Tag: official

MILAN (Reuters) - Italian President Sergio Mattarella is expected to ask a former International Monetary Fund official on Monday to head a stopgap government amidst political and constitutional turmoil, with early elections looking inevitable. Mattarella has called in Carlo Cottarelli after the anti-establishment Five Star and League parties abandoned plans to form a coalition following his veto of their choice of eurosceptic economist Paolo Savona to become economy minister. “We are seeing a decent relief rally in European markets, starting with the euro overnight, with the risk of an anti-euro finance minister in Italy being averted; but we have to see it in the context of Friday when we had a move reminiscent of 2011 in the heart of the euro zone debt crisis. We go into new elections and (League leader Matteo) Salvini could emerge as a stronger figure at the end of that. “From the macro point of view, the risks for public finances coming from the expansionary spending measures contained in the League-5 Star Movement government contract have clearly decreased, at least in the short term. “The problem both for investors and the rating agencies now is that there is likely to be: 1) an extended hiatus in power over the next few months 2) the prospect that the election campaign will become a referendum on the euro 3) the likelihood that an ever more radical government will take the reins of power after the next election. “We expect that a caretaker government would not win a confidence vote in parliament and that new elections could take place as early as October. On the one hand, a government that could have been perceived by financial markets as calling into question the participation of Italy in the European Union and its membership in the euro area has not been formed. “Now we need to understand what could be the outcome of a new vote, but what’s clear is that Europe will be at the center of the debate of the next campaign.” MARK ZANDI, CHIEF ECONOMIST AT MOODY’S ANALYTICS, in an interview with La Stampa newspaper “The latest developments add fresh uncertainty and complexity to Italy’s political situation. I expect investors to be very nervous and confused.

The history of presidents who obsess and dig up dirt on the administrations that preceded them isn’t pretty. Think Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Trump has actually exceeded them in paranoia and low political tactics. The Trump team hired a notorious Israeli spy outfit, Black Cube, to snoop into the personal lives of two former Obama officials, Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl, hoping to dig up evidence that they had revealed classified information to reporters, among other things. Indeed, it recalls the worst of Nixonian tactics, including treating principled political adversaries as dangerous enemies to be destroyed. Black Cube is the worthy inheritor of these kinds of heinous reputational hit jobs. Coming off the Observer story, the New Yorker revealed that Black Cube may have sent emails to the wives of Rhodes and Kahl via the same shell companies it used on behalf of disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein in an effort to discredit his accusers. Trump has labeled the Iran deal the “worst deal ever”. The whole point of the nuclear deal negotiated by Barack Obama’s team was to prevent this from ever happening. Scrapping the deal in the face of a 12 May deadline will only return the world to its very dangerous nuclear status quo.

More than six in 10 say that "significant changes" are necessary in American government. That's the percentage of people in the Pew poll who say they have a "great deal" of confidence in elected officials to act in the public's best interest. Meanwhile, 52% have "not too much," and 23% have no confidence at all in elected officials looking out for their best interests. Oomph. Whether you are a Republican, a Democrat or neither, that number is absolutely awful. It speaks not only to the negative view most Americans have for politicians but also the gulf between what they think is right and what they think politicians care about. (Sidebar: This lack of trust in institutions to look out for the average person is widespread. Overall, depressing figures.) That massive disconnect between people and the politicians who represent them is what led to President Donald Trump. He cast himself as the voice of the "forgotten" man and woman.

Labor Secretary Alex Acosta convinced Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney to overrule the nation’s regulatory czar and release a controversial tip pooling rule despite data showing workers could lose billions in gratuities, according to a new report. Bloomberg Law, citing three current and former executive branch officials, reported that Mulvaney sided with Acosta over the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which is led by Administrator Neomi Rao. The rule would change the Fair Labor Standards Act to allow employers to pool the tips of workers who make at least the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour. Employees who make less than the federal minimum wage and earn tips to supplement their pay were not part of the proposal. But progressive groups like the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and the National Employment Law Project say the rule lacks a safeguard to stop an employer from stealing a percentage of the workers' tips. In a statement to The Hill, a Department of Labor (DOL) spokesperson said the department does not comment on deliberative processes. "We will make an exception now, as the premise of this reporting is false: there is zero daylight between Director Mulvaney and Administrator Rao on regulatory policy," he said. "Acosta should withdraw DOL’s proposal that would make it legal for employers to take workers’ tips," she said in a statement. "He should focus on things that promote DOL’s mission of serving working people, not undermining their earnings." --This report was updated at 1:06 p.m.

