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NEWS FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 2017 NEWS

Barcelona Terror Attack: At Least 12 Dead After Van Plows Into Crowd
ISIS on Thursday afternoon claimed responsibility for the terror attack in Barcelona that killed at least 12 people and wounded 80 others. The terror group took credit for the assault via its propaganda arm, according to SITE Intel Group. "The perpetrators of the attack in #Barcelona are Islamic state soldiers and carried out the operation on command of [ISIS' leader] of targeting coalition countries," the ISIS release stated. At least two people have been arrested as suspects in the attack, the regional president of Catalonia said. One of those arrested is Driss Oukabir, a Moroccan citizen who lived in Spain legally, as a suspect in the attack. Oukabir rented the van that was used in the attack, according to El Pais. A government official has confirmed to Fox News that intelligence agencies are now combing through their holdings, including terror watch lists, to determine if Oukabir was known to the FBI, DHS and other agencies. Fox
VOA VIEW: A sad day for many.

US Men's College Basketball Teams Confirmed Safe
Representatives of four major men’s college basketball teams in the midst of a tour of Spain said Thursday that students and staffers are safe after several people were killed by a rogue van in Barcelona in what authorities are calling a terrorist attack. Clemson University men’s basketball team said in a Twitter post that its “entire travel party is safe and secure” after the attack. The Tigers had been scheduled to play an exhibition game against the Barcelona All-Stars on Friday.
“Their exhibition game for tonight has been canceled and the team will return to Clemson as previously scheduled tomorrow morning,” the team said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the people of Barcelona and those injured at this time.” Fox

Trump Calls Removal of Confederate monuments 'so foolish'
President Donald Trump on Thursday denounced the removal of monuments to Confederate figures as "sad" and "so foolish," days after white supremacists and neo-Nazis took to Charlottesville, Virginia, to violently protest the planned removal of a statue of the Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. "Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments," Trump said in a series of tweets. "You can't change history, but you can learn from it." Trump's tweets came as he continued to face criticism for comments he made on Tuesday in which he blamed "both sides" of the Charlottesville protests -- the white supremacists and those protesting against them -- for the violence that took hold of that small Virginia city. CNN
VOA VIEW: CNN wants to double down on lies.

Ivanka Trump Silent After Her Father Causes Outrage At Press Conference
Sequestered on a brief holiday with her husband Jared Kushner in Vermont, Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump's eldest daughter -- one of his senior advisers and the closest member of his family who is Jewish -- has yet to comment on the events of her father's Tuesday afternoon press conference. In the wake of the President's remarks that he believes white supremacists and neo-Nazis are held in equal comparison to the so-called "alt-left" protesters who clashed in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, Ivanka Trump's silence, 24 hours later, has raised questions about her engagement in the major national controversy, or lack thereof. Requests by CNN for comment from Trump and Kushner were declined. Other Jewish members of the Cabinet have likewise not weighed in publicly on Trump's tirade. CNN
VOA VIEW: CNN had no reason other than to establish "fake news" bring any one else into the forum.

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Russian Gov’t Slams US For ‘Supplying Chemical Agents To Terrorists And Using Photos Of Killed Children'
Russia and Syria's Assad regime have long accused blamed rebel groups for chemical weapons attacks. On Wednesday they seized on the reported discovery of riot-control gas to claim that the West was providing “internationally-banned poisonous materials” to militants. The regime’s foreign ministry accused the U.S., Britain and their allies of violating the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) by supplying them. Deputy foreign minister Fayssal Mekdad pointed to article one, clause five of the convention, which says: “Each State Party undertakes not to use riot-control agents as a method of warfare.” The charges came shortly after a Syrian human rights group claimed in a new report that the regime has carried out five chemical attacks in and around Damascus since a deadly April 4 toxic gas attack in Idlib province that prompted President Trump to order a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base. CNS

Key Republican Calls For ‘Radical Changes’ In Trump's Presidency
A Senate Republican who once considered joining Donald Trump’s administration called Thursday for “radical changes,” saying the president hasn’t yet demonstrated the characteristics needed to serve in his job. “We’re at a point where there needs to be radical changes take place at the White House itself. It has to happen,” Senator Bob Corker told local reporters in his home state of Tennessee. “I think the president needs to take stock of the role that he plays in our nation and move beyond himself -- move way beyond himself -- and move to a place where daily he’s waking up thinking about what is best for the nation.” Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and met with Trump before his inauguration to discuss the possibility of becoming his secretary of State, was responding to questions about how Trump handled the recent racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Bloomberg
VOA VIEW: Corker is a sore loser.

