lips plumped up during the lunch break, implants for a rounder head: Cosmetic surgery is extremely common in South Korea, even among men. The pressure to look good in the country is immense.

By Katharina Graça Peters and Suhwa Lee (photos), in Seoul

It’s been a few years since Park Jae Hun has had a relationship, but he hopes that’s all about to change. After all, he’s been doing what he can to improve his prospects.

He’s already had surgery on his eyelids and nose. Now the contours of his chin will be enhanced, and the corners of his mouth corrected to point upwards, so he’ll look friendlier. Park says that he’d like to have a beautiful girlfriend, adding: “Maybe this will give me better chances.”

Park, 29, is sitting in a café in the South Korean capital Seoul. His hair is thinning, so he sometimes wears a hairpiece, as he is today. After coffee, he’ll head over to the clinic for his appointment.

Syrian Kurds repatriate 8 people from IS group families to US

Two American women and six children from families of suspected Islamic State (IS) group members were repatriated to the United States on Wednesday in the latest transfers from a crowded camp in Syria.

Staggering homeless count stuns LA officials

By Maeve Reston, CNN

Updated 0435 GMT (1235 HKT) June 6, 2019

Look, a Tariff is a Tax placed on Consumers and Businesses of the Country imposing the Tariff as a disincentive to purchase Imports from a particular provider. By definition. Now there are other offensive (especially to Free Traders) economic actions that one can take like Blockades (depriving someone of a necessary Input) and Embargos (refusing to sell your goods to a specific customer, like China is going to do to us with Rare Earths if we provoke it), but those are not Taxes.

A tariff is a Tax.

Now Republicans, what do they hate? That’s right, they hate Taxes.

GOP lawmakers warn White House they’ll try to block Trump’s Mexico tariffs
By Erica Werner, Seung Min Kim, Damian Paletta, and Mary Beth Sheridan, Wasington Post
June 4, 2019

Defiant Republican senators warned Trump administration officials Tuesday they were prepared to block the president’s effort to impose tariffs on Mexican imports, threatening to assemble a veto-proof majority to mount their most direct confrontation with the president since he took office.

During a closed-door lunch on Capitol Hill, at least a half-dozen senators spoke in opposition to the tariffs President Trump intends to levy next week in an attempt to force Mexico to limit Central American migration to the United States. No senator spoke in support, according to multiple people present who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

The lawmakers told officials from the White House and Justice Department they probably had the Senate votes they needed to take action on the tariffs, even if that meant overriding a veto.

“There is not much support in my conference for tariffs — that’s for sure,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). He said senators hope that negotiations with Mexico will be “fruitful” and that the tariffs will not happen. Most GOP senators strongly oppose tariffs because they view them as taxes on Americans.

The contentious lunch meeting occurred just hours after Trump, during a news conference in London, reiterated his intention to impose the tariffs next week and said it would be “foolish” for Republican senators to try to stop him.

“Mexico shouldn’t allow millions of people to try and enter our country, and they could stop it very quickly and I think they will,” Trump said at a news conference alongside British Prime Minister Theresa May. “And if they won’t, we’re going to put tariffs on. And every month those tariffs go from 5 percent to 10 percent to 15 percent to 20 and then to 25 percent.”

The escalating tension between Trump and Senate Republicans came on the eve of a critical meeting at the White House on Wednesday between U.S. and Mexican officials, led by Vice President Pence and including an array of top officials from the Mexican government. The goal on the Mexican side is to head off the tariffs — the country sends 80 percent of its exports to the United States and counts it as its top trading partner.

But Mexican officials have been confused about what precisely the White House is demanding in exchange for the tariffs to be withdrawn, and White House officials will not say exactly what Trump wants. Some White House officials believe the meeting will mark the beginning of earnest negotiations that will pick up in intensity after the tariffs have been in place for a while. But many GOP senators view the imposition of the tariffs as unacceptable, and even as they hoped for a positive outcome from Wednesday’s talks they weighed their options for stopping the levies.

The exact process for a vote to block the tariffs remained unclear, but the basic scenario arises from the national emergency Trump declared at the southern border earlier this year to get more money for his border wall. Imposition of tariffs on all Mexican goods requires a legal justification, and administration officials say the existing emergency declaration could provide the basis for that, although it’s also possible Trump would declare a new emergency.

But the law that provides for presidential emergency declarations also allows Congress to vote to overturn them. When Trump declared the border emergency earlier this year, Congress voted to overturn it, but Trump vetoed the measure and Congress failed to override the veto.

This time, opponents of Trump’s tariffs say they have enough support in the Senate to override a veto. If so, it would be the first successful veto override vote in the Trump presidency and a striking defeat for Trump — even if the House ultimately sustains the president’s veto. A two-thirds vote is required in each chamber to override a veto, and Republicans in the House have shown scant interest in defying the president.
…
Afterward, some Republicans emerged from the lunch convinced that opposition to Trump’s proposed levies on Mexico runs so deep that GOP senators could produce a veto-proof margin on a disapproval resolution.

“I sure do,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said when asked whether he thought there would be at least 20 Republican votes to reject Trump’s tariffs on Mexico — which would constitute a veto-proof margin in combination with Democratic opposition. “There’s just a weariness of tariffs as the only tool in the tool kit that gets used.”

But senators were uncertain after the lunch about how Trump would proceed if he does impose the tariffs, and his actions will dictate their response.
…
Trump shocked U.S. lawmakers and Mexican leaders last week by announcing that he would impose a 5 percent tariff on all goods imported from Mexico on June 10, and then increase the levies each month if Mexico doesn’t crack down on migrants.

GOP lawmakers warned White House officials that the tariffs could imperil the chances of passing an overhaul of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, but Trump has remained undeterred.

Trump’s tone as he addressed reporters in London contrasted with that of Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who said at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday that he thought his country had an 80 percent chance of reaching a deal.

Mexico has undertaken a vigorous offensive to avert the U.S. tariffs. Mexico’s economic minister, its agriculture minister and others are meeting with U.S. counterparts, and delegations of Mexican lawmakers and business leaders traveled to Washington to warn against the tariffs.

This may or may not turn out to be a big deal, but there is no doubt that the Tariff concept itself is deeply stupid (also Bigoted and Racist).