A cracked brick, at that. Image from Democracy Now! website.
On Wednesday, Donald Trump traveled to Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who once compared Trump to Hitler and Mussolini. The Mexican president came under fire for inviting Trump to meet with him in Mexico, a move many critics saw as legitimizing Trump’s positions. Amy Goodman spoke to Laura Carlsen, director of the Mexico City-based Americas Program of the Center for International Policy.
Hours after traveling to Mexico City, Trump gave a major speech on immigration in Phoenix, Arizona, where Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed to build a massive wall along the Mexican border and to begin deporting millions of immigrants as soon as he takes office, if elected in November. During the fiery speech, he vowed to deport 2 million people within his first hour in office. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, Trump’s new deportation plan would target more than 6 million individuals for immediate removal.
The Brazilian Senate has voted to impeach the country’s democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff from office in what many are calling a coup. The vote was 61 to 20. Rousseff denounced the decision, saying there’s no constitutional justification for her impeachment. In an unexpected twist, the senators voted 42 to 36 to allow Rousseff to maintain her political rights, meaning she can continue to stand in elections and hold public office in the future. Irate opposition senators vowed “to appeal to the Supreme Court” to reverse the decision.
Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment ends 13 years of rule by the Workers’ Party in Brazil and brings to power President Michel Temer for the remaining two years of Rousseff’s term. Temer is deeply unpopular and currently under investigation himself, accused of receiving illegal campaign contributions linked to the state oil company Petrobras.
President Obama has appointed seven members to a federal control board that will run the finances of Puerto Rico’s nearly bankrupt government for at least the next five years and restructure nearly $70 billion in debt. The board is made up of three Democrats and four Republicans who will not only approve any budgets created by the island’s politicians, but also attempt to negotiate with the island’s nearly 20 creditors.
On Wednesday, hundreds of protesters in Puerto Rico blocked a street in front of a hotel where bankers and business executives were gathering for a conference hosted by the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce. Meanwhile, a new report from the ReFund America Project has revealed firms like UBS, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital have collected $1.6 billion in underwriting fees from Puerto Rico since 2000 just for refinancing bonds to pay interest and fees on older bonds.
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Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.