Steve Bannon: “There’s No Military Solution” To North Korea Threat
President Donald Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon said there was no military solution to the threat posed by North Korea and its nuclear ambitions, despite the president's recent pledge to answer further aggression with "fire and fury." In a rare and wide-ranging interview with The American Prospect posted online Wednesday, Bannon said, "There's no military solution, forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul [South Korea] don't die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no military solution here, they got us." Bannon also told the publication that the U.S. was losing the economic race against China and talked about purging his rivals from the Defense and State departments. CBS
VOA VIEW: There were two different thoughts on the same subject.

Number Of Asylum Seekers To Canada Up Four Fold In August
Over 3,800 migrants crossed illegally into the Canadian province of Quebec in the first two weeks of August. That is well over four times the number of asylum seekers that arrived in Quebec from the United States in the month of June. Canada has had a surge of refugee claimants in recent months, especially into the French-speaking province. It is trying to stem the tide with the warning that landing in Canada is not an automatic ticket into the country. Both provincial and federal officials are concerned that misinformation about Canada's refugee system is being propagated through social media, helping fuel the influx. BBC

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White Nationalists Warn They Will Return To Charlottesville
A leader in the white nationalist movement said he remains emboldened and warned, "We will be back Charlottesville," days after groups espousing racist ideologies rampaged through the city. Matthew Heimbach, chairman of the Traditionalist Worker Party, said Wednesday that members are upset by the way state and local government "restricted our constitutional rights" during a rally Saturday when white nationalists clashed with activists protesting racism. "They are the ones that lead to the violence because they did not do their job to ensure that not only us, but also the opposition, could have their constitutionally protected freedom of speech," Heimbach said, adding, "We will be back Charlottesville, and we will be back with more men. More women." NBC

Trump's Attacks Could Leave Him Friendless If Impeachment Comes
President Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Republican senators, an approach he may regret if he is someday impeached and the Senate has to weigh charges against him stemming from an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. More than half of the 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would be central to any proceeding to remove Trump from office, have tangled with the Republican president, including on Thursday when he fired off early-morning tweets. In one Twitter series, Trump called Senator Lindsey Graham "publicity seeking" and said he "just can't forget his election trouncing" in the 2016 presidential race. Trump also assailed Senator Jeff Flake, another Republican critic, as "a non-factor in the Senate," adding, "He's toxic." Reuters
VOA VIEW: Republicans better worry about 2018 - the liberal media may be winning.

Donald Trump Tells Barcelona He Will Do 'Whatever Is Necessary To help' After Las Ramblas Terror Attack
Donald Trump has told Spain he "will do whatever is necessary to help" the terror attack on Barcelona's Las Ramblas on Thursday. "Be tough & strong, we love you!" the US president said. Melania Trump, the first lady, also tweeted. At least 13 people were reported by local media to have been killed when a white van crashed into a crowd of people on the busy street that is popular with tourists. Dozens more were injured. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that consular assistance was being provided to Americans in the city, and urged US nationals to check in with their families. Tillerson told a press conference with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and their Japanese counterparts the incident had "all the hallmarks of yet another terrorist attack.
The Telegraph UK

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Suit Demands Visitor Logs For Parts Of White House
A new lawsuit is demanding public access to visitor logs for several agencies located in the White House complex and contends that the Secret Service is illegally turning those records over to White House officials not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The suit does not seek information on visitors to the core offices of the White House, which includes senior advisers to President Donald Trump who work in the West Wing as well as several administrative offices serving the president's staff. A series of court rulings have held that those visitor logs are presidential records not covered by FOIA, but accessible through presidential libraries years after a president leaves office. Instead, the case filed Thursday by public interest group Public Citizen seeks records of visitors to four agencies housed in the White House complex but with independent legal duties: the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Council on Environmental Quality. POLITICO

