Tag: Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard was dispatched to rescue more than 30 people caught in a fire on a boat off Santa Cruz Island early on Monday. NBC's Blayne Alexander reports the latest. » Subscribe to MSNBC: http://on.msnbc.com/SubscribeTomsnbc MSNBC delivers breaking…

A neo-Nazi serving as a lieutenant in the US coast guard has been caught plotting to attack Democratic members of Congress, including congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and well-known media personalities, according to prosecutors. Christopher Hasson intended “to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country”, according to a filing to federal court in Maryland. Law enforcement officers seized 15 guns and 1,000 rounds of ammunition from his home. Prosecutors said Hasson was a “domestic terrorist” and should be detained. The filing said Hasson, a fan of the Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, compiled a spreadsheet of apparent targets, including representatives Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, and anchors from CNN and MSNBC. Since early 2017, Hasson had “routinely perused” a copy of a manifesto drawn up by Breivik, the Norwegian far-right extremist who killed 77 people in the country in 2011, according to US investigators. Prosecutors said that on 17 January, Hasson began compiling a spreadsheet of prominent people “consistent with the types of people who Breivik identifies as ‘traitors’ and targets for an attack”. Many on the list have also been frequent subjects of abuse from Republicans including Trump. The list included “poca warren”, which prosecutors said was an apparent reference to senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. It also included cable news presenters such as Scarborough, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes and Ari Melber, and CNN’s Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo and Van Jones.

Cruz had just made the argument that the Senate should give Trump $5.7 billion in funding for a border wall so the government shutdown could be lifted and Coast Guard employees could get paid. And then he laid into Cruz on the matter of eminent domain. And, as the Bennet v. Cruz bout reminded us as well, the fight over Trump’s border wall bears a strong similarity to another recent attempt by the federal government to seize private land in Texas—one that played out a lot differently. A mundane turning of the federal bureaucracy, one might think, except that the BLM and Texas landowners south of the river happened to disagree pretty vigorously on where the south bank of the river actually was, and the difference between the two put the ownership of a lot of privately owned land in doubt. Texas politicians may well have been right to come to the defense of the Red River ranchers. In order to build Trump’s border wall, or fence, or whatever, the federal government will have to seize a substantial amount of land on the Rio Grande’s north bank. It would be one thing if Congress agreed to fund and build the wall, signifying it as a national priority—that’s how things are supposed to work. Because the fight over the wall is understood by the national media to be a D.C. story—about whether Trump or his foes will prevail in a political game—the impact that the wall would have on people who live next to it has received very little play in the national media. Ted Cruz was another one of the people who made hay out of the fight on the Red River, pressuring the agency and then, when declaring victory in 2017, writing that “Texans along the Red River should not be subject to the seizure of property they rightfully own.” On Thursday, on the Senate floor, when he rose to urge Democrats to capitulate and pass funding for the wall, Senator Bennet noted how odd it was that Cruz was going to the mat in support of a project that would seize his constituents’ property. And why has no one who supports the wall made the honest case that the wall would be worth more to the nation than it would cost south Texans?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Signs of strain from the 34-day partial government shutdown are emerging on the Senate floor. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado tore into Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Thursday after Cruz backed a GOP bill to pay Coast Guard members but not reopen the government. The normally mild-mannered Bennet erupted in a fiery speech, saying, “These crocodile tears that the senator from Texas is crying for first responders are too hard for me to take.” Bennet noted that Cruz single-handedly shut down the government in 2013, at a time when Colorado was flooded. His voice rising to a shout, Bennet said eight people were killed and many homes and businesses destroyed because of the flooding. “And because of the senator from Texas, this government was shut down for politics,” delaying relief efforts, Bennet said. Cruz, who led a 16-day government shutdown in a failed bid to derail funding for the Affordable Care Act, said Bennet “spent a great deal of time yelling (and) attacking me personally,” adding that he has never “bellowed or yelled at a colleague on the Senate floor, and I hope I never do that.” Bennet shot back that, unlike Cruz, he never called someone a liar on the Senate floor. Cruz famously accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of lying to him during an extended tirade in 2015. Bennet also denounced President Donald Trump, saying he “wants $5 billion to build some antiquated medieval wall that he said Mexico would pay for. This is a joke.” Cruz, for his part, said Bennet and other Democrats opposed the wall merely because of Trump. “They really, really, really, really don’t like this man,” Cruz said.

