Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 7-27-18

White House and Political News
Yes, Russians Hacked
U. S. Electric Companies, Homeland Security Confirms
A Majority Thinks Russia Has Dirt On Trump, A New Poll Shows
It's been a week since
President Donald Trump’s widely panned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a new poll shows that a majority of Americans believes the Kremlin has compromising information on the Ameri- can leader.
By a 51-to-35 percent margin, U. S. voters are convinced the Russian gov- ernment has dirt on Trump, according to a Quinnipiac University Na- tional Poll.
At a press conference in Helsinki on July 16, Trump stunned the world by accepting Putin's denial
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands as they hold a joint news con- ference after their meeting in Helsinki, Finland July 16, 2018.
that Russia attacked the 2016 U. S. election, thus contradicting the findings of 17 U. S. intelligence agen- cies.
“I don’t see any reason why it would be Russia,” Trump said. He tried to
walk it back a day later by saying he had misspoken.
Trump’s performance at the summit, widely criti- cized on Capitol Hill by both parties, has raised fur- ther suspicions that Moscow has collected com- promising material on the president as part of a wider campaign to influence the American political system.
Allegations of the exis- tence of such material sur- faced with the disclosure of a dossier compiled by a for- mer British intelligence of- ficer who was paid by Democrats to collect dam- aging information on Trump during the 2016 campaign.
In 2017, security company Symantec revealed that it had discovered evidence that hackers had infiltrated the systems of utility companies in the U. S. and North Amer- ica. It speculated that Russia was involved.
In March, the U.S. officially accused Russia of the attacks. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported an update on the situation, citing a briefing by officials from the Department of Homeland Se- curity (DHS).
According to the DHS offi- cials, Russians hacked the control rooms of U. S. electric
utility companies starting in 2016. Those hacks claimed “hundreds of victims” in 2017. And the campaign is likely still going — some com- panies still might not be aware they’ve been com- promised.
The DHS had been pri- vately warning utility compa- nies about the possibility of such attacks since 2014, but according The WSJ, Mon- day’s briefing was the first time DHS officials had spo- ken publicly on the situation with such detail. Russia re- portedly denies targeting the U. S.’s critical infrastructure.
Trump Tries To Offset Damage From Tariffs
In an attempt to appease the rural, casualties of his widely-decried trade war, President Donald Trump announced billions of dollars in federal aid to farmers, many of whom make up his base of proud Americans who hate big government, welfare and “those people” who are always asking for a handout.
According to the Washing- ton Post, Vladimir Putin’s Executive Vice President of U. S. Operations unveiled a $12 billion package of emer- gency aid for farmers caught up in his trade war with
An abandoned house is spray painted ‘Trump!’ on Au- gust 14, 2016 in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. This Northeastern Pennsylvania re- gion has a rich coal mining his- tory, but the majority of nearby coal mines have closed.
China, Canada, the European Union and every other coun- try except Russia and a “shit-
hole” to be named later. “These programs are being deliberately put together in order to allow us to respond to unwarranted trade retalia- tion,” said Jason Hafe- meister, USDA’s Trade Counsel to the Secretary in a thinly-veiled attempt to quiet
criticism from farmers.
The plan will go into effect in September and will try to help soybean, corn, pork and dairy farmers by purchasing food and surplus beef from farmers. The package also sets aside billions in direct as-
sistance.
More Immigrant Parents At Risk Of Being Deported Without Their Children
The Trump administra- tion is still scrambling to re- unite migrant families as the Thursday deadline looms and so far, they admit a more pressing issue: at least 460 parents may have already been deported without their children, CNN reports.
According to the latest sta- tus update filed Monday, the court ordered reunification process is proving to be dif- ficult. The 463 parents that cannot be located may have been deported without their child, but the U. S. said that number is still “under re- view.”
They also contend that many parents agreed to leave their children in the US. But advocates and attorneys argue that deported parents may not have understood
what they were being asked to do. Advocates also argue that detained parents were not provided with enough in- formation pertaining their immigrant children’s where- abouts.
In the first government mandated deadline, the U. S. could not reunify 12 parents with their children aged five and older because they had already been deported. The U. S. has had difficulty locat- ing just 12 parents so trying to get a handle on 463 will be a monumental task and the government has yet to spec- ify how they will do it.
So far, a status report says that 879 families have been reunited. There are 538 par- ents waiting in government custody to be reunited with their children.
PAGE 6-A FLORIDA SENTINEL-BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, JULY 27, 2018