Let It Be
The best thing to do about Confederate statues is . . . nothing. I am never quite sure whether I am really a Southerner. Texas was in the Confederacy, but West Texas is a lot more Albuquerque than it is like Birmingham. I have never felt any sympathy for the Lost Cause. If I were building monuments to figures from that era, I’d choose Frederick Douglass, Thaddeus Stevens, or, if I’m in a mood, John Brown. Southerners — and some conservative sentimentalists — tell themselves two convenient lies about the Civil War. One is that the Confederate cause was an honorable one, the other is that the war wasn’t really about slavery. Neither of those stands up to very much scrutiny, and the former is mostly false in no small part because the latter is almost entirely false. There were honorable men fighting on the Southern side, to be sure, and their fight was an honorable one to the extent that risking life and limb on behalf of one’s home and people is generally honorable. General Lee is widely considered to have been an honorable military man, and so was Field Marshal Rommel. But General Lee’s cause was destroying the United States of America to facilitate slavery. The historical record, including practically every Confederate document explaining Southern separation, makes that clear enough. That the abolitionists were imperfect in their commitment to the liberation of the slaves and that there were Southern men of conscience who detested slavery and yet fought on behalf of its preserver does not change any of that. The War Between the States wasn’t about cotton tariffs........ National Review

Trump’s Isolation Grows In The Wake Of Charlottesville
President Trump now finds himself more isolated than ever from his own party, world leaders and the business community that once cautiously embraced him — a fissure that was growing for weeks but turned into a chasm following his response to the racist violence in Charlottesville this weekend. Trump had to disband two corporate advisory councils after a slew of chief executives resigned from the panels while criticizing the president for a day earlier blaming both white supremacists and counterprotesters for the melees that led to the death of a 32-year-old woman. Republicans continue to distance themselves as they call on the president to more forcefully condemn the racist groups that gathered for the “Unite the Right” rally. And foreign officials lined up this week to make clear they strongly disagree with Trump’s view of the events in Charlottesville. Washington Post
VOA VIEW: The liberal media are spewing hatred against Trump.

Teen Says United Crew Failed To Protect Her From Assailant
A 16-year-old girl who claims she was molested aboard a United Airlines flight from Seattle to Newark, N.J., is addressing the media for the first time. The victim, who along with her mother declined to be identified publicly, told CBS News that flight attendants' efforts to move her away from her alleged attacker weren't enough. "I just felt like he could see me. Like he could see wherever I was sitting," the teen told CBS. "There was just still so much time, like, I couldn't just leave the plane. I didn't have anyone. I didn't feel like there was anyone on the plane that could protect me." NY Daily News

Blitzer: There Will Be Questions About Whether Barcelona Attack Is ‘A Copycat Version’ of Charlottesville Attack
On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Wolf,” anchor Wolf Blitzer stated that there will be questions about whether the Barcelona terror attack was a copycat of the Charlottesville, Virginia car attack. CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Scuitto said, “[I]n light of the uproar over the last several days, five days apart, you have white supremacists in Charlottesville use a vehicle to kill, and here you have — attackers at least following the modus operandi of terrorists using vehicles, apparently to kill as well. And it’s that — those shared tactics that should be alarming.” Blitzer added, “Yeah, and there will be questions about copycats. There will be questions if what happened in Barcelona, was at all, at all, a copycat version of what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia. Even though they may be different characters, different political ambitions, they used the same killing device, a vehicle going at high speed into a group, a large group of pedestrians.” Breitbart