Public opinion polls show more Americans blame President Donald Trump than opposition Democrats at the moment, and to some the standoff is already serving as a likely blueprint for the 2020 presidential election battle. "Trump is losing on this, Congress is losing on this, and then federal workers, who are without pay, are losing on this," said Jim Kessler of Third Way, a center-left public advocacy group in Washington. Wall or bust President Trump remains adamant about funding for a wall along the southern border, a key campaign promise from 2016. On Thursday, the Senate will vote on competing proposals to end the shutdown, one from the White House and Republicans, the other from Democrats. "We, the Coast Guard, the Border Patrol and other folks that make this country safe and secure, we don't get that much money; but, we should be paid for it," Gosman told reporters. "Public opinion polls, I think, are more against the president than against the Democrats," said Fortier. A new poll Wednesday from Morning Consult/POLITICO found that 54 percent blamed President Trump and congressional Republicans for the shutdown, while 35 percent blamed congressional Democrats. Overall, the president's approval rating has suffered during the shutdown, dropping from an average of around 43 percent last month to around 40 percent this year. A new CBS poll also found that by a margin of 71 to 28 percent, voters believe that money for a border wall is not worth shutting down the government. "And both sides will have to give something.

Some federal employees, including Transportation Security Administration agents, continue to work despite the government shutdown. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make rent.” She added: “I’m basically living on credit now.” Charles Aitken, who works in inventory management for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is continuing to report to work in Virginia. Trash at the Ellipse, near the White House, piled up during the shutdown. “It’s a real challenge for us,” said Cari Thomas, a retired rear admiral and the chief executive officer of a nonprofit that is the official relief society of the Coast Guard. “It’s about $150 million each pay period to pay the active duty and civilian employees of the Coast Guard, and our nonprofit does not have $150 million, as you can imagine.” She said she had been on the phone on Friday morning with a senior member of the Coast Guard, who is not eligible for the aid and was in tears, worrying about whether he would be able to pay his rent on Jan. 5. Anxieties are highest for the 800,000 federal workers furloughed or forced to work without pay. But the fear is spreading far beyond the federal work force, hitting government contractors, local governments forced to cover for furloughed sanitation and maintenance workers and organizations that feed the poor, who are dealing with a possible interruption to sources of funding and provisions. The Department of Agriculture’s emergency food assistance program, which sends surplus agricultural products to food banks, and the commodity supplemental food program, which provides food to low-income seniors, are both at risk, according to Catherine Drennan, the director of communications and public affairs at the Greater Boston Food Bank. The shutdown is already causing major problems at national parks despite efforts by states and private groups to offset the loss of federal funding. A pileup of trash and dirty toilets during the shutdown has drawn intense concern at Joshua Tree National Park in California.

Admiral Karl Schultz discusses the U.S. Coast Guard's mission on 'The Story with Martha MacCallum.' FOX News Channel (FNC) is a 24-hour all-encompassing news service dedicated to delivering breaking news as well as political and business news. The number one…

Seth Meyers' monologue from Wednesday, October 4. » Subscribe to Late Night: http://bit.ly/LateNightSeth » Get more Late Night with Seth Meyers: http://www.nbc.com/late-night-with-seth-meyers/ » Watch Late Night with Seth Meyers Weeknights 12:35/11:35c on NBC. LATE NIGHT ON SOCIAL Follow Late Night on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LateNightSeth…