‘If I have to get a lawyer, I will’: Trump voter upset the border wall will put her house on Mexico side





http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/if-i-have-to-get-a-lawyer-i-will-trump-voter-upset-his-border-wall-will-put-her-house-on-mexico-side/

As part of a CNN special report on the impact the wall between the U.S. and Mexico will have on border dwellers in the state that went overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump, the network found there is already an extensive history of government lawsuits filed to take property from homeowners. With Trump’s wall planned for the entire border, some of his supporters are now saying they will fight his administration in the courts.

According to one family who had their farm cut in half — part of it in the U.S., part of it in Mexico — they are still stunned that government was able to take their property 10 years ago.

“I was very angry, I just kept saying, how can they do that? How is that possible in the United States that they can do this?” D’Ann Loop of Brownsville recalled. “They put up a fence in front of our land and then keep us in here — lock us in. I didn’t understand. I was very — I was floored and flabbergasted.”

According to Loop, all of their property is now on the Mexico side after losing in court.

Michele Bachmann: FBI listening in on Trump staffer Russian calls is ‘1000 times worse than Watergate’



http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/michelle-bachmann-fbi-listening-in-on-trump-staffer-russian-calls-is-1000-times-worse-than-watergate/

Speaking with USA Radio host Rusty Humphries on Monday, the former lawmaker — who chose to step down in 2015 — echoed Trump’s Twitter complaints that the media should be covering the surveillance and not the Trump-Russia connection, reports Western Journalism.

“This is a thousand times worse than Watergate,” Bachmann told Humphries. “This is the only thing the press should be talking about for the next month.”

“This is against the law. What the Obama administration did is surveil Americans citizens for political purposes to hurt the Trump campaign politically,” Bachmann asserted, leaving out that the intelligence agencies picked up the Trump aides when listening in on Russian conversations.

Bachmann accused the Obama administration of being ‘bold and lawless,” before adding that she thinks Democrats are asking for hearings on the “fake news” about Russian involvement to keep the Justice Department from looking at “high officials in the Obama administration,” who could end up in jail.

Blackwater founder held secret Seychelles meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html

The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

The meeting took place around Jan. 11 — nine days before Trump’s inauguration — in the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean, officials said. Though the full agenda remains unclear, the UAE agreed to broker the meeting in part to explore whether Russia could be persuaded to curtail its relationship with Iran, including in Syria, a Trump administration objective that would likely require major concessions to Moscow on U.S. sanctions.

Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.

Prince was an avid supporter of Trump. After the Republican convention, he contributed $250,000 to Trump’s campaign, the national party and a pro-Trump super PAC led by GOP mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, records show. He has ties to people in Trump’s circle, including Stephen K. Bannon, now serving as the president’s chief strategist and senior counselor. Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos serves as education secretary in the Trump administration. And Prince was seen in the Trump transition offices in New York in December.

Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Gorsuch in Party-Line Vote

■ The Senate Judiciary Committee, in a party-line, 11-to-9 vote, sent the nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch for the Supreme Court to the full Senate for consideration.

■ Democrats now seem to have the votes to filibuster Judge Gorsuch’s nomination.

■ But Republicans will most likely vote to change Senate practices later in the week so that Judge Gorsuch could be approved with a simple majority vote.

■ The tenor of the Judiciary Committee strongly suggests that the full Senate debate on Judge Gorsuch will be even more contentious.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/us/politics/gorsuch-confirmation.html?_r=0

In an interview with the Financial Times, Trump said that despite the recent collapse of the Republican health care bill, negotiations were continuing among party leaders on a new bill.

The stumbling block, Trump suggested, was the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative group that Trump has blamed for the failure last month of the Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act.

He said he hoped Republicans would unite behind a new plan.

But "if we don't get what we want, we will make a deal with the Democrats," he said. If that happens, "we will have in my opinion not as good a form of healthcare, but we are going to have a very good form of health care, and it will be a bipartisan form of health care."

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/trump-renews-gop-threat-ill-work-with-democrats-on-healthcare-unless-we-get-what-we-want/