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'Racism, Xenophobia, Anti-Semitism Or Islamophobia Are Poisoning Our Societies'
Urging people everywhere to speak out against hate speech and hate crimes, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today reiterated his call for tolerance, respect for the other and the importance of recognizing diversity. “Racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or Islamophobia are, as I mentioned yesterday, poisoning our societies,” the Secretary-General told journalists today at a briefing at the UN Headquarters in New York. “It is absolutely essential for us all to stand up against them everywhere and every time,” he added. Addressing questions from a journalist about the situation in the US, where a weekend protest and counter-protest over the removal of a Civil War statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, sparked discussions about race, Mr. Guterres said “these demons are appearing a little bit everywhere.” United Nations News

Phoenix Mayor Asks Trump To Cancel Rally
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton has asked President Donald Trump to postpone a campaign-style rally scheduled for Tuesday, as many protests across the United States were called off for fear of violence. In a statement Wednesday, Stanton, a Democrat, asked Trump to delay his visit to Phoenix because "our nation is still healing from the tragic events at Charlottesville." A senior Trump campaign adviser told ABC News on Wednesday, "Barring any unforeseen events between now and then, there is no chance we will delay the rally." Some other scheduled events across the country have been canceled in light of violence at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend. A "Unite the Right" rally to protest the removal of a Confederate statue drew members of neo-Nazi groups and the Ku Klux Klan. A counter-demonstrator was killed when a man drove his car into a crowd of pedestrians. Upcoming appearances by white nationalist speakers at Texas A&M University and the University of Florida were canceled by the schools. UPI
VOA VIEW: A tuff call for Trump.

How Will California's Solar Grid React To The Eclipse?
Like many thrifty business owners, officials at the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, were banking on reducing their carbon footprint and saving money when they installed rooftop solar panels during a big expansion in 2015. In fact, since the panels went up, the zoo has saved more than $8,500 on its electric bill by using less energy from South Carolina’s fossil fuel power plants. But at 2:41 pm on Monday, August 21, their solar panels will go dark as the shadow of the moon blots out the sun’s energy-producing rays. The zoo is in the path of the solar eclipse’s totality, but the lack of solar power won’t lead to any Jurassic Park-like escape scenarios. “We do not expect any glitches as far as things shutting down,” says zoo spokeswoman Susan O’Kane. The zoo—like millions of other solar power users in the eclipse’s path—will simply switch to electricity generated from coal, gas, and nuclear power. WIRED

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CIA Torture: Lawsuit Settled Against Psychologists Who Designed Techniques
A settlement in a lawsuit against two psychologists who were paid tens of millions of dollars to design torture techniques used by the CIA in black-site prisons was announced on Thursday. The terms of the settlement were undisclosed. Two of the plaintiffs in the case, Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ben Soud, were held and brutalized in 2003 in a secret CIA facility in Afghanistan that prisoners called “The Darkness”. Salim, who is Tanzanian, and Ben Soud, who is Libyan, were eventually released and are now living in their home countries with their families. A third plaintiff is a young Afghan computer engineer whose uncle, Gul Rahman, was tortured to death in November 2002 in the same facility. The three filed the lawsuit in October 2015 against James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, contract psychologists who devised a menu of abusive interrogation methods and billed the CIA between $75m and $81m. The plaintiffs sought damages from the men for allegedly aiding and abetting torture, non-consensual human experimentation and war crimes. The Guardian

Walmart’s Online Sales Soar As It Seeks To Catch Amazon
Walmart's recent spending spree to try to catch up to Amazon seems to be paying off. The world's largest retailer said Thursday that online sales soared 60 percent in the past three months as people shopped more at Walmart.com, Jet.com and its other websites. Walmart had paid more than $3 billion for Jet last year, and since then picked up smaller players including ModCloth and Moosejaw. It is also expanding online grocery ordering to more stores, and is adding giant automated kiosks to 100 locations so customers can pick up online orders without waiting for employees to fetch them. Other traditional retailers are seeing online gains, too: Walmart's report came a day after Target said its online sales jumped 32 percent in its most recent quarter. Las Vegas Sun