A top official with the National Rifle Association's lobbying arm, the NRA-ILA, said Thursday following an Oval Office meeting with President Trump and Vice President Pence that the pair "don't want gun control." In a tweet, NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris Cox also defended Trump as supporting "strong due process" a day after the president raised eyebrows among gun rights advocates with his call to "take the guns first, go through due process second." "I had a great meeting tonight with @realDonaldTrump & @VP. We all want safe schools, mental health reform and to keep guns away from dangerous people. I had a great meeting tonight with @realDonaldTrump & @VP. We all want safe schools, mental health reform and to keep guns away from dangerous people. #NRA #MAGA — Chris Cox (@ChrisCoxNRA) March 1, 2018 Trump also acknowledged the meeting on Twitter, calling it a "good (great)" meeting but offering few details. Trump also accused Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) of being "afraid" of the NRA while attempting to tout his own independence from the organization. The NRA and its lobbying arm have faced massive criticism for their opposition to gun control in the days following last month's shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla. The confessed gunman, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, legally obtained the AR-15 rifle allegedly used in the attack that left 17 students and faculty dead and more than a dozen others wounded.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which selects winners of the peace prize, has said that someone using a stolen identity has nominated Donald Trump for the award. The Norwegian news agency NTB quoted committee secretary Olav Njolstad as saying it appears the same person was responsible for forging nominations in 2017, as well. Njolstad who could not immediately be reached for comment, declined to identify the person, adding that Norwegian police have been informed. “Every year, we get lots of invalid nominations, but these are nominations that are not valid because those who nominate are not qualified to do so,” Njolstad told NTB. “As far as I know, this is the first example of someone nominating someone by stealing another person’s identity.” Nobel peace prize: US lawmakers nominate Hong Kong protesters Read more Norway’s Nobel Committee keeps candidate names secret for 50 years. However, those who can nominate candidates – parliament members, university professors, directors of peace research and international affairs institutes, and former recipients – can go public with candidate’s names. In January, Henrik Urdal, manager of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, told the Associated Press that Trump had been nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize but said the nomination “still lacks a strong academic justification”. The leader of the independent Norwegian peace institute said it was “an American player with the right to nominate a candidate” who told him the person had tapped Trump. Urdal declined to name the person.

One senior administration official told Axios that Trump had recommended John Dunkin, who flew Trump’s plane during the campaign, for the position. The official said that Dunkin was interviewed for the post and was impressive. “He’s on the list because he's the president’s pilot, but if he gets the job it won't be because he's the president's pilot,” the official told Axios. Another administration official also confirmed that Dunkin was under consideration for the job, but that the pilot had the experience to lead the agency. “John Dunkin isn’t just a pilot," the official said to Axios. "He’s managed airline and corporate flight departments, certified airlines from start-up under FAA regulations, and oversaw the Trump presidential campaign’s air fleet, which included managing all aviation transportation for travel to 203 cities in 43 states over the course of 21 months.” Trump had not nominated anyone to head the FAA but has said that he believes the agency would be run better if it were led by a pilot, CNN reported earlier this month. The move comes amid a push by the Trump administration to privatize air traffic control. The president met with the heads of several major airlines at the White House earlier this month.

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Steele on Friday blasted a comment from a Conservative Political Action Conference spokesman in which the CPAC official said that the RNC picked Steele to lead the party because "he was a black guy." "I wanted to talk to [CPAC chair] Matt Schlapp first, but I think it’s painfully stupid what he said," Steele told the Observer when asked about a remark CPAC communications director Ian Walters made at a dinner during the conference. "If he feels that way I’d like him to come say that to my face," Steele added. "And then I’d like him to look at my record and see what I did. I can’t believe an official of CPAC would go onstage in front of an audience and say something like that. I’ve been a strong supporter of CPAC for many years and I thought they raised them better than that here." In a speech at CPAC's Ronald Reagan dinner on Friday, Walters reportedly criticized Republican thinking surrounding the decision to pick Steele to lead the RNC. Walters did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment on Friday night. Steele told the Observer that Walters's comment "shows a lack of maturity and a lack of understanding of the work we did and the work we continue to do." Steele, who led the RNC from 2009 until 2011, has spoken critically of President Trump in the past, including on Friday, when he blasted Trump's proposal to arm trained teachers on school campuses as "delusional."

In theory, we elect public officials to run the government. The government does a lot of things, and public officials make a lot of choices about what it will do. Both trends have led to a politics that's not very much about government anymore — and a politics where politicians make promises about cultural matters outside their control, setting themselves up to disappoint the voters. Arguably, she had too many policy proposals, and the clutter made it hard for any to stand out. A president can fix some policy problems but he's unlikely to change the country that much. The main political hazard of repeal has been that actually repealing the law could make politics about government again: Voters would notice when they lose their health insurance and no longer be so inclined to vote Republican for cultural reasons. Can politics be about government again? By making promises a Democratic administration could actually keep, this would also help rebuild trust in politicians and the government, increasing voters' openness to new taxes and spending in the long run. Another politician who made small-bore politics work was Bill Clinton.