Alex Jones Says Jews Posed As KKK Followers In Charlottesville
Radio host, conspiracy theorist and Donald Trump supporter Alex Jones — who earlier this year ranted about a “Jewish mafia” run by billionaire George Soros — was at it again Sunday with a theory that “leftist Jews” may have impersonated Nazis to discredit white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Speaking on “The Alex Jones Show,” Jones recalled his own experience, he said, protesting the Ku Klux Klan: "I mean, quite frankly, I’ve been to these events, a lot of the KKK guys with their hats off look like they’re from the cast of “Seinfeld.” Literally they’re just Jewish actors. Nothing against Jews in general, but they are leftists Jews that want to create this clash and they go dress up as Nazis. I have footage in Austin — we’re going to find it somewhere here at the office — where it literally looks like cast of “Seinfeld” or like Howard Stern in a Nazi outfit. They all look like Howard Stern. They almost got like little curly hair down, and they’re just up there heiling Hitler. You can tell they are totally uncomfortable, they are totally scared, and it’s all just meant to create the clash." Jerusalem Post

Sessions Praises Miami-Dade Progress, Challenges Crime-Ridden Chicago To End ‘Sanctuary’ Policy
Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a direct challenge to Chicago on Wednesday, saying the high number of homicides is no coincidence for a city that refuses to cooperate with federal deportation authorities, while Miami is cooperating — and reaping the benefits of public safety. Traveling on Wednesday to Miami-Dade County, one of two jurisdictions that the Justice Department recently cleared of having “sanctuary” policies that defy federal immigration laws, Mr. Sessions said working with federal authorities means safer communities. “Miami-Dade is an example of what is possible through hard work, professional policing and a dedication to the rule of law,” said Mr. Sessions, citing the city’s progress in reducing violent crime and homicides since the 1980s. “Unfortunately, we have areas of the country that are not doing too well,” Mr. Sessions said. “In Chicago — a city with almost exactly the same 2.7 million person population of Miami-Dade — more than 433 people have been murdered just since the beginning of the year. That’s more than three times as many as Miami-Dade.” Washington Times

Trump’s Quick Response To Barcelona Attack Makes His Charlottesville Reactions Look Even Worse
President Donald Trump issued an explosive statement against “Radical Islamic Terror” just hours after an attack in Barcelona, Spain, on Thursday left at least 13 people dead. Earlier this week, Trump said he needed to get all “the facts” before singling out hate groups for condemnation after violent protests sparked by a white supremacist rally left one woman dead in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday. Less than an hour after his initial tweet, Trump followed up, implying the Barcelona attack was linked to “Radical Islamic Terror”: "Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!" tweeted Trump. After telling that story, Trump claimed “we’ve got to start getting tough and we’ve got to start being vigilant and we’ve got to start using our heads or we’re not gonna have a country, folks.” The Huffington Post

Tillerson, Mattis: Military Option Still In Play For North Korea
The US continues to consider military options to respond to North Korea's aggressive pursuit of missile capabilities, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday, swatting down claims that White House chief strategist Steve Bannon made in a magazine interview that "there's no military solution" to tensions with the rogue nation. "We are prepared, we're prepared militarily, we're prepared with our allies to respond militarily," Tillerson told reporters, speaking at the close of US-Japan security meetings with Defense Secretary James Mattis. Tillerson added: "That is not our preferred path." The top US diplomat's message was underscored by Mattis, who also made clear the US' willingness to use force if North Korea steps out of line. "In close collaboration with our allies, there are strong military consequences if the DPRK initiates hostilities," he said. Google News

Inside The C.E.O. Rebellion Against Trump’s Advisory Councils
On Tuesday, Indra Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo, joined a call with other prominent corporate chieftains who — like her — had agreed to advise President Trump. A rebellion was brewing. Along with other business leaders, Ms. Nooyi had watched with bafflement over the weekend as Mr. Trump blamed “many sides” for an outburst of white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va. Ms. Nooyi spoke with Mary T. Barra, the head of General Motors, Virginia M. Rometty, the chief of IBM, and Rich Lesser, the chief executive of Boston Consulting Group, who were similarly outraged with the president’s response. All of them wondered whether it was time to step down from the Strategic and Policy Forum, an elite group formed late last year to advise the president on economic issues. NY Times

Current Powerball Climbs Into List Of 10 Biggest Lottery Wins In U.S. History
The next winner or winners of the Powerball will take home at least $510 million total. That would make it the eighth biggest drawing in lottery history. And if no one wins on Saturday night, those winnings will keep getting higher. Until we learn what the final number will be, here's a look at the current 10 largest lottery jackpots and some of the lucky people who won big. 10. $447.8 million (Powerball) Won on June 10, 2017. Winner was Jeff Lindsay and his family, of Menifee, California. Lindsay said they would be seeking advice from a number of experts on how to best handle the the money. ABC7 Chicago

Roy Moore, Luther Strange, And The Lessons Of The Alabama Senate Primary
After the runoff, Moore or Strange will face Doug Jones, the Democrat, a lawyer and a former U.S. Attorney, who has a strong record prosecuting the Klan. In the early two-thousands, he worked on the re-opened case of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, and won a conviction. Jones got sixty-three per cent of his primary vote, avoiding a runoff. (His closest contender, a certain Robert Kennedy, Jr., who is not related to the late senator from New York, got nearly twenty per cent, even though he regularly declined to give voters much information about himself, such as the identity of his current employer.) But Alabama is a heavily Republican state; Trump won sixty-two per cent of the vote there last November. And anyone looking to this race for a sign that Trump’s capacity to influence and distort the G.O.P. has waned—that, somehow, political sanity has taken hold—should not get too excited. Not yet. The New Yorker (Daily Comment)

US Jewish Criticism Of Trump Expands To Some Supporters
Ivanka Trump's rabbi denounced President Donald Trump for blaming "both sides" in a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, as the number of American Jewish leaders willing to criticize him grew. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, and other rabbis from the prominent modern Orthodox synagogue in Manhattan, said in a Facebook message late Wednesday that they were "deeply troubled by the moral equivalency and equivocation" of Trump's reaction. Lookstein oversaw Ivanka Trump's conversion to Judaism. He has only rarely commented on the president. Separately, the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has supported Trump through earlier controversies, urged him "to provide greater moral clarity in rejecting racism, bigotry and anti-Semitism." Among the coalition's board members is Las Vegas casino magnate and GOP donor Sheldon Adelson, who eventually supported Trump. "The Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are dangerous anti-Semites," the Republican Jewish Coalition said in a statement Wednesday. "There are no good Nazis and no good members of the Klan." Google News

Trump And The Art Of The Workaround
For most of the twentieth century, Mexico and the United States were distant neighbors. Obliviousness and neglect from the north was met with resentment and, at times, outright hostility from the south, leaving the two countries diplomatically detached. Yet as the twenty-first century approached, this wariness began to fade, replaced by cooperation and even something resembling friendship. The détente began in the early 1990s, when Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and U.S. President George H. W. Bush developed a shared economic vision, culminating in the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the largest free-trade agreement in the world and the first to include countries with mature economies (the United States and Canada) and a country with a still emerging economy (Mexico). Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, embraced the rapprochement, shepherding NAFTA through Congress and later rescuing Mexico from a financial crisis. And although Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, failed in his attempt at comprehensive immigration reform, he succeeded in working with his Mexican counterparts, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón, to transform the U.S.-Mexican security relationship for the better. Foreign Affairs

Democrats Mount An Effort To Censure Donald Trump
When Donald Trump failed to single out and denounce Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members, and their allies Sunday, even after they marched by torchlight through an American city, where one among them ran down an anti-racist protester, I noted the historic failure of presidential leadership—a failure underscored by the praise that white supremacist leaders heaped on his approach—and called on Congress to step into the breach, reasserting the nation’s conscience by censuring the president. In the days that followed, Trump buckled to widespread pressure to single out the white-supremacist groups, naming them in a statement that he read from a teleprompter. But he subsequently declared, in a combative, unscripted press conference Tuesday, that there were some good people on both sides of the Charlottesville protest, implying that good people marched alongside swastikas and KKK members. The Atlantic

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